Minor gratuities are tokens of appreciation to thank a party for a service given. The service can be granting freedom or an assistance to pardon the law. The police are an established body within a government and are mandated with the sole responsibility of enforcing the law. The police, therefore, should not be given an opportunity to accept gratuities. According to Kleinig who proposed the slippery slope argument, gratuities are the first step in police corruption. The idea behind this argument is that the police code of conduct does not allow them to take any gratuities (Kleinig, 175). Allowing them to take the gratuities will demean the law which does not require them to take gratuities (Kleinig, 174). It will be prudent for the police officers to enforce the law when they do not uphold the rule of law. By any measure of natural justice, the police should be the first to follow the law to the latter. When a police officer accepts a gratuity, he will have broken the law. Therefore, this police officer will have no obligation of respecting any other law. However, this habit will turn out to become a reputation and subsequently there will be no law.
The gratuity is binding between the police officer and the giver. For example, if a drug trafficker is arrested by the police, the gratuity will make the police to pardon him. The deal here will be that the police should remain silence about the matter. However, the drug peddler will go ahead to sell the drugs. The effects of drug abuse will continue to affect the population because of the police who took the gratuity. Another issue, is when the police take gratuity for the service they are supposed to provide. For example, they are mandated to provide security for every citizen. Some citizens will decide to give the police gratuity so that they are given maximum security. This is wrong because they are supposed to give security without any small gift attached to it.
To some extent the police should be allowed to take gratuity. This is according to the Withrow and Dailey model of circumstantial corruptibility. They propose that both the giver and the receiver have broken the law and should be held responsible for their deeds (Albert, 170). The biggest issue is with the giver. Usually he can attach a greater gratuity that will make the offer irresistible for the police. To a greater extent, the giver determines the probability of the police taking the gratuity. There are various approaches to this model. First, it’s the assumption that the giver is not obligated to give the gratuity. He does it voluntarily without any expectation from the police in return. Secondly, the giver expects a favor from the police in return to his gratuity. The receiver is also responsible because he will choose to take the gift, refuse, and take without returning any favor or take in payment of his favor (Albert, 172). Therefore, these two categories of people ought to be accountable. In the case where the police take without any favor then the law should accept that.
Works Cited
Albert, Reiss. The Police and the Public New Haven. CT: Yale University Press, 2007. Print.
Kleinig, John. The Ethics of Policing.Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Print.