Corruption in politics
This is an excerpt from the paper...
For many people today, people who can be heard on talk shows across the nation, people who speak on television and campaign for change, people who refuse to vote or have anything to do with the political process--for these people and others, political corruption is such a fact of life that they cannot separate the idea of government and government officials from corrupt practices. Many decry the fact, but many others have accepted it as a way of life. In cities like New York, scandals erupt several times a year to show that political leaders are taking bribes and kickbacks to do their job with less vigor than is required. Federal corruption probes also seem to be more and more common, with indictments, trials, and convictions against members of Congress, judges at almost every level, appointees, and even presidential advisers demonstrating over and over that corruption has become an epidemic, affecting the body politic at its most basic levels. An examination of the issue and of the prevalence of such corrupt practices as kickbacks and the bribery of government officials should contribute to an attempt to find an explanation for why this is becoming such a problem at this time. KICKBACKS AND BRIBERY OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS There are many different facets to the problem of corrupt government officials, but identifying corruption is usually a matter of law. Federal law concerning bribery is found in Section 201 and in Section 666 of Title 18. Section 666 i
. . .
vice, the collapse of a public authority can damage the credit rating of the government that created it. Together, these considerations conspire to free public authorities from the fear of going broke.
W. Michael Reisman suggests a taxonomy of bribery, categorizing the act of bribery according to the manner in which the bribe is offered and the type of action desired on the part of the person paying the bribe. He writes,
There are substantially different types of bribery, with different impacts on the larger social system in which they take place and different degrees of lawfulness.
Reisman differentiates among transaction bribes, variance bribes, and outright purchases and finds that some of these are proscribed while others are sanctioned to some degree. transaction bribes are payments routinely and usually impersonally made to a public official to secure or accelerate the performance of his or her prescribed function. This would include a bribe to a customs official to see that things move along quickly. The payment in this instance is made not to violate a substantive norm but rather to assure the performance of an official act with dispatch. The transaction bribe does not "buy" the official, nor does it purchase a
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Michael Reisman, EXPLANATIONS ISSUE, GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, , Diana Henriques, Authority York, Post Office, Massachusetts Maryland, Shelley Ross, Philip Stern, public authority, public officials, public official, public authorities, bribery corruption, corrupt practices, government officials, criminal law, transaction bribe, york macmillan, kickbacks bribery government, bribery government officials, bribery public officials, criminal law bribery, public authority abuse,
Approximate Word count = 3658
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Corruption in politics
|