The Importance Of Corruption

There are many political issues surrounding the global world that as each time goes by becomes more and more crucial to be discussed. One of these topics is corruption. Corruption is a crime of the misuse of public consumption for a personal or private gain, or as the World Bank defines it as “the abuse of public power for private benefit”. Corruption itself is not an issue that can be easily measured. Scholars and individuals have different definitions about what can be measured as an act of corruption. For example, some may say that bribery can be considered as corruption while others may argue that other actions apart from bribery can be considered as corruption as well. This may raise confusion as to how little or big must an action be

Corruption makes this situation worse. The saying that we often hear in Indonesia about the law is that it is “tumpul ke atas, tajam ke bawah”, which literally means it is dull at the top and sharp at the bottom. This saying illustrates that the law can sometimes act unfairly where people with power and money would have more access to the law and most likely receive more advantage and less penalty whereas those at the bottom or the poor civilians, in the eyes of law are much more likely to have to serve time. This belief is strengthened by speculations about corruption surrounding the justice sector. This in turn decreases public’s trust over the court and make it even more inaccessible than it was before. The people would pay less respect on the authorities, which could result in them defying the laws. Apart from that, corruption in court means that many criminals are being improperly convicted. This may mean that good people are being put in jail and bad people are set free. This distrust over the justice sector could affect the legitimacy of other departments including the institutions attempting to combat the corruption