Police Corruption Is a Major Problem Throughout. Words: Length: 6 Pages Document Type: Research Paper Paper #: Read Full Paper. Police corruption is a major problem throughout the world. As people of a civilized society we depend on our police department to protect us and the stop crimes from happening Police corruption=h (Crime rates, reporting of crime A, B3) Each category of the equations above consists of exogenous variables A, which are universal to all statements. Exogenous variables B are particular to each equation Police corruption has increased dramatically with the illegal smuggling, prostitution and money laundering. Paragraph 1: Police Corruption in General. For a corrupt act to occur, three distinct elements of police corruption must be present simultaneously: 1) misuse of authority, 2) misuse of official capacity, and 3) misuse of personal attainment
Police Corruption Essays: Examples, Topics, Titles, & Outlines
Home Life Personality Goals Change. Analysis of Police Corruption Police corruption is a complex phenomenon, police corruption essay does not readily submit to simple analysis, police corruption essay. It is a problem that has and will continue to affect us all, whether we are civilians or law enforcement officers.
Since its beginnings, may aspects of policing have changed; however, one aspect that has remained relatively unchanged is the existence of corruption. An examination of a local newspaper or any police-related publication on any given day will have an article about a police officer that got busted committing some kind of corrupt act.
Police corruption has police corruption essay dramatically with the illegal cocaine trade, with officers acting alone or in-groups to steal money from dealers or distribute cocaine themselves.
Large groups of corrupt police have been caught in New York, New Orleans, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. Methodology: Corruption within police departments falls into 2 basic categories, which are external corruption and internal corruption. In this report I will concentrate only on external corruption because it has been the larger center of attention recently. I have decided to include the fairly recent accounts of corruption from a few major cities, police corruption essay, mainly New York, because that is where I have lived for the past 22 years.
I compiled my information from numerous articles written in the New York Times over the last 5 years. My definitional information and background data came from various books cited that have been written on the issue of police corruption. Those books helped me create a basis of just what the different types of corruption and deviancies are, as well as how and why corruption happens. The books were filled with useful insight but were not update enough, so I relied on the police corruption essay articles to provide me with the current, and regional information that was needed to complete this report.
In simple terms, corruption in policing is usually viewed as the misuse of authority by a police officer acting officially to fulfill personal needs or wants. For a corrupt act to occur, three distinct elements of police corruption must be present simultaneously: 1 misuse of authority, 2 police corruption essay of official capacity, police corruption essay, and 3 misuse of personal attainment.
Dantzker, p It can be said that power inevitably tends to corrupt, and it is yet to be recognized that, while there is no reason to suppose that policemen as individuals are any less fallible than other members of society, people are often shocked and outraged when policemen are exposed violating the law, police corruption essay. The reason police corruption essay simple. There deviance elicits a special feeling of betrayal.
However it is not particularly obvious where brutality, police corruption essay, discrimination, and misconduct end and corruption begin. Essentially, police corruption essay, police corruption falls into two major categories— external corruption which concerns police contacts with the public, and internal corruption, which involves the relationships among policemen within the works of the police department.
The external corruption generally consists of one ore more of the following activities: 1 Payoffs to police by essentially non-criminal elements who fail to comply with stringent statutes or city ordinances; for example, individuals who repeatedly violate traffic laws.
They have known of narcotics violations and have failed to take proper enforcement action. They have police corruption essay into personal associations with narcotics criminals and in some cases have used narcotics. They have given false testimony in court in order to obtain dismissal of the charges against a defendant.
New York, for instance, police corruption essay had more than a half dozen major scandals concerning its police department within a century. It was the Knapp Commission in that first brought attention to the NYPD when they released the results of over 2 years of investigations of alleged corruption.
The findings were that bribery, especially among narcotics officers, was extremely high. As police corruption essay result many officers were prosecuted and many more lost their jobs. A massive re-structuring took place afterwards with strict rules and regulations to make sure that the problem would never happen again, police corruption essay.
Some of the most recent events to shake New York City and bring attention to the national problem of police corruption was brought up beginning in when five officers were arrested on drug-trafficking charges.
Dowd was a drug dealer. From scoring free pizza as a rookie he graduated to pocketing cash seized in drug raids and from there simply to robbing dealers outright, sometimes also relieving them of drugs that he would resell. When the arrests hit the papers, it was forehead-slapping time among police brass. Not only had some of their cops become robbers, but the crimes had to be uncovered by a suburban police force. Politicians and the media started asking what had happened to the system for rooting police corruption essay police corruption established 21 years ago at the urging of the Knapp Police corruption essay, the investigatory body that heard Officer Frank Serpico and other police describe a citywide network of rogue cops.
New York Times, March 29, police corruption essay, p 8 To find out, police corruption essay, at the time, New York City mayor David Dinkins established the Mollen Commission, named for its chairman, Milton Mollen, a former New York judge. Last week, in the same Manhattan hearing room where the Knapp Commission once sat, the new body heard Dowd and other officers add another lurid chapter to the old story of police corruption.
New York Times, April 3, p. But the tales, nevertheless, were troubling. Dowd described how virtually the entire precinct patrol force would rendezvous at times at an inlet on Jamaica Bay, where they would drink, shoot off guns in the air and plan their illegal drug raids.
New York Times, Nov. The knapp commission in the New York found that although corruption among police officers was not restricted to this area, the bulk of it involved payments of money to the police from gamblers police corruption essay prostitutes, police corruption essay.
Gambling syndicates in the s were protected by a payoff system more elaborate than the Internal Revenue Service. Pervasive corruption may have lessened in recent years, as many experts believe, police corruption essay, but individual examples seem to have grown more outrageous, police corruption essay. In March authorities in Atlanta broke up a ring of weight-lifting officers who were charged with robbing strip clubs and private homes, and even carrying off lb.
safes from retail stores. Washington Post, Jan 18, p. In the police corruption essay Philadelphia saw more than 30 officers convicted of taking part in a scheme to extort money from dealers. In Los Angeles an FBI probe focusing on the L, police corruption essay. Attorney Steven Bauer, police corruption essay. Many of those involved had been hired when the department had beefed up quickly after the riots and the Mariel boatlift. Carter, pp. The Mollen Commission testimony could also lead to second thoughts on the growth of community policing, the back-to-the-beat philosophy that in recent years has been returning officers to neighborhood patrol in cities around the country, including New York.
Getting to know the neighborhood can mean finding more occasions for bribe taking, which is one reason that in many places beat patrolling was scaled back since the s in favor of more isolated squad-car teams. The real test of a department is not so much whether its officers are tempted by money but whether there is an institutional culture that discourages them from succumbing.
But that may not be the case anymore. Police sergeant Joseph Trimboli, a department investigator, told the Mollen Commission that when he tried to root out Dowd and other corrupt cops, police corruption essay, his efforts were blocked by higher-ups in the department. At one point, Trimboli claimed, he was called to a meeting of police officials and told he was under suspicion as a drug trafficker. The Mollen Commission is recommend the establishment of an outside monitoring agency, a move that Kelly and other police brass have expressed some reservations about.
Attorney Thomas Puccio, who prosecuted a number of police-corruption cases. In many cities that have them, internal affairs divisions are resented within the ranks for getting cops to turn in other cops — informers are even recruited from police-academy cadets — police corruption essay for rarely targeting the brass.
New York Times, Mar, police corruption essay. Probably not because since its beginnings, many aspects of policing have changed, but one thing that has not is the existence of corruption.
Police agencies, in an attempt to eliminate corruption have tried everything from increasing salaries, requiring more training and education, and developing polices which are intended to focus directly on factors leading to corruption. What have all these changes done to eliminate or even decrease the corruption problem? Little or nothing. Regardless of the fact, police corruption cannot simply be over looked. Controlling corruption is the only way that we can really limit corruption, because corruption is the by-product of the individual police officer, societal views, and, police corruption essay, police environmental factors.
Therefore control must come from not only the police department, but also must require the assistance and support of the community members. Controlling corruption from the departmental level requires a strong leadership organization, because corruption can take place any where from the patrol officer to the chief. The top administrator must make it clear from the start that he and the other members of the department are against any form of corrupt activity, and that it will not be tolerated in any way, shape, or form.
If a police administrator does not act strongly police corruption essay disciplinary action against any corrupt activity, the message conveyed to other officers within the department will not be that of intimated nature.
In addition it may even increase corruption, because officers feel no actions will be taken against them. Another way that police agencies can control its corruption problem starts originally in the academy. Ethical decisions and behavior should be promoted, because failing to do make officers aware of the consequences police corruption essay corruption does nothing but encourages it, police corruption essay.
Finally, many police departments, especially large ones, have an Internal Affairs unit which operates to investigate improper conduct of police departments.
These units some times are run within the department or can be a total outside agency to insure that there is not corruption from within the Internal Affairs unit, as was alleged in the NYPD corruption scandal. Such a unit may be all that is need to prevent many officers from being tempted into falling for corrupt behavior patterns. Although the police agency should be the main source of controlling its own corruption problem, police corruption essay, there also requires some support and assistance from the local community.
It is important that the public be educated to the negative affects of corruption on their police agency. The community may even go as far as establishing review boards, and investigative bodies to help keep a careful eye on the agency.
If we do not act to try and control it, the costs can be enormous, police corruption essay, because it affects not only the individual, his department, the law enforcement community police corruption essay a whole, but society as well.
Police corruption can be controlled; it just takes a little extra effort. And In the long run, that effort will be well worth it to both the agency and the community.
Walker, p. The powers given by the state to the police to use force have always caused concern. Although police corruption essay have been made to control corruption, numerous opportunities exist for deviant and corrupt practices. The opportunity to acquire power in excess of that which is legally permitted or to misuse power is always available. Police corruption essay police subculture is a contributing factor to these practices, because officers who often act in a corrupt manner are often over looked, and condoned by other members of the subculture.
As mentioned from the very beginning of this report the problem of police deviance and corruption will never be completely solved, just as the police will never be able to solve the crime problem in our society. One step in the right direction, however, police corruption essay, is the monitoring and control of the police and the appropriate use of police style to enforce laws and to provide service to the public.
Works CitedBeals, GregoryOct Why Good Cops Go Police corruption essay. Bearing the Badge of Mistrust. The Washington Post, p. Dantzker, Mark L. The New York Times, p. James, GeorgeNov.
MTSU police officer’s own body cam helps convict him in corruption case
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Police Corruption Is a Major Problem Throughout. Words: Length: 6 Pages Document Type: Research Paper Paper #: Read Full Paper. Police corruption is a major problem throughout the world. As people of a civilized society we depend on our police department to protect us and the stop crimes from happening Police Corruption Essay Words 4 Pages Corruption is a type of misconduct and offense in which the police break their contract and oath by abusing their power for personal gain or even for departmental gain Police corruption=h (Crime rates, reporting of crime A, B3) Each category of the equations above consists of exogenous variables A, which are universal to all statements. Exogenous variables B are particular to each equation
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