Police Deviance

Categorizations

According to Maurice Punch, police deviance consists of three subcategories: (1) corruption, (2) misconduct, and (3) crime. He describes police corruption as behaviors of commission or omission associated with taking money or gifts from an external corruptor. Punch defines police misconduct as violations of administrative rules and procedures that are internally investigated and penalized by the police organization. Police misconduct includes behavior such as sleeping on duty, coming to work late, drinking or having sex while on duty, being disrespectful to superiors, neglecting one's duties, reporting sick when healthy, and missing work excessively. These forms of deviance usually do not transgress criminal laws but do violate the disciplinary rules of the department. Punch defines police crime as illegal behavior committed by officers while in uniform; it can include both police misconduct and police corruption. According to Punch, police crime occurs when officers violate the law such as using excessive violence, discriminating against certain races, sexually harassing suspects or fellow officers, using or dealing in illegal drugs, and violating human rights.

Tom O'Connor classifies police deviance as (1) police gratuity, (2) police shakedowns, (3) police perjury, (4) police brutality, (5) police profanity, (6) police sex while on duty or duty related, (7) police sleeping while on duty, (8) police drinking and abusing drugs while on or off duty, and (9) police misuse of confidential information. Jeffrey Ross provides a multidimensional taxonomy of police crimes based in part on whether the act was violent, motivated by profit, or perpetrated on behalf of an individual or an organization.

[Page 522]Some researchers suggest using only two major categories to characterize police deviance: (1) police misconduct and (2) police corruption. Both concepts cover general abuses of police authority, but the term police misconduct is often used for less serious cases and police corruption for more serious cases. Under this dichotomy, police misconduct includes inappropriate actions performed by police officers within official capacities. It can consist of violent or nonviolent actions without considering any personal gain. Police misconduct can be defined as a less obvious wrongdoing such as drinking while on duty or threatening to harm suspects if they do not cooperate with the police. Police misconduct may involve violent or nonviolent practices. Some police scholars and academics use the term police brutality or police use of excessive force instead of violent police misconduct. Nonviolent police misconduct ranges from graft and corruption to perjury to fixing fines. Although all types of police misconduct are serious, some types of misconduct are taken more seriously than others by the public. For instance, citizens may be most interested in police use of excessive force when making arrests of public protesters. In the same manner, people are more concerned about police officers who commit perjury in court or who engage in sexual harassment of civilians than those who sleep on duty. The term police corruption refers to abuse of police authority for personal or institutional gain. Corruption may involve profit or any type of material benefit gained illegally as a consequence of the officer's authority such as taking bribes, opportunistic theft, kickbacks, and shakedowns.

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