Police Bribery Statistics
| Bribery is illegal throughout the United States and federal and state governments and authorities have the power to grant punishment for bribery. Police bribery statistics in the US were alarming especially in the 1980s. |
|
The New York Police Department (NYPD) is the largest police department in the US and in the 80s it had a very poor reputation because of its bribery statistics and high crime rate in the city. However, things changed in the 1990s when integrity tests were introduced.
In integrity tests, agents were introduced who acted like members of the public and offered bribes to police officers. There were hidden cameras around to record the police officer’s response. Officers who took bribes were dismissed and prosecuted. Officers who did not take the bribes and failed to report the incident were either dismissed or disciplined. Since many officers were afraid of getting caught so they stopped taking bribes. The idea behind integrity test was to stop police from taking bribes and reduce the police bribery statistics.
According to the statistics that are available, in New York around 1 percent of officers accepted bribes even though they knew integrity tests were ongoing. In addition, where tests were specifically targeted at police officers who were alleged to be corrupt, it was seen that nearly 25 percent of them accepted bribes. Officers were required to report bribes offered to them and this number increased by 300 percent when integrity tests were introduced.
It is believed that integrity tests reduced police bribery statistics by 75 percent and even members of the public who knew that these tests were ongoing started offering bribes to police officers less frequently.
Today, police bribery in the United States is still ongoing, but exact police bribery statistics are not available to highlight how widespread the issue is.
More Articles :
 |
