Accounting for Police Whistleblowing

We examine how police whistleblowers make sense of their decisions to speak about or report misconduct in the context of the police code of silence. Specifically, we use the sociology of accounts as a theoretical framework and interviews with 24 former and current officers who self-identified as police whistleblowers to understand how they accounted for their decisions to report. Participants either initially rejected the whistleblower label, emphasizing a lack of intent, or accepted the label, describing themselves as good officers who value the ideals of policing. Findings have implications for understanding how organizational culture can facilitate or constrain internal reporting of misconduct.