Police Corruption
The mission statement of The Los Angeles Police Department is as follows: "It is the mission of The Los Angeles Police Department to safeguard the lives and property of the people we serve, to reduce the incidence and fear of crime, and to enhance public safety while working with the diverse communities to improve their quality of life. Our mandate is to do so with honor and integrity, while at all times conducting ourselves with the highest ethical standards to maintain public confidence (The Mission Statement of the LAPD).” Although this should be the type of code police officers should follow, it is not the case for some. Police corruption is a case that occurs on a global scale. Police corruption violates the
…show more content…
A reason corruption within the department is happening may be a result of officer training. The thing that is drilled into an officer's head during training is officer safety (White). If an officer is placed in a situation where they feel threatened, they may sometimes act inappropriately. While the statement regarding officer safety might be true, it could get into some officer's heads. The meaning can then change, and evolve into something it’s not. These officers apply this mindset to other aspects of the job. They begin to believe that they are more important than the citizens they have vowed to protect. Another theory that may account for police corruption is the idea that once an officer departs from the academy, things change quickly. The principles that were taught in the academy may not directly relate with what the real job truly is. This is because each department takes credit for different procedures and policies, which might have been different in the academy. Field training officers at times tell the new recruits that what they learned in the academy doesn't apply to the real world, since the academy instructors are not fully aware of what goes on in the streets (White). The new training the officers receive after that may result in corruption. Integrity is the key to discovering if officers will follow along, and become corrupt. Integrity is defined as adherence to
Reforming recruit training is the most common response among police agencies attempting to deal with corruption. There is, in this regard, a straightforward link between training, competence and malpractice/corruption. Straightforwardly, the better officers are at using legitimate means, the less they will need to have recourse to illegitimate ones. Police agencies that train their officers, and provide them with the resources they require to achieve the goals of the job legitimately should find that its officers are less likely to fall into corruption or misconduct.
According to the textbook, Neal Trautman’s corruption continuum helps clarify the unscrupulous activities of cops. The corruption continuum includes four levels on how organizations can become corrupt. The principal level is as per the following: usage of approaches that guarantee that officers know the moral decides that they need to take after. On the off chance that the manager neglects to do this, then officers will trust that they can be degenerate and no will make a move to fix it. The following level is the procedure that includes police chiefs not doing anything when they know of exploitative acts are being dedicated by officers or when they attempt to cover for those officers who take part in defilement. The third level includes officers
In Joycelyn M. Pollock’s Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice, she quotes that police corruption is “acting on opportunities created by virtue of one 's authority, for personal gain at the expense of the public one is authorized to serve" (Cohen, 1986). Some examples of corruption that Barker (1994) have listed are: corruption of authority (gratuities), kickbacks, opportunistic theft, shakedowns, protection of illegal activities, fixes (quashing tickets), direct criminal activities, and internal payoffs. Fyfe and Kane (2006) argue the case that in some situations when police officers commit crime, it can’t be called corruption if the criminal act is being committed off duty. They are just criminals who happen to be cops and being a cop has no
Police corruption is an on going battle in the police force now a days. There are many different hypotheses for it to include the Society-at-Large hypothesis, Structural or Affiliation hypothesis, and the Rotten Apple hypothesis. Also there is the slippery slope theory as well. First lets look at the slippery slope. A slippery slope is defined as “a process or series of events that is hard to stop or control once is has begun and that usually leads to worse or more difficult things”(Merriam Webster, 2015) .
Corruption within the New York Police Department is a quickly growing phenomenon; to an extent, this is largely due to the cop culture that encourages silence and draws the line at honesty. The good, honest officers are afraid to speak up against co-workers and in the process become corrupt themselves. When police departments were first established in the mid-nineteenth century, corruption quickly followed suit. It began with minor acts of misconduct and today deals with serious criminal activities. Scholars have noted that there is a strong correlation between the officers taking part in corrupt acts and officers wanting to fit in with the culture. In this paper, I argue that the deeper an officer in the New York police department gets into the police culture, the more likely it is that they become involved in narcotic corruption
Police corruption can also be explained by the lack of protection and security police feel they have. They also feel like they are being disrespected by individuals in society, which is why they rely on the subculture for protection and support (Skolnick, 1966). The police subculture has created a lot of secrecy within the organization, which contributes to police misconduct. Police officers will often ignore another police officer’s corrupt actions in order to maintain a good reputation within the subculture (Tator & Henry, 2006). For example, 84% of police officers have directly witnessed another officer using more force than necessary out on the streets (US Department of Justice, 2017). However, instead of reporting the acts of others, 52%
As the world becomes more globalized, English seems to dominate the world as the leader of languages. Seth Mydans states in his article, "Across Cultures, English is the Word," that English will become the language of the world and that there is no slowing down. Mydans utilizes statistics to his advantage throughout the majority of his article, noting that nearly eighty percent of the world's electronic information is recorded in English and that around 400 million people speak English as a first language, with 300 to 500 million as a second language. He also mentions that the United States, the largest English-speaking nation in the world, houses only twenty percent of the nation's English-speakers, with Asia having an estimated 350 million English-speakers. These numbers help the audience understand how widely known and valuable English is in modern day society, and, in turn, establish logos in Mydans' article.
In simple terms, corruption in policing is usually viewed as the misuse of authority by a police officer acting to fulfill personal needs or wants. For a corrupt act to occur, three distinct elements of police corruption must be present simultaneously:
Police corruption is one of the ethical issues affecting law enforcement officers. Corruption is defined as “impairment of integrity, virtue or moral principle; inducement to do wrong by improper or unlawful means” (Merriam Webster Online, 2009). While the most recognizable form of corruption involves officers taking money for favors (bribery), the actions that are considered corruption include filing false police reports, harassment of any person due to sex, race, creed, religion, national origin or sexual orientation, and failure to protect the rights of citizens. Corruption exists in all levels of law enforcement.
The cases that are mostly seen worldwide with police corruption are due to drugs and drug trafficking. Police officers get involved with the “easy money” and believe the theory of “I will not get caught”; it is miserable and emotional to see the United States law enforcement get caught up in these cases. “In 2012, two corrupt cops joined forces with drug dealers and are now facing jail time; they put dozens of criminal cases in jeopardy. Officers Diaz and Patrick Mara admitted to ripping off drug dealers of their methamphetamine during traffic stops. This was the beginning to police corruption in Kern County.”(Richard Winton) The two police officers were corrupt since a while back. “They both pleaded guilty to their charge and got punished for it. Officer Diaz would not fully report the drugs they would find and instead would keep more than half. Officer Mara was caught selling methamphetamine to other individuals.” (Diaz and Mara admitted) Other cases they were involved in are now put under jeopardy and could possibly be missed charged. Cops should not allow such horrific thing to occur. If they know about a corrupt cop they should immediately report it. People and younger
Police corruption contributes to the misuse of police powers because it involves the use of favoritism, bribery, shakedown, and perjury. Police corruption can be caused from discretion, low managerial visibility, low public visibility, and politics. Police officers are given a wide range of discretion on how to handle situations and that often leads to the abuse of power. Also, managers are not always watching over the officer’s shoulder to ensure that the right thing is being done, and the public does not often see the actions of the police. Which means they can get away with a lot of wrongful actions. Politics can create corruption in policing because politics can affect hiring standards, promotions, discipline, and adequate budget. There have been instances where a political leader would tell management who they want to be promoted. That is wrong because promotions should be dependent on your work ability, not because of political influence. There is also external corruption that will convince the officer to engage in payoffs and gratuities. For example: drug dealers would give police officers a percentage of their profit so that they can continue to sell and not go to jail. (Locke, 1996)
Police officers may or may not actively support noble-cause corruption. Sometimes when officers become aware of corrupt or illegal forms of misconduct, they are inclined to “turn a blind eye or look the other way.” It puts their fellow officers in a very difficult position, most officers tend to think that if they turn away and ignore it and do not acknowledge what is going on that they are not part of the misconduct or illegal activity. Most
that they should not have to deal with is when a situation comes up with one of their
From the first police station built in Boston to what is today's modern police force there has always been corruption inside the criminal justice system, whether it be something as little as a small bribe to look the other way, or something more serious like getting away with a major offense. The department of justice has had trouble from top to bottom with corruption and it has proven to be a difficult problem to fix. When policing in the U. S. were just starting out corruption and law bending was more prevalent but harder to see which Police officers who were following the rules and who was bending the law in their own favor to gain an advantage for themselves rather than looking out for the community as a whole. This is because when policing first started out there were limited officers, which meant less word of mouth and less people to respond to and
Some argue that corrupt police officers are simply the product of a corrupt culture of the agency they work for. These officers are socially introduced to a number of informal rules when they begin employment. This process and these rules serve two main purposes. First, this process is designed to minimize the chances of external or internal controls being mobilized to address the behaviors and, secondly, to keep corrupt activities at a level that is acceptable and likely undetectable. The rule most often referred to in this connection, is the “Code of Silence.” Officers are socialized into not cooperating with investigations regarding fellow officers. Whether or not the officer participates in corrupt activities for financial gain, an officer’s adherence to the “Code of Silence” places them squarely amongst the corrupt of the profession (Price, 1972).