Police Corruption

Police Corruption is one of the oldest and a persistent problems in the police force. What is corruption? Corruption can be defined as the misuse of public power for.private or personal profit. It is a problem that has and will continue to affect us all, whether we are civilians or law enforcement officers. Many aspects of policing has changed, one aspect that has remained unchanged is the existence of corruption. A local newspaper or police related publication on any given day will have an article about a police officer that got busted comitting some kind of corrupt act. Police have been caught in places like New York for doing illegal acts. Police corruption has increased greatly with illegal smuggling, prostitution, and money laundering.

For a corrupt cop to get away with such an act, three elements have to be present: first is misuse of authority; second is official capacity; and third is personal gain. Power inevitably tends to corrupt, and there is no reason to assume that policemen as individuals are any less than other members of society. People are often shocked and outraged when police are revealed to be violating the law.

General police defiance can include brutality, discrimination, sexual harassment, intimidation, and illegal use of weapons. It's not clear where brutality, discrimination and misconduct end and corruption begins.

Basically, police corruption falls into two major categories: the first is external corruption, which is police contact with the public. The second is internal corruption, which involves a police relationship among police officers within the police department. The external corruption deals with payoffs to police by non-criminal elements who fail to comply with and by the book rules or city laws (an example is someone who repeatedly violates traffic laws). Payoffs to police by someone who continuously violates the law as a method of making money (an example is a prostirute, drug addict). In conclusion,