Knapp Commission

NEW YORK CITY'S Knapp Commission Report on Police Corruption became public in 1972, and it [Page 486]comprises the most comprehensive collection of cases involving bribery of police officers. The city had experienced several previous corruption scandals prior to the Knapp Commission, including those in 1892 (quelled by Theodore Roosevelt), 1911, 1932, and 1951. The Knapp investigation was the result of information about police corruption brought to light in 1967 by former New York City detective Frank Serpico. The Knapp Commission, chaired by Whitman Knapp (who became a federal judge shortly after the commission ended), was in operation from 1967 through the end of 1972. It found pervasive corruption throughout virtually all lower ranks (through lieutenant) of the New York City Police Department, as well as among some higher officials. Not all police officers in the lower ranks were involved in blatant corruption, but most at least accepted “free” meals and services, and did not take steps to prevent what they knew or suspected as corrupt police activities.

The commission differentiated between two major forms of bribe-takers: meat eaters and grass eaters. Grass eating, the more common, refers to passively accepting bribes when appropriate situations present themselves. Meat eaters, on the other hand, are the police officers who aggressively seek out situations they can exploit for financial gain. These include gambling, drugs, and other offenses which can yield bribes totaling thousands of dollars. One highly placed police official told the commission that $5,000 to $50,000 payoffs to meat eaters were common; one narcotics bribe amounted to a quarter of a million dollars.

There are two types of bribes taken by the police: pads and scores. The pad refers to regularly scheduled (for example, weekly or monthly) bribes in exchange for non-enforcement of the law. Illegal gambling operations are probably the largest source of pad payments. Some detectives had collected monthly or every-other-week pads amounting to as much as $3,500 from each gambling establishment in their jurisdiction. The monthly share (or nut) per officer ranged from $300 or $400 in midtown Manhattan to $800 in the Bronx, $1,200 in Brooklyn, and $1,500 in Harlem. Supervisors' nuts often were a share-and-a-half. Newly assigned plainclothes officers were not given a share until after a few months in order to ascertain whether the newcomer was an informant.

A score is a one-time bribe that an officer solicits from (or is offered by) a citizen for not enforcing the law. A police officer can score from a motorist for not writing a traffic citation or from a narcotics peddler for not making an arrest. Many officers were implicated in the solicitation of payoffs for nebulous court testimony that would result in the dropping of charges. Additionally, narcotics officers took bribes in exchange for information about an impending arrest, for the results of telephone wiretaps or other confidential police information, and for influencing the justice process for known dealers or addicts.

Gratuities, variants of the pad, refer to free meals, free goods and services, and cash tips received by officers. Gratuities were by far the most widespread form of misconduct the commission found. Several thousand free meals were consumed by the New York officers each day. The sheer numbers of gratis meals posed problems for some establishments. Tips were often given at Christmas and for the performance of normal duties.

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