Corruption may involve profit or another type of material benefit gained illegally as a consequence of the officer's authority. The term also refers to patterns of misconduct within a given police department or special unit, particularly where offenses are repeated with the acquiescence of superiors or through other ongoing failure to correct them.
Safeguards against police misconduct exist throughout the law. Police departments themselves establish codes of conduct, train new recruits, and investigate and discipline officers, sometimes in cooperation with civilian complaint review boards which are intended to provide independent evaluative and remedial advice. Protections are also found in state law, which permits victims to sue police for damages in civil actions. State actions may be brought simultaneously with additional claims for constitutional violations.
Through both criminal and civil statutes, federal law specifically targets police misconduct. Federal law is applicable to all state, county, and local officers, including those who work in correctional facilities. The key federal criminal statute makes it unlawful for anyone acting with police authority to deprive or conspire to deprive another person of any right protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States Section 18 U.
Leading on from this, if citizens do not trust the police, they are much less likely to cooperate with them, resulting in higher unsolved crime rates.
Police corruption assumes numerous forms, from relatively benign but irritating demands for bribes from motorists to improper procurement procedures and—most dangerously—collusion with organized crime gangs in the trafficking of drugs, weapons, and humans, and occasionally even in contract killing.
Many factors drive police corruption, including inadequate salaries, frustration with the leniency of the courts, opportunity, envy of wealthy criminals , and simple greed.
Combating it is no easy task, but methods that have significantly lowered corruption rates in countries such as Singapore and Georgia include reducing discretionary decision-making, radical restructuring, risk assessments, greater use of psychological testing, improving working conditions, lifestyle monitoring, civilian review, and introducing anti-corruption agencies that are completely independent of the police.
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Oxford Research Encyclopedias. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology. Advanced search. First, a corrupt act is a crime. Second, police corruption detracts from the integrity of the police and tarnishes the public image of law enforcement.
Third, corruption protects other criminal activity such as drug dealing and prostitution. Protected criminal activities are often lucrative sources of income for organized crime. The causes of police corruption. According to the rotten apple theory , corruption is the work of a few, dishonest, immoral police officers.
Experts dismiss this theory because it fails to explain why so many corrupt officers become concentrated in some police organizations but not others. Another explanation pinpoints U. Unenforceable laws governing moral standards promote corruption because they provide criminal organizations with a financial interest in undermining law enforcement. Narcotic corruption , for example, is an inevitable consequence of drug enforcement. Providers of these illegal goods and service use part of their profits to bribe the police in order to ensure the continuation of criminal enterprises.
Rooting out police corruption.
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