Police Corruption - Corrupt Acts By Police Officers

Corrupt Acts By Police Officers

Police officers have various opportunities to gain personally from their status and authority as law enforcement officers. The Knapp Commission, which investigated corruption in the New York City Police Department in the early 1970s, divided corrupt officers into two types: meat-eaters, who "aggressively misuse their police powers for personal gain," and grass-eaters, who "simply accept the payoffs that the happenstances of police work throw their way."

The sort of corrupt acts that have been committed by police officers have been classified as follows:

• Corruption of authority: police officers receiving free drinks, meals, and other gratuities.
• Kickbacks: receiving payment from referring people to other businesses. This can include, for instance, contractors and tow truck operators.
• Opportunistic theft from arrestees and crime victims or their corpses.
• Shakedowns: accepting bribes for not pursuing a criminal violation.
• Protection of illegal activity: being "on the take", accepting payment from the operators of illegal establishments such as brothels, casinos, or drug dealers to protect them from law enforcement and keep them in operation.
• "Fixing": undermining criminal prosecutions by withholding evidence or failing to appear at judicial hearings, for bribery or as a personal favor.
• Direct criminal activities of law enforcement officers themselves.
• Internal payoffs: prerogatives and perquisites of law enforcement organizations, such as shifts and holidays, being bought and sold.
• The "frameup": the planting or adding to evidence, especially in drug cases.
• Police hazing within law enforcement.
• Ticket fixing: police officers cancelling traffic tickets as a favor to the friends and family of other police officers.