A Comparative Ethical Analysis of the FBI and INTERPOL
Introduction
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a U.S. federal criminal justice agency, while the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) is an international law enforcement agency. The FBI is an intelligence-driven and threat-based national security agency and the primary investigative arm of the United States Justice department. Additionally, it is a member of the United States intelligence community. Particularly after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001(9/11), the FBI has greatly been transformed (David, 2022). In addition to other multiple reforms, the FBI has launched a new priority ranking and officially modified a substantial number of agents from the criminal investigative work done traditionally to matters relating to counterintelligence and counter-terrorism. The main aim of these changes was to redesign the FBI into an organization that is in a better position to combat the imminent terrorism threat and to avert another extensive terrorist attack against the U.S.
The mission statement of the FBI is thus in line with these objectives: To offer protection and defense to the United States against foreign intelligence threats and terrorists. To enforce and uphold U.S. criminal laws and provide criminal justice and leadership services to state, municipal, Federal and international partners and agencies. Finally, to ensure that it responsively accomplishes these responsibilities to the public needs and remains faithful to the United states constitution. The mission statement mirrors the agency’s authority within its jurisdiction area and the total bearing on U.S. security.
On the other hand, the INTERPOL is a worldwide police agency, established in Vienna, Austria, in 1923 and with headquarters in Lyon, France. It has seven Regional Bureaus internationally and National Central Bureaus in its 194-member states, making it the most prominent police organization worldwide (INTERPOL, 2022). Its main objectives are to aid countries in working together on the international system, to cooperate in investigating global crimes and ensure that offenders are prosecuted. It also ensures that global security is maintained and enables global cooperation and crime control. It offers support services, training and expertise to international law enforcement and focuses on some areas of transnational crime and insecurity: cybercrime, organized crime and terrorism (Donna, et al., 2022). In line with these objectives, its mission statement is: Fighting and preventing crime through enhanced cooperation and innovation on police and security matters.
Ethical Requirements and How Each Agency Screens for Ethical Employees
Both FBI and INTERPOL ensure adherence to high moral standards: a key aspect that enables commitment to this high standard is the agency’s screening for ethical employees. A preliminary requirement for its employees is impartiality, integrity and high moral (Michael, Jeffrey, & Brian, 2018). Particularly for the INTERPOL, the Rome statute of the ICC, which can be regarded as its judicial organ (Michael, Jeffrey, & Brian, 2018). Affirm that Judges shall be selected from individuals with high moral character, integrity and impartiality and who have qualifications that respective statutes require for appointment to the highest judicial offices.
The INTERPOL Constitution affirms the organization’s purpose as promoting and ensuring the most extensive mutual assistance among all criminal police authorities in the spirit of the collective declaration of human rights. The references here are for the INTERPOL employees to ensure that they adhere to the highest form of human rights, exemplifying the ethical requirements. Another constitutional provision is that the attorney general is selected from individuals who are greatly competent in police matters. Article 30 asserts that INTERPOL employees should neither accept nor solicit instructions from any authority or government (INTERPOL, 2022). On the other hand, the FBI is similarly bound by values of individual and uncompromising institutional integrity.
Integrity defines the FBI, how it operates, what it stands for and how it measures its success. Thus, its employees must be bound by high ethical values that reflect integrity. It is in the Fabric of the FBI to comply fully with regulations, laws and rules that govern its operation, activities and programs. FBI employees are expected to discover what regulations and laws govern their activities and ensure they are sufficiently knowledgeable. Additionally, they should allow every employee understand what is required by the law and ensure their professional and personal conduct is appropriate. In addition, the FBI needs its employees to report to the appropriate authorities any suspected or known failure to adhere to the law by others or by themselves.
With the obligation of both the FBI and INTERPOL employees to adhere to such high moral standards, it is incumbent upon the agencies to ensure robust ethical screening of their employees. Both agencies use similar methods of evaluation to screen for ethical employees. They mainly use polygraphs and psychological exams and perform background checks using third-party contact. As far as polygraphs are concerned, both the INTERPOL and FBI use them administratively to ensure their staff are ethically compliant.
Polygraph refers to a process of examination characterized by the utilization of diagnostic instruments that can record and measure a subject’s psychological reaction as they answer questions. Due to the fact that psychological reactions fluctuate when subjects are lying and when they are speaking the truth. Through the comparison of the response of an issue to diverse questions, a polygraph examiner can detect deceptive answers to specific questions. The FBI and INTERPOL screen for ethical employees by conducting polygraph scrutiny in the administrative investigation into accusations of misconduct of employees. From 2002 to 2005, four polygraph units were conducted, with 149 precise-issue polygraph examinations of employees that were witnesses, complainants or subjects in investigations of individual misconduct while performing their official duties (Donna, et al., 2022). This helped the FBI identify employees that were guilty of misconduct and take appropriate action.
Similarly, INTERPOL has utilized polygraphs to enforce ethics on its employees, they use them to perform character and background checks. Often in acts of reverence, INTERPOL employees are readily willing to take part in the lie detector tests. Which involves granting powers to their employers to carry out polygraph tests (INTERPOL, 2022). Employers also are needed to regularly undergo lie detector tests to preserve the positions they are holding.
INTERPOL and FBI employees must undergo psychological tests to ensure they are ethically fit before they can be admitted. The two agencies’ tests are almost identical and involve logic-based reasoning, figural reasoning, personality assessment, preferences and interest and situational judgment tests. In logic-based reasoning, the aim is to ensure rationality in reasoning. Candidates are offered several sentences or paragraphs to decide what inference is required to reach a logical conclusion. In figural reasoning, questions are presented as incomplete images with eight images drawn or shaped. Personality assessment’s main aim is the identification of personality qualities that are considered necessary to an effective special agent. Situational judgments ensure that potential employees adhere to ethics by checking how they respond to daily situations, mimicking real-life work environments. Lastly, interest and preferences are almost identical to personality tests and help determine an individual’s attitudes to determine whether a candidate has the depositional qualities needed.
Background checks involve the agency’s various due diligence means to check whether a potential candidate or an existing employee meets the ethical standards or whether they are adhering to them. A practical example where INTERPOL has conducted background checks using third parties on its employees was recently when it became privy to the fact that its top candidate for election as its next president had been charged with inhuman treatment and torture. Third parties were involved in this revelation by INTERPOL, particularly 19 human rights groups such as the Gulf Center for human rights and the Human rights watch wrote to INTERPOL advising against the president’s appointment (INTERPOL, 2022). The FBI also uses third parties to know the suitability of their employees and potential employees.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a morality theory that promotes happiness or pleasure and opposes actions that result in harm or unhappiness. When it is geared towards making political, economic and social decisions, utilitarianism aims to ensure that society is made better. It focuses on the outcomes and deems an action right if it results in happiness for most members of society.
Utilitarianism is anchored on three principles: Happiness and pleasure as the only aspects with inherent worth.
Having intrinsic value denotes that it is good by itself. This is in contrast with instrumental value, which means that something is a means to a particular end (Jeffrey & Michael, 2019). The second principle asserts that right action entails that which encourage happiness and wrong action leads to misery. The third and last principle is that each person’s happiness counts equally. Utilitarianism will be an essential theory in comparing and contrasting the two agencies: their actions are outcome-based. They aim to ensure a crime-free society and, thus, a happy society. Most importantly, they seek to punish offenders as a way of deterring wrongdoings in the future, a core component of utilitarianism.
A Comparison and Contrast of How the FBI And INTERPOL Interact
FBI and INTERPOL have a set of functions: they work independently and, at times, together, intending to reduce the consequence of crime and deter future crime, which are critical components of utilitarianism. The functions of the FBI are divided into three, this includes investigation of cybercrime, counterintelligence and terrorism. Cybercrime entails online predators’ intrusions, internet fraud, identity theft and property theft or piracy (Hend, 2021). Counterintelligence is information collected, and activities carried out to shield against espionage, sabotage, other intelligence activities or assassinations done on behalf of foreign persons, foreign governments or such elements.
FBI closely interacts and shares information with other intelligence and security agencies at the state, federal, local, and international levels. A majority of the investigations that the FBI does are in collaboration with other law enforcement agencies, including the INTERPOL, they compare their investigations to ensure accuracy (Piper, 2022). The INTERPOL also has functions almost identical to the FBI and whose goals align with utilitarianism. It makes it possible for police to deter and prevent crime internationally for three types: Cybercrime, Organized crime and Counter-Terrorism. It works with international organizations such as the European Union, the United Nations, and member countries, including the U.S., to combat crime. These interactions with other international and local agencies include operations in (Piper, 2022). Securing police communication services internationally, operational databases and operational data services for police, allotting notices, countering international criminals, reducing new and organized crimes, cybercrime and counter-terrorism operations.
How the Agencies Might Handle Ethics Governing Police Conduct
Utilitarianism is a normative theory that indicates to us what should be done and why it is compulsive to do things that seem counterintuitive to what appears ethical. In relation to the FBI and INTERPOL, Utilitarianism is reflected in ethics that govern the conduct of the police, particularly in action, including apprehension and control of suspects (Jane & Rob, 2022). The first significant step that the two agencies take in ensuring ethical conduct among their offices includes hiring, recruiting and training only individuals who show strong moral values.
Particularly, the FBI and INTERPOL are bound by international law, which outlines the ethics the two agencies should follow, including in the control and apprehension of suspects. One such code of ethics governing the agencies is one by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), which the two agencies are members and also are partners (Bob, 2020). Written originally in 1957, this code of ethics governs its members, it was then revised in 1989 and was voted on and adopted in 1991 (Jane & Rob, 2022). It ensures that police have some obligation while apprehending and controlling suspects.
For example, they should ensure a suspect is aware of the reason for their arrest; this should be explained at least at the time of the arrest. Adherence to the code of ethics is expected right from graduation, and law enforcement personnel uses the code of ethics as an oath during graduation (Hend, 2021). To ensure the appropriate handling of a suspect, the code outlines the fundamental duties of officers. These include: safeguarding property, life, community, defending the innocent from deception, the peaceful against disorder or violence and the weak from intimidation or oppression and ensuring that suspect’s constitutional right to equality, justice and liberty are upheld.
The code of ethics also affirms that police are obligated to ensure that they keep their private lives untarnished and identify the badge as a public trust and faith symbol. This code of conduct works in combination with the code of ethics. The code of conduct entails ethical mandates that police officers should utilize in the performance of duties. These include exercise of discretion and impartiality while apprehending and controlling suspects and only using force when necessary. The officers are also bound to maintain integrity, confidentiality and a professional image (David, 2022). These ethical statements, together with the proper training and robust leadership, enable police officers of the two agencies to be members of an ethical profession that is bound to positive outcomes in line with utilitarianism.
Solicitation of Confessions, Managing Evidence, or Related Topics
In the solicitation of confessions which involves questioning, interviewing and interrogating suspects and how the obtained evidence is handled, the FBI AND INTERPOL work identically. Particularly the interviewing, interrogation and questioning techniques utilized are ethical and objective. The techniques aim to ensure better outcomes, not just by getting the confession but also by discovering the truth (Federal Bureau of Investigation Department of Homeland Security, 2022). This differs from traditional policing techniques that were reported inadequate, referred to as third-degree, which sometimes entailed intimidation threats, physical violence and coercion. Particularly, the agencies’ avoidance of the use of third-degree techniques is after the Wickersham Commission in 1931 identified them as illegal police practices that often led to miscarriages of justice and false confessions where suspects were at times convicted and imprisoned wrongfully (Giulio, 2019). Interviewing is the initial and lowermost level of interaction between the FBI and INTERPOL.
At this point, they have not yet defined the individual as a suspect, the criminal will report events posturing as the crime’s victim or as an eye witness (Temitope & Abioro, 2020). The investigator getting a statement report from such an individual may get suspicious, nonetheless, not until there’s evidence meets the reasonable test grounds the investigator should not treat them as a suspect yet.
Suspect questioning is the next level of interaction, and to reach this level, a level of circumstantial evidence that permits the detention of the suspect by agency investigators has been reached. Lastly, interrogation is the highest suspect questioning level and happens after the establishment of reasonable grounds for belief (Temitope & Abioro, 2020). Here the officers have placed the suspect under arrest for the offence that is being investigated. Evidence obtained, including the arrested suspect, should be handled ethically, and the suspect should be presented for trial within 24 hours of arrest.
Gifts, Favors and Gratuities
When it comes to the ethical conduct of officers from both the FBI and INTERPOL, gifts, favors and gratuities are prohibited. Particularly, ethical statements guiding these agencies’ officers note that corruption is one of the ethical issues facing police officers. It continues to characterize police corruption as which often comes masked in a variety of forms which include favors, gifts and gratitude, among others. Some primary methods of controlling police corruption are alteration in socialization and selection of new officers, and inculcating robust leadership skills (Giulio, 2019). These ethical skills are aimed at ensuring police officers will refrain from corrupt practices. Most importantly, policies of both the FBI and INTERPOL prohibit gifts, favor and gratuities. Particularly one such policy states that departmental employees shall not take any gift or any such item if it gives the impression that the person who is offering the grant is doing so as a way of influencing the staff.
In conclusion, it is clear that the FBI and INTERPOL are distinct, though with interacting roles. The FBI is a domestic threat agency that enforces and shapes internal policies in the U.S. It investigates crimes such as bank robbery, kidnapping and tax evasion. On the other hand, the INTERPOL is a global police agency, it aids law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, in their member countries and has 190-member countries, it is mainly an investigation agency (INTERPOL, 2022). Utilitarianism is a moral theory and an important pillar in moral justice, including guiding the FBI ad INTERPOL.
It affirms that the wrongness or rightness of an action is determined by balancing good over evil that an action instigates. The FBI and INTERPOL’s responsibilities and activities are aimed at getting rid of crime. It is thus correct to say that from the analysis, the two agencies’ interactions and ethical obligations are clear and in line with utilitarianism, they are geared toward ensuring a society that is free of crime and where people live happily.
References
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