Distinction between corrupt behavior and similar phenomena as a contribution to defining corruption in the police

Abstract

It is known that to define the object of research is the first and indispensable step on the road to a more objective indicators of the studied phenomena. Specifically, precise and unambiguous definition is one of the key preconditions for success of the research. However, anyone who chooses police corruption as the subject of his research will encounter, at the very outset, the problem of how to define the phenomenon which he intends to investigate. The reason for this is the fact that corruption in general, and thus the 'police corruption', is interpreted in very different ways. As a result, it is obvious that the literature designates as police corruptions a wide range of behaviors and even phenomena of significantly different nature, such as violent behavior, for example. Such behavior is admittedly much easier to separate from corruption and to look into independently, whereas it is much harder to do so in case of practices which are very close to corruption, especially as some of them are referred to as being corrupt. In this sense, two phenomena appear to be particularly indicative - conflicts of interest and process corruption. The tendency of the author is to - as part of this study - examine the characteristics of these two phenomena and their relationship with corruption, trying in this way to contribute to finding the most precise definition of 'police corruption'.