Corruption in the police field has been proven to be something that happens every day with some being so small ranging to big and problematic. “For a corrupt act to occur, three distinct elements of police corruption must be present simultaneously: 1) misuse of authority, 2) misuse of official capacity, and 3) misuse of personal attainment”. (PoliceCrimes.com 2004). Many officers are involved with corruption on a daily basis and some may not even see it as being such that. People know officers as to receiving free items from fast food establishments, coffee shops, donut shops, groceries, movie tickets, and other things, and they will kindly accept these offers knowing that it is considered corruption and they should not be accepting these free gestures even though they may not ask for them. Many officers feel as though they are entitled to free items everywhere they go and sometimes ask for those items at the same establishments which is wrong. Other types of corruption that happens is when officers help family members, and friends get rid of parking tickets or other citations, carrying unauthorized weapons knowing that they aren’t authorized to be carried just because they are police officers. Another big corruption activity officers take place in is taking …show more content…
Not all cops are good cops and not all cops are bad cops but somehow someway the good cops become bad or maybe they were that way since the beginning of it all. As a society we expect our officers to uphold the same values as us civilians and to live by the law as we are supposed to but unfortunately it does not happen that easily. In order to keep these offenses from happening in police departments across the globe they need to have several different meetings on ways they can prevent these things from happening. Of course it is inevitable from happening period but reduction is a start. Ways to prevent these erroneous acts from happening is to not hire unethical individuals, find ways and techniques to better screen applicants, veteran officers leading by example when it comes to rookie officers and doing the right thing because they will pick up everything including bad habits, and to have better quality training. Anyone can offer training but if it is not of good quality and in depth then what’s the point. The question of why do officers commit these crimes and do they do it because they think they are better than the average human being lingers in many people’s mind. Officers commit these crimes for several different reasons, such as they think that they will