14 1 Police and Law Enforcement—-Adult Forensicsconsidered a form of evidence. Theoretically, altering your verbal testimony in order
to have it coincide with the case is tampering with that evidence.
Klockars (1984) describes a theory which states that police officers use a hierarchy
of lying to establish domination and control, including authority, power, persuasion,
and force. It is through these means, the author states, that officers obtain such
necessary characteristics as governance, rule, and sovereignty. Klockars goes on to
describe a concept called "blue lies," which refers to the specialty of police lying and
the court's reluctance to deal with it. A hypothetical case is described in which two
mentally ill brothers made accusations to the local police department that invisible
aliens were pursuing them. The chief of the police department told the brothers
that he called Washington and informed them of the invasion. Of course, the chief
did not really notify Washington of the make-believe alien invasion. The lie served
a number of purposes, however, not the least of "which was bringing a sense of
comfort to the brothers, who could then rest easy because the situation was dealt
with (Klockars, 1984).
It is important to remember that while this "blue lie" seems and probably is a
harmless means of dealing with a nonsense situation, it can be viewed as a win-
dow into the police officer's mind in examining the process of justifying lying to
the citizens. Police departments are not the only ones susceptible to such occur-
rences. Psychiatric institutions are especially vulnerable to this type of distortion
for the patient's benefit. Psychotic delusions exhibited by patients often cannot be
effectively dealt with until the patient experiences a period of remitting psychosis.
In the meantime, those employed within the institution will simply pacify the
patient.
According to Klockars (1984), police use a number of different mechanisms to
prevent addressing the potential severe feelings of moral discomfort in lying. The
first is to simply refuse to admit that there is in fact a moral dilemma. A second
strategy is exemption—rationalizing that a moral dilemma is really not a dilemma
at all since the officer actually knows the reality of the case or situation at hand.
This enables an officer to bar the case from becoming one associated with feelings
of moral guilt. A good example of exemption is the case illustration presented with
Mike, the police officer who manipulated a piece of evidence in order to make it
admissible. Another way officers deal with potential moral dilemmas is to use what
is termed "prioritization." This incorporates using a wrongdoing (e.g., lying) in
order to create a more favorable outcome overall.
A particularly tangible example of evidence tampering was apparent in what is
perhaps the largest evidence-tampering scandal in law enforcement history. Hansen
(1994a) describes a case in which three troopers were sent to prison, three others
were awaiting trial, and 40 cases came under review by the state police to examine
the role of evidence tampering over an 8-year period. The article revealed that police
tend to tamper, alter, and even manufacture evidence in order to make their cases
more appealing and "solid." For example, troopers followed a particular pattern
in altering evidence, most often fingerprints, after a suspect was identified. This