Police Corruption: Examples And Solution

When the word corruption comes to mind, many individuals think of practical societies or countries without a stable government that handle issues in an unfair way. Even though this may be true to a certain extent, corruption has a broader meaning to it, and, is found in almost everything and everywhere. Johnson (2006) explained that corruption is a widespread social occurrence that exists in any civilization, and thrives in any type of people. He also states that corruption exists in systems that somehow relate to the control of the public. Johnson (2006) uses the example of police departments because they maintain order and, peace by controlling society. He states that a police organization is very similar to other government sections such as, courts of law or tax collection service It is a belief that all these types of organizations tend to have corruption within them for one simple reason; they receive and use the tax payer's money. This then leads to not one person caring about the control of the money that comes in and goes out. In turn, this leads to an unclear understanding of who is in command and what are the responsibilities one needs to keep accomplish (Para. 1). With this may being one of the main causes of corruption in a police organization, it would further lead to "the misuse of authority by a police officer acting officially to fulfill personal needs or wants" (Holloway, para. 3). Dantzker (1995) states that there needs to be three various elements that must be present: "1) misuse of authority, 2) misuse of official capacity, and 3) misuse of person attainment." (Dantzker, 1995). For a corrupt act to occur all three of the elements listed need to be present and occurring simultaneously. With this being said, there are three main theories of corruption that must be taken into account. Reese (2003) explains two of them, the rotten apple theory and the environmental perspective theory. He states that the rotten apple theory involves a few bad apples