The article "Not Victimless: Understanding the Harmful Effects of Police Corruption" defines police corruption as "any illegal conduct or misconduct involving the use of occupational power for personal, group, or organizational gain" (Tyed). Hence, power corruption in the criminal justice system actually leads into a wider definition than realized, with the only requirement being committing some sort of misconduct and using it for reasonable gain, big or small. Furthermore, corruption has grown to become extremely common. In fact, the book Scandal and Reform discusses an insight into the creation of such big scale abuses of power in which it was found that without reform, small scale "scandals" go on to prompt corruption on a larger scale and that even larger scale corruptions often connect back to smaller ones (Sherman 207). In the news, recent headlines in criminal justice corruption have been portrayed as "shocking" or "new" but clearly this can 't be the case because often, the problem comes about in an everyday light that is much less shocking than the corruption stereotype the media enforces. Thus, one of the biggest problems that feeds off of corruption is the nonchalant way in which it establishes, while "bending …show more content…
The article "Corruption is a Significant Factor in Human Rights Violations in Many Criminal Justice Systems" explains that corruption extends beyond the direct consequences of this issue, hence, an abuse of power that happens at one chain of the criminal justice system affects all others (Huber). The consequences of corruption ripple into a dysfunctional society-corruption prevents others from accessing even the most simple rights and demands, through this, a brewing of chaos and injustice arises. An article published by NPR "New Orleans Struggles With High Murder Rate, and Trust" detailed the example of New Orleans (a city that experiences an overwhelming amount of corruption) and that with the rise of corruption, murder rates have gone up and sense of security has drastically gone down (Elliott). Repeatedly, citizens resort to fight abuse of power with more unethical behavior, to combat their loss of protection with their own attempts at a vigilante self governance, altogether creating more chaos and corruption. In fact, according to "Not Victimless: Understanding the Harmful Effects of Police Corruption" two huge consequences of corruption in the criminal justice system are the decreased confidence and morale in citizens and