Police Corruption Essay

Corruption establishes largely because of a police culture that exalts loyalty over integrity. Armao & Cornfeld (1994) suggest that honest officers are silenced by their fear of ``ratting'' on another cop no matter how grave the crime. Corruption is not uncommon for those officers who remain undercover; in fact, it is an easier gateway to fall custom to the "bad apples". Corruption as defined by Roebuck and Barker (1974) as any form of ‘deviant, dishonest, improper, unethical or criminal behavior by a police officer. Police departments take pride in their progressions or achievements, therefore in response to corruption, they avoid uncovering it. Grant (2002) goes on to maintain the fact that not only do the en-suing scandals embarrass the
According to Holloway (2002) corruption can be of two types: internal and external. Internal corruption is a corrupt agreement that can take place among a group of police officers and may involve major changes or decisions of administrative policies that are inappropriate and illegal. Internal politics and unjustified removal of officials, or carrying out behavior within prison situations that may not be completely legal or even releasing prisoners by accepting a bribe given to a group of police officials are all part of internal corruption which accounts for a failure of an entire police system and can involve several policemen or police of one state or region. External means of corruption can be payoffs to police by non-criminal elements like paying of bribes for repeated viola-tions of traffics rules, paying off to police for repeated violation of law as done by prostitutes, narcotics peddlers and burglars; and indirect bribes where special favors are given to police to get special services in turn. Analyzing issues of personal gain, corrupt uses of police professional authority, unjustified use of authority as policemen and inappropriate or improper conduct, Sayed and Bruce (1998) describe in detail are elements that go on to make up