Police corruption is a widespread problem ranging from drug wars to money laundering to even spousal abuse. It is very hard to know who exactly is involved with the incidents because of the lack of task forces to enforce integrity within the police officers. I will be focusing on a few highly publicized cases of police corruption where police officers were caught making deals, selling illegal drugs, and money laundering. Along with these, I will produce a theory about how to clean up the corruption, by utilizing citizens in the communities.
There are many causes of police corruption. One cause of corruption is the power of police authority that is throughout the system. A way to prevent this is to limit the authority (Kane, 2002). Increasing the competitive bidding of the selection process could do this. Another cause is that police officers are offered wrong incentives for their work. The incentives need to be realigned to provide better living wages. Also, incentives should be provided based on performance (Ades, 1996). Another major cause of police corruption is the anti-system attitudes police have toward their departments. They are worried too much about personal loyalties instead of rule of law and public sarcasm. The best way to help combat against this is to raise the awareness about the costs of corruption (Trojanowicz, 1996).
Police corruption occurs over many different areas of the law. Police corruption occurs most often when dealing with drugs. Actually, on average, half of all police officers convicted as a result of FBI-led corruption cases between 1993 and 1997 were convicted for drug-related offenses (Common, 1998). One such example is that of a New York Police Department police officer Kenneth Eurell. On May 6, 1992 six New York City police officers and one retired NY police officer were arrested in a five-month undercover drug operation. The Suffolk county police department tapped the phone of a low level street dealer and soon found out that NYC police officers were involved in a multi-level drug operation.
