Corruption beneath police uniform
by Josh Stone

“Police corruption” is a specific form of police misconduct, sometimes involving political corruption and generally designed to gain financial or political benefit for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing or selectively pursuing an investigation or arrest. Whenever we see a cop in police uniform, we think of him as honest and dutiful. But corruption has remained inevitable part of policing history. A quick scanning of any local newspaper on any given date will have an article about a cop that got busted committing some kind of corruption act.

This corruption leads to brutality; this is another half of dice. According to Amnesty International: "There is a widespread and persistent problem of police brutality across the USA. Police officers have beaten and shot unresisting suspects; they have misused batons, chemical sprays, and electro-shock weapons; they have injured or killed people by placing them in dangerous restraint holds."

By all accounts, police corruption seems to be spiraling downward across all nations. Another sad thing is even people seem to tolerate this situation, because the victims of police corruption and the majority of people defined as “criminals” are often seen as indistinguishable. Indirectly, this behavior adversely affects public’s respect for law.

People think most % of this corruption involves taking bribe from civilians, but this isn’t true, in fact large part of this come from drug and arm dealers.

Police corruption is complex phenomenon and its methodology involves basic two types external and internal corruption. Internal corruption is the illegal action and agreements with in a police department by more than one officer, while external corruption involves illegal acts and agreements with public by one or more officer department. Latter type of corruption is more harmful for society.

External corruption is somewhat experienced by common people, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you live; your society must be facing this menace right now. Even cities like New York, Tokyo, and London couldn’t be seen as 100% corrupt free cities. Things get worse if you are living in third world countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. Even collecting simple documents like birth certificate, NOC, require huge amount of bribe.

Now question arises why police officials are so prone to corruption? Why they fall in pit so easily? There are quite few reasons for that. Firstly, all financial resources of police department are controlled by govt. so, practically police doesn’t contribute to state’s budget, and their sole motivation is the fixed salary they get at the end of each month. We forget that police officials are common people in specially made “police uniform”. They have their own desires and dreams. So when salaries don’t motivate them properly, they tend to accept bribes for their own good. They can’t even do any side business, their working hours are odd, there duties are odd, involve lots of workload and fieldwork. So, if they want to add some extra financial source, they are unable to do that, this ultimately turns to bribing. Well, there are small group of people who involves in it coz of their greediness.

So now another question arises, how to tackle this irresponsible behavior? First step is to bring much greater transparency in system. All police persons, representatives and senators should disclose their fundraising sources on the Internet. With modern technology in place anyone who see a certain kind of pattern of corruption can disclose it to self employed watchdogs and then by cross checking the facts, stories can be given to mainstream media or higher officials.

The other important step is to implement harder regularities that should be designed specifically to prevent officers from indulging in any illegal activities. There should be a dept directly under president whose only job will involve keeping a hawk eye on police official’s activities. More strict laws should be introduced and these laws should be very clear in determining the appropriate punishment for corrupt officers. These punishments can range from fines to expulsion from department. Though many such laws are there. But as I said they need to be properly organized keeping in mind today’s corruption behavior. When sculpting such an organization, the leader must operate in a manner that is open to intense scrutiny, but leader must act with in the framework of the organizational culture that prevails. Rules and laws should be in place and should strictly follow by officers. Foundation of such organization should posses an “impermeable ethical foundation”; only then the whole organization and leader he can deliver much needed results.

One very important suggestion here is that officers should be paid handsomely; otherwise there would be good chances of even those officers taking bribe from police officers. This suggestion can also be levied on state police department; good salary, incentives and proper vacation package for whole family are good ways to realize them that they are also living luxurious life. Another method is to educate officers about corruption and how this menace will affect them. Case studies of officers who got busted while taking corruption and after that how their whole life changed to worse, are some of the ways to educate police officers. This will infuse proper threat as well as patriotic feelings.

Patriotic feelings can help, but its general public who has to raise voice. It doesn’t matter if you know the victim or not, whether it affects you directly or not, if its wrong, we have to come out, leaving comfort of our homes to open street to peacefully protest against this misconduct. Media is already playing and can play bigger role in curbing this problem. This problem needs joint effort of entire society and when we will rise above our personal gains to listen to victims and seriously crafting a plan for this, only then we will be able to heal.

I am sure above mentioned suggestions will curb corruption to great extent, but as I already mentioned, because of human being’s psyche, it’s nearly impossible to curb it 100%. But our aim is to bring down to very low level, from where common people feel safe.

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