The paper discusses how the crooked cop activities impact on the society and highlight how development is derailed. As the crooked cop activities penetrate the state other illegal activities continue to increase in the society. In the discussions it is observed that crooked cop activities have different impacts on the population depending on society situation.
Crooked Cops
Impact of Crooked Cop Activity on the State
The power of the state to have a monopoly in the use of force is slowly being eroded by the rising cases of crooked cops. The police force is a state institution intended to oversee the protection of a country's citizenry. The force is the state's implementing arm where security and safety are enhanced. Crooked cops are seen to perpetuate the opposite allowing crime to reign through corruption. This convolutes an economy thereby eroding the states potential to exercise monopoly of power as well as to safe guard the security of the citizenry. This situation compromises a social contract made between the state and its citizenry thus leaving gaps for individuals to take the law for granted. Adversely the citizenry may result to taking matters concerning the law and their protection as their own responsibility or even switch to committee crime.
Crime in a country acts as an Antidote to the development process desired in a country thereby derailing the society building process. Perpetuation of crooked cops activities fuels mistrust between the state and the citizenry destabilizing the social and economic interactions in an economy. This substantially cripples the state effort to get support from the citizenry to facilitate cooperation towards growth and development of a country. In cases where crime and corruption exist, it is observed that despite availability ample resources within the boundaries of the country, there is little commitment among the people to utilize them. Key development stakeholders argue that a country desires reliable security as an infrastructure that will attract active participation in the development.
The effects of police corruption on organized crime are also clear, at least if we accept the indicators of organized crime that are developed in the literature. As noted, (Reuter, 1983) case study from New York also strongly suggests that substantial police corruption is a condition for large scale organized crime to develop. An effect of aggregate (perceived) corruption on homicide rates has been demonstrated by (Azfar & Gurgur, 2005) Corruption in the police is again the most likely mechanism. The police corruption - organized crime complex allows increased consumption of illegal services (as gambling and prostitution) and goods (drugs, poisoned liquors, blasphemous texts in Muslim countries etc.), and the size of the informal economy, with all its effects on effective taxation. A problem by exposing these as separate effects is that they are among the causes as well as the effects of police corruption.
A corrupt police service may have considerable negative impacts on growth through its monitoring of space, when it use that to tax business directly through own predation, or by supplying protection in competition or partly in cooperation with organized crime units. The crime-police corruption nexus impacts on growth works mainly through three mechanisms:
It stifles or slows the growth of small enterprises through direct illegal taxation much in the same manner as a mafia organization. While police corruption and the size of the informal economy are likely to be positively correlated, the police's bribe collection, even without formal taxes in place, may stifle the growth of the informal urban economy.
Police corruption on its own may break budding growth in rural areas through illegal taxation of transport.
The complexity that comes from crooked cop activities may have a negative impact on foreign direct investments.
Despite the observation that crooked cops may have an influence on societal development, the issue is not similar across high and low income areas. Corruption inside the police in high income countries may normally be studied in isolation and dealt with by a separate policy specifically directed at the police organizations themselves. These measures may also be relevant in low income countries, since the police bureaucracies involved are in many ways similar, but they are hardly sufficient. The same applies to legalization measures. Petty corruption by the police is unique to low income countries and has to be dealt with as a part of a larger corruption complex.
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