Police Corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Essay

patrol Corruption in the Los Angeles Police department (LAPD)Police turpitude undermines the foundation of our city... Officers who use the shield of service as a sword to commit crimes jeopardize the safety of all of us, and they do go against to their colleagues and to the city they swore to protect. Alejandro N. Mayorkas, United States Attorney, Central District of California, (U.S. Department of Justice word of honor Release, 2000). Police corruption is not a new problem in order of magnitude and there is not a standard way to get by with it. Police officers deal enormous power and responsibility and are asked to get down difficult decisions. There is not an exact guide to behavior for jurisprudence officers so their discretion can lead to corruption (Monkkonen, 1999). The existence of jurisprudence corruption in America has created a negative public passel of law enforcement. Police corruption has deteriorated the relationship between law enforcement and the communit y. In the past four years, more than 500 officers in 47 cities have been convicted of various federal crimes. Local and state authorities in 32 other jurisdictions are either engaged in active investigations or prosecutions of dirty cops (Johnson,1998) .FBI Director Louis J. Freeh has stated The insidious nature of police corruption inherently undermines the confidence of the American people in one of the staple fiber tenets of democracy that law enforcement officers will honestly and fairly protect and armed service the citizens to whom they answer. The selfish and deceitful acts of a few cannot be allowed to impugn the one of the law enforcement profession. (U.S. Department of Justice,1998). The existence of police corruption in society raises many important questions. What causes police of... ...Los Angeles Police Department, Board of Inquiry into the jetty Area CorruptionIncident01 March 2000 available from http//www.lapdonline.org/pdf_files/pc/boi_pub.pdfU.S. Department of Justice, Los Angeles Police Officer, Ex-Cop Indicted on Federal Conspiracy Charges, give-and-take release, 05 April 2000 (photocopied).Monkkonen, Erik, Crossing the (Blue) fall The Problem With Commissions, LosAngeles Times, 26 Sept 1999, p. M-1.U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, news release, 21 Jan 1998Available from http//www.fbi.gov/pressrm/pressrel/pressrel98/police.htmReport LA Convictions May Be Tossed, The Associated Press, 18 April 2000.James A. Inciardi, Criminal Justice, 3rd. ed., Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1990.Lawrence W. Sherman, Scandal and Reform, Berkely University of California Press, 1978.