Police Corruption

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.

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A senior police officer of the Hamburg police on a...

Judge Whitman Knapp

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...