The Causes Of Police Corruption In Law Enforcement

Where do one start corruption in law enforcement has been around for years. First, one needs to understand what is corruption. Corruption is where a person commit a corrupt act against the law. A corrupt person behavior is dishonest, improper, or unethical. The word has been used to put different actions into this category such as violence, fabrication, destruction of evidence, and etc. (Newburn & Webb, 1999). There are also different types of police corruption that involves different actions and people. The first one is corruption of authority which an officer receives a gift such as a free meal or services because of their position and not violate the law per se (Newburn & Webb, 1999). Then there is the kickbacks where there is a gain of

There are constant factors that makes it possible for corruption among our law enforcement (Newburn & Webb, 1999). Discretion can be big factor. Discretion allows police law enforcement to make their own decisions whether to enforce law on different situations. This gives opportunity for their decision to be influence for a personal gain instead of making a professional decision (Newburn & Webb, 1999). Another part of discretion that can lead to corruption is the battle between internal and external goals for policing. Discretion is not the only thing that is very important, but also police work (Newburn & Webb, 1999). Other constant factors are “low managerial visibility, peer group secrecy, managerial secrecy, and association with police officers contact with lawbreaker” (Newburn & Webb, 1999, p.17). Another factor is low public visibility because the public does not a large amount of what police do. Status problems is a constant factor because police are stated to not be paid as much as the authority they have obtain. Newburn and Webb (1999) that there are not only constant factors that comes into play, but there are also variable factors such as “community structure, organizational characteristics, legal opportunities for corruption, corruption control, social organization of corruption, and last moral cynicism” (p.