What are the different types of police corruption? What themes run through the finding of the Knapp Commission and the Wickersham Commission?
What innovative steps might police departments take to reduce or eliminate corruption among their officers?
Police corruption ranges from minor violations to serious violations of the law. Examples might include accepting gratuities, playing favorites, taking minor or major bribes, committing criminal acts, denying civil rights, or committing violent crime. Researchers have also provided more specific categories of police corruption. Barker and Carter, for example, distinguish between occupational deviance and abuse of authority, and the Knapp Commission report distinguished between grass eaters and meat eaters.
Both the Knapp and Wickersham Commissions found that the infamous "blue wall," a contributing factor in police corruption, existed. The willingness of police officers to tolerate corrupt behavior known to them rather than to report it (characterized as "ratting" on a fellow officer) baffles most observers.
Another important theme is that when huge sums of money are available with which to tempt police officers, some yield. That is less a function of their status as police officers and more the result of their status as human beings. The kingpins of the illegal liquor trade during Prohibition amassed such sums, and even greater wealth is currently in the hands of present-day drug lords. It is no surprise that some of that money is used to corrupt some members of the law enforcement community.
Like crime, corruption will never be eliminated because human beings, by nature, are flawed; they will, on occasion, behave beneath expectations. Departmental leaders, however, can establish programs to minimize corruption. Ethics training must be emphasized. Additionally, formal and informal leaders within police ranks must create a culture in which the intolerance of behavior that diminishes the group is valued above misplaced loyalty toward a corrupt fellow officer.
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