The Unwritten RuleThe Blue Code of Silence, the Blue Wall, the Cocoon of Silence, and the Blue Brotherhood all contain the same meaning: to remain silent. The blue code of silence is an unwritten rule incorporated into the police force that displays the honor and loyalty that officers are expected to possess; not following the code would be considered an act of treason. Silence represents both solidarity and protection for officers within the organization and follows years of tradition. Although the code proves to play an important role in the roles and lives of police officers, it causes much controversy as society may lose faith in the truth of the police. The thesis of this article is that the code of silence has a significant role within the policing community in both positive and negative ways; loyalty allows officers to unite within a brotherhood that will promote and maintain mutual protection and trust, misconduct benefits from such loyalty as most police misconduct remains hidden and will go unpunished, which could potentially leading to further misconduct and the negative views surrounding the misconduct has led to attempts to reduce the code of silence through reporting. A main factor of the code of silence is loyalty, always being there for other officers even if it means lying or hiding things from them. Loyalty is required and is very important in police work, in fact it is the second of the six police truths (always remain loyal to colleagues). When future officers begin their training in police academies, the importance of loyalty is built into the studies: many areas of training require officers to be divided into groups so that the...... middle of paper.. . is intended to protect other officers from areas such as misconduct. The code of silence allows police officers to seemingly walk away from the misconduct they have committed, they are rarely held accountable. The number of cases where officers are acquitted is enormous and this is due to the code of silence; officers will give false testimony against other officers to protect them, and will not speak to other officers. Due to the amount of misconduct absolved, this allows for an increase in the number of other members joining the fraternity and could lead to further misconduct. Therefore, due to the increase in misconduct, there has been an expansion of informants within the police force. Whistleblowers are attempting to reduce the code of silence regarding police misconduct; make the police suffer the consequences of their actions.