Mollen Commission

The Commission's Investigations

The commission based its findings on field investigations, on analysis of patterns of corruption complaints, and by developing cooperation from numerous corrupt police officers. They discovered that past beliefs that corrupt officers would not turn on fellow officers or cooperate with corruption investigations were wrong. Officers were often eager to cooperate and assist prosecutors in exchange for leniency against them.

The New Nature of Corruption

The commission determined that most police corruption in New York City arises from the drug trade. Much drug-related police corruption in the city is traced to the explosion of the cocaine and crack trade, which created opportunities for corrupt police officers and criminals to profit from each other. Previously it was thought that most drug-related police corruption involved corrupt police officers stealing from drug dealers. The commission, however, learned that additionally, much drug-related police corruption involved officers using their authority as law enforcement officers to allow open-air drug markets to flourish in the city. In this way, the commission concluded that today's corruption involves police officers using their police powers actively to assist, facilitate, and strengthen the drug trade in New York City. The commission determined that drug dealers often pay corrupt police officers to work hand in hand with them to actively facilitate their drug-related criminal activities. To that end, the commission determined that the victims of police corruption are not the city's drug dealers; dealers are often the beneficiaries of corruption. The victims of police corruption are the many law-abiding people who reside in the neighborhoods where corruption thrives.

The commission developed an erosion theory of police corruption. Many officers who fall prey to [Page 532]corrupt activities in their role as law enforcement officers seemed to be the result of regular and constant exposure to conditions and opportunities of corruption in crime-ridden police precincts that worked to change the attitudes and behaviors of some police officers. The commission hypothesized that this also worked as erosion on many honest police officers who developed a tolerance for widespread police corruption among their colleagues.

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