The Rampart Case Study

Here in the United States, there have been many scandals involving police corruption. Jinhua (2009) described the widespread corruption within the NYPD in 1970 that was exposed by former NYPD officer Frank Serpico. Serpico and several other colleagues accused the NYPD of allowing corruption to spread throughout the department. Their accusation was publicized in a New York Times article and eventually led to the creation of the Knapp Commission, named after its chairman Whitman Knapp. After over 2 years of investigations and public hearings, the Knapp Commission released a report indicating that corruption was rampant throughout the NYPD. Corrupt NYPD officers were classified as being either “meat-eaters” or “grass-eaters” (Jinhua, 2009). The term …show more content…
Grant (2003) discusses the Rampart scandal, which took place during the 1990s. Rampart is a portion of the city of Los Angeles, California. Grant (2003) says that the population during 1998 was considered immensely poor with 37% of its inhabitants declaring an income below $15,000 a year. 40% of the population indicated 0 to 8 years of education and 17% reported that they had some high school education. 79% of the inhabitants identified themselves as Latino. The severe poverty and lack of education helped create a haven for gang activity. The police in Rampart believed their main objective was to prevent criminals from committing crimes in the surrounding communities, which were generally middle-class, white communities. Grant (2003) says that Rampart had an elite anti-unit called Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH). It was discovered that the CRASH unit had committed a laundry list of offenses such as unprovoked shootings and beatings, the planting of false evidence, and the cover up of their offenses. The unit had developed procedures of cover-up in the event that anyone discovered their