“They need to be taught a lesson”: police officer rationalisations in dismissal reviews Open Access

The ethical behaviour of police and other law enforcement officials has profound consequences on the integrity of the criminal justice system, the well-being of society and the legitimacy of law enforcement (Kargin, 2011). Police can use force, suspend human rights and intervene in public affairs (Brodeur, 2010). As a result of its inherently coercive and highly discretionary nature, policing is conceptualised as an “occupation … rife with opportunities for misconduct” (Klockars et al., 2000, p. 1). Consequently, the importance of ethical decision-making and ethical behaviour to improve professionalism in policing cannot be underestimated (Kargin, 2011).

This study analyses Review Decisions made by the Police Registration and Services Board (PRSB), in Victoria, Australia. The PRSB is an independent statutory body established under s.201 of the Victoria Police Act 2013 (Vic) (“the Act”). Police officers and protective services officers ^[1] may apply to the PRSB for a review of a decision to dismiss them, following either a breach of discipline being proven after an internal inquiry process by an appointed person, or a criminal charge being proven by a court. Section 152(2) requires the PRSB to affirm the decision to dismiss unless it is satisfied the decision to do so was “harsh, unjust or unreasonable”. Section 154A of the Act requires that the Board publishes a statement of reasons for its decision on a review (except where it is not in the public interest), while the initial decisions made by inquiry officers or delegates appointed by the Chief Commissioner are not publicly available. The published decisions of the Board provide interpretations of officers’ explanations of their conduct and the circumstances and context of breaches of discipline and criminal offending, which are not otherwise available.

The present research undertakes a content analysis of all published Review Decisions relating to officer dismissal or termination during the initial probation period between 2014 and 2024. The published decisions provide insight into how applicants frame, rationalise or mitigate their misconduct or criminal offending. The reasons and rationalisations ^[2] officers use for their misconduct can be used for police ethics training and the development of moral capabilities. These insights can be used in ethics and professional education and training, policies and guidance, mentoring, coaching and behavioural and cultural evaluations and interventions, by developing the ability to anticipate typical rationalisations for unethical behaviour and preparing counterarguments and ways to neutralise them. Rationalisations are a key enabler of corruption and misconduct. “Reasons and rationalisations” is one of the seven pillars of the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) approach to ethics education (Gentile, 2010). As this research indicates, the predictability of rationalisations used by police officers makes it possible to anticipate and counter them at the individual, team and organisational levels, thus disabling their influence on behaviour and culture.

Police misconduct includes “deviant, dishonest, improper, unethical or criminal behaviour by a police officer” (Roebuck and Barker, 1974, p. 423). Turner et al. (2024) add undesirable behaviours such as inappropriate sexualised behaviour, illicit drug use, violence, as well as occupational-centric activities such as failure to act, dereliction of duty (“duty failure”) and insubordination. In Victoria, Section 166 of the Act defines police misconduct as: (a) conduct that constitutes an offence punishable by imprisonment; (b) conduct that is likely to bring Victoria Police into disrepute or diminish public confidence in it or (c) disgraceful or improper conduct (whether in that person’s official capacity or otherwise). Breaches of police discipline are defined more broadly in s. 125 of the Act.

Ordinarily, the process for dismissing an Australian police officer commences upon the receipt of a complaint against an officer, which prompts an investigation, a decision on whether the complaint is substantiated, and the imposition of disciplinary or remedial action (Cubitt et al., 2020b; Victoria Police, 2021). In Victoria, a dismissal determination can be made by a person appointed under s.129 of the Act to conduct an inquiry into a discipline charge or by the Chief Commissioner of Police or their delegate after a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment is proven (s.136). Similarly, an officer who is still undergoing the initial probationary period may be terminated (e.g. s.28(4), s.39(4))

A finding of breach of discipline (s.132) or a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment being proven (s.136) can result in a range of consequences, including: dismissal, demotion, reduction in rank or remuneration, fine, adjournment with conditions, transfer or a combination of such outcomes. Under s.146, officers may seek a review by the PRSB of some categories of these decisions (dismissal, termination, reduction in rank or salary, transfer). Most discipline-related reviews heard by PRSB relate to decisions to dismiss.

An officer who has been dismissed or terminated may apply to the PRSB to review the decision (s.146). The PRSB must have regard to the public interest (which is defined by s.151 to include “the interest of maintaining the integrity of, and community confidence in, Victoria Police”) and the interests of the applicant, but this does not limit the matters that may be considered. Unless the PRSB is satisfied that the decision is harsh, unjust or unreasonable, it must affirm the decision to dismiss or terminate (s.152). A review under s.146 is a review de novo, in the sense that the PRSB is not required to identify any error in the initial decision nor required to confine itself to the evidence adduced in the initial discipline inquiry hearing ^[3]. The PRSB considers submissions and personal statements from the applicant for review and submissions from the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, and may, in unusual cases, issue a summons and take evidence on oath or affirmation (s.159, s.160). The PRSB engages the parties in further oral submissions, including by inviting the dismissed police officer to explain the relevant behaviour (PRSB, 2017).

Neutralisations or rationalisations empower people to “minimize the apparent conflict between their behaviour and prevailing laws and norms” (Kaptein and van Helvoort, 2019, p. 1261). They help explain the paradox of police violating the norms they work to protect (Goldschmidt and Anonymous, 2008; Gottschalk, 2012; Hunt and Manning, 1991; Kappeler et al., 1994; Siponen and Vance, 2010). Terms such as rationalisations, neutralisations and cognitive mechanisms for moral disengagement are increasingly used interchangeably (Kaptein and van Helvoort, 2019). Sykes and Matza’s (1957) neutralisation techniques, moral disengagement (Bandura et al., 1996) and self-serving cognitive distortions (Barriga and Gibbs, 1996) have been found by Ribeaud and Eisner (2010) to essentially capture the same cognitive processes, which aim to overcome the dissonance between a person’s moral standards and their behaviour. Ribeaud and Eisner (2010) distinguish between neutralisations as something that happens before an act and rationalisations as something that occurs after the act has been committed, while Ashforth and Anand (2003) do not, as they can be used prospectively and retrospectively.

Neutralisation processes enable individuals to maintain their moral self-concept without experiencing moral self-sanctions, thus reducing psychological costs (Ribeaud and Eisner, 2010). Furthermore, they are not only individual phenomena but also interpersonal ones, influenced by organisational leaders and capable of spreading within groups and organisations through social contagion processes (Johnson and Buckley, 2015).

Individuals’ use of rationalisations enables them to “negate negative interpretations” of their behaviour, thereby avoiding the “adverse effects of an undesirable social identity” (Ashforth and Anand, 2003, p. 15). According to the foundational work on juvenile delinquency by Sykes and Matza (1957, p. 667), offenders “neutralise” any disapproval for their behaviour, so they are free to engage in delinquency without serious damage to their self-image. By using neutralising techniques, individuals do not favour deviancy but can rationalise it so that any resulting guilt and shame is nullified, making it easier to behave in a questionable way (Akers and Sellers, 2004; Detert et al., 2008) and absolve themselves from what, if it were not for their rationalisations, they would consider unethical conduct (Schaefer and Bouwmeester, 2021). The “self-serving attempts to legitimate questionable acts” (Ashforth and Anand, 2003, p. 15) enable individuals to disengage their moral self-censure from the reprehensible conduct, thus allowing those “inclined to morally disengage to behave unethically without feeling distress” (Moore et al., 2012, p. 2). The individual who morally disengages remains committed to the dominant normative system, qualifying the violations as “acceptable if not right” (Sykes and Matza, 1957, p. 667). Neutralisations are mechanisms that enable the lessening of moral control and are paramount in moral disengagement, which reconstrues morality as behaviour x is not morally wrong, or reconstrues agency as I am not responsible for behaviour y (Schaefer and Bouwmeester, 2021).

Sykes and Matza’s (1957) framework is a helpful starting point for understanding how police officers use neutralisation to dilute the strength of discipline-related allegations. The framework includes five techniques: denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of victim, appeal to higher loyalties and condemnation of the condemners. While many neutralisations have been found, including in organisations with systematic corruption (Ashforth and Anand, 2003; Maruna and Copes, 2005), Sykes and Matza’s “Famous Five” are the ones most frequently observed (Maruna and Copes, 2005), with denial of responsibility considered the master or key neutralisation that leads to all others (Walters, 2022).

Denial of responsibility reconstrues agency (Schaefer and Bouwmeester, 2021) and occurs when the decision maker asserts the injury caused by the behaviour is due to external forces and beyond their control. Such forces may include management orders, group or performance pressure, financial circumstances or limited options under constraining conditions (Ashforth and Anand, 2003). For example, the threat of being punished for failing to meet performance criteria can be utilised to deny one’s responsibility (Coleman, 1987). In policing, a study of motivations for dishonesty of ten police members in an urban police department found departmental pressure for “productivity” was a dominant justification for conducting warrantless searches (Goldschmidt and Anonymous, 2008, p. 120).

In denying responsibility, individuals view their behaviours as predetermined by people and situations they cannot influence, such that they are less morally responsible for the wrongdoing (Kappeler et al., 1994). A lack of realistic alternatives but to engage in misconduct is also known as the defence of necessity (Minor, 1981). Police may deny responsibility for using force illegally against citizens, arguing they are “provocateurs in need of police control” (Kappeler et al., 1994, p. 110). In a field study exploring how police classify acts of force, Hunt (1985, p. 331) found police often normalised their use of extra-legal force as situationally justified. Police often asserted the use of excessive force was a natural consequence of “uncontrollable emotions normally arising in certain routine sorts of police activities” (Hunt, 1985, p. 325). Such justifications accept responsibility for the deviant act but deny its blameworthiness (Scott and Lyman, 1968), allowing officers to depict themselves as more “acted upon than acting” and preparing the way for “deviance from the dominant normative system without the necessity of a frontal assault on the norms themselves” (Sykes and Matza, 1957, p. 667). Alternatively, police may maintain their behaviour was rewarded, condoned or ignored by an authority figure, sending indirect signals that their behaviour is acceptable (De Klerk, 2017).

Sykes and Matza (1957, p. 667) propose that in the eyes of the wrongdoer, “wrongfulness may turn on the question of whether anyone has clearly been hurt by his deviance, and this is a matter open to a variety of interpretations”. Offenders justify their behaviour, arguing no one was “really” harmed. By disregarding or misconstruing the consequences of the act, self-censure is less likely to be activated, and the deviancy is sanitised (Bandura et al., 1996). By discrediting evidence of harm, individuals neutralise their behaviour on the belief that “if the effects of detrimental practices are disregarded or negated there is nothing to justify” (White et al., 2009, p. 66). Officers may seek to justify the procedural shortcuts as an unavoidable part of their practices that do not harm anyone and are necessary for them to protect society.

The wrongdoer neutralises their moral culpability by positioning themselves as an avenger, and maintaining the injury caused by their behaviour is a form of “rightful retaliation or punishment” (Sykes and Matza, 1957, p. 668). Officers learn to characterise certain persons and acts as constituting threats, pre-determining them as dangerous individuals deserving of state-sanctioned violence (Kappeler et al., 1994, p. 121). Consequently, the ascribed character of the target as a wrongdoer or “symbolic assailant” (Skolnick, 2011, p. 212), justifies the officer’s deviation from external (legal) and internal (policy) norms and frees police to engage in misconduct to preserve society from those defying the social order (Kappeler et al., 1994). Alternatively, the wrongdoer may claim to have “imperfect knowledge of the norm, the situation, the desired behaviour”, thereby remaining ignorant of any victim status (Scott and Lyman, 1968, p. 48). In these circumstances, the absence or abstract status of the victim means the offender’s conscience is not stimulated (Maruna and Copes, 2005). By denying the presence of a victim, the wrongdoer facilitates emotional disengagement, allowing their perceived absence of harm to redeem the behaviour (De Klerk, 2017; Scott and Lyman, 1968, p. 48) and suggest this cognitive resignation is the “simplest denial to achieve defeasibility”.

The wrongdoer shifts attention away from their deviance towards the motives of those condemning their behaviour, engaging in “rejection of the rejectors” (Sykes and Matza, 1957, p. 668). The wrongdoer may “disparage or denigrate” their accusers to alter the dialogue away from their wrongdoing (Kaptein and van Helvoort, 2019, p. 1269). In doing so, they negate the accusers’ right to accuse and dismiss the norm they proclaim (Kaptein and van Helvoort, 2019; White et al., 2009). For example, officers may assert that their accusers are “hypocrites, deviants in disguise, or impelled by personal spite” (Sykes and Matza, 1957, p. 668). Alternatively, officers convicted of crimes or held liable in civil proceedings often characterise their condemners as ignorant of the “realities” of police work, thus rejecting the system that attempts to hold them accountable whilst expecting them to rout out crime militantly (Kappeler et al., 1994, p. 122).

Appeal to Higher Loyalties. According to Sykes and Matza (1957, p. 669), “internal and external social controls may be neutralised by sacrificing the demands of the larger society for the demands of smaller social groups to which the delinquent belongs”. Consequently, the moral obligations of the wrongdoer’s group are seen to deserve precedence over the norms they are violating (Maruna and Copes, 2005, p. 233). The wrongdoer maintains that normally accepted behaviours are sacrificed to realise higher-order values, maintaining the ends justifies the means (De Klerk, 2017), thus inverting bad with good (Adams and Balfour (1998, p. 11). Police officers may engage in noble cause corruption by using illegitimate means for desirable ends, such as societal welfare and safety (van Halderen and Kolthoff, 2017), arguing that the violation of procedural rules is necessary for the performance of their lawful task: the “apprehension of the guilty and protection of the community” (Harrison, 1999, p. 2).

Sykes and Matza’s (1957) neutralisations are not an exhaustive list. Many more have been identified, with Maruna and Copes (2005) stating that it seems that “new” techniques emerge depending on what group you investigate. Kaptein and van Helvoort (2019) developed a model with four categories of neutralisations: distorting the facts, negating the norm, blaming the circumstances and hiding behind oneself. They operationalised each category into three techniques, each of which consists of five sub-techniques. While this model can help with empirical research, an inductive approach will likely be of great value in different groups and professions, so the neutralisations that are commonly in use can be identified and appropriate interventions developed.

Blumberg et al. (2018, p. 8) make a strong argument that current police training and police practices foster moral disengagement as “it is pervasive among many officers, from the time that they are hired, through training, and well into their careers to be congratulated and characterized as ‘elite’. The mechanisms of moral disengagement may flourish when officers are reinforced and then continually propped up to believe that they are superior to members of the community. Further, they contend that moral disengagement is likely due to the focus on worst-case scenarios boosting police officers” expectation of the worst outcome from members of the community, and that rationalisations and associated mechanisms provide a meaningful approach to understanding police misconduct. Officers are less likely to behave unethically when “us versus them attitudes are eliminated”, when they feel connected to others through a common morality and when they humanise others through the focus on the human face that is likely to elicit compassion rather than cynicism (Blumberg et al., 2018, p. 9).

Further, Addo (2023) explored street-level police corruption in Ghana utilising Sykes and Matza’s neutralisation techniques, through interviews with police officers. The four main themes used to justify corruption in Addo’s research include appeal to higher loyalties, condemning the condemners, denial of responsibility and denial of injury. The research explored police officers’ views of police corruption and factors that contribute to it, rather than how police officers may rationalise their own wrongdoing. We have not found any research that explores the rationalisations police officers use for their own misconduct or deviant behaviour. These insights can inform education and training, as well as the development of organisational culture and discipline approaches within police organisations.

This study contributes to the research and practice of police ethics by analysing Review Decisions of the PRSB. It explores the Review Decisions for indications of the rationalisations officers presented in their submissions and personal statements to the PRSB, and included in the review decisions, to justify their behaviour by minimising their responsibility or the consequences of their actions. While rationalisations may be prospective or retrospective (Ashforth and Anand, 2003), we focus on retrospective rationalisations that have been included in the Review Decisions. The key question we seek to address in the present study is: What rationalisations were presented by officers in seeking a review of their dismissal and recorded in Review Decisions?

For a Review Decision to be included in this study, applicants (i.e. police officers or protective service officers) must have: (a) behaved in a manner that has led to a breach of discipline or criminal finding sufficiently serious to warrant dismissal or termination; (b) been dismissed or terminated by Victoria Police and (c) applied to the PRSB to review the dismissal or termination decision. Our dataset comprised publicly available Review Decisions (N = 59) from 1 July 2014 (the establishment of the PRSB) until 31 December 2024. The Review Decisions are written by members of the PRSB and represent the PRSB’s perspective and determination of the matters being reviewed, and often include vignettes, statements or personal reflections made by the applicant. We accept that the portrayal of such statements in the Review Decisions is a true and accurate account of the proceedings. Applicants acknowledge that details submitted to the PRSB about their review will be made publicly available (while having the option to request that details are not published in the public interest, as permitted by s.154A(2)). Even though the details included in our analysis are publicly available, we have taken care to protect the identity of all applicants by de-identifying all parties referred to in the Review Decisions and obscuring the identities of any verbatim statements included in the analysis below. We acknowledge that, although we have not referred to administrative details, it would be possible to identify specific review decisions by comparing the content in this article with the published Review Decisions.

The purpose of each published Review Decision is to convey, in writing, the PRSB’s reasons for its decision. While the decisions do not include a hearing transcript, they may contain an officer’s rationalisations that were presented and considered relevant by the PRSB. Of the 59 published review decisions analysed, 20 included a discussion or findings of the officers’ rationalisations for their misconduct in the Review Decision text. The text contained several rationalisations with the applicants for review arguing to the Board (or themselves, or both) that the behaviour did not warrant dismissal from Victoria Police. The giving of these apparent rationalisations at the time of the review hearing, in support of a submission for retention as an officer, does not constitute evidence that those rationalisations are, or were, necessarily believed by the applicant, nor that they have influenced the Review Decision. The remaining 39 review decisions did not include officer rationalisations and were excluded from the analysis.

While the PRSB has access to documents, written submissions and verbal evidence given during a review hearing, the investigations and analysis for this research were limited to the publicly available Review Decisions. As a written source, each published Review Decision provides a wealth of opportunities for content analysis. Our analytical approach followed the directed content analysis approach, where the research begins with theory, and the analysis uses codes defined before and during data analysis (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005, p. 1286). Each Review Decision was analysed by two researchers who independently applied Sykes and Matza’s neutralisation framework to categorise each occurrence where officers have made a rationalisation. The researchers compared their analyses with no disagreements arising this indicating a consensus on categorisation.

The most common submissions involved applicants denying elements of evidence used to support the misconduct. For cases where an applicant refutes aspects of the alleged behaviour in part, or in full, the analyst must differentiate between denials that (a) truthfully refute details of behaviour (i.e. that the behaviour did not occur) from (b) denials of neutralisation (such as dishonest or deceptive arguments advanced to deny, minimise, obfuscate). Sykes and Matza’s typology is predicated on an applicant having engaged in the behaviour but uses the technique as a “defence or justification for deviance” (Sykes and Matza, 1957, p. 666). For example, someone who denies the behaviours outlined in the misconduct finding might do so to dilute the strength of the allegation or the sanction. Alternatively, an applicant may deny the alleged behaviour because they did not engage in that behaviour. For the present analysis, we have taken the cue from PRSB’s determination of the veracity of the allegation of misconduct.

Applicant 22 was dismissed for engaging in a sexual relationship with a vulnerable person. The applicant denied “having sex” with the vulnerable person, despite the Inquiry Officer relying on evidence from SMS text exchanges between the applicant and the vulnerable person suggesting a sexual relationship. During the Review, PRSB determined that the SMS exchanges were more than “flirtatious” and “strongly supportive of there being sexual contact between the applicant and the vulnerable person”. Accordingly, PRSB found that the evidence was consistent with a sexual relationship and determined that the applicant’s conduct was improper.

At times, denials were used to minimise the applicant’s intent. The employment of applicant 20 was terminated (while still training at the police academy) because they had been found to have assaulted another member of the police. During the hearing, applicant 20 challenged the particulars of the assault, submitting that their contact with another person was unintentional and that contact was made to the person’s torso, not the genital area, as alleged by the complainant.

Other applicants denied that their behaviour occurred at all, and thus no harm or hurt could have arisen. In case 37, for example, the applicant stated: “I just don’t understand how something that didn’t happen, you know, I’m being interviewed for … I grabbed his arm but there was no punch … there was no assault …”. In case 36, the applicant said: “When this complaint became known to me I couldn’t believe it”. In case 46, the applicant consumed an anabolic steroid drug and claimed “as a police officer he was careful about what he put in his body” and it was “not a high dose”. Applicant 48 denied allegations of academic misconduct, claiming the allegations were false and pre-emptive (before they filed an official complaint) due to the strained relationship with the accusers, jealousy and hatred.

Sykes and Matza’s (1957) techniques of denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of victim, appeal to higher loyalties and condemnation of the condemners were presented by the officers and found in the Review Decisions. Such rationalisations allow police officers to “minimize the apparent conflict between their behaviour and the prevailing laws and norms” and assist in explaining the paradox of officers violating norms they work to protect (Kaptein and van Helvoort, 2019, p. 1261).

The proceeding analysis considers applicant submissions in the context of Sykes and Matza’s (1957) framework of neutralisations.

“Denial of responsibility” occurs when the decision maker asserts the injury caused by the behaviour is “due to forces outside the individual and beyond his control” Sykes and Matza (1957, p. 667). We found it to be the most used rationalisation, particularly when applicants laid blame on others, or in the cases where applicants accepted the responsibility for their misconduct but denied blameworthiness, as it was due to panic, misunderstanding or mistake. In relation to responsibility, while there was evidence of denial, there was also evidence of diffusion of responsibility, another common moral disengagement mechanism, with statements such as everyone is doing it, it is common practice, it is commonly done etc.

Cases involving sexual harassment commonly included “denial of responsibility” as a neutralising technique. It was asserted in three cases that others in the applicant’s workgroup participated in similar behaviours. For example, the applicant 47 maintained that sending numerous inappropriate text messages to a junior female colleague was not dissimilar to how other staff communicated, noting that “this is how the young ones like to communicate nowadays”. Similarly, applicant 44 argued that using police email systems to share offensive (pornographic and/or graphic crime scene) images was normal: “It was common practice within the organisation at the time to send and receive similar material”. Moreover, if the behaviour is not challenged by colleagues or managers, one might think that such behaviour is acceptable, as the representative of the applicant in case 44 submitted:

Similar reasoning was echoed in case 39 where the applicant’s representative claimed that:

Applicant 50 asserted that putting their hands on their partner’s throat was “completely accidental with no intent”. While social learning theory suggests that delinquents learn from others and are rewarded for engaging in delinquent behaviour (Stinson, 2020), the relevance of police subculture(s) and police socialisation may also be instructive (e.g. Charman, 2017a, 2017b), particularly where misconduct has been observed in the workplace and is perceived as a “reward” or necessity to be accepted by others who perpetuate similar behaviour.

Denial of responsibility also focuses on the psychological state of the applicant regarding the behaviour. The applicant of case 41, for example, who left the scene of a motor vehicle collision he caused, evaluated the behaviour as unacceptable but felt he was not responsible for the response to it, as that was due to panic. The reason for leaving the scene was that he had “freaked out” because: “I knew I was driving like an idiot and that I was gunna get in the shit for it so I panicked”. Applicant 58 attributed the offensive messages to “adrenalin under extreme anxiety and duress” exchanged as a way of “blowing off steam”, while applicant 60 attributed the behaviour to a frustrated rant, losing control and boiling over, not intentionally using hostile language.

There were also cases where the denial of responsibility occurred in situations that did not involve a third party. The applicant of case 40 claimed that his drink-driving offence was not a “blatant disregard of the law” but a “miscalculation” of his alcohol consumption. In this case, the argument relied on his submission that he made a “genuine error” in assessing his level of consumption and chose to drive when he genuinely believed he was under the legal limit. The applicant of case 40 also argued that his alcoholism was directly attributable to the PTSD he suffered as a result of his policing work and the absence of any support from Victoria Police despite the warning signs, while in case 44 the applicant claimed that he was affected by the death of a child (whose coronial inquest images he shared) and there was no debriefing or welfare support.

“Denial of injury” was also readily identifiable. For example, the applicant in case 44 maintained his misuse of confidential police information was not like conduct that is a breach of the criminal law, stating: “It wasn’t like corruption, like stealing cash … it was a grey area and light relief in a busy station and pictures of fatalities part of police ‘black humour’, Victoria Police was ‘awash’ in such material”. Applicant 59, while being embarrassed and taking responsibility for their behaviour (unprofessional and disrespectful text exchanges) also stated that they rarely started the text threats nor solicited their delivery.

In case 6, the applicant explained his behaviour as not only harmless but also as something that aided him to “fit in” with colleagues (Waddington, 1999): “It was, if anything, just workplace banter and humour … I thought, I’m gunna try and build some camaraderie, try and be humorous, try and make some friends here.” Applicant 56, who made a series of sarcastic, belittling and degrading comments on social media made contradictory claims, providing some indication that the rationalisations were more focused on influencing others’ evaluations of his behaviour, such as: “I accept it was offensive/It wasn’t offensive; I will stop doing it/I can’t and won’t stop doing it; I am not homophobic/I am disgusted and feel revulsion at homosexuality.” while also arguing “‘he was joking’, being a ‘larrikin’, ‘just having a laugh’ and … he has a ‘right’ to make these comments and has done so in pursuit of principle and truth”.

“Denial of victim”. Denying that a person was victimised allowed officers to “redeem their reputation”, even when their behaviour was inconsistent with their past behaviour. In the cases that involved workplace sexual harassment, it was common for officers to deflect by characterising the complainant as being “overly sensitive” or misinterpreting the behaviour and the intent. For instance, the applicant in case 44 was charged with workplace sexual harassment and argued that referring to a colleague as a “work wife” was made in a “platonic and friendly context”. In case 6, the applicant suggested that the issue lay with the victim for taking offence:

Such denials mirror Murray’s (2021) observation that the denial of gender inequality in the workplace is itself a form of “gender-blind sexism”.

Two driving-related cases illustrate how some officers advanced a superficial view of victimisation. An off-duty officer crashed in a suburban street after performing a “burn-out”, stating that they had made sure there was no one on the road before he conducted the illegal driving manoeuvre (case 41). He denied that he had been injured despite airbags deploying and hitting his head on the windscreen. The applicant in case 43, also involved in an off-duty vehicle crash, attempted to obtain a financial advantage by deceiving the insurer when making a personal insurance claim. He maintained his actions did not endanger anyone, either the public or other police, and he posed no threat to anyone. This neutralisation technique is commonly used for fraudulent insurance claims as the victim status of insurance companies is denied on the basis that they are a powerful entity that can afford the cost of crime (De Klerk, 2017, p. 262).

“Appeal to higher loyalties”. Noble cause corruption, which is premised on the belief that any means are justified for achieving desirable ends, allows police officers to invert morality, making the unacceptable praiseworthy. Unsurprisingly, several applicants argued that their misconduct served a higher-order moral purpose.

Three applicants (cases 36, 37 and 45) argued that their behaviour was justified as it was “good police work”. For example, the applicant in case 45 submitted that exceeding the speed limit while driving on duty was not “hooning around”, but necessary to get back to an address after attending another job. He stated: “It wasn’t as if I was doing that speed for no reason at all because I thought I was above the law. I was simply being over-enthusiastic”. In case 37, the applicant maintained his use of force on a minor was necessary to reduce tension, de-escalate arguments and stop them from playing “tough”. The applicant denied punching the victim or slamming them into the wall, but conceded that any injury was a result of his attempt to obtain control: “If he made contact with the wall, that was just a part of … having control of him”. In a similar case involving police use of force, the applicant expressed a strong belief that he had done nothing wrong, arguing his use of force was necessary to prevent crime (case 36). He stated to a colleague: “He needed to be taught a lesson … I would definitely have prevented him from committing any burgs ^[4] tonight”. In each case, officers engaged in behaviour that was permitted by law in certain circumstances (exceeding the speed limit when responding to an emergency incident or using force to overcome resistance) but not permitted in the circumstances relevant to their misconduct.

Two other cases sought to advance an argument that the officers’ behaviour was in the best interests of a third party. The applicant in case 43 further argued (see denial of injury above) that his fraudulent insurance claim was to ensure the other driver did not suffer any financial disadvantage or inconvenience. Similarly, the applicant in case 38 disclosed operational information to his sporting club, hoping to prevent problems arising from underage drinking at the club and any consequential action that might jeopardise its liquor licence. In doing so, the officer sought to advance the interests of their sports club over the administration of justice, and directly in conflict with the role of their employer.

“Condemnation of condemners”. Lastly, several cases involved officers challenging the legitimacy or efficacy of Victoria Police decision-makers to neutralise their misconduct. Such arguments go beyond the parameters of a genuine error or the poor practice of decision-makers. The following cases involve the applicant disparaging and denigrating their accusers in order to deny their right to accuse (Kaptein and van Helvoort, 2019). Two officers attempted to acquit personal responsibility by maintaining it was part of a campaign to remove them from Victoria Police, propelled by a personal spite of the decision-makers or investigators. They justified their actions by attempting to displace attention away from their behaviour onto Victoria Police or on other colleagues. The applicant of case 44 contended he had been “inappropriately targeted”, his emails were audited “without cause” and others have been “protected” from doing the same thing, maintaining the processes involved in investigating and charging him were corrupt and flawed. He countered the misconduct allegation by making complaints about Victoria Police and the “unfair and disgusting” treatment he received over the years.

The applicant of case 36 believed he was a very good police officer, needed by the community and shifted the blame onto the individuals condemning him:

He held the view that his action in striking a person was justified due to the “absolute disrespect” shown to him. Similarly, the applicant in case 47 claimed that allegations of sexual misconduct were a “vindictive lie” from a potentially discredited witness.

Our analysis shows the rationalisations used by Victoria Police officers and captured in the review decisions reconstrued morality by making behaviours that were unethical as ethical, or reconstrued agency by abdicating responsibility for those behaviours (Schaefer and Bouwmeester, 2021). Rationalisations explain, what Ashforth and Anand (2003, p. 15) call an intriguing finding: “corrupt individuals tend not to view themselves as corrupt”. While we do not allege that the behaviour analysed in this research necessarily amounts to corrupt behaviour, we see parallels between Ashforth and Anand’s maxim and police misconduct.

Previous research on police misconduct in Australia suggests an association with demographic and situational factors such as an officer’s length of service, age, apparent financial strain or fatigue (Cubitt et al., 2020a, b). Moreover, Cubit and others call for increased monitoring of officers engaged in secondary employment as this may signal financial strain. However, our research shows that rationalisations could be used to mask the causal effect of strain. However, this would not explain the “noble cause-type” rationalisation of appeal to higher loyalties. In those cases, officers appeared to argue that their infractions were reasonable given the circumstances (e.g. “he needed to be taught a lesson”). While social learning theory suggests that delinquents learn from others and are rewarded for engaging in delinquent behaviour (Stinson, 2020), the relevance of police subculture(s) and police socialisation may be instructive (e.g. Charman, 2017a, b), particularly where misconduct has been observed in the workplace and is perceived as a “reward” or necessity to be accepted by others who perpetuate similar behaviour.

Evidence of rationalisations may also help to provide further contextualisation of the police culture literature. In our study, we see an overlap between neutralisations used by officers to dilute or refute their misconduct with dimensions pertaining to distrust in supervisors and/or management, and a lack of faith in the manner that officers would be dealt with regarding infractions. Moreover, there is a closer link with the “appeal to higher loyalties” and the belief that at times officers have to overlook regulations and guidelines to be effective when doing police work (Terrill et al., 2003). Our research provides a different lens to the rationalisations made by American police officers on the Reddit social media platform (see Brewer, 2022). Brewer found that narratives tended to reinforce “othering” stereotypes within the police culture literature: an “us vs. them” dimension that portrayed negativity towards and distance from community members (the “them”) and the “street cops vs. management cops” paradigm between operational police officers and management.

Like Ashforth and Anand (2003), we believe that police misconduct is best handled through prevention. Prevention is possible through an ethical infrastructure that includes formal and informal systems, clear role models and communicates behavioural expectations (Martin et al., 2014; Treviño et al., 1998). Prevention of misconduct also requires the development of moral capability and preparedness, as proposed by the GVV (Gentile, 2010). The GVV approach starts with the assumption that most people most of the time want to do what “is right”. Being able to counter one’s own and others’ reasons and rationalizations is one of GVV’s key strengths. For example, Chappell and Bowes-Sperry (2015) demonstrate how the GVV approach to sexual harassment training can empower targets and observers to act and positively transform organisational cultures. The GVV approach requires decision-makers to anticipate the typical reasons used for ethically questionable behaviour, by oneself or others, and develop responses to them. Rationalisations disempower decision-makers from acting in line with their values, and every sector, organisation or unit can identify the common rationalisations in use and prepare responses to the excuses people are likely to use.

GVV requires the anticipation and identification of the principle arguments seeking to justify or minimise wrongdoing that would need to be countered, the identification of the reasons and rationalisations that would need to be addressed, the understanding of what is at stake for the parties involved, the identification of the levers that can be used to influence those who disagree, the preparedness to respond reasons and rationalizations and consideration of who, when, how and where you should raise the issue.

Understanding the common rationalisations used by police can and should inform the ethics capabilities that police agencies need, as countering them will improve officer conduct and police cultures. Understanding how and why rationalisations persuade “good people” to do (or ignore) “bad things”, and how to recognise and challenge them, is a powerful intervention to support ethical conduct. Traditional models of police training continue to focus on differentiating right from wrong and miss the opportunity to extend to the development of capabilities and skills needed to behave in line with organisational and personal values. Understanding organisational values and codes of ethics is necessary but not sufficient, because while they can help people identify what is the right thing to do, they do not provide the capability or approach to actually get it done. Ethics training that focuses on “what is the right thing to do” does not address most organisational misconduct, which is often due to individuals not doing what they know is right, rather than not knowing what the right thing to do is.

Understanding the rationalisations commonly in use can help all organisations and individuals to understand the existing risks of deviant behaviour, equip people with the awareness to identify rationalisations and prevent their use, as well as develop responses and interventions that will equip people to counter them (Kaptein and van Helvoort, 2019). The interventions should be tailored to the organisation so that they address the common rationalisations in use and provide people with the sensitivity and awareness to hear them, as well as the reasoning and language to counter them. This will be a worthy investment because “when one or more of these interventions succeed less deviant behaviour will take place” (Kaptein and van Helvoort, 2019, p. 1280).

Police officers develop rationalisations to justify their unethical conduct to themselves and others. Given that rationalisations are interpersonal phenomena that spread within groups and are influenced by leaders’ behaviours (Johnson and Buckley, 2015), police agencies would benefit from explicitly identifying the rationalisations used and developing leader responses and training to counter them. The GVV approach offers a practical training method to develop the ability to anticipate typical rationalisations for unethical behaviour in police organisations and develop counterarguments and ways to neutralise them, so they are not allowed to justify unethical conduct to themselves and others.

Policy and guidance should extend beyond making ethical judgements using decision-making frameworks to also include the development of practical skills, which improve the chances that the behaviour that follows will be aligned with the judgement, thus addressing the evidenced “knowing-doing” gap, where people know what is the right thing to do, but do not do it.

Police operational and organisational cultures influence the use of rationalisations and leaders influence climates and cultures. Leaders’ understanding of the power of rationalisations, which enable good people to behave badly, can be improved. Leaders can help minimise the “grey areas” and address justifications that occur before or after misconduct to guide future ethical behaviour (Shalvi et al., 2015).

This research has some limitations. First, our research is not an exhaustive analysis of PRSB’s work as we have only had access to publicly available Review Decisions. Moreover, the research is not representative of all misconduct cases handled by Victoria Police or, indeed, other Australian jurisdictions. Second, our content analysis relies on the written narratives from PRSB review decisions. Such documents are not transcripts of proceedings but compilations of applicants’ submissions, police submissions and PRSB decision-making framed through a PRSB lens.

We found that police officers, like everyone else, use rationalisations to justify behaviours that contradict their own moral standards and the norms they work to protect. They do that by denying responsibility, injury or victim, appealing to higher loyalties and condemning those that condemn them. While policing is a unique profession that attracts people who value upholding the law, it is not immune from the same cognitive processes that drive all people to try to overcome the dissonance between their moral standards and behaviour. Identifying the common rationalisations in use and preparing responses to these excuses people are likely to use can contribute to better alignment between values and behaviour and improve the ethical capability to behave in line with the espoused values. Our analysis provides insights for initial and ongoing training in police ethics, as well as behavioural and cultural evaluations and interventions, by examining the rationalisations used in cases of police misconduct.