Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Ethics Playing Cards
Copyright © 2025 Compass Ethics
7
Where can you seek advice/help on how to deal with the everyday challenges of being a police officer?
Case Studies
- The advice in the training manual is very clear on what to do in a particular situation. However, it does not always match the reality of the situation in front of you. How do you know what to do?
- Who do you talk to when you have an ethical dilemma?
Discussion
- Due to lack of time, it is often the case that teams only get to discuss together when something has gone wrong. However, where does the routine sharing of good practice take place?
- How do you learn from each other if you don’t make time to learn?
- Where/when could this happen better in your team and the wider organisation?
- This does not need to be a formal process. Somewhere like a work’s canteen has traditionally provided a safe space away from the public where informal discussions can take place, and best practice can be shared. Where is your safe space for these discussions, and if there is no immediate option available, what can you do to identify or create one? E.g. perhaps it would be possible to organise something like a ‘coffee roulette’ to interact and discuss with people you do not ordinarily work with.
- The Wellbeing Champion Network through PSD may also be useful.
Sharing best practices in an organisation is crucial for maintaining public confidence. Despite the many claims the police make to ‘learn from this experience’, unless there is a clear mechanism to capture organisational learning, the public might be less inclined to trust such claims in the future.
If the issue is not time critical the ethical dilemma can be considered in the Cambs Internal Ethics Panel (see links).
If the issue is not time critical the ethical dilemma can be considered in the Cambs Internal Ethics Panel (see links).