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Learning Objectives

11-1:  Define the general concept of police corruption and how it is investigated.

11-2:  Identify specific examples of police corruption.

11-3:  Describe the findings of research on police misconduct and use of force.

11-4:  Discuss the impacts of police misconduct, particularly in terms of police-community relations.

11-5:  Evaluate some of the alleged causes of police misconduct.

11-6:  Describe the relationship between management, administrative issues, and police misconduct.

11-7:  Summarize the ways in which police agencies and individuals are held accountable for officer conduct.

Article 1
Arrigo, Bruce A., Natalie Claussen (2003). Police Corruption and Psychological Testing:  A Strategy for Preemployment Screening. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 47(3) 272-290. doi: 10.1177/0306624X03252388

This article reports the findings from a study that investigates predictors of police willingness to blow the whistle and police frequency of blowing the whistle on seven forms of misconduct. It specifically investigates the capacity of nine policy and structural variables to predict whistle-blowing. The results indicate that two variables, a policy mandating the reporting of misconduct and supervisory status, surface as the most consistent predictors of whistle-blowing. Contrary to popular belief, the results also show that police are slightly less inclined than civilian public employees to subscribe to a code of silence.

1. How will a strategy that evaluates applicants’ personality potentially reduce corruption?
2. How does this relate to the “bad apples” notion of corruption?

Article 2
Piquero, Alex R., Scott E. Wolfe (2011). Organizational Justice and Police Misconduct. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 38(4) 332-353. doi: 10.1177/0093854810397739

Although police misconduct has interested policing scholars for many years, extant research has been largely atheoretical and has ignored the role of organizational justice in understanding the behavior. This study uses survey data from a random sample of 483 police officers employed in the Philadelphia Police Department to explore the role of organizational justice in police misconduct. Results indicate that officers who view their agency as fair and just in managerial practices are less likely to adhere to the code of silence or believe that police corruption in pursuit of a noble cause is justified. Furthermore, perceptions of organizational justice are associated with lower levels of engagement in several forms of police misconduct. The results suggest that organizational justice is a promising framework to understand police misconduct and may help guide police administrators in the implementation of effective management strategies to reduce the incidence of the behavior.

1. How does organizational culture affect police misconduct?
2. What are the implications of this for police agencies?
3. How does this relate to the “bad barrels” notion of misconduct?