Police corruption

Police corruption is a specific form of police misconduct designed to obtain financial benefits, other personal gain, and/or career advancement for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest. One common form of police corruption is soliciting and/or accepting bribes in exchange for not reporting organized drug or prostitution rings or other illegal activities. Another example is police officers flouting the police code of conduct in order to secure convictions of suspects for example, through the use of falsified evidence. More rarely, police officers may deliberately and systematically participate in organized crime themselves. In most major cities there are internal affairs sections to investigate suspected police corruption or misconduct. Similar entities include the British Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Corrupt acts by police officers

Police officers have various opportunities to gain personally from their status and authority as law enforcement officers. The Knapp Commission, which investigated corruption in the New York City Police Department in the early 1970s, divided corrupt officers into two types: meat-eaters, who "aggressively misuse their police powers for personal gain," and grass-eaters, who "simply accept the payoffs that the happenstances of police work throw their way."[1] The sort of corrupt acts that have been committed by police officers have been classified as follows:[2]
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Corruption of authority: police officers receiving free drinks, meals, and other gratuities. Kickbacks: receiving payment from referring people to other businesses. This can include, for instance, contractors and tow truck operators.[3] Opportunistic theft from arrestees and crime victims or their corpses. Shakedowns: accepting bribes for not pursuing a criminal violation. Protection of illegal activity: being "on the take", accepting payment from the operators of illegal establishments such as brothels, casinos, or drug dealers to protect them from law enforcement and keep them in operation. "Fixing": undermining criminal prosecutions by losing traffic tickets or failing to appear at judicial hearings, for bribery or as a personal favor. Direct criminal activities of law enforcement officers themselves.[4] Internal payoffs: prerogatives and perquisites of law enforcement organizations, such as shifts and holidays, being bought and sold. The "frameup": the planting or adding to evidence, especially in drug cases.

Prevalence of police corruption

Accurate information about the prevalence of police corruption is hard to come by, since the corrupt activities tend to happen in secret and police organizations have little incentive to publish information about corruption.[5] Police officials and researchers alike have argued that in some countries, large-scale corruption involving the police not only exists but can even become institutionalized.[6] One study of corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department (focusing particularly on the Rampart scandal) proposed that certain forms of police corruption may be the norm, rather than the exception, in American policing.[7] Where corruption exists, the widespread existence of a Blue Code of Silence among the police can prevent the corruption from coming to light. Officers in these situations commonly fail to report corrupt behavior or provide false testimony to outside investigators to cover up criminal activity by their fellow officers.[8] The well-known case of Frank Serpico, a police officer who spoke out about pervasive corruption in the NYPD despite the open hostility of other members, illustrates how powerful the code of silence can be. In Australia in 1994, by 46 votes to 45, independent politician John Hatton forced the New South Wales state government to override the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the advice of senior police to establish a ground-breaking Royal Commission