Corruption is a major social and legal issue, and police agencies do not seem to be any less corrupt than any other segment of society. The purpose of this research is to examine the issue of police corruption as a deviant act from the standpoint of conflict theory. The plan of the research will be to set forth background in which the issue has gained importance and then to discuss the prevalence and implications of persistent police corruption, despite the whistle-blowing efforts of officers such as Richard Rivera in West New York, New Jersey, as an indicator of the partial interest that police personnel and/or agencies appear to have in maintaining their special standing by means of corruption, yet at the same time setting them in opposition to other segments of society and to the integrity of the society itself.
The phenomenon of police corruption is a problem of long standing in the United States. Corruption is not unique to the US, of course. As Ivkovic notes (2003:593), cases of police corruption have been discovered in Asia and South America as well as in Los Angeles and New York in recent years. Nevertheless, the history of the country is peppered with proven cases of corruption in cities both large and small. The record of the police in a small town, West New York, which is near New York City, is that a fairly large group of officers was involved in a diverse range of illegal activities. Some officers appear to have exacted protection money from known gambling racketeers in payment for not prosecuting them. Other high-ranking officers are said to have paid elected officials a portion of their salary as a kickback in order that such officials would not call for investigation of the corrupt nature of the relationship between the gambling organization and law enforcement (Troncone 2004). The picture is sordid. Assuming all of these allegations are true, it shows the role that money plays in shaping conduct and priorities of la...