This paper presents findings from evaluations of the seriousness of police corruption provided by 451 line officers and supervisors in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Sarajevo Canton).
The questionnaire used in the survey contained 10 hypothetical cases from a questionnaire designed by Klockars et al., (1997). Nine cases focused on police corruption and varied from the acceptance of gratuities and holiday gifts to opportunistic thefts. The remaining case involved the use of excessive force on a fleeing car thief. For each scenario, respondents answered seven questions that pertained to estimates of case seriousness, rule violation, adequate and expected discipline for the violations, and willingness to report such violations. Questionnaires were distributed to sworn police officers in the fall of 2003. The findings indicate that police officers, both line officers and supervisors, have similar views on the seriousness of the various scenarios of police misconduct. Both absolute and relative assessments of seriousness were similar for most of the sample. Among the cases evaluated as least serious were those that involved the acceptance of gratuities, and the cases that involved opportunistic thefts were assessed as the most serious. 3 tables, 18 references, and appended case scenarios