Corruption in Law Enforcement
What ever happened to the righteous law enforcement officers who abided by what they enforced? Today the numbers of people who have been exposed to unnecessary force by police officers has begun to rise substantially. In 2002, large state and local law enforcement agencies received more that 26,000 citizen complaints. Statistics have shown that there is corruption in not only the officers themselves, but the law enforcement department as well. Most of the cases that are filed regarding inappropriate use of force from officers are either disregarded or written off. There are only about 8% of the complaints that actually are sustained and disciplinary actions taken against the subject officers. This trend is evident in all branches and divisions of the police department, from the municipal police, to the county police. These statistics were brought up by the 2003 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS), with sponsoring from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). They developed a method to come up with all of these statistics called the Police Public Contact Survey (PPCS). This questioned citizens about their interactions with police officers during the previous 12 months. After the survey, there were 26,556 citizen complaints about police received. 84% of those complaints were for the municipal department, 11% for the sheriffs’ office, and 3% for both the county police and the primary state law enforcement. Of all of these complaints from victims, only a mere 8% of the officers received disciplinary action. The complaints can be dismissed or voided due to several different reasons; if there was insufficient evidence, complaints were unfounded, the officer’s actions were found to be lawful and proper, or the complaint was simply withdrawn. This outrage is not just confined to solely the United States, there are similar things happening in Wales and England. At the end of March,