Police Corruption Report

Chicago has had its share of police corruption and scandals throughout the city’s history. Officials always vowing that corruption will never happen. One of the corruption cases that caught my attention was about Joseph Miedzianowski. According to NewOne, Joseph Miedzianowski is ranked number 4 as the most corrupt cop in the U.S. of all time. Joseph Miedzianowski was a Chicago police officer for 22 years. He served as a police officer and a drug kingpin shaking down drug dealers. He also ran Chicago’s gang unit and his own gang dealing drugs (NewsOne. 2011).

This type of corruption gave a bad reputation to officers because some community did not trust the police. Some community would rather take care of a problem them selves rather then calling the police. According to In Criminal justice in America by Cole and Smith states, “In many cities, the police seemed to work for the mayor’s political party rather than for the citizens”(Cole, Page 112). This shows that a police officer in the political era rarely interact with the

Special units in police forces are essential to the function of any organization, however some of these special units might evolve into feeling superior to the rest of the agency. The mentality of doing it their own way sets in and more likely than not this behavior is not cohesive with the policies and procedures in place by the agency. Unfortunately, this attitude develops from not being checked, and leads to the unit feeling as though they are untouchable. When not having checks and balances

Growing up our parent always told us that police officers were the good guys, and the people that committed crimes were the bad guys. There was a time in our lives that we believed that this was true, police are good, and criminals are bad, simple as that. Police officers played a prominent role in our lives growing up, some were looked at as role models, guidance counselors, but most of all they were our friends. However, at what point did that connection dissipate between police officers and the community? This disconnection was most prominently exemplified in the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD), where officer corruption, murder, and lawlessness was ramped within the department. Corruption had become a culture, a way of life for some officers in New Orleans, where supervisors dismissed allegations. Could the use of Rotten Apple mechanism help reduce the corruption in the NOPD? Comparatively, could the application of the Rotten Barrel models provide protection from police misconduct during an investigation?

In a survey 52% of police officers said it is common for law enforcement officials to disregard the inappropriate conduct of other officers. While 61% of officers claimed they usually do not report serious abuse that they have directly witnessed by colleagues. Yes, we all know that there are always going to be a few corrupt and unethical people within every profession, but these statistics show that within the police officer profession there are far more than a few corrupt and unethical

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

After the civil war, local politicians rewarded their supporters with jobs as police officers. The officer were not trained and there was not a standard to become an officer. The are were event when entire departments were involved in misconduct and corruption. There was not much hope in this era because there was a lack of supervision that allowed officers to behave the way that they pleased. (Walker, Samuel, and Richards, M. 1996)

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%

In 1990’s the justice department said that New Orleans was the highest country with complaints of police brutality in 1994 there were than forty officers arrested for bribery, rape, bank robbery and Police corruption has been an issue for many years. Len Davis had worked for the Fifth District with officer Sammy Williams and Paul Hardy as patrolmen. Their salary at that time was $18,000 a year. Davis and his partners took thousands of dollar pleasure trips and took on a leadership role of drug racket getting under table payments to other New Orleans police department recruited to guard warehouse of cocaine (Mustian, 2014).

It is obvious that police officers are using their jobs as law enforcers to obtain illegal items and are shamefully betraying their police departments. The policemen who were involved in this drug smuggle were veterans. When people think of veterans, whether it be a veteran of war or a veteran of a police department, we think of someone who has devoted many years, served and been loyal to the service. People have admiration for veterans and recognize them for being committed to the service as well as being faithful to every year they have been involved in it. Now the four veteran police officers from Chicago will be spending time in prison instead of adding more years to the service of policing. Those years that the veteran police officers were dedicated to the policing is now history, they could have helped lower crime rates in Chicago, but instead they are facing prison time.

Many officers use alcohol and drugs while on duty. Although this commonly occurs in undercover agents, it can happen with even your regular patrol officers. This type of misconduct occurs because there is typically a lack of supervision, a massive availability of contraband, and an exposure to the criminal element. Graft on the other hand, is when the officer exploits their role by accepting bribes or money protection (Pollock, 2012). Such conduct occurs when officers use their uniformed authority to create a personal supply of money (Lyman 2005). Sexual misconduct occurs when officers use their authority as a way to receive sexual acts from citizens of society. This happens mainly with male officers towards female citizens. This type of misconduct also occurs within the department, mainly through sexual harassment of female officers. The final component of corruption and misconduct is that of criminal cops. These officers have basically switched to criminal activity in their day to day tasks (Pollock, 2012).

The criminal justice system is made up of many fundamentals. Officers need to go through a variety of procedures in the hiring process, and once completed they need to go through a training academy. Many U.S. citizens have witnessed a broken criminal justice system throughout the years. Citizens observe officers causing a huge attempt of corruption. Corruption is occurring worldwide and is making our law enforcement system look unprofessional. Our criminal justice system is not all fully corrupted; only certain individuals are. Police get engaged with certain individuals and get brained wash with the mentality of doing the wrong choices and not getting caught because they know how the system works. The majority of law enforcement officers are competent, honest, professional, but there are some that use their license to steal and/or kill. Some police officers are involved with drug trafficking, involving innocent people with crimes, and causing harm to our society.

Corruption is all over the states, some however is worse than the others. In Detroit, a former Chicago police officer on the lam for 14 years was arrested last Tuesday. Former Chicago PD Sgt. Eddie Hicks, 68, had fled on the eve of his drug conspiracy trial in 2003. He had been charged in 2001 with running a crew of rogue officers who robbed drug dealers, stole their cash and sold their drugs to other dealers. (Smith, 2017) Smith (2017) study found the following:

I’ve always had an interest in Criminal Justice due to most of my neighbor’s family being in the criminal justice system themselves and how much of an interest they brought to me from it throughout my whole life and how they put their lives at risk every single day just to help the community out in one way or the other. It requires a lot of effort and dedication from self being to even get into a good system and it’s all a gamble maybe the system you’re in is good or maybe it’s bad. We must put our faith into what the system does due to the hard work they do day in and day out and we must hope that everyone working there just abides by the rules. They portray themselves to us as a sort of a super hero to the public because of course they risk their lives for us meanwhile they try to hide the true them. When you first enter the academy, they provide you with a set of rules that you must follow in order to even get in and that you must always follow them as a code of honor and oath. They tell you that you must always put the people’s safety first then yours and that no corruption what so ever is allowed and if ever seen to be reported immediately. However, those who “enforce” that rule the most tend to be the sectors with the most active police corrupted service. What exactly is police corruption you may ask? It is the misuse of power by the police for their own personal gain some examples of it can be bribery which is one of the least common believe it or not, most of police

"The Knapp Commission was a committee of five citizens, substantiate and panel by then-New York City Mayor John Lindsay in 1972 that endeavored to investigate corrupt activities of police officers, detectives, and supervisors working in the New York Police Department" (Knapp Commission). The Mayor of New York, John Lindsay, was stress to investigate corruption in the NYPD, after some reports that appeared in local newspapers detailed an extended length of corrupted officers throughout the NYPD. Upon the investigation, Lindsay figured out there was more going on in the New York Police Department, that was lead on. There were two police officers, nevertheless, who were upset with how the New York Police Department was operating. Frank Serpico and David Durk, who became increasingly frustrated after attempting to report corrupt activities to their supervisors. (Knapp Commission) Mayor Lindsay brought in local district attorneys to help with