Police Corruption Research Articles

The scenes of police corruption

The scenes of police corruption

University students’ accounts of police use of force: implications for trust in the police

ABSTRACT This empirical research explores the effect of police use of excessive force on university students’ trust in the police. Although the use of force by the police has continued to resonate in academic discourse, particularly from developed Western societies, the challenge is that there is a dearth of empirical research that precisely measures police use of excessive force among university students and how it shapes their trust in the police. The few existing studies were drawn from the general population survey, and they showed that the police in most African transitional societies tend to misuse their powers and are typically unaccountable to the public. From a survey data of participants delineated to a large public university in South Africa, this study specifically assessed the effect of direct experience of police abuse, vicarious experience of police abuse, experience of police corruption, and predatory policing on university students’ trust in the police. Findings confirmed, among others, that police use of excessive force (direct and vicarious experience of police abuse and predatory policing) significantly negatively affects students’ trust in the South African Police Service (SAPS). The implications of the findings for effective policing in the country are discussed.

An Exploration of Police Corruption at Durban Harbour Port of Entry in South Africa

This study delves into the pervasive issue of police corruption within a critical context of the Durban Harbour port of entry in South Africa. Police corruption poses a significant challenge to the integrity of law enforcement functioning of ports. This research highlights the role of inadequate training, resource constraints, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and lack of oversight as a significant contributing factor. It emphasises the necessity of enhancing organisational accountability, improving training programmes, and fostering a culture of ethical conduct to mitigate corruption. Lastly, this article recommends that addressing police corruption at the Durban Harbour port of entry demands a holistic and interdisciplinary approach involving law enforcement agencies, government bodies, civil society, and the private sector. The insights gained from this investigation can inform targeted interventions and policy reforms to fortify the integrity of law enforcement and enhance the security and efficiency of harbour port operations.

Russians at the Gates

Abstract This article analyzes two recent streaming series—the third season of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (Prime, USA, 2022) and the limited series Treason (Netflix, UK, 2022)—as aspects of “Cold War II,” the increasingly common term for the resurgence of anti-Russian attitudes and stereotypes in Anglophone cinema and television that has been apparent since 2010. These two series reflect a shared fear of Russians and offer interesting and illuminating points of comparison, especially regarding their definitions of the threat (internal or external), the battleground (at home or abroad), and strategies for confronting the enemy (shoot ’em up or run and hide). At the same time, these series reflect different national concerns, with Jack Ryan 3 as one of many US-produced spy thrillers that trumpet aggressive, offensive action in a way that deflects attention from the country's serious divisions and protracted domestic crises. Treason, on the other hand, engages with British concerns over corruption in the UK's police and security services. Finally, the series’ differing treatments of the relationship of the not-so-distant past to present dangers (real and perceived) is also noteworthy, if puzzling; the demise of the Soviet Union is central to the crisis in Jack Ryan 3 but only glancingly mentioned in Treason.

Rural–Urban Dynamics of Police Corruption: Views of Ghanaian Police Officers

Rural–Urban Dynamics of Police Corruption: Views of Ghanaian Police Officers

What Makes a Terrorist Tick in Al Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building?

Abstract This article provides a critical reading of Alaa Al Aswany’s novel The Yacoubian Building (2002), evoking important questions about the nature of terrorism in Egypt and how young men are transformed into religious fanatics. While certainly not excusing terrorists’ violent acts, we try to use the novel as a guide to understand what makes a terrorist tick. The novel invites us to witness the fall into the abyss of terror of a young man who dreams of being a policeman. The novel shows that while Taha struggles to change his fate, he faces marginalisation, police corruption, oppression and torture, which finally set him on the path to violence. The paper thus uses the novel as a focal point to broaden our understanding of who a terrorist figure is. Furthermore, we are interested in the literary representations of terrorism and why this novelist chooses terrorism as a main structuring element. By offering a qualitative, different understanding of the fundamental aspects of terrorism, we try to reveal that while it is the terrorist’s finger that pulls the trigger, there is a disorienting history of social, political and economic circumstances behind each bullet. The paper concludes that Al Aswany neither demonises nor offers an apology for extremists. He simply presents them as humans so that we can understand what they are angry about.

스웨덴 경찰의 부패통제 시스템에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study is to examine the feature and implication of the control system of sweden police. The characteristic of the Swedish police's corruption control system is the balance between internal and external control devices. To summarize, first, A committee-centered decision-making structure prevents centralization of authority. Second, the Special Investigation Department of the National Police Agency maintains its fairness by appointing the head of the Swedish Prime Minister, ensuring independence of work, and exercising special authority to investigate corruption in specific public officials, including police officials. Third, Separate Public Prosecution Office and the National Anti-Corruption Unit are placed directly under the Minister of Justice and have the authority to investigate and prosecute corruption cases of specific public officials, including police officials. In particular, Separate Public Prosecution Office independently exercises the authority to investigate the legitimacy of police use of weapons. Fourth, prevent corruption of public funds by reviewing in advance the appropriateness of police budget use. Fifth, all decision-making processes related to police work and the exercise of police power are disclosed to the public. Sixth. It has a recruitment structure that hires qualified people with the character and ethics of a police officer. In addition, efforts are made to exclude corruption cartels and a culture of silence in police organizations by providing strong identity protection for whistle blowers.

The Clandestine Hands of the State: Dissecting Police Collusion in the Drug Trade

Abstract Police collusion with drug market organizations is widespread around the world, but the nature of this collaboration remains poorly understood. This article draws on a unique data source to dissect the inner workings of police collusion: transcripts of wiretapped conversations, embedded in thousands of pages of court cases in which state agents have been prosecuted for collaborating with drug market groups. We catalogue and analyze the wide range of social interactions that constitute police collaboration with drug market groups and show that those interactions are often embedded in trust networks constituted by residential, professional, friendship, and kinship ties. Our findings signal the importance of reciprocal social ties surrounding police corruption and cast light on what we refer to as the clandestine hands of the state.

The Phlippine National Police Behind Controversies

The Philippine National Police is part of the tri-bureaus created under the Department of the Interior and Local Government Act of 1990, which are mandated to enforce the law, prevent crimes, maintain peace, and ensure public safety. This study aims to investigate the different controversies faced by the Philippine National Police, their effect on the participants’ work, and how they handle these kinds of controversies. This study used a case study of descriptive-qualitative research to investigate the Philippine National Police (PNP) behind controversies conducted at Jones, Isabela, particularly at Jones Police Station. The eight (8) participants in the study were selected through purposive sampling. This study used an unstructured interview to gather the necessary data. The study utilized thematic analysis in interpreting the data following the six (6) steps by Braun and Clarke. The study revealed that the different controversies faced by the Philippine National Police are involvement in illegal drugs, police corruption, abuse of power, and stereotyping, which affect their work as police officers. Although it is painful for them to hear those statements, they remain steadfast and stand to face the allegations thrown by the community, as reflected on the following themes; positive, practice self-disciple, and maintain professionalism. Furthermore, programs or activities to heighten the morale of the police officers and enhance the police community relations program were suggested and recommended.

Drivers’ Experiences of Traffic Police Corruption and Their Compliance with Traffic Laws in Lahore City

This paper examines drivers’ perceived traffic police corruption and its impact on their compliance with traffic laws in the capital city of province Punjab i.e. Lahore. For this purpose quantitative methodology was employed and cross-sectional survey was conducted on 400 driver participants recruited through simple random sampling. Questionnaire was used as a tool of data collection and regression analysis was done in order to assess the impact of independent variables on dependent variable. Results show that personal and vicarious corruption experiences decreased the drivers’ likelihood to comply with traffic laws. Moreover, it was found that the drivers’ personal and vicarious corruption experiences in Lahore city were less that still affect their level of compliance with traffic laws. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Protection or predation? Examining COVID-19 policing and the nuances of police corruption in Nigeria

ABSTRACT The bulk of scholarship on police intervention in enforcing COVID-19 pandemic-imposed restrictions focuses on police misconduct, securitisation, human rights, police preparedness, and legitimacy, but empirical research on police corruption during the restriction in Nigeria is sparse despite reports of pervasive police extortion and bribery. Thus, this study fills the academic gap by examining the dynamics of police predation and corruption during the enforcement in Nigeria. With interview data, I uniquely examined the intervention from the purview of predatory policing – an aspect of policing that is understudied in the context of COVID-19 policing despite its relevance in contemporary discourse on social control. Evidence indicates that, as COVID-19 policing characterised predation in Nigeria, the embedded problems of police corruption revolve around unresolved police institutional challenges and police-public connivance that results from moral decadence, thereby portending gloomy implications for law enforcement and society. Therefore, advancing and implementing police reforms, addressing moral corruption, and resolving widespread socioeconomic problems are very critical in the effective policing and containment of future public health crises.

#EndSARS Protests and the Search for Social Justice in Nigeria: Examining Activist Discourses on Police Brutality, Politics and Human Security

Abstract On October 3, 2020, members of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (sars) of the Nigerian Police Force arrested a young man at Wetland Hotel, Ughelli in Delta State, and later shot and killed him, and threw him out of a moving police van. In addition to eye witnesses of what happened, the video of this incident was also trending on social media. Again, on October 5, another video went viral of sars officers’ killing a young musician popularly known as “Sleek,” in unjustifiable circumstances. This was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. What initially began as spontaneous peaceful protests soon turned bloody and by October 8, the protests had spread to almost all Nigerian cities demanding the disbandment of sars. This empirical study examines the operational structure of sars, the formation of the EndSARS movement and its first main protests in 2020 in the search for social justice. Methods in qualitative discourse analysis and multimodality, are used to analyze representational strategies in the protest discourse of the #EndSARS protesters. Other issues bordering on police brutality, injustice, corruption and state failure, which form the main narratives of the protests are analyzed.

State of the nation: Class, Labour politics and the contemporary relevance of Our Friends in the North (1996)

In January 1996 the BBC began broadcasting Our Friends in the North, a ‘state of the nation’ drama (Eaton 2005), over nine episodes. The series followed four working-class friends from Tyneside, and explored how their lives unfolded during the social and political upheavals of the 1960s through to the 1990s. The ‘monumental’ series was described at the time as ‘one of the major television programmes of this or any other year’. A recent (September 2022) rescreening of the series has re-emphasized the relevance of the themes it explores, and a one-off radio play updated the story to follow the children of the original characters in the 2020s. The series has been situated in the canons of British social realism and quality drama, and explores issues of class and social power, in particular depicting struggles around poor housing, police corruption, political scandals, and how these intersect with the lives of ordinary people. The main characters are shown variously rejecting, accommodating to or being crushed by, the political changes of the period, from Wilsonian Labourism, via Thatcherite neo-liberalism to the emergence of ‘new labour’. This article juxtaposes examples of the series’ themes with contemporary news items (around housing, political corruption, an out-of-control Metropolitan police service and a timid, subservient, managerial Labour Party). It argues that these recent, unresolved developments in the United Kingdom suggest the continued salience of Our Friends in the North as an important commentary on social and political issues.

Police corruption and crime: Evidence from Africa

AbstractUsing data from the Afrobarometer surveys, this paper finds that people living in regions in which police corruption is more prevalent are more likely to report that they or someone in their family have been victims of physical assault. People living in more corrupted regions are also more likely to report that they or someone in their family has had something stolen from their home. We find no statistically significant gender differences in the average marginal effects. Controlling for the incidence of corruption in other domains reduces the size of the estimated association but does not render it insignificant in terms of statistical significance or magnitude. Non‐police corruption is also strongly associated with an increased risk of crime. For both types of crime, the evidence points to “transactional” police corruption (having to pay bribes to get help) rather than “predatory” police corruption (having to pay bribes to avoid problems) as driving the relationship. Finally, we show that, controlling for whether the respondent reports being a victim of either type of crime, police corruption predicts an increase in the probability that the respondent reports feeling unsafe while walking in their own neighborhood thus imposing a cost even on those who have not been victims.

미국의 부패경찰관 규제시스템에 관한 연구

This study analyzes the corrupt police officer regulatory system in the United States and presents its dilemma or implications. Due to the complex legal system in the United States, the punishment for the same corruption is different. This gives police officers the false impression that a colleague has been sacrificed in order to uphold noble justice. Federal disciplinary laws make it difficult to punish corrupt police officers because they determine the necessity of using firearms or violent force from the police officer's point of view. After all, the government is making a practice of closing corruption cases with a large civil settlement. Sanctions are required when the New York Police Commissioner does not accept the civil complaint review committee's disciplinary recommendation for corrupt police officers.Violence and excessive use of firearms by US police officers are increasing the number of civilian deaths. It should be recognized that punishing only the problem cops, like the rotten apple theory, is not an essential solution. Corruption among civilian police officers is also serious, and a separate anti-corruption policy is needed. US police need to make efforts to restore the trust and status of the police, which have been lost to the extent that the theory of abolition of the police force is spreading. In addition, the corruption control system of the police organization should be systematically overhauled.

Debunking the Myth of Nicaraguan Exceptionalism: Crime, Drugs and the Political Economy of Violence in a ‘Narco-state’

AbstractNicaragua is often held up as an exception within the Central American panorama of criminal violence, widely presented as the safest country in the region due to its particular revolutionary legacies, the (supposed) absence of transnational gangs and drug-trafficking organisations, and the National Police's representation as an efficient and professional force. This commentary proposes an alternative reading of Nicaragua's contemporary political economy of violence in order to reveal the profoundly misleading nature of this prevalent view. In particular, it highlights how Nicaragua is governed through a particular political ‘settlement’ underpinned by drug trafficking, police and judicial corruption, as well as ‘mafia state’ governance. These factors have coalesced to establish a highly efficient and engrained ‘narco-state’ whose undoing is unlikely in the short term.

Reforming Queensland’s police complaints system: recent inquiries and the prospects of a best practice model

ABSTRACT This paper critiques three recent inquiries and recommended changes in practice around the management of complaints against police in the state of Queensland, Australia, with a view to advancing a best practice model internationally. A civilian oversight system, closely aligned to a ‘civilian control’ model, was introduced in Queensland as part of a reform program following the 1989 Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption. However, external control of complaints was almost completely eroded over a 30-year period. The resumption of police control resulted in recurring scandals and widespread stakeholder disaffection. These issues came to a head and were addressed to varying degrees through three inquiries across 2022: the Review of Culture and Accountability in the Queensland Public Sector (‘Coaldrake Review’), the Commission of Inquiry relating to the Crime and Corruption Commission (‘Fitzgerald and Wilson Inquiry’) and, in particular, the Commission of Inquiry into Queensland Police Service Responses to Domestic and Family Violence (‘Richards Inquiry’). The combined findings and recommendations demonstrated the need for rigorous institutional independence and transparency in the processing of complaints, along with a range of complementary integrity management strategies to ensure adequate accountability of police.

Community-Police Relationships in Crime Reduction in the Tzaneen Area of the Limpopo Province (South Africa)

This article explores the consequences of police-community relationships for crime reduction in the Tzaneen area of the Limpopo province of South Africa. This is relevant because even though the South African Police Service (SAPS) typically works under pressure and under difficult conditions of lack of resources and internal conflicts, the Tzaneen community still believes that it is the responsibility of the police to ensure a lower crime rate and a safer community. Presently, there are ineffective crime reduction programmes in the Tzaneen area, despite efforts such as ‘community policing forums’, ‘sector crime forums’, ‘take a Girl Child to Work’, and ‘Adopt a Cop’, which are practised in certain community areas in Tzaneen. Notwithstanding all these measures, the crime rate is high in the Tzaneen area. A qualitative interview method was used to collect data. Eighteen participants were interviewed from a selected panel of experts from the SAPS, community leaders, non-governmental organisations, and business communities by making use of open-ended questions. The study adopted purposive sampling. The study revealed several reasons for the high crime rate in the Tzaneen policing area, such as police corruption, lack of adequate communication between the police and the Tzaneen community, lack of community knowledge of the functions of the criminal justice system, and low morale on the part of policing organisations as some of the major reasons for the poor police-community relationship in the Tzaneen area of Limpopo. The study recommends ways that can strengthen the police-community relationship and reduce the crime rate in the Tzaneen area of Limpopo.

Police violence, corrupt cops, and the repudiation of stigma among underclass residents in Mexico City

The relationship between police corruption and violence is well established in Latin America. Those with less power in poor communities often adapt their actions to serve their group interests in response to constraints placed on them by law enforcement. Using ethnographic and qualitative methods, we probe the effect of corrupt police behavior on the stigma of arrest and imprisonment by members of impoverished neighborhoods in Mexico City. Using an interpretive approach, we find that widespread corruption and police violence has indirectly mitigated the negative effects of the stigma or arrest and incarceration by what we term the repudiation of stigma. For the subjects in our study, the adjustment to pervasive corruption has led amelioration of the social stigma associated with arrest and incarceration among those with whom they share similar biographies of experience. More generally, repudiation of stigma highlights the ability of the marginalized to deflect the social consequences of being arrested and having a criminal record.

Challenges Faced by Anti-Terrorism Police Unit in Fighting Terrorism; A Case Study of Nairobi County, Kenya

This study established the challenges faced by anti-terrorism police unit in fighting terrorism in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study has been motivated by increased public perceptions of anti-terror police ineffectiveness in the midst of rising terror related activities in Nairobi County, Kenya. Guided by this broad objective, the study examined the legal challenges faced by the Kenya anti-terrorism police unit in fighting terrorism in Nairobi County, established the technological challenges faced by an anti-terrorism police unit and examined the effect of corruption on war against terror within the Kenya anti-terrorism police unit in Nairobi County. The study was grounded by the Rational Choice Theory and adopted a case study qualitative design. The main method of data collection was the interview. The study comprised of 80 respondents: 76 main respondents and 4 Key Informants. Purposive sampling Method was used to select respondents for the study. Data was transcribed and the transcriptions coded using NVIVO software. Two major legal challenges identified were related to both Kenya constitution, Domestic and International Human Right laws. The study found that the war on terror is shrouded in ambiguities in interpreting the law on what terrorism is, biases in dealing with terror suspects and confusion on what international partners want. For example, anti-terrorist global pundits portend that governments should respond to this threat with maximum force to deter acts of terror, biases and contradictions with regard to the terrorists “the supreme right “with no derogation from this right while at the same time negating the “supreme right” of victims or rather other Kenyans. Further, constitutional rights and freedoms emerged as major challenge that hampered police operations and action. Further established technological skilled challenges faced by anti-terrorism police unit in Nairobi County include capacity to crack: Incitement Platforms, Terrorist Financing platforms and Websites used as online stores. Further, there is technological skill gap to enable them crack; encrypted, compressed and password-protected and anonymised terrorist materials, including documents and videos, which are then uploaded and circulated via the internet encryption software of terrorist Secrets” to facilitate covert internet communications. According to the third objective, terrorist criminal groups will always grease or oil the system right from the investigating agencies through the Judiciary to the prison. According to this study, fighting police corruption that hampers war on terror is a tall order because the real problem is public corruption. At times officers get a tip off about suspected terrorist activity somewhere but before they make a move a phone call from “above” or a politician disrupted with instructions to stand down. Presiding Judges and Magistrates are in most cases also compromised to snub most evidence in their ruling, most of it being digital or forensic and either throw away the cases leading to miscarriage of Justice or even incriminate them to prison where intended radicalization may have been planned. From there prison authorities may also be bribed to aid escape. Amongst other recommendations, A reviewed with regard to Legal rights and freedoms of accused and victims of terror related crimes in relations to the supreme right. This review should put safeguards and remove any legal challenges that may hamper war on terror. The anti-terror police unit should train all officers to catch up with new technology. Given its magnitude, winning the war on corruption may hence, require political will executive order or decree from a benevolent dictatorial presidency.