Abstract
Research on police integrity has focused to a large extent on the assessment of the seriousness of various forms of police misconduct. Employing vignettes cases it has been shown that police officers identify clear differences among forms of misconduct and these differences largely hold across countries and contexts. Moreover, the impact of a range of individual and organizational characteristics on the assessment of misbehavior has been established. This chapter analyzes the impact of perceptions of the institutional environment and police effectiveness among Ugandan police officers to assess the external validity of the assessments of the seriousness of misconduct presented in the vignettes. The research focuses on ten aspects of police officers’ perceptions of the institutional environment and police effectiveness and shows that the perceptions are strongly interrelated and that they impact on attitudes towards police integrity. Thus, while the vignettes are meant as a tool to reduce subjective biases in the evaluation of police misbehavior, the assessment of the vignettes is not free of individual perceptions. This suggests that the vignettes can be seen as means to channel and represent the individual subjective biases in a coherent and comparable form.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This roughly corresponds to a range of US$ 80 and 135 based on the UGX/US$ exchange rate of 0.00027 from January 31st, 2019. According to World Bank (2019) data, per capita gross national income in Uganda was US$ 50 per month in 2017.
- 2.
In comparison, the average EU country had about 318 police officers per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016. The EU member state with the lowest number of officers is Finland, which had 137 officers per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016 (EuroStat 2016).
References
Anderson, D. M., & Fisher, J. (2016). Authoritarianism and the securitization of development: The case of Uganda. In T. Hagmann & F. Reyntjens (Eds.), Development without democracy? Foreign aid and authoritarian regimes in Africa (pp. 67–90). London: Zed Books.
Andreescu, V., Keeling, D. G., Vito, G. F., & Voinic, M. C. (2012). Romanian and American police officers’ perceptions of professional integrity and ethical behavior. Revista Romana de Sociologie, 23(3/4), 185–207.
Balliet, D., & Van Lange, P. A. (2013). Trust, conflict, and cooperation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 139(5), 1090–1112.
Barkan, J. D. (2011). Uganda: Assessing risks to stability. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Basheka, B. C. (2013). Public administration and corruption in Uganda. In S. Vyas-Doorgapersad, T. Lukamba-Muhiya, & E. Peprah Ababio (Eds.), Public administration in Africa: Performance and challenges (pp. 45–81). Boca Raton: CRC.
Bradford, B. (2014). Policing and social identity: Procedural justice, inclusion and cooperation between police and public. Policing and Society, 24(1), 22–43.
Bradford, B., Jackson, J., & Hough, M. (2013). Police futures and legitimacy: Redefining “Good Policing”. In J. Brown (Ed.), Future of policing. Abingdon: Routledge.
Bucak, S. (2012) An Examination of Police Cynicism in Turkey and Its Impacts on Officers’ Perception of Corruption, PhD thesis, University of Chicago. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from https://indigo.uic.edu/handle/10027/9738.
Carr, J. D., & Maxwell, S. R. (2018). Police officers’ perceptions of organizational justice and their trust in the public. Police Practice and Research, 19(4), 365–379.
Cheloukhine, S., Kutnjak Ivković, S., Haq, Q., & Haberfeld, M. R. (2015). Police integrity in Russia. In S. Kutnjak Ivković & M. R. Haberfeld (Eds.), Measuring police integrity across the world: Studies from established democracies and countries in transition (pp. 153–182). New York: Springer.
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. (2006a). A review of the Uganda police force budget and its effects on crime management. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/police/uganda_report.pdf.
Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. (2006b). The police, the people, the politics: Police accountability in Uganda. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/publications/police/uganda_country_report_2006.pdf.
Coulangeon, P., Pruvost, G., Roharik, I., & Matthews, T. (2012). Professional ideologies: A latent class analysis of police officers’ opinions on the role of the police. Revue Française de Sociologie (English Edition), 53(3), 347–380.
Economist. (2018). Uganda’s politicised police force is not reducing crime’. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2018/07/05/ugandas-politicised-police-force-is-not-reducing-crime.
Eitle, D., D’Alessio, S. J., & Stolzenberg, L. (2014). The effect of organizational and environmental factors on police misconduct. Police Quarterly, 17(2), 103–126.
EuroStat. (2016). Police, court and prison personnel statistics. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Police,_court_and_prison_personnel_statistics.
Golooba-Mutebi, F., & Hickey, S. (2013). ‘Investigating the links between political settlements and inclusive development in Uganda: Towards a Research Agenda’, ESID Working Paper 20. Manchester: Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre.
Hout, W., Brouwers, R., Fisher, J., Namara, R., Schakel, L., & Wagner, N. (2016). Policy review good governance: Democratisation, promotion of rule of law and control of corruption—Uganda field study. Final Report for the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands.
Hout, W., Wagner, N., & Namara, R. (2019). Holding Ugandan police to account: Case study of the police accountability and reform project. In S. Bergh, S. Pellisserey, & C. Sathyamala (Eds.), The state of accountability in the global south: Challenges and responses. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. forthcoming.
Jenks, D., Johnson, L. M., & Matthews, T. (2012). Examining police integrity: Categorizing corruption vignettes. In International Police Executive Symposium, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Coginta–for Police Reforms and Community Safety.
Jenks, D., Johnson, L. M., & Matthews, T. (2014). Examining police integrity: Categorizing corruption vignettes. In M. Guzman, A. M. Das, & D. Das (Eds.), The evolution of policing (pp. 317–331). Boca Raton: CRC.
Kakamwa, C. (2014). Uganda to increase size of police force, New Vision, 26 December.
Kato, J. (2016). ‘Police most corrupt institution—UBOS’, Daily Monitor, 22 June. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Police-most-corrupt-institution-UBOS/688334-3261630-3jq36az/index.html.
Khisa, M. (2014). Challenges to policy implementation in Uganda: Reflections on politics and the state. Ugandan Journal of Management and Public Policy Studies, 8(1), 28–43.
Klockars, C. B., Kutnjak Ivković, S., Harver, W. E., & Haberfeld, M. R. (2000). The Measurement of Police Integrity, Research in Brief, NCJ 181465, Rockville: National Institute of Justice.
Klockars, C. B., Kutnjak Ivković, S., & Haberfeld, M. R. (2006). Enhancing police integrity. Dordrecht: Springer.
Kucukuysal, B. (2008). Determinants of Turkish police officers’ perception of integrity: Impact of organizational culture, PhD thesis, University of Central Florida. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0002242/Kucukuysal_Bahadir_200807_PhD.pdf.
Kuo, S. Y. (2018). Police misconduct in Taiwan: comparing perceptions of the police and electronic gaming service workers. Crime, Law and Social Change, 69(5), 657–679.
Kutnjak Ivković, S. (2005a) Fallen Blue Knights: Controlling Police Corruption, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kutnjak Ivković, S. (2005b) Police (Mis) Behavior: A Cross-Cultural Study of Corruption Seriousness. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 28(3), 546–566.
Kutnjak Ivković, S. (2015). Studying police integrity. In S. Kutnjak Ivković & M. R. Haberfeld (Eds.), Measuring police integrity across the world: Studies from established democracies and countries in transition (pp. 1–36). New York: Springer.
Kutnjak Ivković, S., & Haberfeld, M. R. (2015). A comparative perspective on police integrity. In S. Kutnjak Ivković & M. R. Haberfeld (Eds.), Measuring police integrity across the world: Studies from established democracies and countries in transition (pp. 329–368). New York: Springer.
Kutnjak Ivković, S., & Khechumyan, A. (2014). Measuring police integrity among urban and rural police in Armenia: From local results to global implications. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 38(1), 39–61.
Kutnjak Ivković, S., & Sauerman, A. (2013). Curtailing the code of silence among the South African police. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 36(1), 175–198.
Kutnjak Ivković, S., & Sauerman, A. (2015). Threading the thin blue line: Transition towards democratic policing and the integrity of the South African police service. Policing and Society, 25(1), 25–52.
Kutnjak Ivković, S., & Shelley, T. O. (2010). The code of silence and disciplinary fairness. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 33(3), 548–574.
Kutnjak Ivković, S., Cajner Mraović, I., & Borovec, K. (2016a). An empirical test of the influence of society at large on police integrity in a centralized police system. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 39(2), 302–318.
Kutnjak Ivković, S., Haberfeld, M., Kang, W., Peacock, R., & Sauerman, A. (2016b). A multi-country comparative study of the perceived police disciplinary environments. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 39(2), 338–353.
Lasthuizen, K., Huberts, L., & Heres, L. (2011). How to measure integrity violations: Towards a validated typology of unethical behavior. Public Management Review, 13(3), 383–408.
Lee, H., Lim, H., Moore, D. D., & Kim, J. (2013). How police organizational structure correlates with frontline officers’ attitudes toward corruption: A multilevel model. Police Practice and Research, 14(5), 386–401.
Long, M. A., Cross, J. E., Shelley, T. O., & Kutnjak Ivković, S. (2013). The normative order of reporting police misconduct: Examining the roles of offense seriousness, legitimacy, and fairness. Social Psychology Quarterly, 76(3), 242–267.
Lumu, D. (2014). Uganda Police changes name, New Vision, Kampala. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/654457-uganda-police-changes-name.html.
Marx, G. T. (2001). Police and democracy. In M. Amir & S. Einstein (Eds.), Policing, security and democracy: Theory and practice (Vol. 2). Huntsville: Office of International Criminal Justice. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/dempol.html.
Mastrofski, S. D., Jonathan-Zamir, T., Moyal, S., & Willis, J. J. (2016). Predicting procedural justice in police-citizen encounters. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(1), 119–139.
Miles-Johnson, T. (2016). Perceptions of group value: How Australian transgender people view policing. Policing and Society, 26(6), 605–626.
Miles-Johnson, T., & Pickering, S. (2018). Police recruits and perceptions of trust in diverse groups. Police Practice and Research, 19(4), 311–328.
Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development. (2017). National Budget Framework Paper FY 2018/19-FY 2022/23. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://budget.go.ug/budget/content/national-budget-framework-paper-6.
Myhill, A., & Bradford, B. (2013). Overcoming cop culture? Organizational justice and police officers’ attitudes toward the public. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 36(2), 338–356.
Porter, L. E., Prenzler, T., & Hine, K. (2015). Police integrity in Australia. In S. Kutnjak Ivković & M. R. Haberfeld (Eds.), Measuring police integrity across the world: Studies from established democracies and countries in transition (pp. 67–96). New York: Springer.
Reynolds, P. D., & Helfers, R. C. (2018). Differences in perceptions of organizational fairness based on job characteristics among police officers. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 43(2), 371–388.
Tangri, R., & Mwenda, A. (2013). The politics of elite corruption in Africa: Uganda in comparative african perspective. London: Routledge.
Transparency International. (2018). Corruption Perceptions Index 2018. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018.
Transparency International-Kenya. (2013). The East African Bribery Index 2013. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://tikenya.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/the-east-african-bribery-index-2013.pdf.
Uganda Police. (2013). Annual Crime and Traffic/Road Safety Report. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://www.upf.go.ug/download/publications(2)/Annual_Crime_and_Traffic_Road_Safety_Report_2013(2).pdf.
Uganda Police. (2015). Directorates. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://www.upf.go.ug/directorate.
Uganda Police. (2017). Annual Crime Report 2017. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from https://www.upf.go.ug/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ANNUAL-CRIME-REPORT-2017.pdf.
Uganda Police Force. (2007). Strengthening statistics for development planning. Sector strategic plan for statistics (2006/07–2010/11). Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://www.ubos.org/onlinefiles/uploads/ubos/pdf%20documents/PNSD/UPF%20SSPS.pdf.
Waddington, P. A. J., Adang, O., Baker, D., Birkbeck, C., Feltes, T., Gerardo Gabaldón, L., Paes Machado, E., & Stenning, P. (2009). Singing the same tune? International continuities and discontinuities in how police talk about using force. Crime, Law and Social Change, 52(2), 111–138.
Wagner, N., Rieger, M., Bedi, A., & Hout, W. (2017). Gender and policing norms: Evidence from survey experiments among police officers in Uganda. Journal of African Economies, 26(4), 492–525.
Wagner, N., Hout, W., & Namara, R. (2019). Improving police integrity in Uganda: Impact assessment of the police accountability and reform project. Unpublished manuscript.
Wambua, P. M. (2015). Police corruption in Africa undermines trust, but support for law enforcement remains strong. Afrobarometer Dispatch 56.
Wolfe, S. E., & Piquero, A. R. (2011). Organizational justice and police misconduct. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 38(4), 332–353.
World Bank. (2019). Data: Uganda. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from https://data.worldbank.org/country/uganda.
Xinhua News Agency. (2007). Ugandan police force undergoes massive overhaul ahead of Commonwealth Summit, 1 July. Retrieved February 12, 2019, from http://en.people.cn/200707/02/eng20070702_389277.html.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendices
Appendix 1: Supplementary Tables
Appendix 2: The 12 Vignette Cases
Group 1: Code of Conduct Among the Police Officers
Case 1: A police officer, who happens to be a very good auto mechanic, is scheduled to work during coming holidays. The supervisor offers to give him these days off, if he agrees to repair her/his personal car. Evaluate the supervisor’s behavior.
Case 2: At 2:00 a.m., a police officer, who is on duty, is driving her/his patrol car on a deserted road. S/he sees a vehicle that has been driven off the road and is stuck in a ditch. S/he approaches the vehicle and observes that the driver is not hurt but is obviously drunk. S/he also finds that the driver is a police officer. S/he transports the driver home. Evaluate the behavior of the police officer on duty.
Group 2: Bribery
Case 3: A police officer routinely accepts free meals, cigarettes, and other items of small value from merchants on his duty. S/he does not solicit these gifts and is careful not to abuse the generosity of those who give gifts to her/him.
Case 4: A police officer stops a motorist for speeding. The officer agrees to accept a personal gift of half of the amount of the fine in exchange for not taking the offending motorist to court to answer to charges for the traffic offence.
Group 3: Theft
Case 5: A police officer finds a wallet in a parking lot. It contains an amount of money equivalent to a full day’s pay for that officer. S/he reports the wallet as lost property but keeps the money for her/himself.
Case 6: A police officer discovers a burglary of a general merchandise shop. The display cases are smashed, and it is obvious that many items have been taken. While searching the shop, s/he takes 10 jerricans of cooking oil and 1 sack of posho of 100 kilograms worth about a month’s pay for that officer. S/he reports that the items had been stolen during the burglary.
Group 4: Refusal to Register Complaints
Case 7: A formerly arrested man comes to the police station and wants to fill in a complaint form. He claims that he was not treated properly during his arrest. The police officer who is in charge laughs at him and sends him away.
Case 8: A men goes to a police station to register a complaint over one of their officers who had beaten and tortured him. At the station he finds a friend of the officer who tortured him. The friend refuses to register his complaint and instead decides to detain him for a weak over giving false information to the police. Evaluate the behavior of the friend.
Group 5: Reported Severe Crimes Against Individuals Not Followed Up Upon
Case 9: A women goes to the police station to report a case where her husband has been beating her for the last one year. She lost one of her teeth and has a damaged eye due to the beating. The police officer on duty thinks this is a mere family dispute and not a crime for the police to handle. S/he refuses to register the case.
Case 10: A police officer on duty receives a woman who wants to register a case of murder of her child by a neighbor. The officer registers the case and promises to follow up and arrest the suspect in a few hours’ time. Two days down the road, the suspect has not been arrested and was sending messages threatening to harm the complainant. The woman went back to the same police station to report the scenario and the suspect was arrested and detained at the police station. However, the suspect was released immediately on account that there was not enough evidence to convict him. Evaluate the behavior of the police officer who first received the woman.
Group 6: Undue Force Used by the Police
Case 11: Two police officers on foot patrol surprise a man who is attempting to break into a shop. The man flees. They chase him for about ½ a kilometer before apprehending him by tackling him and wrestling him to the ground. After he is under control, both officers punch him a couple of times in the stomach and step on his back several times as punishment for fleeing and resisting.
Case 12: A sub-district has a challenge of water shortage for a period of four months. The area leader together with residents decide to petition national water for the poor services and failure to deliver. However, the situation continues for two more months. The area leader and the residents opt to stage a peaceful demonstration as a way of showing their dissatisfaction. No sooner had the demonstration started than the District Police Commander deployed a team of officers with teargas and firing of live ammunitions killing 20 of the demonstrators including the area leader. Evaluate the District Police Commander’s behavior.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wagner, N., Hout, W. (2019). Police Integrity and the Perceived Effectiveness of Policing: Evidence from a Survey Among Ugandan Police Officers. In: Kutnjak Ivković, S., Haberfeld, M.R. (eds) Exploring Police Integrity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29065-8_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29065-8_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-29064-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-29065-8
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)