Professional ethics and academic integrity in police education

The involvement of police officers in qualifying training and professional development at universities has highlighted the issue of academic misconduct. There has been relatively little attention paid by universities to the particular issues raised by academic misconduct on professional programmes, including policing. Police students involved in academic misconduct, face the prospect of receiving more serious sanctions than student contemporaries on other programmes, as they could face direct sanctions from their employer as well as reputational damage that could negatively impact on future career prospects. This article will set out the challenge of responding to academic misconduct in police and other professional programmes. It will outline the findings of a small pilot investigation into the views of professional partners and summarise lessons that might be learned from other professional disciplines. It will argue that academic integrity on police programmes should be conceptualised and taught as a matter of professional ethics.