Causes of Police Corruption
Causes of Police Corruption
Police Corruption doesn’t occur because of some random reason, it has a definite cause. Police officers would not go through these great lengths to abuse their powers without a probable reasonable cause. One thing that is for sure as far as police corruption is concern is that someone wins and someone loses. The cause of police corruption is ambiguous, and from the looks of it the causes and reasons varies from person to person. In the last two decades, research and commentary regarding the causes and effects of law enforcement corruption have intensified and diversified. “Three organizational failures can foster a resentful, cynical, and demoralized work force leading to individual and collective acts of corruption. These failures are: little or ineffective discipline and deselection of trainees (a commitment to fairly but firmly graduate only those individuals who truly demonstrate performance and integrity standards); ignorance of the nature and effects of the goal gradient phenomenon (the farther away individuals remain from their goal, the less the tendency to remain passionately interested in its attainment); and the allowance of a double standard within the organization, thereby decreasing moral accountability as professional responsibility increases. All of these factors represent instances of what sociologists have referred to for many years as the "broken window theory"-if enough broken windows in a neighborhood go unattended, the neighborhood falls into a moral and material malaise”(Perry, Frank L) From Frank L Perry analysis we can see that there are four failures which cause police corruption. The first failure is the discipline for police misconduct is not severe enough to teach the other police officers to think twice about abusing their powers. Also, those trainees who demonstrate integrity and honestly usually don’t get the opportunity to graduate. The second failure is the inability for those who
Police Corruption doesn’t occur because of some random reason, it has a definite cause. Police officers would not go through these great lengths to abuse their powers without a probable reasonable cause. One thing that is for sure as far as police corruption is concern is that someone wins and someone loses. The cause of police corruption is ambiguous, and from the looks of it the causes and reasons varies from person to person. In the last two decades, research and commentary regarding the causes and effects of law enforcement corruption have intensified and diversified. “Three organizational failures can foster a resentful, cynical, and demoralized work force leading to individual and collective acts of corruption. These failures are: little or ineffective discipline and deselection of trainees (a commitment to fairly but firmly graduate only those individuals who truly demonstrate performance and integrity standards); ignorance of the nature and effects of the goal gradient phenomenon (the farther away individuals remain from their goal, the less the tendency to remain passionately interested in its attainment); and the allowance of a double standard within the organization, thereby decreasing moral accountability as professional responsibility increases. All of these factors represent instances of what sociologists have referred to for many years as the "broken window theory"-if enough broken windows in a neighborhood go unattended, the neighborhood falls into a moral and material malaise”(Perry, Frank L) From Frank L Perry analysis we can see that there are four failures which cause police corruption. The first failure is the discipline for police misconduct is not severe enough to teach the other police officers to think twice about abusing their powers. Also, those trainees who demonstrate integrity and honestly usually don’t get the opportunity to graduate. The second failure is the inability for those who