That’s the way it has always been done,†is a classic rationalization used to justify unethical conduct. Regardless of whether we have the data to show that “always†is true, we still issue this shield of justification. Only in New York City it really is true about fixing tickets. As one prosecutor noted, “This stuff has been happening since the beginning of time.†In 1951, the ticket ledger for Manhattan’s 20th precinct disappeared during an investigation of officers who were suspected of killing traffic citations.
Following that experience, the city required that tickets be written up in quadruplicate so that even if one set of records disappeared, there would be copies. Corruption does not let multiple copies get in the way of ticket avoidance. Just three years after the 1951 scandal, over 100 N.Y.P.D. officers were accused of selling $10 courtesy cards. If you were a courtesy-card-carrying individual, you could flash it at the officer and avoid getting a ticket. In other words, you circumvent the system by not allowing the ticket to get into the system.
Following scandals in the 1980s and the 1990s, New York settled on an electronic scanning system – once the ticket is in the computer system, it cannot be altered or removed, and if it is altered or removed via hacking, there will still be a record of when, generally traceable to whom. The foolproof system broke down recently because the simple solution was for the officer to show up in court and experience memory loss, to wit, “Gee, Judge, I forgot!†or “I am not sure about my radar that day.â€
Just recently, ticket-fixing emerged once again. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was “shocked, shocked†to find ticket-fixing in New York City and demanded an investigation that has yielded undercover tapes of officers plotting to fix tickets. Two of the officers suspected of ticket-fixing had to testify recently in a DWI trial. On cross-exam of their testimony regarding “How drunk was the defendant?â€, the ticket-fixing became the topic that won the defendant his case. The stunning part of the officers’ testimony was their cavalier attitude about ticket-fixing, a term they never used. The officers referred to what they did as “professional courtesy.â€
The jurors acquitted the defendant, a personal injury lawyer, of drunken driving because they said the officers who testified were “crooked,†and “How can you trust such people?â€
What seems like a small, “professional courtesy†undermines trust in the officers and in the system. At the heart of trust is ethics. And at the heart of ethics is the basic principle that everyone plays by the same rules, the rules we all want to be governed by. No one wants to be charged with a crime by those who engage in corruption – how can you trust such people?
Guilt or innocence becomes irrelevant — the trustworthiness of those charged with enforcing the law becomes the issue. The rule of law quickly disappears when trust does.
About mmjdiary
Professor Marianne Jennings is an emeritus professor of legal and ethical studies from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, retiring in 2011 after 35 years of teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in ethics and the legal environment of business. During her tenure at ASU, she served as director of the Joan and David Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics from 1995-1999. In 2006, she was appointed faculty director for the W.P. Carey Executive MBA Program. She has done consulting work for businesses and professional groups including AICPA, Boeing, Dial Corporation, Edward Jones, Mattel, Motorola, CFA Institute, Southern California Edison, the Institute of Internal Auditors, AIMR, DuPont, AES, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Motorola, Hy-Vee Foods, IBM, Bell Helicopter, Amgen, Raytheon, and VIAD.
The sixth edition of her textbook, Case Studies in Business Ethics, was published in February 2011. The ninth edition of her textbook, Business: lts Legal, Ethical and Global Environment was published in January 2011. The 23rd edition of her book, Business Law: Principles and Cases, will be published in January 2013. The tenth edition of her book, Real Estate Law, will also be published in January 2013. Her book, A Business Tale: A Story of Ethics, Choices, Success, and a Very Large Rabbit, a fable about business ethics, was chosen by Library Journal in 2004 as its business book of the year. A Business Tale was also a finalist for two other literary awards for 2004. In 2000 her book on corporate governance was published by the New York Times MBA Pocket Series. Her book on long-term success, Building a Business Through Good Times and Bad: Lessons from Fifteen Companies, Each With a Century of Dividends, was published in October 2002 and has been used by Booz, Allen, Hamilton for its work on business longevity. Her latest book, The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse was published by St. Martin’s Press in July 2006 and has been a finalist for two book awards.
Her weekly columns are syndicated around the country, and her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Reader's Digest. A collection of her essays, Nobody Fixes Real Carrot Sticks Anymore, first published in 1994 is still being published. She has been a commentator on business issues on All Things Considered for National Public Radio.
She has served on four boards of directors, including Arizona Public Service (1987-2000), Zealous Capital Corporation, and the Center for Children with Chronic Illness and Disability at the University of Minnesota. She was appointed to the board of advisors for the Institute of Nuclear Power Operators in 2004 and served on the board of trustees for Think Arizona, a public policy think tank. She has appeared on CNBC, CBS This Morning, the Today Show, and CBS Evening News.
In 2010 she was named one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Business Ethics by Trust Across America. Her books have been translated into four different languages. She received the British Emerald award for authoring one of their top 50 articles in management publications, chosen from over 15,000 articles.
Personal: Married since 1976 to Terry H. Jennings, Maricopa County Attorney’s Office Deputy County Attorney; five children: Sarah, Sam, and John, and the late Claire and Hannah Jennings.
