Police corruption
Police corruption can be described as a type of police misconduct whereby the law enforcement officers break their work and ethical contracts and abuse their power for personal gain (Caldero & Crank, 2014). The corruption may involve one or multiple officers. For years, police corruption has been a significant challenge to the credibility, efficiency, and activities of the law enforcement sector since it leads to a reduction in public trust, violation of human rights and legal violations (Caldero & Crank, 2014). Likewise, police corruption takes various forms, but the common one is bribery. Other types of corruption are a violation of the police code of conduct, selective enforcement of the law, stealing from suspects, victims or crimes of scenes, lying in a court of law or to investigators to protect other police officers or oneself, and internal payoffs which are about getting unwarranted favors such as a holiday in exchange for loyalty to an individual in a police department (Caldero & Crank, 2014). One country that has to experience police corruption is the United States. Corruption has mainly been prevalent among the police officers who police black communities, but most of the time, the media in the united states don’t report these police corruption cases. Police reports show that some of the major corruption cases among the US police officers are from those who are in charge o black communities like in Chicago, and they include partnering with drug gangs, sideling criminals and covering up crimes for personal profits.
A culture of corruption among police officers is primarily as a result of poor recruitment procedure which fails to examine the essential elements such as the criteria for training and development and standards for promotion (Caldero & Crank, 2014). For instance, in the United States in NewNew Orleans, the lenient recruitment process permitted a woman with murderous instincts into the police force despite having failed a civil service psychiatric evaluation. The department needed to have known her history before hiring her (Caldero & Crank, 2014). Other factors that lead to a culture of corruption among police officers are inadequate training, lack of resources, lack of accountability, deficiencies in the law, cultural background, and institutional corruption.
The law that targets police corruption is a federal law that not only applies to the police but the entire persons in the criminal justice system (Barker, 2011). Therefore, it is unlawful for any police officer to take a bribe since, by taking bribes, they don’t uphold the constitutional rights of the victim (Barker, 2011). Further, there is a statute which is usually referred to as the police misconduct provision in the United States, and it makes it unlawful for state and local police to engage in a practice of conduct that deprives an individual has or her right. Further, according to the police regulations, discrimination in police work is a type of corruption since the police need to be neutral when performing their duties.
In conclusion, police corruption is an abuse of police authority, and it mostly occurs when a police officer violates the rules and regulations of a police department. It is criminal for a police officer to violate the rules of the department, and the violation of federal or state laws by a police officer is unconstitutional. Usually, corruption involves material gain or any other kind of material gain that is gotten illegally because of the authority that the police officer has. Throughout the criminal justice structure, there are safeguards against police corruption, and they are codes of conduct, investigation and discipline bureaus, and collaboration with independent civilian review boards that offer independent and remedial advice. Also, the law allows the victims of police corruption to sue for damages in a civil action. Finally, as governments seek to streamline police departments and make them corruption-free zones, there is a need for civilians to partner with governments in this war against corruption in our police departments.