Aggressors in Blue: Exposing Police Sexual Misconduct

© The Author(s) 2020

T. BarkerAggressors in Bluehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28441-1_1

1. Overview

Tom Barker¹  

(1)

School of Justice Studies, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, USA

Tom Barker

Introduction

Sexual misconduct —any form of proscribed sexual contact—by workers in the criminal justice system—courts, law enforcement, and corrections—is pervasive and has a long history in the various occupations that make up the formal systems of social control. That focus is too broad for this inquiry. Our focus is on the policework occupation (Barker 2011. Italics used whenever referring to the policework occupation ). The nature of the duties makes policework a morally dangerous occupation wherever it has been established. Virtually every US police agency has a history of police misconduct and that includes police sexual misconduct (Klockers et al. 2000). Why? The workers, policework occupation , perform their discretionary duties in private settings without supervision or witness, and their coworkers are reluctant to report misconduct. The book will closely examine PSM in the United States; however, police misconduct including police sexual misconduct is not just an American problem. Police misconduct is an occupational deviance problem throughout the world. In 1915, the noted police authority Raymond Fosdick said the following,

Everywhere [he was commenting on European Police Systems] there are special pitfalls for the policeman, peculiar temptations to which he is continually exposed. The prostitute who walks the street, the bookmaker who plies his trade on the sidewalk, the public-house proprietor who would keep open after hours, the prisoner on his way to a cell, in short every man or woman who would escape the operation of the penalty of law and is ready to pay [favors, money, or sex] for immunity constitutes a menace to the integrity of the policeman. (Fosdick 1915: 369–370)

Police sexual misconduct and other forms of police misconduct are present to some extent in all police agencies globally. To present a global analysis of police sexual misconduct is beyond the scope of this book. However, when possible I present evidence from other countries to make a point or demonstrate the occupational nature of police sexual misconduct . I use American and UK examples as my main sources of information.

PSM in the UK

Police sexual misconduct examples in the UK are used repeatedly because: (1) the studies are in English, (2) there are numerous official and social media PSM accounts, (3) the London Metropolitan Public Paid Police Model is the basis for the American police model. Furthermore, police sexual misconduct in the UK police systems has a long history and is pervasive (Critchley 1967; Waddington 1999). An Observer study based on the UK Freedom of Information Act published in the Guardian found 1491 sexual misconduct complaints against police officers in England and Wales from 2012 to 2018 (Chaminda, May 18, 2019). Ten of the 33 police forces in England and Wales did not respond to the inquiry. The common police agency response in the United States and other countries is to not respond to media requests for damaging information.

The results of the Observer found that 371 complaints were upheld and resulted in the resignations of 197 police officers, special officers or community support officers. The largest number of complaints came from the London Metropolitan Police force with 594 complaints—119 were upheld. Among the overall complaints were: developing intimate sexual relationships with vulnerable members of the public—victims and suspects, child sexual abuse, producing and distributing child pornography , sexual harassment , and rape. The study concluded that there was a sexist culture among some officers leading to numerous complaints by colleagues of sexual harassment and sexual assault. There is a need for more empirical study of PSM in the UK and other global police agencies. The police sexual misconduct typology developed in this work will stimulate more interest and lead to more research and analysis.

PSM in the United States

Police sexual misconduct has a long history in American police agencies (see Eschholz and Vaughn 2001). Police sexual assaults by police officers were reported in 19% of the brutality cases in New York City from 1863 to 1894 (Johnson 2003). Reiss (1971) in his study of patrolmen in three American cities concluded that in any year a substantial minority of police officers engage in behavior that violates the criminal law, misbehaves toward citizens, and violates department rules and regulations. Those criminal violations include police sexual misconduct .

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We examine police sexual misconduct (PSM ) as a form of occupational deviance and present a heuristic model—PSM Causal Equation—to explain PSM. The PSM Causal Equation is based on rational choice theory and has three dimensions: inclination, opportunity, and real or perceived low risk. The PSM Causal Equation Model is supported by data and theory—deterrence, self-control, social learning theories and a modified routine activities model—applied to police sexual misconduct . Finally, we develop an Empirical Typology of PSM and present Illustrative Examples of each type. Each PSM type is examined according to its best fit to the PSM Causal Equation.

Occupational Deviance

Occupational deviance is deviant (rule or norm-violating) behaviors—criminal and non-criminal—that occur because of the nature of the worker’s occupation (Bryant 1974). A worker with the inclination to engage in behavior proscribed by law, rules, or prescribed professional codes is presented with the opportunity because of their work duties. When the intersection of inclination and opportunity occurs under a perceived low-risk environment, the likelihood of occupational deviance is increased. This nexus—inclination, opportunity, and low risk—is impacted in police work settings by the unequal power relationship between the worker and his or her client (Barker 1977).

Policework is a unique occupation because law enforcement officers as representatives of the state engage in patterns of behavior not available to other citizens. Law enforcement officers (LEOs ) by law stop and search other citizens and interfere with their free movement including making arrests with or without a warrant. Citizens are always in an extortionate relationship when confronted by law enforcement officers because law enforcement officers may use force, including deadly force to compel their legitimate objectives. Furthermore, the occupational subculture of police work contains a set of shared understandings—norms—as to when, why, and against whom deadly force can be used (Waegel 1984; Barker , forthcoming). In the US procedural laws restrict these powers, but these limitations do little good on the street in police-citizen encounters with illegal intentions on the part of the officer. There is ample evidence to support the allegations of unnecessary or illegal stops by American law enforcement officers. These awesome powers are frequently abused for personal and venal reasons, making police misconduct including sexual abuse possible (Barker 1977; Chappell and Piquero 2004). However, policing is only one of many occupations that are sexual abuse-prone.

Sexual Abuse-Prone Occupations

Sexual misconduct is a pattern of deviant behavior common to occupations where workers and clients do not meet on equal terms of power and authority—sexual abuse-prone occupations . The noted British sociologist and police scholar, P.A.J. Waddington , called policing a scandal-prone occupation because of the numerous opportunities for misconduct, including sexual misconduct (Waddington 1999). There are numerous other scandal prone occupations —sexual abuse-prone occupations. Sexual abuse-prone relationships are most likely to occur in work-related settings where there is an unequal power differential between the victim and the perpetrator (Calhoun and Coleman 2002). That is, the victim is perceived to have less authority or status than the perpetrator, or conversely, the perpetrator possesses more enhanced power than the victim. States pass laws that prohibit sexual relationships between workers and clients in recognized sexual abuse occupations . Examples of such occupations that readily come to mind are priests and other religious clergy, coaches, doctors, and other medical workers or caregivers, college professors, and K-12 schoolteachers.

The current #MeToo movement has expanded the list of abuse-prone occupations exponentially including elected governmental officials—possibly the occupation with the most numerous examples of sexual abuse and cover-up. In effect, the work setting of sexual abuse-prone occupations creates an unequal power relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, increasing the likelihood of improper sexual relationships.

The policework occupation and its work setting exacerbate its sexual abuse-prone nature. Police/citizen encounters are for the most part unsupervised, clandestine events. The shared occupational police culture and isolated nature of off-duty contacts increase the likelihood that law enforcement officers will not report fellow officer sexual misconduct —The Blue Wall of Secrecy (Barker 1977; Maher 2007; Manning 2009, and other police scholars too numerous to list). The code of silence is an organizational culture problem present in other police systems throughout the world. Australia has a long history of police misconduct including police sexual aggression (Chan 1997). Australian Aboriginal and Islander women and girls are police targets for rape, custodial sexual abuse, and other forms of sexual violence (Chan 1997: 23). The code of silence is a factor in the occurrence of this police sexual misconduct . A recent study of a sample of Australian police found that a minority of officers—4 to 6%—in the eight police forces would not report fellow officers for crimes such as theft, perjury, and assault—real low risk (Porter and Prenzler 2016).

Our discussion of police sexual abuse as a type/category of police occupational deviance begins with the definition of policework as an occupation and the parameters that guide the discussion that follows.

Law Enforcement Officers (LEO) Sexual Misconduct

Policework is an occupation performed by paid public law enforcement officers (LEOs ) at all levels of government. In the United States, these paid public employees have general or limited arrest powers, depending on the state, federal statutes, and case law. LEOs perform one or more of the public safety services of traffic, patrol, investigation, and detention/custody. All these public officials have the power to detain, arrest, search, and use deadly force. The US LEO definition includes publicly paid law enforcement officers in local, county, state, federal, and special district agencies such as campus police agencies, park police, Indian tribal police, and airport police. Detention/custody officials in lockups, jails, and prison are included; however, private security personnel are not (see Barker et al. 1994 for an earlier definition).

Some object to the inclusion of detention/custody, correction workers in the definition of law enforcement officer, and a discussion of law enforcement sexual abuse. However, there is support for this inclusion. Detention/custody officers in jails, lockups, and prisons have been included in prior police sexual misconduct research studies. Sapp (1986) was the first academic to add detention/custody and corrections workers in his typology of police sexual misconduct . Vaughn (1999) added custody and correction workers to Kraska and Kappeler’s definition of police sexual violence (PSV) and discussed their sexual misconduct as a pattern of police sexual violence. Vaughn cites several instances of PSV where jailers sexually assaulted inmates, including one case that the court stated, it is foreseeable that sexual assault by some law enforcement officials occurs when male jailers are in charge of female inmates (Vaughn 1999: 342). Eschholz and Vaughn (2001) stated that detention/custody officers are included in the study of police sexual violence because, The combination of implied public trust and legal access to physical force creates a dangerous mix for victims of sexual abuse at the hands of police and correctional officers (Eschholz and Vaughn 2001: 389).

The inclusion of detention/custody and corrections officers is a logical addition to the study of police sexual misconduct for several reasons: (1) detention/custody and corrections officers have custody of inmates awaiting trial or serving sentences—a public safety service; (2) local police officers and deputy sheriffs act as detention/custody workers in lockups and jails; and (3) most states and the federal government recognize correctional officers as law enforcement or peace officers with limited or general police powers. We also include federal law enforcement officers in our discussion because their sexual misconduct is pervasive and expanding.

Federal Law Enforcement Office Sexual Misconduct

Previous LEO sexual misconduct research has predominately examined non-federal officers; however, sexual misconduct by federal law enforcement officers is a recurring and expanding form of LEO occupational deviance . Recent sexual misconduct events in federal law enforcement agencies reported in the social media include: (1) in 2010, a DEA (US Drug Enforcement Administration) agent in Bogota, Columbia, who was known to frequent prostitutes, assaulted a sex worker, and left her bloody. The agent was suspended for 14 days; (2) in 2011, a DEA agent solicited sex from an undercover police officer. He was suspended for eight days; (3) in 2012, ten DEA agents engaged in sex parties with prostitutes supplied by drug cartels. Two received letters of reprimand. One retired. The remaining seven agents received suspension ranging from 1 to 8 days (Committee on the Judiciary-House of Representatives, April 15, 2015). The committee chairman called the disciplinary actions an example of under discipline by the DEA , creating a real or perceived low risk for sexual misconduct . The same hearing discussed the highly publicized 2012 incident where thirteen US Secret Service officers engaged in sexual misconduct with prostitutes during President Obama’s trip to Cartagena, Columbia. Three agents returned to duty with a memorandum of counseling. Five had their security clearances revoked, and five resigned or retired. In a survey sent to 2575 employees by the Committee on the Judiciary, 56% said they would not report another employee’s misconduct for fear of retaliation—the Federal Blue Wall of Silence. This exaggerated sense of brotherhood is common in all LEO cultures.

The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice examined cases of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct reported by the FBI , ATF, DEA , and USMS from October 1, 2008 to September 30, 2012 and found 621 sexual misconduct and sexual harassment allegations for the four federal law enforcement agencies (see Table 1.1). The offense types for the cases reported are presented in Table 1.2. Law enforcement sexual misconduct has its roots in the historical development of moral/sin policing in democratic systems of formal social control—criminal justice system.

Table 1.1

Sexual harassment and sexual misconduct by federal law enforcement agencies (2008–2012)

Source DOJ (2015: 88)

Table 1.2

Alleged sexual harassment and sexual misconduct by offense type

Source DOJ (2015: 89)

Mala Prohibita Policing—Moral/Sin Policing

LEOs enforce laws that are mala en se acts (wrong in themselves such as murder , rape, theft) and mala prohibita acts (wrong because they are forbidden). Mala prohibita crimes are forbidden by statute, not because there is anything inherently wrong with them. Policing mala prohibita acts leads to public law enforcement officers becoming involved in Moral or Sin police work. Public police work as moral/sin policing evolved in England from a need to control the lives of the dangerous classes—the poor and the disorderly working class. Moral policing was a means for the elite to constrain the activities of the dangerous/marginalized classes in 1600s England because Crime, illegitimacy, idleness, irreligion, poaching, dancing, drinking, the playing of games and so forth were believed to be linked (Rawlings 2002). Laws were passed to control these moral transgressions and assure social harmony—crime prevention through moral regulation. At first, justice’s of the peace and other parish officials enforced laws on drinking, prostitution, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, and lewd and disorderly conduct. In the eighteenth century, the watch system was created to assume the duties of moral policing (Critchley 1967). Following the watch system reforms, policework inched toward an occupation of public order policing.

The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 created the occupation of public paid policing but many, particularly the poor and working class, thought the new police as public order police would enforce a moral code that would destroy or disrupt their recreations and lifestyles (Rawlings 2002). The working classes and the poor had reason to worry because the proactive policing model of the time is what is known as quality of life policing today, that is, arrests for petty offenses in the streets (drunkenness, gaming, and other social order offenses), and other acts that are not inherently evil. This new occupation was transported to the United States where moral policing became the norm and the dangerous classes were defined by race and ethnicity through the actions of the politically elite (Barker , forthcoming).

Policework once developed in the United States became heavily involved in moral policing by enforcing a multitude of mala prohibita laws viewed as victimless crimes because they only harm the offender, like drug use, and other vice activities. Mala prohibita policing involves law enforcement officers in the moral policing of the marginalized classes—those without power and status, creating opportunities for police sexual misconduct on carefully selected targets—low-risk targets with credibility problems (Barker 2011). Sex workers—male, female, and transgender —represent a special population of victims for police sexual misconduct in police agencies worldwide.

Sex Workers—An At-Risk Population Targeted for PSM

The sexual exploitation of sex workers by police officers occurs throughout the world. Law enforcement officers with the inclination for forbidden sex have seized on the opportunities for low-risk targets for sexual abuse. Numerous studies find that the inherent and widespread discretion associated with the moral policing of sex workers increased the opportunities for police sexual abuse worldwide (Williamson et al. 2007). Williamson and her colleagues reported sex workers throughout the world are subject to police sexual misconduct that includes harassment, inappropriate touching, rape, and sexual extortion. Marginalized women such as prostitutes are vulnerable targets because the complaints from these un-rape able women are automatically dismissed. They cite studies in Europe and Asia, Great Britain, and the United States in support of their findings.

Decker and her colleagues reviewed over 800 studies and reports for their comprehensive study of human rights violations against sex workers—male, female, and transgender —globally (Decker et al. 2015). State reaction to sex work varies from full decriminalization—New Zealand and New South Wales , Australia to capital punishment in Sharia law countries such as Iran. In some countries—Switzerland, Turkey, Hungary—sex work is legalized but regulated through mandatory, registration, health examinations, testing, and criminal prosecution in some specific regions—in public or near churches and schools. However, according to Decker et al. (2015), the dominant state response worldwide is criminalization of sex work by criminal and administrative punitive law. These punitive laws directly criminalize the selling of sex or criminalize purchasing sex or earning money through sex work—pimps and brothels. Many countries, such as the USA, fully criminalize almost all aspects of sex work, such as selling sex, buying sex, earning money from someone’s sex work, and running a brothel. In the USA, certain areas of Nevada allow brothels under heavily regulated restrictions.

Decker et al. (2015) concluded from their global studies that regardless of state reaction to sex work, sex workers were denied equal access to police protection and there was an climate of impunity toward violence, including murder of sex workers . Violence against sex workers was treated as moral punishment, after all sex workers cannot be raped. Throughout the world, the primary action against sex workers is street-level policing by uniformed police officers—the largest category of sexual abuse aggressors. Male, female, and transgender sex workers in all countries that criminalize all or some parts of selling sex report police gang rape, forced sex, and sexual extortion at the stop, arrest, or detention settings. Whenever police officers have the power of arrest and the sexual act occurs under the threat of harm, this constitutes implicit or direct police sexual violence (Decker et al. 2015: 189). Police officers extort fines and information from sex workers under the threat of arrest, physical violence, and gang rape. The overwhelming numbers of these forced sex or extorted actions are not reported, increasing the real or perceived low risk of PSM.

Globally, the typical reason for not reporting police sexual misconduct is fear and mistrust of the police. Sex work is illegal in Serbia, but a qualitative semi-structured interview study of 31 female and transvestite sex workers in Belgrade and Pancevo, Serbia, documented free sex to police officers to avoid arrest, detainment, or fine (Rhodes et al. 2008). Twenty-five of the FSWs were street workers and 15 of them were Roma’s—a discriminated group. All the FSWs were subjected to violence, especially the transvestites and Roma’s as a form of moral punishment. A study of 1680 female sex workers —FSWs—in a semi-rural area in the Andhra Pradesh state in southern India found that 372 of the women had sex with a police officer to avoid trouble (Erausquin et al. 2015 ). Although sex work is not illegal in India, soliciting for sex in public is illegal, making the street worker occupation vulnerable to arrest. The sex worker’s venue is always important because some venues are more visible than others. They concluded their study by saying FSW’s interactions with police are characterized by police power over sex workers in a variety of ways including police discretion in when and under what charges to arrest a sex worker (p. 1114). A study of female sex workers in two Mexican-US border towns found that 46% of the 496 FSWs had police or military as clients in the past six months (Connors et al. 2016). In Tijuana—sex work was legal with work permit. In the other city—Ciudad Juarez—sex work was illegal and underground. Regardless of the legality, the police sexually harassed sex workers in both cities.

Sex work is not legal in Russia and is subject to administrative fines and not imprisonment. In what the authors say is the first quantitative study of police coercion experienced by Russian sex workers , the study found that police coercion for free sex in lieu of paying a fine when arrested by sex workers and their pimps was widespread (Odinokova et al. 2012). Eight hundred and ninety-six (896) sex workers in two Russian cities—St. Petersburg and Orenburg—were interviewed. St. Petersburg is a major tourist city with a population of over 5 million people. The city has a large sex industry with about 10,000 FSW workers operating on the street—67%, 21% in brothels, 5% in railway stations, and almost 5% in hotels. Orenburg, an industrial city of approximately 600,000 gas and oil workers and their families, has a different sex worker industry with 76.63% of the FSWs operating on the street and the rest working in the city’s three hotels. Thirty-eight percent of the total FSW’s in both cities reported police sexual coercion in the past year. The street FSWs reported the highest incidence of police sexual coercion, a not unexpected finding due to its visibility.

The studies discussed above demonstrate a major thesis of this book. Policework is a morally dangerous occupation for police workers and represents one of many abuse-prone occupations . This is true no matter what country we examine or its system of government. Police sexual misconduct is a rational choice action whenever and wherever a police worker with a sexual inclination is presented with the opportunity under a real or perceived low-risk situation.

Sex Workers in the United States

A study of 35 sex workers in Baltimore, Maryland , found that several subjects had been forced or pressured to have sex by police officers. One African-American victim said, I’ve had sex with cops that arrested me. After I’ve given them a blowjob. They put on a condom, so you aren’t touching anything…You’ve got some of them that they use their authority to get what they want (Decker et al. 2013). Another African-American victim described what happens if you are caught with something illegal.

If they [the cops] catch you with a stem [crack pipe] on you or some drugs on you or something or they catch you doing something wrong or illegal sometimes they’ll let you do something for them. Mostly it’s a blowjob because it’s really quick… There’s no money, no tip, no nothing, but you’re just staying free. (Decker et al. 2013)

The study found that the women did not report the police sexual predators because they came from communities where no one trusted the police—a common finding in minority communities where police misconduct including sexual misconduct is a tradition.

Williamson and her colleagues found that when marginalized women, including sex worker in the United States, are victims of crimes such as assaults, robberies, and failure to pay their complaints are dismissed by police officers annoyed by their calls for help. These women are at the bottom of the list of those to serve and protect. The Williamson study placed these law enforcement officers in a category of Nonresponsive Officers who felt they [the victim] got what they deserved.

First of all, when the police came [called for help after assault]:

Asked me, Well, how did you get in this situation? And I said, Well, I ain’t gonna lie about it. I’m a prostitute. I work the streets, because I have a crack habit. And they said, Well I guess you got what you deserve. (Williamson et al. 2007: 24)

Another example of a Nonresponsive Officer came when a Detroit prostitute was picked up and taken to the perpetrator’s house. At knifepoint, she was tied to a bed and then sodomized with various objects. She described her contact with the police:

At the time there was a lot of women getting raped…It’s hard to get the police to do anything when you’re a prostitute. They’ll tell you, you deserved it. That’s the mentality they have….Once I called the police because this guy had threatened to kill me if I told anybody what he did to me. I was hysterical…They said I got what I deserved, cause I was out there like that… They didn’t ask for a description. They didn’t take any reports or nothing, nothing. And after that, I stopped [calling]. (Williamson et al. 2007: 25)

The study identified a type of police officer who not only coerces sex workers into sexual situations, but also is physically and verbally abusive to them—Police Officers as Perpetrators (Williamson et al. 2007: 27). The Police Officers as Perpetrators overtly demonstrated their disdain for sex workers and other disreputable persons—the dangerous classes not worthy of police protection.

The Williamson study found other evidence of police sexual misconduct . Fifteen percent of the female sex workers reported being forced to have sex with an officer, 45.5% had paid sex with a police officer, and 18 had sex for free. The most common form of police sexual misconduct was sexual shakedowns. Fifty-six percent of the women had sex with the officer, and he let them go without charges (Williamson et al. 2007).

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The global and the US studies presented demonstrate that wherever sex work is criminalized, FSWs suffer from punitive moral policing with few legal remedies. Police officers throughout the world think they have special privileges when it comes to sex workers . Whom are the FSWs going to complain to?

On occasion, police agencies treat the murders of sex workers as examples of misdemeanor murders—a police term describing murders of disreputable individuals such as career criminals, police fighters, whores, and other douche bags and scum (personal experience as a former cop and police academy instructor). Sex worker assaults are treated as Misdemeanor assaults. Their murders and assaults are viewed as an occupational hazard for marginalized women working in a disreputable line of work (personal police work experience and interviews with numerous officers). Police agencies are criticized for being lax in the investigations of murders , including serial murders , and kidnappings of black women and children (Schechter 2003).

Constantly Changing Target Pool

Moral policing in the United States has become a confusing part of police work in a continually changing society. US police work is in a constant state of flux as new acts are defined as crimes—mala prohibita —and agencies to deal with these new illegal behaviors are created, merged, and disbanded. Historically, the United States has created, merged, and disbanded law enforcement agencies in reaction to the efforts of moral entrepreneurs, powerful interest groups, moral panics, and perceived and real threats, for example, prohibition, the war on drugs, terrorism, illegal immigration, and sexting. This chaos creates law enforcement fragmentation, organizational confusion, and expanded opportunities for misconduct.

The victim selection pool—targets—for law enforcement officer sexual misconduct has gotten more extensive with the creation of an alphabet soup of federal, state, local, and special district law enforcement agencies (ABC, ATF, BART, DEA , DIA, DART, FBI , ICE , IRS, ISDP, MARTA, TSA, USMP, USSS, ad infinitum) involved in US police work.

Police Sexual Misconduct Victims—Pool of Low-Risk Vulnerable Targets Worldwide

The everyday activities of law enforcement workers present sexually inclined LEOs with the opportunities to come into contact with sexually vulnerable persons—male and female—of all ages. Many of these vulnerable persons have credibility issues making them perfect victims—low risk—for illicit sexual advances and coercion. Victims with criminal records do not report officer misconduct because they do not want to draw attention to themselves (Lersch 1998). Police departments with poor relationships with their communities have lower rates of citizen complaints, increasing the likelihood of police sexual misconduct —safe targets for sex predators (Lersch and Mieczkowski 2000). Paradoxically, police departments with dysfunctional relationships with their citizens or specific areas of their community have lower rates of complaints, increasing the likelihood of police sexual misconduct . Whom do you call when the police are the problem?

On-duty police sexual aggressors in low political power communities choose their victims, male and female, from a pool of vulnerable victims that include: children and minors; individuals involved in sex work or the commercial sex industry; immigrants and