Ethical Climate Theory,Whistle-blowing,and the Code of Silence in Police Agencies in the State of Georgia

This article reports the findings from a study that investigates the relationship between ethical climates and police whistle-blowing on five forms of misconduct in the State of Georgia. The results indicate that a friendship or team climate generally explains willingness to blow the whistle, but not the actual frequency of blowing the whistle. Instead, supervisory status, a control variable investigated in previous studies, is the most consistent predictor of both willingness to blow the whistle and frequency of blowing the whistle. Contrary to popular belief, the results also generally indicate that police are more inclined than civilian employees to blow the whistle in Georgia – in other words, they are less inclined to maintain a code of silence. Gary R. Rothwell is the Special Agent in Charge of Region 13 of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, an office serving ten counties in middle Georgia. He holds a Doctorate of Public Administration from The University of Alabama, and his research interests include organization climates, code of silence, and whistle-blowing behavior. J. Norman Baldwin is an associate professor and the director of the Master of Public Administration program at The University of Alabama. His research interests include differences between public and private organizations, whistle-blowing behavior, and equal promotion opportunity in race- and gender-dominant organizations.