Thursday, May 6, 2010

Causes of Police Corruption

As many have questioned, what leads to police corruption? What has caused an officer to become so unethical? Is it as simple as a few bad apples are going to fall from the tree? Is it the opportunity that presents itself?

There is a list of constant and variable factors that, when combined, often lead to police corruption. The constant factors consist of:
  1. Discretion - Descrition has both bad and good qualities. If used correctly discretion should not be a problem, but when taken advantage of discretion is a huge problem.
  2. Low managerial visibility - Officers do a majority of their work with very little supervision. The managers are not there watching over their shoulder to make sure they are doing everything correctly.
  3. Low public visibility - A majority of what an officer does is not seen by the public.
  4. Peer group secrecy - Officers have a strong bond with one another. Internal solidarity and secrecy is a large part of police culture.
  5. Managerial secrecy - Most managers have worked their way up from an entry level officer and have a lot of values in common with those they manage.
  6. Status problems - Police officers are often underpaid compared to the amount of power they have.
  7. Association with lawbreakers/contact with temptation - Police are always coming into contact with people who break the law and may have a access to resources. (Newburn, 1999)
The variable factors consist of:
  1. Community structure - Police are often influenced by politics, culture, and the standards and norms of those surrounding them.
  2. Organizational characteristics - "Levels of bureaucracy, integrity of leadership, soliditary of work subcultures, moral career stages of police officers, and the perception of legitimate opportunities." (Newburn, 1999)
  3. Legal opportunities for corruption - Crimes that are considered victimless crimes and using minor or trivial regulations, such as construction, traffic and licensing, for exploitation.
  4. Corruption controls - How the police are policed themselves.
  5. Social organization of corruption - Take place in ways of an arrangement or an event.
  6. Moral cynicism - Due to the inevitable association with those who break the law and the contact of temptation, officers are often directed towards moral cynicism. (Newburn, 1999)
As the factors are presented, we can see that there are multiple reasons that lead an officer to engaging in corrupt behavior. Usually an officer would start at an entry level position and start to get to know the department and their policies. Once an officer gets comfortable with their environment and the department, they will start to use their discretion to their advantage, knowing that they are not being closely supervised. An officer may start by performing some small type of corrupt activity, such as taking a candy bar at the convenience store and then gradually grow into more serious corrupt activities. As the officer gets away with one thing after another, he will gain more and more courage to engage in larger and more serious corrupt behavior.

In order to prevent police corruption from occurring there should be more consequences, even for actions that don't seem to matter. The small corrupt activities need to be noticed and brought to the officer's attention that what they did was unethical and that any further corrupt activity will lead to more serious consequences. A police officer has a lot of power and the power should not be used unethically to engage in corrupt behavior(s).

References

Newburn, T., Understanding and preventing police corruption: lessons from the literature. Policing and Reducing Crime Unit: Police Research Series. . 1999.

Punch, M., Police corruption and its prevention. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research. 2000.

10 comments:

  1. Corruption among government officials is very rampant. People will most likely be relying much on their income protection quote rather than their officials in times of unemployment and poverty.

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  2. When the levels of education that are required to be able to join the police are so low, you basically end up with yobs in uniform who are basically thick. So it is inevitable you will get all the incompetence and corruption in all our police forces.
    I have had 25 years plus problems with the police and most can be seen on my own blog ' I am raging mad ' I came from a police family and was myself in the RAF Police but both I and my Father got out of policing because we did not wish to be tarred with the same brush as all the other police we had to serve with. Down to useless politicians, so we will never see any improvements.

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  3. govt has to take nessasery acts on this

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  4. I was a victim of 2 cases of illegal entrapment consecutive on 11/2006 and 02/2007. Those 2 cases was created for law enforcement criminal minds belong to San Jose, California police agency whose destroy my personal life for ever!!

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  5. Thnx for all the info, i needed to research about police corruption for a class assignment and this was the only site i could find.

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  6. David Kutek should be studied. This retired Redford Township Michigan Detective was ordered by the court to participate in mental heath treatment after being convicted of Larceny from a Building in 2014.

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  7. David Kutek was also convicted of Lying to a Federal Agent 12-27-2016, Arrested in 2011 charged with Larceny from a Building while employed as Chief of Security at the General Motors Hamtramck Plant, A trailer full of engines and transmissions worth $43,000 was recovered in a drug raid& money laundering investigation! !996 Criminal Contempt conviction overturned, etc. David Kutekis a mentally ill, Racist and a convicted lying thieving felon. David Kutek will be released from Federal Supervision on 12-27-2018. David Kutek is the Godzilla of Police Corruption.

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