NCJ Number
124328
Journal
Police Studies Volume: 12 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1989) Pages: 175-179
Date Published
1989
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Although proactive measures against police corruption are necessary, they do have some negative, dysfunctional, and dangerous features such as low morale, poor community relations, ineffectiveness in dealing with rising crime and declining quality of life. Police managers must learn to recognize the cost of using proactive measures and find the resources to pay for them.
Abstract
Management accountability is the most important, effective, and difficult proactive anti-corruption measure. An accountability policy not only assumes that supervisors must seek out and sanction instances of corruption, but also that they must be able to prevent corruption by identifying corruption hazards. These hazards are locations, activities, individuals, or behaviors that parallel those associated with corruption. Accountability allows the integration of reactive and proactive measures. However, among its drawbacks are the risk that commanders may try to find corruption where it does not exist, the mutual fear between officers and commanders, and the stultification that may result from judging initiatives in terms of their implications for corruption. Field associate programs, in which officers are recruited to obtain information on their colleagues, are the most controversial of proactive measures. Obviously, such programs engender a corrosive atmosphere of suspicion among officers. Turning is a proactive practice in which officers suspected of corruption are offered immunity in return for collecting evidence against other officers. The leniency is often dependent on the quantity and quality of the information they provide. Rotation of personnel is another proactive measure, the costs of which are the undermining of police-community relations long-term policing strategies and interofficer relationships. 3 references. (Publisher abstract modified)