NCJ Number
239649
Journal
Internal Security Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Dated: January - June 2012 Pages: 17-24
Date Published
June 2012
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The article examines the current situation in ethics education with a focus on its police context.
Abstract
The article identifies the practical character of police ethics as a branch of applied ethics and indicates its correlation with an educational competence-based approach. In the course of defining the competence-based approach, its features of practicality and controllability are highlighted. The impact of the competence-based educational approach on ethics education in the police context is considered in the text. The practicality of applied ethics in a police context leads to a generally accepted conviction that professional ethics can be taught in a similar fashion as any other subject of education or training within the competence-based approach. The goal of police education within a competence-based approach is to reach such a state, when a student/an officer have the competences needed for the performance of his/her service. Unlike qualifications which stand for a potential to manage something, competence is inseparably bound to practical conduct in real situations, to actual performance. It shows some serious limits of the approach within the area of values and attitudes lying mainly in a risky prioritization of appearances to internalization of desired attitudes and values. The limitations pose a challenge for police ethics education inferred in the conclusion of the article which shall be met by both educational experts and police management. (Published Abstract)