Police Corruption: Combating Strategies

When a government makes a commitment to ending police corruption, the most tempting approach is to try to weed out the “bad apples,” instead of considering a comprehensive strategy for overcoming corruption. However, the success of any strategy is possible only when it covers all corrupt situations and intervenes against all individual, organizational, [Page 1247]and public environments that are connected with the police corruption. Police officers do not live in a vacuum; they live in society that has its own hierarchy of values. If the fight against corruption has a low priority in this hierarchy, one cannot expect this strategy to be very successful.

Between May and July 2001, Transparency International of the Czech Republic conducted a survey of strategies in combating police corruption. Survey results were based on 71 completed questionnaires from 25 countries. The goal of the investigation was not to supply detailed and representative data on the notoriety of police corruption in each country. Rather, the value of the results is in hypotheses, theories, and, based on this, the propositions of various anticorruption strategies. Three experts in each target country were contacted, and the selection process was governed by the principle of maximum heterogeneity and by targeting several types of institutions (such as the police, police academies, universities, and nongovernmental organizations). The majority of the questioned experts work in senior and leading positions. All of them had significant experience with working on corruption. The single most frequent source of information used when filling out the questionnaire was personal experience and interviews, not any official statistics.

The survey found that the most efficient tools for fighting corruption in police forces worldwide are good and well-enforced legislation and effective internal control, positive police culture, and high moral standards set by organizational leadership, as well as recruitment procedures and educational systems concentrated on police integrity.

The strategies can be divided into four categories:

• 1.

  Repressive—relies mostly on the strict enforcement of repressive measures; preventive measures are used much less frequently.

  

• 2.
  Complex—based on broadscale application of preventive as well as repressive measures.
• 3.
  Minimalist—based on a small number of strategies employed, whether preventative or repressive measures.
• 4.
  Preventative—distinctly prefers prevention to repression.

A variety of approaches are used worldwide, and what is right for any particular country or jurisdiction will vary on that country or jurisdiction's individual situation. What follows is a description of some of the most common tactics and their pitfalls.