Police Corruption Essay, Research Paper

Police corruption is a complex issue. Police corruption or the abuse of

authority by a police officer, acting officially to fulfill personal needs or

wants, is a growing problem in the United States today. Things such as an

Internal Affairs department, a strong leadership organization, and community

support are just a few considerations in the prevention of police corruption. An

examination of a local newspaper or any police-related publication in an urban

city during any given week would most likely have an article about a police

officer that got caught committing some kind of corrupt act. Police corruption

has increased dramatically with the illegal cocaine trade, with officers acting

alone or in-groups to steal money from dealers or distribute cocaine themselves.

Large groups of corrupt police have been caught in New York, New Orleans,

Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, as well as many other cities. Corruption within

police departments falls into 2 basic categories, external corruption and

internal corruption. In this research project, I will concentrate on external

corruption. Recently, external corruption has been given the larger center of

attention. I have decided to include the fairly recent accounts of corruption

from a few major cities, mainly New York, because that is where I have lived in

the past year. I compiled my information from a number of articles written in

the New York Times over the last few years. My definitional information and

background data came from books that have been written on the issues of police

corruption. Those books helped me create a basis of just what the different

types of corruption, as well as how and why corruption happens. Corruption in

policing is usually viewed as the mistreatment of authority by police officer

acting officially to fulfill personal needs or wants. For a corrupt act to

occur, three distinct elements of police corruption must be present

simultaneously: 1) mishandling of authority, 2) mishandling of official

capacity, and 3) mishandling of personal attainment (Dantzker, 1995: p 157). It

can be said that power, inevitably tends to corrupt. It is yet to be recognized

that while there is no reason to suppose that policemen as individuals are any

less fallible than other members of society, people are often shocked and

outraged when policemen are exposed violating the law. The reason is simple;

their deviance elicits a special feeling of betrayal. "Most studies support

the view that corruption is endemic, if not universal, in police departments.

The danger of corruption for police, is that it may invert the formal goals of

the organization and may lead to the use of organizational power to encourage

and create crime rather than to deter it" (Sherman 1978: p 31). Police

corruption falls into two major categories– external corruption, which concerns

police contacts with the public; and internal corruption, which involves the

relationships among policemen within the works of the police department. The

external corruption generally consists of one or more of the following

activities: 1) Payoffs to the police, by people who essentially violate

non-criminal elements, who fail to comply with stringent statutes or city

ordinances. 2) Payoffs to the police, by individuals who continually break the

law, using various methods to earn illegal money. 3) "Clean Graft"

where money is paid to the police for services, or where courtesy discounts are

given as a matter of course to the police. "Police officers have been

involved in activities such as extortion of money and/or narcotics from drug

violators. In order for these violators to avoid arrest, the police officers

have accepted bribes, and accepted narcotics, which they turned around and sold.

These police know of the violations, and fail to take proper enforcement action.

They have entered into personal associations with narcotics criminals and in

some cases have used narcotics. They have given false testimonies in court in

order to obtain dismissal of the charges against a defendant" (Sherman

1978: p 129). A scandal is perceived both as a socially constructed phenomenon,

and as an agent of change that can lead to realignments in the structure of

power within organizations. New York, for instance, has had more than a half

dozen major scandals concerning its police department within a century. It was

the Knapp Commission in 1972 that first brought attention to the New York Police

Department, when they released the results of over 2 years of investigations of

alleged corruption. The findings were that bribery, especially among narcotics

officers, was extremely high. As a result many officers were prosecuted and many

more lost their jobs. A massive re-structuring took place afterwards with strict

rules and regulations to make sure that the problem would never happen again. Of

course, the problem did arise again. One of the more recent events to shake New

York City and bring attention to the national problem of police corruption was

brought up beginning in 1992, when five officers were arrested on

drug-trafficking charges. Michael Dowd, the suspected ‘ring leader’, was the

kind of cop who gave new meaning to the word moonlighting. It wasn’t just any

job that the 10-year veteran of the New York City force was working on the side.

Dowd was a drug dealer. From scoring free pizza as a rookie, he graduated to

pocketing cash seized in drug raids, and from there simply to robbing dealers

outright, sometimes even relieving them of drugs that he would then resell. Soon

he had formed “a crew” of 15 to 20 officers in his Brooklyn precinct that hit

up dealers regularly. Eventually one of them was paying Dowd and another officer

$8,000 a week in protection money. Dowd bought four suburban homes and a $35,000

red Corvette. Not one person had asked how he managed all of that on take-home

pay of about $400 a week. In May 1992, Dowd, four other officers, and one former

officer were arrested for drug trafficking by police in Long Island’s Suffolk

County. When the arrests hit the papers, it was time for discipline among the

police brass. Not only had some of their cops become corrupt, but also the

crimes had to be uncovered and revealed by a suburban police force. Politicians,

as well as the media, started asking what had happened to the system of rooting

out police corruption established 21 years ago. "At the urging of the Knapp

Commission, the investigative body heard Officer Frank Serpico and other police

officers describe a citywide network of rogue cops"(New York Times, March

29, 1993: p 8). "Later, in the same Manhattan hearing room where the Knapp

Commission once sat, the new body heard Dowd and other officers add another

lurid chapter to the old story of police corruption. Many American cities were

now worried that drug money will turn their departments bad" (New York

Times, April 3, 1993: p. 5). Reports have shown that the large majority of

corrupt acts by police involve payoffs from both the perpetrators and the

"victims" of victimless crimes. The Knapp commission in New York found

that although corruption among police officers was not restricted to this area,

the bulk of it involved payments of money to the police from gamblers and

prostitutes (Knapp Commission Report, 1973: PP 1-3). "The cops who were

engaged in corruption 20 years ago took money to cover up the criminal activity

of others," says Michael Armstrong, who was chief counsel to the Knapp

Commission. " Now it seems cops have gone into competition with street

criminals" (Newsweek, Oct 21,1992: p. 18). Gambling syndicates in the

1950’s were protected by a payoff system more elaborate than the Internal

Revenue Service. Pervasive corruption may have lessened in recent years, as many

experts believe, but individual examples seem to have grown more outrageous. In

March of 1993, authorities in Atlanta broke up a ring of weight-lifting officers

who were charged with robbing strip clubs and private homes, and even carrying

off a 450-lb. safe from a retail store (Washington Post, Jan 18, 1993: p. 11).

The deluge of cash that has flowed from the drug trade has created opportunities

for quick dirty money on a scale never seen before. In the 1980’s, Philadelphia

saw more than 30 officers convicted of taking part in a scheme to extort money

from dealers. In Los Angeles, a FBI probe focusing on the LA County sheriff’s

department has resulted so far in 36 indictments and 19 convictions on charges

related to enormous thefts of cash during drug raids — more than $1 million

dollars in one instance. "The deputies were pursuing the money more

aggressively than they were pursuing drugs, says Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven

Bauer" (Washington Post, Jan 18, 1993: p.11). When cities enlarge, their

police forces act quickly in response to public fears about crime. This can also

mean an influx of younger officers, and fewer numbers of well-suited,

better-trained officers. This was a major reason for the enormous corruption

scandal that hit Miami in the middle 1980’s. This was when about 10% of the

Miami’s police were jailed, fired, or disciplined. They were in connection with

a scheme in which officers robbed and some-times killed cocaine smugglers on the

Miami River, then resold the drugs. Many of those involved had been hired when

the department had beefed up quickly after the 1980 riots and the Mariel

boatlift. "We didn’t get the quality of officers we should have, says

department spokesman Dave Magnusson" (Carter, 1989: pp. 78-79). When it

came time to clean house, says former Miami police chief Perry Anderson, civil

service board members often chose to protect corrupt cops if there was no hard

evidence to convict them in the courts. "I tried to fire 25 people with

tarnished badges, but it was next to impossible, he recalls" (Carter, 1989:

pp. 78-79). The real test of a department is not so much whether its officers

are tempted by money, but whether there is an institutional culture that

discourages them from succumbing. In Los Angeles, the sheriff’s department

"brought us the case", says FBI special agent Charlie Parsons.

"They worked with us hand in glove throughout the investigation"

(Washington Post, Jan 18, 1993: p. 11). In the years after it was established,

following the Knapp Commission disclosures, the New York City police

department’s internal affairs division was considered one of the nation’s most

effective in stalking corruption. This may not be the case anymore; police

sergeant Joseph Trimboli, a department investigator, told the Mollen Commission

that when he tried to root out Dowd and other corrupt cops, higher- ranked

officers in the department blocked him. At one point, Trimboli claimed he was

called to a meeting of police officials, and was told he was under suspicion as

a drug trafficker. However, "They did not want this investigation to exist,

he said" (New York Times, April 3, 1993: p. 5). It was at this time that

New York City police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, announced a series of changes,

including a larger staff, and better- coordinated field investigations,

intending to improve internal affairs. His critics say those changes didn’t go

far enough, much of that happened after Kelly’s reforms had been announced.

Getting the information about the corrupted police officers was no easier when

officers were encouraged to report wrongdoing to authorities within their own

department. In many cities that have them, internal affairs divisions are

resented within the ranks for getting cops to turn in other cops — informers

are even recruited from police-academy cadets. "One of the things that has

come out in the hearings is a culture within the department which seems to

permit corruption to exist, says Walter Mack, a one time federal prosecutor who

is now New York’s deputy commissioner of internal affairs. When you are talking

about cultural change, you’re talking about many years. It’s not something that

occurs overnight" (New York Post, June 14, 1993: p. 28). Dowd, who was

sentenced to prison on guilty plea, put it another way. "Cops don’t want to

turn in other cops. Cops don’t want to have a rat. Even when honest cops are

willing to blow the whistle, there may not be anyone willing to listen"(New

York Times, Mar. 29, 1993: p. 14). Is there a solution to the police corruption

problem? Probably not, because since its beginnings, many aspects of policing

have changed, but one thing that has not, is the existence of corruption. Police

agencies, in an attempt to eliminate corruption have tried everything from

increasing salaries, requiring more training and education, and developing

policies which are intended to focus directly of factors leading to corruption.

Despite police departments’ attempts to control corruption, it still occurs.

Regardless of the fact, police corruption cannot simply be over looked.

Controlling corruption is the only way that we can really limit corruption,

because corruption is the by-product of the individual police officer, and

police environmental factors. Therefore, control must come from not only the

police department, but it also must require the assistance and support of the

community members. Controlling corruption from the departmental level requires a

strong leadership organization, because corruption can take place anywhere from

the patrol officer to the chief. The top administrator must make it clear from

the start that he and the other members of the department are against any form

of corrupt activity, and that it will not be tolerated in any way, shape, or

form. If a police administrator does not act strongly with disciplinary action

against any corrupt activity, the message conveyed to other officers within the

department would not be that of intimated nature. In addition it may even

increase corruption, because officers feel no actions will be taken against

them. Another way that police agencies can control its corruption problem starts

originally in the academy. Ethical decisions and behavior should be taught. If

they fail to, it would make officers unaware of the consequences of corruption

and do nothing but encourage it. Finally, many police departments especially

large ones should have an Internal Affairs unit, which operates to investigate

improper conduct of police departments. These units’ some-times are run within

the department. They can also be a total outside agency, to insure that there is

no corruption from within the Internal Affairs unit, as was alleged in the 1992

New York Police Department corruption scandal. Such a unit may be all that is

needed to prevent many officers from being tempted into falling for corrupt

behavior patterns. Although the police department should be the main source of

controlling its own corruption problem, it also requires some support and

assistance from the local community. It is important that the public be educated

to the negative affects of corruption on their police agency. The community may

even go as far as establishing review boards, and investigative bodies to help

keep a careful eye on the agency. If we do not act to try and control it, the

costs can be enormous, because it affects not only the individual, but also his

department, the law enforcement community as a whole and society as well. Police

corruption can be controlled; it just takes a little extra effort. In the end,

that effort will be well worth it to both the agency and the community (Walker,

1992: p. 89). The powers given by the state to the police to use force have

always caused concern. Although improvements have been made to control

corruption, numerous opportunities exist for deviant and corrupt practices. The

opportunity to acquire power in excess of that which is legally permitted or to

abuse power is always available. The police subculture is a contributing factor

to these practices, because officers who often act in a corrupt manner are often

over looked, and condoned by other members of the subculture. As mentioned from

the very beginning of this paper the problem of police deviance and corruption

will never be completely solved, just as the police will never be able to solve

all the crime problems in our society. The only thing they or anyone can do is

decreasing it. One step in the right direction, however, is the monitoring and

control of the police and the appropriate use of police style to enforce laws

and to provide service to the public. The connection of police corruption and

organized crime is clear and simple. Without police corruption it would be much

harder for the organized crime to work their businesses. In a hypothetical city

or town, where there is no corruption what so ever, an organized crime group

could not work in the same pace that they are used to. On the other hand, a city

with much police corruption would work in favor of the organized crime business.

Usually, the problem standing in front of the organized crime businesses are the

law enforcement agencies, but corruption prevents their main concern and

eliminates the majority of the problems.

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Ruben (Jan 18, 1993). Bearing the Badge of Mistrust. The Washington Post, p. 11.

Dantzker, Mark L. (1995). Understanding Today’s Police. New Jersey:

Prentice-Hall, inc. James, George (March 19, 1993). Confessions of Corruption.

The New York Times, p. 8. James, George (Nov 17, 1993). Officials Say Police

Corruption is Hard To Stop. The New York Times, p. 3. Sherman, Lawrence W.

(1978). Scandal and Reform. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Simpson, Scott T. (June 14, 1993). Mollen Commission Findings. New York Post, p.

28 Walker, J.T. (1992). Briefs of 100 leading cases in the law enforcement.

Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing Company. Weber, Bruce (April 3, 1993).

Confessions of Corruption. The New York Times, p. 5.