APS, Caswell, and the Private Investigators Code of Ethics

If you search online for a code of ethics that applies to Robert Caswell Investigations and their dealings with the leadership of the APS, you probably won't come closer than the Council of International Investigators - Code Of Ethics, link.

And by "closer" I mean internally.  There are a lot of codes of ethics for private investigators and they are naturally very similar.  There are industry codes, state codes, and who know what others.

I have no idea whether Caswell embraces any code of ethics.  In a cursory scan of their website, link, I found no citation of any code to which they hold themselves accountable.

In my experience, the harder someone's code of conduct is to find, the harder it is to enforce.

Codes of ethics are largely unenforceable anyway,
though some professions do better job of it than others.

The applicable ethic in this case can probably be found in nearly every code of ethics; it happens to be the second ethic in the International Investigators Code;

2. To preserve forever my clients' confidences
under any and all circumstances except where
the clients' interest is contrary to criminal law.

It's pretty clear that the leadership of the APS' interest in hiring Robert Caswell Investigations to do administrative investigations of allegations of criminal misconduct so they can control the evidence, is contrary to criminal law.

They're using Caswell to gather evidence so they can fire people or put them on leave until their contracts expire, and then keep any evidence of criminal misconduct under wraps.  By under wraps I mean hidden behind a shield of law firms and an unlimited budget for litigation.

Like I said, if the standards are hard to find, a place to enforce them is even harder to find.  Where does one enforce the ethic that prohibits using private investigators to evade criminal prosecutions?

A particularly convenient court is the court of public opinion. If the people get stirred up enough about the ethical misconduct in the leadership of the APS, court will come into session; people will resign, people will be recalled, people will be prosecuted.

The gatekeeper to the court of public opinion here in River City is the mainstream media; the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV.  Unfortunately, they don't seem to mind that;

an investigation of alleged administrative misconduct is being conducted by a private contractor who owes his allegiance to the same administration he is investigating.  A private contractor who owes an allegiance only to the administration and who will cooperate in keeping everything about the investigation secret from the people who paid for it.

This despite the fact they know that the last time their administrative investigation turned up evidence of felony criminal misconduct, Caswell I, the evidence was never turned over to the District Attorney for her decision whether to prosecute, and statutes of limitation on felony criminal misconduct were allowed to expire.

If the Journal, KRQE, KOAT and KOB TV are not

• complicit in the ongoing cover up of the cover up of public corruption in the leadership of the APS and their publicly funded private police force,

or

• complacent about the ongoing cover up of the cover up of public corruption in the leadership of the APS and their publicly funded private police force,

why are they not investigating and reporting on any of this?

Why is none of it "news"?

Seriously, why not?

I ask that question a lot; it is yet to be answered.