Police Corruption In America Abstract Police corruption can be dated back to the 1890’s. This is still a major problem with many police agencies as of today. There are some cases where the officers are being paid off by the drug dealers. Police corruption can be resolved by tighten supervision, increasing the rules and by the amount of paperwork. Back in the 1890’s corrupted cops where being paid as little as 20 dollars a month by small vice shops but the monthly fee went as high as $200. At that time Clubber Williams was named king of Tenderloin Corruption.
It seems as if the punishment back in those days wasn’t as serve as it is today. There are a number of cases where police corruption was involved and the police officers were sentenced to jail time. Some cases have affected a few of the victims and their family lives. In the case of Javier Ovando in 1996 who was shot in the head and was left paralyzed from the wrist down after firing shots at three Los Angeles police officers. It wasn’t until officer Rafael Perez was caught stealing about 600,000 pounds of seized cocaine from a police locker. At that point a new story came out stating that Ovando was unarmed when he was shot.
The only reason it came out was because Perez traded testimony against his fellow officers for a lighter sentence. This story along with others has touched off the largest corruption scandal and subsequent investigation in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department. Another case took place in Camden, N. J. when corruption charges were announced against Antonio Figueroa and Robert Bayard. These two officers were accused of falsifying evidence in drug cases along with conducting illegal searches, false testimony and filing false report between the years of 2007 and 2010.
In the case of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa both were employed by the NYPD but they worked for the Mafia. They were working for the Lucchese crime family and served as hitmen. It wasn’t until 2006 that they were convicted of racketeering, obstruction of justice, extortion and eight counts of murder and conspiracy. In the case of John Burge a former Chicago Police detective who oversaw the torturing of hundreds of Black men resulting in false confessions between 1972 and 1991. He would burn suspects with radiators and cigarettes and electrocute their testicles.
Only thing that saved him was that he was protected by the statute of limitations for his crimes. In the end he was convicted for lying about his role in the torturing of the victims in January of 2011. In the case against three New Orleans police officers Robert Gisevius, Kenneth Bowen, and Anthony Villavaso. These three officers were charged with first degree murder for killing seventeen year old James Brissette. This young man was innocent and unarmed while he was looking for shelter during Hurricane Katrina. The three officers were found guilty of falsifying reports and false prosecution in the conspiracy to cover up the shooting.
In September of 2007 the police chief of Jefferson, Georgia was indicted on 30 counts of theft and invasion of privacy charges. In the indictment he was charged with unlawfully using his access to the Georgia Crime Information Center to run background checks for his wife security business. He was also charged with using city property to benefit his wife business. Here we have the chief of police involved in corruption so how do we expect the rest of the department to do right when the man in charge is committing such horrible crimes.
Whatever happened to leading your troop into the right direction? In this case they was no good leadership but at least the precinct didn’t suffer as a whole because of its superiors stupidity. These are just some of the examples of the problems that some police departments are dealing with in regards of their own officers participating in illegal crimes. The problem with this is that it’s making the police department as a whole looks awful. No good police officer wants to be classified as being dirty because of what they fellow officers are involved with.
Once a reputation is ruined it’s hard to recover from it and it also makes the citizens not wanting to trust the police department. It seems like the police officers get involved in corruption to make more money by helping out drug dealers and also selling drugs. To support his fact is the case of Kurt Steffen a Charleston South Carolina former state trooper. He was a part of a commercial-scale marijuana growing operations. He was growing marijuana on a property he had purchased in Ridgeville South Carolina. His intentions were to grow it for the purpose of him making more money.
What was grown was said to be worth thousands of dollars in profits. Steffen was sentenced to five years in prison and he also forfeited his property. There are many causes of police corruption all over the world and a lot has to do with financial temptation that lures a specific type of police officer. Also if there’s no real big protection or enough scrutiny when it comes to illegal goods and drugs. If the police department would be more observant of who goes in and out of the evidence room it may help bring down a lot of the temptation the officers are being faced with.
The officers need to take the oath that they were sworn in under more seriously and this is even when things are getting rough. Until this is done the problem will still exist within the police department. As of today police corruption is still a major problem throughout the department because we still have a lot of officers who are crooked cops. Most of the evidence that they collect during drug raids never reaches the precincts and its money most of the officers just keep it and spilt it among themselves.
So when the person who has been convicted appears in front of the judges most of the evidences are gone and there’s not enough to keep them locked up. The Law Enforcement Agencies has to find ways to avoid police corruption throughout the world because if we don’t the trouble will continue to exist. Maybe the departments need to be more involved in a lot of what’s going on around the precincts and do more inventory of the evidence that’s being processed. I believe with this being done it may crack down on some of the corruption that is going on.
These are some of the ways that I believe that police corruption can be dealt with among the different precincts. Reference McCarthy, Kevin E. “The independence of the prosecutor: lessons from 1890’s Prosecutor Journal Of the National District Attorney’s Association May-June 2007: 14+. Academic Onefile. Web Martin, Rich. “Police Corruption: An analytical look into police ethics. ” The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin May 2011: 11+. Academic Onefile. Web www. november. org www. foxnews. com
