The Corruption Component in Transport and Logistics Services: a Causal Complex

Abstract

The authors analyze the problems of contemporary criminal policy and transport policy regarding the prevention of corruption and the effectiveness of combating it. They highlight the development of transport and logistics services. The authors use statistical data reflecting specific features of contemporary transport and anti-corruption policies to show that it is only possible to solve the urgent theoretical and practical problem of counteracting corruption in a specific business sphere if the used methodological instruments are poly-functional in nature. The key causes and conditions promoting corruption in this sector are such factors as multiple subject contacts, a large number of sanitary, labor and safety regulations, intense competition among transport companies due to a high concentration of companies on the market of transport and logistics services, their transition to the outsourcing sector, the development of ecologistics, etc. That is why corruption prevention should be carried out at the general social and the special criminological level. To prevent corruption in transport and logistics services at these levels the authors recommend, on the one hand, to modernize transport policy by widening the use of information technologies, organizing combined transportation, etc. On the other hand, it is necessary to develop the mechanisms of preventing and regulating conflicts of interests while stressing the prohibition element and to synchronize the transport and the criminal policy of the state that concerns combating corruption in this sector.