Law Enforcement Professionalism: A New Orleans Metro Area Multiple Case Stud

In the criminal justice community, there remains much discussion in the practice of law enforcement officers regarding police unprofessionalism and the increase of community mistrust of the police. The problem was to understand and comprehend police unprofessionalism and public mistrust through the experiences of police chiefs and sheriffs during their administration based on the 2012 Federal Consent decree, mandating police reform. Much of this discussion is centered on previous cases where police have been known to abuse their authority through the use of excessive use of force, illegal planting of evidence, and wrongful deaths by police all causing the public to avoid cooperation with law enforcement during investigations. The purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to understand the influences and experiences police unprofessionalism had on law enforcement executives during their administrations affected by the issuance of a 2012 Federal Consent decree in the Metro-New Orleans area. The duty-base theory was used as the context for this qualitative multiple-case study. The duty-based theory elucidated the key principles of how good acts may not primarily lead to positive results within the criminal justice profession. The multiple-case study consisted of a sample of police chiefs and or sheriffs retired or active in service during the implementation of the 2012 Federal Consent decree. The data collection method was an audio recorded face-to-face interview, and the NVivo10 software, was used for coding, managing and analyzing information for qualitative study. The interviews sought to understand police chiefs and or sheriffs' influences and experiences police unprofessionalism had on law enforcement executives during their administrations affected by the issuance of a 2012 Federal Consent decree. The findings are that unprofessionalism in policing and police mistrust from the public was going unaddressed or received minimal attention (Avery, 2010; Donahue & Felts, 2011; French & Wailes, 2010; Loyens & Maesschalck, 2014). Recommendations for future research is to repeat this study using police chiefs and or sheriffs whose agencies are either under Federal review or have been sanctioned and placed under a Federal Consent decree to further expand the current findings or add to from other law enforcement executives, or repeat the study with agencies experiencing the same issues and use a mixed method design to include, police chiefs or sheriffs, police officer. Another recommendation would suggest the increased number of participants expanding the study from specific geographical area exploring the importance of various tools and techniques used by other law enforcement executives or even mid-level supervisor to beat-cops understanding the purpose of the Consent Decree and the increase of mistrust of police by the public.