police corruption and moral disengagement

police corruption

• Officers using their position to acquire unfair benefits

• Act on opportunities created by their own authority for their own personal gain (accepting money, looking the other way)

pyramid of corruption

illustrates how corruption ranges from widespread minor misconduct at the bottom to rare but severe corruption at the top

poc bottom

Minor Deviance: Small rule violations or low-level misconduct (e.g., gratuities, minor policy violations)

poc middle

• Opportunistic Corruption: Officers participate in corruption when opportunities arise (e.g., kickbacks, ticket fixing).

poc top

Widespread/Planned Corruption: Serious, intentional, and often organized corruption involving multiple officers (e.g., large-scale bribery, extortion, systemic abuse).

grass eaters

• Passively accept opportunities for corruption.

• Do not actively seek out corrupt acts, but participate when the chance arises.

• Example: accepting free meals or small kickbacks.

meat eaters

• Actively and aggressively pursue corrupt practices.

• Seek bribes, payoffs, and criminal opportunities.

• More proactive and blatant forms of corruption

economic corruption

• Involves officers using their authority for financial gain

• Examples:

  • Gratuities

  • Kickbacks

  • Overtime fraud

  • Misuse of department property

  • Payoffs

  • Ticket fixing

  • bribery/extortion

  • theft

abuses of authority

physical, psychological, legal

physical abuse

• use of unnecessary or excessive physical force, including sexual abuse

psychological abuse

• verbal harassment, intimidation, threats, or coercion that misuses authority

legal abuse

misusing legal power such as unlawful searches, false arrests, or fabricating evidence

bandura’s mechanisms of moral disengagement

• People can temporarily “turn off” their self regulation to justify unethical behavior

  • They cognitively reconstruct misconduct so it seems acceptable/necessary

moral justification, euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, disregard or distortion of the consequences, dehumanization

moral disengagement types

moral justification

• Reframing harmful behavior as serving a higher moral or social purpose 

  • Ex. “I’m doing what’s necessary to protect the community”

euphemistic labeling

• Using sanitized language to downplay harmful acts

  • Ex. calling civilians deaths “collateral damage”

advantageous comparison

• Comparing one’s misconduct to something worse to make it seem minor

  • Ex. “I only stole chapstick, other people steal way more”

displacement of responsibility

• Shifting responsibility onto a superior who gave orders

  • Ex. “I was just following orders”

diffusion of responsibility

• Spreading responsibility across a group to avoid personal accountability

  • Ex. “everyone on my squad does it”

disregard or distortion of the consequences

• Minimizing or denying the harm caused

  • Ex. “Target expects a certain amount of shoplifting, it doesn’t hurt them”

dehumanization

• Viewing victims as less than human or as deserving of mistreatment

  • Ex. labeling people as “low lifes”, making it easier to justify harm