IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csa/wpaper/2022-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Proud to belong: The impact of ethics training on police officers

Author

Listed:
  • Donna Harris
  • Oana Borcan
  • Danila Serra
  • Henry Telli
  • Bruno Schettini
  • Stefan Dercon

Abstract

We investigate whether ethics and integrity training can improve values, attitudes and behavior of police officers. We conducted a field experiment in Ghana, where we randomly selected traffic police officers to participate in a training program informed by theoretical work on the role of identity and motivation in organizations. The training was designed to re-activate intrinsic motivations to serve the public, and to create a new shared identity of “Agent of Change,” aimed at inducing a collective shift in attitudes and behaviors. Data generated by a survey and an incentivized cheating game conducted 20 months later, show that the program positively affected officers’ values and beliefs regarding on-the-job unethical behavior and improved their attitudes toward citizens. Moreover, the program significantly lowered officers’ propensity to behave unethically, as measured by their willingness to cheat in the incentivized game.

Suggested Citation

  • Donna Harris & Oana Borcan & Danila Serra & Henry Telli & Bruno Schettini & Stefan Dercon, 2022. "Proud to belong: The impact of ethics training on police officers," CSAE Working Paper Series 2022-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2022-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ea7bcad5-af6e-49d1-9a00-ff20f9c57569
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhixin Dai & Fabio Galeotti & Marie Claire Villeval, 2018. "Cheating in the Lab Predicts Fraud in the Field: An Experiment in Public Transportation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1081-1100, March.
    2. Nicholas Bloom & Renata Lemos & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2020. "Healthy Business? Managerial Education and Management in Health Care," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 506-517, July.
    3. Anderson, Michael L, 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt15n8j26f, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    4. Leonardo Bursztyn & Robert Jensen, 2017. "Social Image and Economic Behavior in the Field: Identifying, Understanding, and Shaping Social Pressure," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 9(1), pages 131-153, September.
    5. Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2005. "Stepwise Multiple Testing as Formalized Data Snooping," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1237-1282, July.
    6. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    7. Alain Cohn & Michel André Maréchal & Thomas Noll, 2015. "Bad Boys: How Criminal Identity Salience Affects Rule Violation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(4), pages 1289-1308.
    8. Eric Avis & Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2018. "Do Government Audits Reduce Corruption? Estimating the Impacts of Exposing Corrupt Politicians," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 1912-1964.
    9. Karim, Sabrina, 2020. "Relational State Building in Areas of Limited Statehood: Experimental Evidence on the Attitudes of the Police," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(2), pages 536-551, May.
    10. Urs Fischbacher & Franziska Föllmi-Heusi, 2013. "Lies In Disguise—An Experimental Study On Cheating," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 525-547, June.
    11. Blair, Robert A. & Karim, Sabrina M. & Morse, Benjamin S., 2019. "Establishing the Rule of Law in Weak and War-torn States: Evidence from a Field Experiment with the Liberian National Police," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(3), pages 641-657, August.
    12. Borcan, Oana & Lindahl, Mikael & Mitrut, Andreea, 2014. "The impact of an unexpected wage cut on corruption: Evidence from a “Xeroxed” exam," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 32-47.
    13. Imran Rasul & Daniel Rogger, 2018. "Management of Bureaucrats and Public Service Delivery: Evidence from the Nigerian Civil Service," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 413-446, February.
    14. Benjamin A. Olken & Rohini Pande, 2012. "Corruption in Developing Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 479-509, July.
    15. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2005. "Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 616-636, June.
    16. Oana Borcan & Mikael Lindahl & Andreea Mitrut, 2017. "Fighting Corruption in Education: What Works and Who Benefits?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 180-209, February.
    17. Jean Tirole & Roland Bénabou, 2006. "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1652-1678, December.
    18. Dhaliwal, Iqbal & Hanna, Rema, 2017. "The devil is in the details: The successes and limitations of bureaucratic reform in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-21.
    19. Potters, Jan & Stoop, Jan, 2016. "Do cheaters in the lab also cheat in the field?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 26-33.
    20. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2011. "Identity, Morals, and Taboos: Beliefs as Assets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 805-855.
    21. Esther Duflo & Rema Hanna & Stephen P. Ryan, 2012. "Incentives Work: Getting Teachers to Come to School," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1241-1278, June.
    22. Ernesto Dal Bó & Frederico Finan & Martín A. Rossi, 2013. "Strengthening State Capabilities: The Role of Financial Incentives in the Call to Public Service," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(3), pages 1169-1218.
    23. Canice Prendergast, 2008. "Intrinsic Motivation and Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 201-205, May.
    24. Banerjee, Ritwik & Mitra, Arnab, 2018. "On monetary and non-monetary interventions to combat corruption," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 332-355.
    25. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Rukmini Banerji & Esther Duflo & Rachel Glennerster & Stuti Khemani, 2010. "Pitfalls of Participatory Programs: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Education in India," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-30, February.
    26. George Wood & Tom R. Tyler & Andrew V. Papachristos, 2020. "Procedural justice training reduces police use of force and complaints against officers," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(18), pages 9815-9821, May.
    27. James Andreoni & B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Social Image and the 50-50 Norm: A Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Audience Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1607-1636, September.
    28. Abeler, Johannes & Becker, Anke & Falk, Armin, 2014. "Representative evidence on lying costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 96-104.
    29. Abhijit Banerjee & Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo & Daniel Keniston & Nina Singh, 2021. "Improving Police Performance in Rajasthan, India: Experimental Evidence on Incentives, Managerial Autonomy, and Training," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 36-66, February.
    30. Aisha J Ali & Javier Fuenzalida & Margarita Gómez & Martin J Williams, 2021. "Four lenses on people management in the public sector: an evidence review and synthesis," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 37(2), pages 335-366.
    31. Erika Deserranno, 2019. "Financial Incentives as Signals: Experimental Evidence from the Recruitment of Village Promoters in Uganda," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 277-317, January.
    32. Rasul,Imran & Rogger,Daniel Oliver & Williams,Martin J., 2018. "Management and Bureaucratic Effectiveness : Evidence from the Ghanaian Civil Service," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8595, The World Bank.
    33. Itai Beeri & Rachel Dayan & Eran Vigoda-Gadot & Simcha Werner, 2013. "Advancing Ethics in Public Organizations: The Impact of an Ethics Program on Employees’ Perceptions and Behaviors in a Regional Council," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 112(1), pages 59-78, January.
    34. Emily Owens & Bocar Ba, 2021. "The Economics of Policing and Public Safety," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 3-28, Fall.
    35. repec:cup:apsrev:v:113:y:2019:i:03:p:641-657_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    36. Banuri, Sheheryar & Keefer, Philip, 2016. "Pro-social motivation, effort and the call to public service," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 139-164.
    37. Adnan Q. Khan & Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Benjamin A. Olken, 2019. "Making Moves Matter: Experimental Evidence on Incentivizing Bureaucrats through Performance-Based Postings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 237-270, January.
    38. Benjamin A. Olken, 2007. "Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115, pages 200-249.
    39. Kajackaite, Agne & Gneezy, Uri, 2017. "Incentives and cheating," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 433-444.
    40. Lea Cassar & Jesper Armouti-Hansen, 2020. "Optimal Contracting with Endogenous Project Mission [Properties of Scoring Auctions]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(5), pages 2647-2676.
    41. Dunsch, Felipe A. & Evans, David K. & Eze-Ajoku, Ezinne & Macis, Mario, 2017. "Management, Supervision, and Health Care: A Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 10967, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    42. Ashraf, Nava & Bandiera, Oriana & Jack, B. Kelsey, 2014. "No margin, no mission? A field experiment on incentives for public service delivery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-17.
    43. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2005. "Identity and the Economics of Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 9-32, Winter.
    44. Banerjee, Ritwik & Baul, Tushi & Rosenblat, Tanya, 2015. "On self selection of the corrupt into the public sector," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 43-46.
    45. Callen, Michael & Gulzar, Saad & Hasanain, Ali & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Rezaee, Arman, 2020. "Data and policy decisions: Experimental evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    46. Callen, Michael, 2020. "Data and policy decisions: Experimental evidence from Pakistan," CEPR Discussion Papers 15169, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    47. Nava Ashraf & Oriana Bandiera & Edward Davenport & Scott S. Lee, 2020. "Losing Prosociality in the Quest for Talent? Sorting, Selection, and Productivity in the Delivery of Public Services," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(5), pages 1355-1394, May.
    48. Rema Hanna & Shing-Yi Wang, 2017. "Dishonesty and Selection into Public Service: Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 262-290, August.
    49. Canice Prendergast, 2007. "The Motivation and Bias of Bureaucrats," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 180-196, March.
    50. Warren, Danielle E. & Gaspar, Joseph P. & Laufer, William S., 2014. "Is Formal Ethics Training Merely Cosmetic? A Study of Ethics Training and Ethical Organizational Culture," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 85-117, January.
    51. Robert Akerlof, 2016. ""We Thinking" and Its Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 415-419, May.
    52. Yan Chen & Sherry Xin Li, 2009. "Group Identity and Social Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 431-457, March.
    53. Muel Kaptein & Mark Schwartz, 2008. "The Effectiveness of Business Codes: A Critical Examination of Existing Studies and the Development of an Integrated Research Model," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 77(2), pages 111-127, January.
    54. Imran Rasul & Daniel Rogger, 2018. "Management of Bureaucrats and Public Service Delivery: Evidence from the Nigerian Civil Service," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 413-446, February.
    55. Anderson, Michael L., 2008. "Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103(484), pages 1481-1495.
    56. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2008. "Identity, Supervision, and Work Groups," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 212-217, May.
    57. Muel Kaptein, 2015. "The Effectiveness of Ethics Programs: The Role of Scope, Composition, and Sequence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(2), pages 415-431, December.
    58. Fracchia, Mattia & Molina-Millán, Teresa & Vicente, Pedro C., 2023. "Motivating volunteer health workers in an African capital city," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mantilla, Cesar & Gelvez Ferreira, Juan David Gelvez & Nieto, Maria Paula, 2022. "Costly Norm Enforcement through Sanctions and Rewards: An Experiment with Colombian Future Police Officers," OSF Preprints aebxy, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brassiolo, Pablo & Estrada, Ricardo & Fajardo, Gustavo & Vargas, Juan, 2021. "Self-Selection into corruption: Evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 799-812.
    2. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.
    3. Shuguang Jiang & Marie Claire Villeval, 2022. "Dishonesty in Developing Countries -What Can We Learn From Experiments?," Working Papers hal-03899654, HAL.
    4. Fracchia, Mattia & Molina-Millán, Teresa & Vicente, Pedro C., 2023. "Motivating volunteer health workers in an African capital city," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    5. Hoffmann, Lisa, 2023. "(Ch)eating for oneself or cheating for others? Experimental evidence from young politicians and students in Kenya," OSF Preprints xnez5, Center for Open Science.
    6. Valasek, Justin, 2018. "Dynamic reform of public institutions: A model of motivated agents and collective reputation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 94-108.
    7. Andrew Dustan & Stanislao Maldonado & Juan Manuel Hernandez-Agramonte, 2018. "Motivating bureaucrats with non-monetary incentives when state capacity is weak: Evidence from large-scale field experiments in Peru," Working Papers 136, Peruvian Economic Association.
    8. De La O, Ana L. & González, Lucas I. & Weitz-Shapiro, Rebecca, 2023. "Voluntary audits: Experimental evidence on a new approach to monitoring front-line bureaucrats," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    9. Andrea Albertazzi, 2022. "Individual cheating in the lab: a new measure and external validity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 37-67, July.
    10. Kalaj, Jozefina & Rogger, Daniel & Somani, Ravi, 2022. "Bureaucrat time-use: Evidence from a survey experiment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    11. Dur, Robert & van Lent, Max, 2018. "Serving the public interest in several ways: Theory and empirics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 13-24.
    12. Sanjit Dhami, 2017. "Human Ethics and Virtues: Rethinking the Homo-Economicus Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 6836, CESifo.
    13. Joseph,George & Ayling,Sophie Charlotte Emi & Miquel-Florensa,Pepita & Bejarano,Hernán D. & Cardona,Alejandra Quevedo, 2021. "Behavioral Insights in Infrastructure Sectors : A Survey," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9704, The World Bank.
    14. Frederico Finan & Benjamin A. Olken & Rohini Pande, 2015. "The Personnel Economics of the State," NBER Working Papers 21825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Johannes Abeler & Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2021. "Malleability of Preferences for Honesty," CESifo Working Paper Series 9033, CESifo.
    16. Dufwenberg, Martin & Dufwenberg, Martin A., 2018. "Lies in disguise – A theoretical analysis of cheating," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 248-264.
    17. Alain Cohn & Tobias Gesche & Michel André Maréchal, 2022. "Honesty in the Digital Age," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 827-845, February.
    18. Bauer, Kevin & Kosfeld, Michael & von Siemens, Ferdinand, 2021. "Incentives, Self-Selection, and Coordination of Motivated Agents for the Production of Social Goods," IZA Discussion Papers 14595, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Janne Tukiainen & Sebastian Blesse & Albrecht Bohne & Leonardo M. Giuffrida & Jan Jäässkeläinen & Ari Luukinen & Antti Sieppi, 2021. "What Are the Priorities of Bureaucrats? Evidence from Conjoint Experiments with Procurement Officials," EconPol Working Paper 63, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    20. Garbarino, Ellen & Slonim, Robert & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Loss aversion and lying behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 379-393.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ethics training; police; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H76 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Other Expenditure Categories
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • M53 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Training
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2022-05. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Julia Coffey (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.