By William Downs

Police misconduct is behaviour by a police officer that falls below the standards of professional behaviour for the police.

Cases of police misconduct can arise from concerns raised by police officers or staff, or following incidents where members of the public have been harmed by the actions of the police.

What are the laws on police misconduct?

Legislation specifies how allegations of police misconduct should be handled, though the framework is complex. In short, most allegations of police misconduct are handled in line with rules set out in the Police Act 1996 and Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020. This legislation is designed to support the police in maintaining a disciplined force. The Home Office provides statutory guidance on implementing this legislation.

However, some serious conduct matters (particularly where a member of the public has been adversely affected) are handled under schedule 3 of the Police Reform Act 2002 and the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2020. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) publishes statutory guidance on this legislation.

This legislative framework also provides for how public complaints are handled. The Commons Library briefing Police Standards: Complaints provides more information.

The legislative framework applies to the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. There are different arrangements for the British Transport Police, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the Ministry of Defence Police officers. There are also different arrangements in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

How are misconduct allegations investigated?

Conduct matters are initially handled by a police force’s professional standards department (PSD). PSDs are responsible for logging all conduct matters and, in most cases, investigating them.

However, PSDs must refer the most serious conduct matters to the IOPC, including those that involve:

death or serious injury

a serious assault, sexual offence or other specified offence

serious corruption, including abuse of position for a sexual purpose

a criminal offence or behaviour which is liable to lead to disciplinary proceedings and which was aggravated by discriminatory behaviour, or

allegations concerning a chief officer

The IOPC decides how matters it is referred should be investigated. It can:

decide the matter does not need formal investigation and leave it to the relevant PSD to handle

instruct the PSD to conduct a local investigation

instruct the PSD to investigate the matter under its direction, or

independently investigate the matter itself

How are investigations concluded?

When the PSD or the IOPC have completed an investigation, they must produce a report saying whether the person under investigation has a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct.

Police misconduct is any behaviour or action that breaches the standards of professional behaviour and warrants disciplinary action of at least a written warning. Gross misconduct is any behaviour or action that could breach the standards to such a serious degree that it warrants dismissal.

Force management or the IOPC will decide whether (and what sort of) disciplinary proceedings should be initiated. A misconduct panel or misconduct hearing will base its judgment on whether misconduct is proven on the balance of probabilities (the civil standard of proof).

As outlined in the Commons Library briefing Police standards: Discipline, if a case of misconduct or gross misconduct is proven, there are four main sanctions that can be imposed:

a written warning

a final written warning

a reduction in rank, or

dismissal

London: UK Parliament, House of Commons Library, 2025. 23p. 

By R. Michael Cassidy

Disciplining individual prosecutors will never be enough to overcome the multifarious incentives prosecutors have to cut corners to secure convictions. Although bar discipline against prosecutors is increasing in frequency, professional regulators tend to focus on individual actors rather than paying attention to systemic failures.

No single instance of prosecutorial misconduct—revealed perhaps by the reversal of a criminal case or the exoneration of an innocent defendant—can ever be fully explained by the deeds of a lone actor without looking at who establishes enforcement priorities, who sets office policies, and who does the training. Leaders in the office are usually involved, either by omission (failing to catch an error) or commission (creating an office culture where ethical lapses are tolerated or even encouraged).

The predominance of collective action and shared responsibility in business organizations often makes it difficult to pinpoint criminal liability. That challenge is addressed through the “responsible corporate officer” doctrine in criminal law, which holds executive-level individuals accountable for the wrongdoing to which they contributed, whether through commission or omission. Prosecutor’s offices are organizations with structures and incentives not dissimilar to that of a corporation. Because existing frameworks for addressing prosecutorial misconduct in the criminal justice system are ineffective, bar regulators should borrow from the responsible corporate officer doctrine by more aggressively enforcing Rule 5.1 of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

The notion that supervisory attorneys must be more actively involved in their colleagues’ ethical decisions and conduct has been recognized by the bar since the adoption of ABA Model Rule 5.1 in 1983, but the rule remains undertheorized by scholars and underutilized by disciplinary authorities. This article draws on important parallels between the responsible corporate officer doctrine and Rule 5.1 to explain why enforcement of professional discipline against leaders in a prosecutor’s office is necessary to incentivize more rigorous supervision and training. The author scrutinizes two recent cases in Colorado and Massachusetts where bar regulators have successfully utilized Rule 5.1 to discipline leaders in a prosecutor’s office for failing adequately to supervise the conduct of junior associates. The author then advocates for an even more expansive use of Rule 5.1 to force head prosecutors to adopt written, transparent, and publicly available policies and procedures. Finally, the author discusses three recurring and highly intractable problems of prosecutorial discretion that could benefit from comprehensive office policy manuals: grand jury practice, disclosure of exculpatory evidence; and use of cooperating witnesses.

Oregon Law Review, Vol. 102, 2024, Boston College Law School Legal Studies Research Paper No. 614, 37 p