Integrity testing

Abstract

In this chapter the focus is on integrity testing of police officers; roughly, setting ‘traps’ for police officers suspected of corruption. This practice raises the important moral (and legal) issue of entrapment. I argue that targeted integrity tests are morally permissible under the following three conditions (assuming other more general conditions are met, such as the condition that the method of integrity testing is the only feasible method available to law enforcement agencies in relation to a certain type of offence, and that the offence type is a serious one). First, the integrity test should be the targeted testing of an officer (or group of officers) who is/are reasonably suspected of engaging in crimes of the relevant kind. Second, the suspect is ordinarily presented with, or typically creates, the kind of opportunity that they are to be afforded in the integrity test scenario. Third, the inducement offered to the suspect is: (a) of a kind that is typically available to the suspect and; (b) such that an ordinary police officer would reasonably be expected to resist it.