NCJ Number
79794
Journal
ALGEMEEN POLITIEBLAD Volume: 127 Issue: 21 Dated: (October 14, 1978) Pages: 496-502
Date Published
1978
Length
7 pages
Annotation
The causes of corruption within the Dutch police organization are analyzed with special attention to influences within the criminal justice system.
Abstract
Increasing professionalization of the police is allegedly linked with a double standard for official principles of police behavior and actual behavior. Official duties of combating crime objectively and neutrally are replaced by the unofficial rules of silence, secrecy, and solidarity; respect of the police at all times; and arrest of the most visible, easy-to-apprehend offenders. The police in European states is an organization to maintain the power and control of the government. While the police have remained authoritarian, centralized and oligarchical, society has changed and diversified, making more and broader demands on the police e.g., to solve individual or racial conflicts. The government must also be held responsible for the corruption of the police because police corruption is tolerated by the political system. The political system must take into consideration the consequences of its police policy and seek to develop systematic and adequate control structures. Legislators have also contributed to the corruption of the police by proliferating unnecessary laws which the police must enforce and by generally devaluing legislation. The police officer is placed in the position of having to enforce laws with discretion when no consensus exists about the acceptability of a particular type of behavior; in this situation, officers tend to take the path of least resistance. Other factors contributing to police corruption are the inconsistency of the public prosecution guidelines, the air of secrecy in the prosecutor's office, the isolation of judges, and ignorance of police investigative techniques. Finally, police are viewed positively by middle groups of the population with conservative attitudes, but negatively by minorities and marginal individuals; the relationship of the public to the police remains unclear. Factors within the police conductive to integrity are careful selection of officers, effective training on a practical level, clear regulations, decentralized team policing, effectiveness evaluation, and employment of jurists, sociologists, and psychologists to help formulate policy.