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Introduction
Police corruption, or the abuse of authority for personal gain (National Research Council, 2004, p. 268), has been an issue of central importance within the police profession and within the academic community (Goldstein, 1975; Klockars, 1999; Sherman, 1974). While the term corruption has morphed into other vernacular, such as integrity and most recently legitimacy and trust, the need for police departments that are trustworthy remains a critically important feature of police-citizen cooperation. Yet, there has been widespread debate about what integrity is, what behaviors would be characterized as improper and under what circumstances, and how these concepts should be measured. Unsurprisingly, in their 2004 report "fairness and effectiveness in policing" the National Research Council observed an array of mixed findings regarding police integrity issues (p. 268), noting that the lack of an adequate measure of corruption is the culprit for this state of affairs (p. 269). In an effort to move beyond many of the limitations of previous work, Klockars et al. (2000) shifted the focus of integrity research to the officer level by asking about their attitudes and intentions within the context of morally ambiguous, potentially deviant situations. Their 30-department study found wide variability in integrity across departments and that officers were more likely to report misconduct for more - as opposed to less - serious behaviors.
A recent news headline reinforces the importance of police integrity as a research topic: "Rat Cop" Joe Crystal shunned from Baltimore Police Department after reporting officer brutality (Murdock, 2015). Joe Crystal became a Baltimore police officer in 2008, and quickly advanced to a position as detective assigned to the Violent Crimes Impact Section. In October of 2011, following the arrest of a suspected drug dealer, Crystal's two partners violently beat the suspect. Crystal reported this incident to an assistant state's attorney, who in turn reported it to the state attorney's police integrity unit. An investigation was opened that ultimately led to convictions for both of the involved officers in 2014. However, in the interim Crystal was labeled a "rat" and suffered serious harassment from within the agency, including his calls for backup being ignored by other officers, and an actual dead rat being placed under the windshield wiper on his car. Even after the convictions, Crystal...