A social psychological approach to the study of police corruption

Police corruption is herein defined as a mode of behavior that is chosen because it will lead to money or other personally desirable rewards and involves a misuse of the authority of a police officer's occupational role. In recognition of the importance of explanation to the development of effective control techniques, a clearly explicated theoretical model is offered. Elaboration of this model involves an inclusion of the propositions of theories of social learning, role theory, and anomie in an attempt to provide a more thorough understanding of the various processes involved in police corruption. The model suggests that corruption arises through a process of interaction during which the individual police officer learns such behavior in accordance with the responses of others. Role theory is used to account for the motivating forces behind corrupt behavior. Following a discussion of the proposed theoretical basis for corruption, various research suggestions are offered.     

Wellbeing,occupational justice and police practice: an ‘affirming environment’?

This paper examines wellbeing and occupational justice within the police profession. The research presented is based on a preliminary study utilising a qualitative methodology in which 14 in-depth interviews were conducted with rank and file police officers in one state of Australia. The data-set reveals that there are many positive aspects to being a police officer, contrary to the ‘dysfunction’ research that exists concerning the police in which corruption and poor performance prevails. The data analysis supports the notion that the practice of the police can be understood through a framework of wellbeing, occupational justice, and positive psychology. Whilst the research yields strong positive aspects in the work police officers engage in, as well as in their working environment, there are challenges within the profession, namely dealing with traumatic events that can hinder wellbeing and occupational justice. This study offers evidence to reflect on current policies and practices in terms of police recruitment, education and training. The study also offers evidence for improving staff retention by building on the principles of wellbeing and occupational justice within police practice.     

Police corruption and organizational structures: An ethicist's view

Structural explanations have provided those within the social sciences with a more penetrating look at the dynamic and interactional forces that bear upon human behavior. This has been especially disclosing in criminal justice where such an approach has quite dramatically shown that corrupt practices arise through the evolution of an infrastructure within police departments. By taking a radical departure from the current orthodoxy, this paper will argue that structural explanation has its place in a discussion of human behavior. When overextended, however, as it is in the present literature on police corruption, it reaches unsound theoretical conclusions that neglect the self and express a disdain for the personal which runs counter to ethical standards and considerations.     

Resilience of a corrupt police network: the first and second jokes in Queensland

Resilient organised crime groups survive and prosper despite law enforcement activity, criminal competition and market forces. Corrupt police networks, like any other crime network, must contain resiliency characteristics if they are to continue operation and avoid being closed down through detection and arrest of their members. This paper examines the resilience of a large corrupt police network, namely The Joke which operated in the Australian state of Queensland for a number of decades. The paper uses social network analysis tools to determine the resilient characteristics of the network. This paper also assumes that these characteristics will be different to those of mainstream organised crime groups because the police network operates within an established policing agency rather than as an independent entity hiding within the broader community.     

Integrity,culture, and scale: an empirical test of the big bad police agency

Building on Klockars et. al. (2000) analysis of survey data on police agency integrity, this analysis develops an economic model of police corruption within police agencies. Empirical estimates of the economic model are consistent with Klockars et. al. (2000) in that there is no evidence to support the traditional theory that police agency corruption is attributable to the “individual bad-apple.” Independent of other factors, the present analysis shows that police culture fosters corruption. Furthermore, the present analysis shows that incentive structures within police agencies increase the problem of corruption as the scale of police agency operation increases. Policies that would promote higher levels of integrity are considered.     

Layers of decision: Linking social definitions of corruption and willingness to take action

The literature available about social definitions of corruption is surprisingly discrete from that which addresses the issue of whistleblowing or the reporting of crime and corruption. The current study, however, empirically links the two. A survey of more than 1300 public sector employees was undertaken to explore: i) how and why public sector employees define some behaviours as corrupt; ii) factors which may hinder public sector employees taking action about corruption which they may observe at work; and iii) the link between i) and ii). The study found that within the New South Wales (NSW) public sector, views about what constitutes corruption are diverse and that this has a significant, though not exclusive, impact upon the action respondents said they would take in response to workplace corruption. The study discusses other factors which also impact upon the stated decision not to take action about corruption and suggests some possible courses of action for addressing these factors.The research upon which this paper is based formed part of the research program of the Independent Commission Against Corruption.     

Nigeria

Conclusion Organized crime activities flourish in Nigeria because law enforcement is weak or nonexistent at all levels. The police were corrupt even before organized crime emerged in its present form in Nigeria. Since “corruption is necessary for the successful operation of organized crime,”⁹⁴ the structure and operation of the Nigerian police, together with the activities of corrupt heads of state and corrupt politicians, made Nigeria fertile ground for organized crime. When those who make the laws and those who enforce the law are shamelessly corrupt, then the entire society is cor-rupted. These leaders are supposed to be the role models of the younger generations in Nigeria. Instead, they represent what Gresham Sykes and David Matza have termed the “appeal to higher loyalty”—a technique for rationalization of wrongs by under-privileged elements of Nigerian society who willingly engage in criminal activity.     

Roh regrets: Leadership, culture and politics in South Korea

South Korea has, in recent years, suffered a number of serious corruption scandals reaching to the very top of the political and economic worlds. This article attempts to explain why corruption scandals are so frequent in Korea. It suggests that practices that in the West are regarded as corrupt are seen as acceptable in Korea, but that nevertheless Koreans do take corruption very seriously. Korean culture is if anything less willing than western culture to see corrupt behaviour as normal; at the same time it is particularly susceptible to behaviour that is, within its own terms, corrupt. Corruption scandals are therefore frequent, both because there are pressures encouraging corruption, and because corruption, when exposed, is indeed seen as scandalous. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Local Processes of National Corruption: Elite Linkages and Their Effects on Poor People in India

This paper provides a bottom–up view of national corruption in India and presents a framework of corruption involving three actors: bureaucrat, politician and legitimate claimant. The paper then focuses on the public service provision of social security in an Indian village and the role of elites in perpetuating the corrupt practices to access this public provision. This study is based on an extensive fieldwork and uses network data. First, I show that the political elite bridges the ‘structural hole’ between the institutions of state and society, have the advantage of information, referrals and are the main beneficiary of local corrupt practices. Second, factional politics is carried out through the use of corruption and it results in exclusion of the poor persons from the welfare rights to which they are entitled. The paper also explores how the local processes of corruption interact with state-level processes and shows how protest against corruption is silenced.     

How damages recovery actions can improve the fight against corruption: the crisis of criminal law policies and the role of private enforcement in an Italian case of judicial corruption

In many countries corruption is rife, despite the fact that there is a criminal-law legislative framework for corruption. Italy is one of these countries. The commitment of judges and prosecutors to combating instances of corruption is often frustrated by the consequences of the excessive length of the proceedings. The fight against corruption has been carried out mainly in the field of criminal law. The criminalisation of corruption both in domestic and in international contexts is not enough to reduce corrupt practices. In the last decade another front in the fight against corruption has been explored: the private law approach as a complement to criminal law policies. Indeed, the same corrupt practise may be subject both to criminal proceedings by public authority and to civil proceedings by the victims of corruption. The argument that private law instruments may be used in order to achieve a public policy goal is not new and goes beyond the definition of "private enforcement" in the context of competition law. The idea of creating a favourable social and legal background to encourage the victims of anti-competitive practices can also be transposed to the fight against corruption. In fact, in many cases of corruption the low percentage of successful criminal persecution and the class of punishment associated with corruption offences do not represent a deterrent, considering the benefits deriving from bribe. This paper aims to address the question as to whether private law remedies under national legal systems could constitute an effective disincentive against corrupt practices, alongside criminal prosecutions. The case CIR vs. Fininvest, Lodo Mondadori is one of the first cases involving damages actions resulting from corrupt practices, and addresses two of the main obstacles to civil actions in this field: evidence and the quantification of damages.     

Police attitudes towards fellow officers' misconduct: the Swedish case and a comparison with the USA and Croatia

There is a long tradition of research into police integrity in the USA. Over the last few decades the focus of this research has shifted from regarding police misconduct as an individual problem to viewing it as an occupational/organisational one. Very little research has been conducted in this area in Scandinavia, however. This article presents findings from a Swedish questionnaire survey of levels of intolerance for corruption and other forms of misconduct within the Swedish police force. The study was conducted as part of an international project. Thirteen percent of Swedish police officers were included in the sample. Attitudes towards police misconduct are characterized by a high degree of consistency. The more seriously a behaviour is viewed, the more severely officers feel it should be sanctioned and the more willing police officers are to report it. Levels of intolerance towards theft are very high, whilst this intolerance is more moderate in relation to the use of excessive force, and is more or less non-existent when it comes to using a police car to ferry a fellow officer to work. At the same time, the patterns visible among the officers' responses are indicative of both ego-defence and of the existence of a code of silence. The article also compares the Swedish findings with responses from similar surveys conducted in the USA and Croatia. Differences between the circumstances in which the studies were conducted make comparisons between the different police forces difficult. The most conspicuous trend, however, is that different types of misconduct are ranked almost identically across the three countries.     

The Supply-Side of International Corruption: a New Measure and a Critique

I consider the supply-side of corruption in the context of international bribery, which I define as firms bribing public officials abroad. I present the Bribe Payers Corruption Index (BPCI), a non-perception-based measure of cross-border corruption coherent with a simple analytical framework based on an important distinction: that between the propensities to corrupt and observed levels of corruption. The BPCI is compared with a widely known indicator of the supply-side of corruption, Transparency International’s Bribe Payers Index (TI-BPI), which I demonstrate to be flawed. Whereas according to the TI-BPI firms from corrupt countries are more likely to bribe abroad, the opposite emerges when the BPCI is considered. I explain and discuss such results, the implications of which are framed within the global discourse on the supply-side of international corruption.     

Petty corruption in Central and Eastern Europe: the client’s perspective

This qualitative study examines the role of clients in petty corruption by analyzing actual corrupt exchanges between ordinary citizens and low level public and private employees in post-communist Hungary. Using a grounded theory approach, interviews reveal how clients from different social strata deal with low-level agents in corrupt situations. Findings suggest two contrasting forms of low-level corruption: transactions where the client and the agent do not have a prior relationship and where external factors dominate the relationship; and cases with stronger social ties between the actors, where the client has more freedom to structure the transaction. However, a client's social background frequently determines the form of corrupt transaction and the form of resources illegally exchanged in the deal.     

Colonialism,state and policing in Nigeria

Police forces in Nigeria have been variously described as corrupt, oppressive and subservient to the whims and caprices of the government of the day. This paper analyses the development of police forces in Nigeria since the era of British colonial domination in the country. Police corruption and repression in Nigeria is analyzed in the context of the wider political and socioeconomic structures and dynamics in the country.     

Public preferences regarding police facebook posts: a macro-level analysis

ABSTRACT

Police agencies have adopted social media quite widely, but researchers have paid relatively little attention to the phenomenon. To date few studies have explored public reaction to police use of social media. The current study uses a purposive sample with 7,116 police Facebook posts collected from 14 different police agencies during a one-year period to answer two principal research questions: (1) with respect to the number of likes, number of shares, or number of comments regarding different themes present in police Facebook posts, are there differences among police agencies corresponding to differences in the thematic content in their postings? and (2) What factors are related to the public reaction (i.e., likes, shares, comments) to a police Facebook post? The findings from ANOVA and negative binomial regression models clearly indicate that citizens do have definite preferences on police Facebook posts – they are more likely to like and make comments on posts of police personnel and police-public relations, but less likely to share posts of Social Networking Sites. Also, they are more prone to like posts with narratives and pictures, but less likely to favor posts containing hyperlinks. Policy implications and practice guidelines, study limitations, and future research are also discussed.     

Police Corruption and its Prevention

This article has two themes. Firstly, that police corruption is not an individual aberration of an incidental nature that can be readily combated with temporary, repressive measures. The 'new realism' on this maintains that corruption and police misconduct are persistent and constantly recurring hazards generated by the organisation itself. Secondly, there is consensus on effective measures to tackle it and to promote integrity. Ingredients are strong leadership, a multi-faceted organisational strategy, a well-resourced internal affairs unit, proactive techniques of investigation, and persistent efforts to promote professional standards. The essence is a judicious and sophisticated balance between negative and positive social control. Policing is about the rule of law and due process: corruption and other forms of police deviance undermine the legitimacy of the police organisation and by implication the state. A 'clean' police is a crucial barometer of a healthy society. One can have few illusions about the difficulty of achieving this but a comparative review of the experience in four societies - USA, Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands - provides clear indicators about reform, control and leadership in fostering integrity and in tackling corruption.     

Control rights, bureaucratic corruption and the allocation of resources

In a two-sector model, we show that corruption is endogenously determined by the model parameters. It depends on the fraction of unskilled labor and the relative TFP differential between skilled and unskilled sector. First, for a larger proportion of unskilled labor force, there is widespread corruption and for smaller share of unskilled labor force, there is no corruption. For the intermediate level, equilibrium depends on the number of corrupt bureaucrats and there are multiple equilibria. Second, corruption decreases with the relative TFP differential between skilled and unskilled sector. For the intermediate level of TFP differential, there are multiple equilibria. On its consequences, corruption causes rise in the wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers. It distorts the allocation of resources, which results in the output and the welfare losses, and it is associated with the higher tax rate.     

Corruption in Public Procurement: Finding the Right Indicators

Red flags are widely used to minimize the risk of various forms of economic misconduct, among which corruption in public procurement. Drawing on criminal investigations, the literature has developed several indicators of corruption in public procurements and has put them forward as viable risk indicators. But are they genuinely viable, if only corrupt procurements are analysed? Using a dataset of 192 public procurements — with 96 cases where corruption was detected and 96 cases where corruption was not detected — this paper addresses the identification of significant risk indicators of corruption. We find that only some indicators significantly relate to corruption and that eight of them (e.g. large tenders, lack of transparency and collusion of bidders) can best predict the occurrence of corruption in public procurements. With this paper we successfully tap into one of the most vulnerable areas of criminological research — selecting the right sample — and consequently, our results can help increase the detection of corruption, increase investigation effectiveness and minimize corruption opportunities.     

Who corrupts whom? A criminal eco-system made in Italy

This research note focuses on the relationship between organised crime and corruption in Italy. It is part of a wider research project investigating that relationship across a number of European countries. In the first part of this contribution, along with a brief account of definitional issues, a summary review of previous work on the connections between organised crime and corruption is provided. The paper then attempts to delineate the uniqueness of the Italian case through some observations around the specific contours of organised and corrupt exchange in the country as they manifest themselves. After a brief methodological note, the analysis is interspersed with the opinions of key informants contacted for this research who have profound knowledge of the subject matter, having worked for many years as investigating judges or academic researchers. A division into areas in which the links between organised crime and corruption are observed tries to map the two phenomena and their joint modus operandi.     

The Salience of Social Contextual Factors in Appraisals of Police Interactions with Citizens: A Randomized Factorial Experiment

Objectives

Prior research indicates that public assessments of the manner in which the police exercise their authority are a key antecedent of judgments about the legitimacy of the police. In this study, the importance of context in influencing people’s assessment of police wrongdoing is examined.

Methods

A randomized factorial experiment was used to test how respondents perceive and evaluate police–citizens interactions along a range of types of situations and encounters. 1,361 subjects were surveyed on factors hypothesized to be salient influences on how citizens perceive and evaluate citizen interactions with police. Subjects viewed videos of actual police–citizen encounters and were asked for their evaluations of these observed encounters. Contextual primes were used to focus subjects on particular aspects of the context within which the encounter occurs.

Results

Structural equation models revealed that social contextual framing factors, such as the climate of police–community relations and the legality of the stop that led to the encounter, influence citizen appraisals of police behavior with effects comparable in size to and even larger than demographic variables such as education, race, and income.

Conclusions

These results suggest that the understandings and perceptions that people bring to a situation are important determinants of their assessment of police fairness. The police can positively influence citizen interpretations of police actions by striving to create a climate of positive police–community relationships in cities.