FREE ESSAY ON POLICE CORRUPTION

POLICE CORRUPTION

Analysis Of Police Corruption
Analysis of Police Corruption Police corruption is a complex phenomenon, which does not
readily submit to simple analysis. 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 increased
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. For a corrupt act to occure, three distinct elements
of police corruption must be present simultaneously: 1) missuse of authority, 2) missuse
of official capacity, and 3) missuse of personal attainment. (Dantzker, 1995: p 157) It
can be said that power inevitably tends to corrupt, and it is yet to be recongnized 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. The reason is simple. There diviance elicits a special feeling
of betrayal. Most studies support the view that corruption is endemic, if not universal,
in police departments. The danger of corruption for police, and this is that it may
invert the formal goals of the organization and may lead to the use of organizational
power to encourage and create crime rather than to deter it (Sherman 1978: p 31) General
police deviance can include brutality, discrimination, sexual harassment, intimidation,
and illicit use of weapons. However it is not particularly obvious where brutality,
discrimination, and misconduct end and corruption begin. Essentially, 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 concists 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, inviduals who repeatedly violate traffic laws). 2) Payoffs to police by
individuals who continually violate the law as a method of making money (for example,
prostitutes, narcotics addicts and pusshers, & professional burglars). 3) Clean Graft
where money is paid to police for services, or where courtesy discounts are given as a
matter of course to the police. Police officers have been involved in activities such as
extortion of money and/or narcotics from narcotics viloators in order to aviod arrest;
they have accepted bribes; they have sold narcotics. They have known of narcotics
vilolations and have failed to take proper enforcement action. They have entered 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. (Sherman 1978: p 129) A scandal is perceived both as a socially
constructed phenomenon and as an agent of change that can lead to realignments in the
structure of power within oraganizations. New york, for instance, has had more than a
half dozen major scandals concerning its police department within a century. It was the
Knapp Commission in 1972 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 amoung narcotics officers, was extremely high. As a result many
officers were prosecuted and many more lost their jobs. A massive re-structuring took
place aftewards with strict rules and regulations to make sure that the problem would
never happen again. Be that as it may, the problem did arrise once gain... Some of the
most recent events to shake New York City and bring attention to the national problem of
police corruption was brought up begining in 1992 when five officers were arrested on
drug-trafficing charges. Michael Dowd, the suspected 'ring leader', was the kind of cop
who gave new meaning to the word moonlighting. It wasn't just any job that the 10-year
veteran of the New York City force was working on the side. 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. Soon he had formed ``a crew'' of 15 to 20 officers in his Brooklyn
precinct who hit up dealers regularly. Eventually one of them was paying Dowd and another
officer $8,000 a week in protection money. Dowd bought four suburban homes and a $35,000
red Corvette. Nobody asked how he managed all that on take-home pay of $400 a week. In
May 1992 Dowd, four other officers and one former officer were arrested for drug
trafficking by police in Long Island's Suffolk County. 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 out police
corruption established 21 years ago at the urging of the Knapp Commission, the
investigatory body that heard Officer Frank Serpico and other police describe a citywide
network of rogue cops. (New York Times, March 29, 1993: p 8) To find out, 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. And with many
American cities wary that drug money will turn their departments bad, police brass around
the country were lending an uneasy ear to the tales of officers sharing lines of coke
from the dashboard of their squad cars and scuttling down fire escapes with sacks full of
cash stolen from dealers' apartments. (New York Times, April 3, 1993: p. 5) The Mollen
Commission has not uncovered a citywide system of payoffs among the 30,000-member force.
In fact, last week's testimony focused on three precincts, all in heavy crime areas. 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.
17, 1993: p. 3) It was victimless crimes problem which many view was a prime cause in the
growth of police abuse. Reports have shown that the large majority of corrupt acts by
police involve payoffs from both the perpetrators and the victims of victimless crimes.
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 and prostitutes. (Knapp Commission Report, 1973: pp 1-3) ``The cops who
were engaged in corruption 20 years ago took money to cover up the criminal activity of
others,'' says Michael Armstrong, who was chief counsel to the Knapp Commission. `` Now
it seems cops have gone into competition with street criminals.'' (Newsweek, Oct 21,1992:
p. 18) For cops as for anyone else, money works age for crooked police. Gambling
syndicates in the 1950s 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, but individual examples seem to have grown more outrageous. 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 450-lb. safes from retail
stores. (Washington Post, Jan 18, 1993: p. 11) The deluge of cash that has flowed from
the drug trade has created opportunities for quick dirty money on a scale never seen
before. In the 1980s 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.A.
County sheriff's department has resulted so far in 36 indictments and 19 convictions on
charges related to enormous thefts of cash during drug raids -- more than $1 million in
one instance. ``The deputies were pursuing the money more aggressively than they were
pursuing drugs,'' says Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Bauer. (Washington Post, Jan 18,
1993: p. 11) When cities enlarge their police forces quickly in response to public fears
about crime, it can also mean an influx of younger and less well-suited officers. That
was a major reason for the enormous corruption scandal that hit Miami in the mid-1980s,
when about 10% of the city's police were either jailed, fired or disciplined in
connection with a scheme in which officers robbed and sometimes killed cocaine smugglers
on the Miami River, then resold the drugs. Many of those involved had been hired when the
department had beefed up quickly after the 1980 riots and the Mariel boatlift. ``We
didn't get the quality of officers we should have,'' says department spokesman Dave
Magnusson. (Carter, 1989: pp. 78-79) When it came time to clean house, says former Miami
police chief Perry Anderson, civil service board members often chose to protect corrupt
cops if there was no hard evidence to convict them in the courts. ``I tried to fire 25
people with tarnished badges, but it was next to impossible,'' he recalls. (Carter, 1989:
pp. 78-79) 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
1960s 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. In Los Angeles the sheriff's department
``brought us the case,'' says FBI special agent Charlie Parsons. ``They worked with us
hand in glove throughout the investigation.'' (Washington Post, Jan 18, 1993: p. 11) In
the years after it was established, following the Knapp Commission disclosures, the New
York City police department's internal affairs division was considered one of the
nation's most effective in stalking corruption. 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, 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. ``They did not
want this investigation to exist,'' he said. (New York Times, April 3, 1993: p. 5) It was
at this time that New York City police commissioner, at the time, Raymond Kelly announced
a series of organizational changes, including a larger staff and better-coordinated field
investigations, intended to improve internal affairs. His critics say those changes don't
go far enough. Much of that happened after Kelly's reforms had been announced. 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. ``No group is good
at policing itself,'' says Knapp Commission counsel Armstrong. ``It doesn't hurt to have
somebody looking over their shoulder.'' An independent body, however, might be less
effective at getting co- operation from cops prone to close ranks against outsiders.
``You have to have the confidence of officers and information about what's going on
internally,'' says former U.S. Attorney Thomas Puccio, who prosecuted a number of
police-corruption cases. (New York Times, April 3, 1993: p. 5) Getting that information
was no easier when officers were encouraged to report wrongdoing to authorities within
their own department. 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 -- and for rarely targeting the brass. ``One of the
things that has come out in the hearings is a culture within the department which seems
to permit corruption to exist,'' says Walter Mack, a one time federal prosecutor who is
now New York's deputy commissioner of internal affairs. ``But when you're talking about
cultural change, you're talking about many years. It's not something that occurs
overnight.'' (New York Post, June 14, 1993: p. 28) Dowd, who was sentenced prison on
guilty please, put it another way. ``Cops don't want to turn in other cops,'' he said.
``Cops don't want to be a rat.'' And even when honest cops are willing to blow the
whistle, there may not be anyone willing to listen. (New York Times, Mar. 29, 1993: p.
14) Is there a solution to the police corruption problem? Probably not because since its
beginings, many aspects of policing have changed, but one thing that has not is the
existence of corruption. Police agenies, in an attempt to elminate 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. Despite police departments' attempts to control corruption, it still
occurs. Regardless of the fact, police corruption cannot simply be over looked.
Controling 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 environmental factors. Therefore control must come from not only the police
department, but also must require the assistance and support of the community members.
Controling 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 tollerated in any way, shape, or form. If a police administrator does not act strongly
with 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 orginally in
the academy. Ethical decisions and behavior should be promoted, because failing to do
make officers aware of the consequences of corruption does nothing but encourages it.
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 1992 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 agaency
should be the main source of controling its own corruption problem, 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. They should be
taught that even 'graitudes' (the most basic and common form of police corruption) is
only a catalyst for more and future corruption. 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, because it
affects not only the individual, his department, the law enforcement community as 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, 1992: p. 89) The powers given by the state to the police to
use force have always caused concern. Although improvements have been made to control
corruption, numerous opportunities exist for deviant and corrupt practices. The
opportunity to aquire power in excess of that which is legally permitted or to misuse
power is always available. The 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 begining 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, 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 Cited 
Beals, Gregory (1993, Oct 21). Why Good Cops Go Bad. Newsweek, p. 18. Carter, David L.
(1986). Deviance & Police. Ohio: Anderson Publishing Co. Castaneda, Ruben (1993, Jan.
18). Bearing the Badge of Mistrust. The Washington Post, p. 11. Dantzker, Mark L. (1995,
). Understanding Today's Police. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. James, George (1993,
Mar. 29). Confessions of Corruption. The New York Times, p. 8. James, George (1993, Nov.
17). Officials Say Police Corruption is Hard To Stop. The New York Times, p. 3. Sherman,
Lawrence W (1978). Scandal And Reform. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Simpson, Scott T. (1993, June 14). Mollen Commission Findings. New York Post, p. 28
Walker, J.T. (1992). Briefs of 100 leading cases in the law enforcement. Cincinnati:
Anderson Publishing Company. Weber, Bruce (1993, April 3). Confessions of Corruption. The
New York Times, p. 5.