About the Report

Police corruption is a universal problem, but it is a particular 

challenge in countries in crisis and emerging from conflict. This 

report is based on the lessons gleaned from a review of public 

commissions of inquiry into police misconduct worldwide and 

their possible application in stability operations, such as those 

in Iraq and Afghanistan. The study attempts to determine 

whether past scandals can help us deal more effectively with the 

contemporary problems of nation building and police reform. 

About the Authors

David Bayley is the former dean and current distinguished 

professor of the School of Criminal Justice at the State University 

of New York at Albany. He was a member of the International 

Oversight Commission for police reform in Northern Ireland. 

Bayley is also a member of the UN Global Police Policy 

Community advisory group. He is the author of Changing the 

Guard: Developing Democratic Police Abroad (2006) and other 

books. Robert Perito is the director of the Security Sector 

Governance Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He is the former 

acting director of the International Criminal Investigative Training 

Assistance Program at the U.S. Department of Justice. He is the 

author of Where Is the Lone Ranger When We Need Him? America’s 

Search for a Postconflict Stability Force. Bayley and Perito are 

coauthors of Police in War: Fighting Insurgency, Terrorism, 

and Violent Crime (2010).

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the 

views of the United States Institute of Peace, which does not 

advocate specific policy positions. 

2301 Constitution Ave., NW • Washington, DC 20037 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

Special Report 294 November 2011

© 2011 by the United States Institute of Peace. 

All rights reserved.

Contents

Police Corruption Is a Universal Challenge 2

What Do We Know about Police Corruption? 3

Police Corruption Takes Predictable Forms 4

Police Corruption Is Shaped by Culture 5

Standard Strategies for Reducing Police Corruption 6

Knowledge about Police Corruption Is Limited

by Context 7

Police Reform Depends on the External Environment 7

Recommendations 8

David Bayley and Robert Perito

Police Corruption

What Past Scandals Teach about Current 

Challenges 

Summary

•	 Police corruption is an international problem. Historically, police misconduct has been a 

factor in the development of police institutions worldwide, but it is a particular problem in 

counterinsurgency and peacekeeping operations, such as the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization police training program in Afghanistan. There, police abuse and corruption 

appear endemic and have caused some Afghans to seek the assistance of the Taliban 

against their own government.

•	 The most reliable and extensive knowledge about police corruption in the world’s Englishspeaking countries is found in the reports of specially appointed blue-ribbon commissions, 

independent of government, created for the sole purpose of conducting investigations of 

police corruption. 

•	 To reduce police corruption, the commissions recommend creating external oversight over 

the police with a special focus on integrity, improving recruitment and training, leadership from supervisors of all ranks about integrity, holding all commanders responsible 

for the misbehavior of subordinates, and changing the organization’s culture to tolerate 

misbehavior less.

•	 The remedies proposed by the commissions, however, rely on a set of contextual conditions not commonly found in countries emerging from conflict or facing serious threats 

to their security. 

•	 This report suggests triage and bootstraps as strategies for reducing police corruption in 

countries with security threats. Triage involves targeting assistance in countries where there 

are solid prospects for tipping police practice in the desired direction. Bootstraps involves 

using reform within the police itself as a lever to encourage systemic social and political 

reform in countries in crisis or emerging from conflict.

United States Institute of Peace www.usip.org

SPECIAL REPORT
2 

Corruption, generally defined as abuse of authority for private gain, is among the world’s 

oldest practices and a fundamental cause of intrastate conflict, providing a focal point for 

many social groups’ grievances against governments.1 It can be equally crucial after conflict, 

when fledgling law enforcement institutions cannot control official abuse. Whenever the 

international community has tried to build a secure, viable society after a conflict, it has 

faced the need to reform the institution most responsible for law enforcement—the local 

police force—to reduce its predatory and often pervasive corruption. 

Transparency International reported that police in eighty-six countries were judged the 

fourth most corrupt public institution after political parties, public officials generally, and 

parliaments and legislature.2 Corruption was worst in sub-Saharan Africa, the newly independent states of the former Soviet bloc,3 the Middle East, and North Africa. According to a 

recent Human Rights Watch report, Nigerian police officers regularly commit crimes against 

the citizens they are mandated to protect. Nigerians attempting to make ends meet are 

accosted on a daily basis by armed police officers who demand bribes, threatening those 

who refuse with arrest or physical harm. Meanwhile, high-level police officers embezzle 

public funds meant to pay for police operations. The report concludes that in Nigeria, the 

police have become “a symbol of unfettered corruption, mismanagement, and abuse.”4 In 

a survey confined to India in 2005, Transparency International found that police ranked 

highest among nine public services on its corruption index. Police corruption is severely 

regressive, with people in the lowest quintile of income reporting most frequently that 

they had paid bribes to police. The World Bank has reported that in twenty-three countries 

studied, people saw the police not “as a source of help and security, but rather of harm, 

risk, and impoverishment.”5

Police Corruption Is a Universal Challenge to Nation Building

Diplomats, aid administrators, and other field personnel report that police corruption wastes 

resources, undermines security, makes a mockery of justice, slows economic development, 

and alienates populations from their governments. Their stories and the findings from general surveys reveal a fundamental obstacle to fulfilling the basic, widely proclaimed objective of most interventions the international community undertakes, namely, establishing 

the rule of law. Corruption in the administration of law means that equal access is denied. 

It undermines fair trials, fair elections, economic and social opportunities, cultural expression, and access to the necessities of food, housing, health, education, and water.6 Because 

the police are the primary institution for implementing law in any society, police corruption 

stops the implementation of the rule of law in place. When police sell their services for private profit, the rule of law ceases to exist. Eliminating police corruption is required for any 

country that has establishing the rule of law as a national objective. Ignoring this imperative means that international efforts at nation building proceed at their own peril. 

The lesson has been powerfully demonstrated in Afghanistan, where one of the fundamental objectives of the U.S. assistance effort has been to establish the rule of law. Illicit 

revenue from opium production has fueled widespread corruption, affecting all levels of the 

Afghan government from ministers and members of parliament to local officials and the 

Afghan national police (ANP). Afghans believe that officials of the Ministry of Interior (MOI), 

provincial police chiefs, and members of the ANP are involved in the drug trade, based on 

widespread reports of senior MOI officials accepting large bribes for protecting drug traffickers and for selling senior provincial and district police positions to people engaged in 

drug trafficking.7 Drug money combined with local loyalties, links to criminal networks, low 

or often no pay, and a residual culture of impunity have contributed to endemic corruption 

in the ANP.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions.

To request permission to photocopy or reprint materials, 

e-mail: permissions@usip.org

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote postconflict peacebuilding, and increase conflict 

management tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with 

knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy •

George E. Moose (Vice Chairman), Adjunct Professor of 

Practice, The George Washington University • Judy Ansley,

Former Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser under President George W. Bush • Eric Edelman,

Hertog Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Johns Hopkins 

School of Advanced International Studies • Kerry Kennedy, 

President, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human 

Rights • Ikram U. Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, 

LLC • Stephen D. Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor 

of International Relations, Stanford University • John A. 

Lancaster, Former Executive Director of the National Council 

on Independent Living • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor, 

George Mason School of Law • Judy Van Rest, Executive Vice 

President, International Republican Institute • Nancy Zirkin,

Executive Vice President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Members Ex Officio

Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor • James N. Miller, 

Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy •

Ann E. Rondeau, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; President, 

National Defense University • Richard H. Solomon, 

President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) 
 3

In many communities, ANP officers are viewed as predatory and a greater threat to 

security than the Taliban. For many Afghans, the police are identified with demands for 

bribes, illegal taxes, and various kinds of human rights violations. They are also known to 

use house searches to shake down occupants and steal their possessions. Corrupt police 

practices are felt most directly by the poorest members of society, taxi and truck drivers, 

traders, small businessmen, and farmers. In many parts of the country high levels of police 

corruption have severely undermined the Afghan government’s legitimacy and eroded public 

support for the police.8

It is sometimes argued that the rule of law is a norm that the West imposes on countries 

unable to fend for themselves. This is a testable proposition that should not be accepted 

without evidence; one need only ask local people if they value laws that are equally and 

fairly applied. Unfortunately, such global surveys have not been conducted. Assessing what 

people in particular places want with respect to law enforcement and, conversely, what they 

resent in current police practice is not an academic exercise in the universality of values. 

It is an important tactic to alter police behavior, creating incentives that encourage what 

people want and discourage what they abhor. Eliminating activities perceived as oppressive 

and unfair is where reform should start.

Considering the global incidence of police corruption and its existential threat to international programs of conflict resolution and good governance, this report reviews what is 

known about its forms, causes, and remedies. It also assesses the adequacy of this information for guiding efforts at reform in failing states and postconflict settings. Finally, the 

report recommends ways to undertake corruption reform even where conditions would seem 

to offer little hope for success.

What Do We Know about Police Corruption? 

At the tactical level, police corruption is a contested phrase with narrow and broad meanings. 

Narrowly defined, corruption refers to police personnel who use their position and authority 

for personal rather than public benefit. More broadly, corruption refers to any violation of 

rules even when there is no personal gain, as in perjury, physical abuse of prisoners, sexual 

misconduct, robbery, and racial profiling. The Los Angeles Police Department issued a report 

by a board of inquiry into the “Ramparts Area Corruption Incident” in 2000, prompted by 

allegations of bank robbery, false arrest and beating of a handcuffed suspect, and theft of 

cocaine from the police property room. Only the last item would be considered corruption 

under the narrow definition. Similarly, the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Corruption in 

the Uganda Police Force in 2000 investigated murder, abuse, subversion of investigations, 

and misappropriation of police property. Some of these incidents may have been undertaken 

for personal gain, but many of them were not. 

The notion of “noble-cause corruption,” that is, illegal actions undertaken to achieve 

laudable ends, is a contradiction in terms in relation to the narrow definition. Noble misbehavior by police refers to actions undertaken on the presumption that they achieve a larger 

social good, such as the extrajudicial killing of vicious criminals or dropping of malicious 

prosecutions. Few people in any country would think that police actions benefitting only 

themselves could be considered noble. 

Information about police corruption comes from several sources, among them specially 

appointed blue-ribbon commissions of investigation, civil and criminal investigations of 

police behavior, investigations undertaken by the police themselves, accounts by public 

media, observations by outside witnesses, surveys of police officers and the public, and 

accounts by people involved in corrupt activity. The commissions are the best of these 

sources because they are independent of government, empowered to investigate, and 

Eliminating activities perceived 

as oppressive and unfair is 

where reform should start.
4 

required to report publicly. The others are less satisfactory for a variety of reasons. Civil and 

criminal investigations, which in the aggregate are numerous, are ad hoc in their focus and 

difficult to study systematically. Police investigations are tainted by conflicts of interest and 

are rarely made public. Media accounts, while essential to reform, are unsystematic, often 

superficial, and vary sharply in reliability. Accounts by outside witnesses are rare due to 

the closed nature of policing. Surveys of the public are limited in detail and uninformative 

about the dynamics of corruption. Surveys of officers themselves are rare, although helpful 

in understanding police perspectives. Finally, accounts by corrupt officers as well as their 

corruptors, although rich in detail, are few in number and questionable in veracity. 

This report draws on all these sources but gives particular attention to commissions. There 

have been thirty-two of these in the fifty-eight countries of the English-speaking world since 

the late nineteenth century. They provide the most rigorous and comprehensive investigations of police corruption that are publicly available. Their findings and recommendations, 

which are cited again and again in the secondary literature about police corruption, constitute the baseline of what is known about police corruption and are the foundation for anticorruption policy and programs in the development field. A detailed discussion of the history, 

organization, and function of these and related commissions is found in appendix A. 

Police Corruption Takes Predicable Forms

The reports of the thirty-two police commissions on the police identified thirty-five forms 

of corruption, which can be grouped into four categories: scale and organization, predatory 

forms, subversion of justice, and gifts and discounts. The most common forms of corruption 

were making false reports and committing perjury, protecting illegal gambling, theft of drugs 

on the street, theft of seized property, receiving discounts on purchases, and selling information about police operations. These forms accounted for slightly less than 40 percent of the 

117 times that the reports noted specific incidents of corruption. The nature of corruption 

varied considerably from report to report; only a third of the commissions found the most 

common form (false reports and perjury). This implies that even blue-ribbon panels have not 

found a strong standard model of police corruption. In addition, the reports noted another 

category of corruption that was not a focus of investigation, namely, corrupt manipulation 

of internal administrative processes—for example, corruption of promotions and assignments and the diversion of police property to personal use. Police frequently reported this 

type of internal corruption as a major irritant, and were much less forgiving of it compared 

to the public forms. 

There are two trends in the reporting about the forms of police corruption. First, drug 

involvement is not mentioned at all before 1970. In the category of vice, drugs became 

the major driver of corruption after 1970, replacing gambling, prostitution, and alcohol. An 

interesting exception is the 2000 Uganda report, which reported corruption to be endemic 

but did not mention drugs as a corruptor at all. Does this mean that drug-related police 

corruption is a problem only in the developed West? Given what is known from other sources 

about police corruption in supplier and transshipping countries, this seems unlikely.

Second, in the commission reports corruption is described as being systemic in police 

departments only since 1970, rarely before. This is curious since the impression from general 

histories of the police in Western countries is that internal discipline was characteristically 

lax in earlier periods and that newly recruited officers had to “go along” in order to be 

accepted. Corruption before 1970 seems to have been part of a general lack of discipline, 

meaning the failure of police officers to do what they were assigned to do. In effect, the 

systemic character of corruption seems to have been so pervasive earlier that it was not 

considered remarkable. It was a part of the well-recognized connection between policDrugs became the major 

driver of corruption after 

1970, replacing gambling, 

prostitution, and alcohol.
 5

ing and politics. This trend suggests that the systemic character of police corruption has 

become noteworthy more recently not because it is new, but because public opinion no 

longer regards it as inevitable and uncorrectable. Public opinion, at least in developed, 

English-speaking countries, seems to have changed significantly in the last fifty years with 

respect to tolerance of police corruption.

The two issues of internal police corruption and involvement with drugs are both evident 

in Afghanistan. Criminal activity and corruption are widely prevalent within the police. It 

is not uncommon for police officers to buy their positions by paying bribes to superiors for 

unjustified promotions and for assignments that provide opportunities to extort truckers 

and merchants and engage in smuggling. Embezzling official funds and stealing gasoline 

to sell on the black market is common. Police officers are also reported to have sold their 

weapons and ammunition to criminals and the Taliban. Some police chiefs have padded their 

units with ghost officers and pocketed their salaries to skim money from funds for conducting operations.9 Drug abuse by police is increasingly common, particularly in drug-producing 

areas, such as Helmand province. According to the UK Foreign Office, in 2009 an estimated 

60 percent of the Afghan police in Helmand used drugs, undermining security and contributing to official corruption. This problem was also prevalent nationwide: UK narcotics experts 

reported that 16 percent of Afghan police tested positive for narcotics use in 2008.10

Police Corruption Is Shaped by Culture

Like other norms and values, attitudes toward corruption are bound by context and vary 

across cultures. Actions that are considered corrupt in the United States may be viewed as 

social obligations or simply good manners in other cultures. Reports from the United Nations 

Development Programme and the International Council on Human Rights mention widespread arrests without warrants and thefts from prisoners, both of which are rarely cited 

in Western investigations.11 A rare study by an observer in India also mentions, as did the 

Uganda commission, the filing of false cases as well as the stopping of true ones.12 It also 

found that bribery is common in hiring and posting police officers. This form of corruption 

may have been prevalent in the West a century ago but is not a matter of major concern 

today. Local counterparts have been shocked to learn that U.S. officials could not allow 

them to pay for lunch or that accepting small gifts from foreign coworkers was considered 

ethically questionable.

Surveys, media accounts, and observer reports all agree that police corruption in developing countries is more pervasive and visible than it is in developed countries. Corruption 

in the developing world is an open fact of life for anyone who encounters a police officer, 

voluntarily or not. In the developed world, police corruption is out of sight, confined by 

and large to the shadowy world of vice regulation.13 It is concentrated among officers 

who commonly work undercover rather than among officers who are uniformed and visible. 

Investigating commissions often identify particular assignments that are at high risk for 

corruption. This is very different from the situation in India, where, as one senior officer 

observed privately, constables regard bribery as a fundamental right. Police checkpoints for 

motor vehicles, where money is required to avoid harassment and delay, are common along 

major roads in the developing world. 

The variation in the form of police corruption undoubtedly affects public regard for the 

police and especially perceptions of legitimacy.14 Corruption in Western countries may be 

as costly in the aggregate as in other places, but it is invisible to the public at large. For the 

most part, it victimizes people knowingly engaged in illegal activities. Hence, the public can 

write it off as a fringe activity, perhaps even as a righteous cost for illegal behavior. This 

kind of corruption does not tarnish all police officers, only the few who knowingly exploit 
6 

the opportunity. In developing countries, however, bribery becomes a transaction fee for 

doing any business with the police. It afflicts everyone, not just criminals, and it implicates 

all police officers. This suggests that solutions to corruption need to be adaptive. Even 

though the forms of police corruption can be reduced to a generic few, it does not follow 

that generic solutions will work the same everywhere. 

Standard Strategies for Reducing Police Corruption

The thirty-two special investigations of police made 221 specific recommendations for reducing corruption. These recommendations involve reforms to police culture, management, 

recruitment and training, disciplinary processes, and external environment. The reform most 

often mentioned was to create permanent, external oversight over the police, with particular 

emphasis on monitoring police officer misbehavior. The commissions recognized that one-time 

investigations were not enough to deal with pervasive problems—reinforced by the importance commissions attached to protecting whistleblowers and improving internal auditing of 

operational processes, especially seized property and handling of informers. The second most 

cited recommendations were holding supervisors responsible for the integrity of their subordinates; reforming merit promotion and assignment; changing police culture; creating training 

programs in integrity for recruits and in-service personnel, particularly first-line supervisors; 

creating an effective internal integrity monitoring unit; annually evaluating the integrity of 

all officers; making the chief responsible for enforcing all discipline; proactively investigating 

misbehavior; and improving standards for recruitment and training. 

However, the above recommendations, including the creation of external oversight, account 

for only 43 percent of all the recommendations made. In effect, there is no grand consensus 

on reform; reducing corruption involves changes on many fronts. The clear implication is that 

efforts to reduce police corruption should be based on analyses of differences in the who, 

what, and when of local corruption. Different contexts will require different solutions.

Commissions went into more detail about the causes of corruption when they discussed 

facilitating factors than their suggestions for reform implied. Behind the recommendation 

for changing police culture generally, some commissions elaborated on the widespread tolerance of the code of silence among police officers and reluctance to inform on colleagues. 

Commissions also mentioned an us-versus-them attitude of the police against the public. 

Some reports singled out failures of leadership and supervision at all ranks. Investigators 

often thought senior officers failed to take responsibility for corrupt behavior, even when 

they knew about it. The phrase willful ignorance appeared several times, coupled with the 

practice of blaming a few “bad apples.” Finally, commissions often sharply criticized internal 

discipline systems, though they had few specific suggestions for improvement apart from 

providing more money and appointing better trained people. 

As mentioned above, commissions recognized that corruption, especially after 1970, was 

not evenly distributed in police departments but was concentrated in the units that dealt 

with regulating and repressing vice. They often recommended enhanced integrity training for 

officers assigned to such units, as well as attention to their recruitment and length of assignment. Commissions were often inconsistent about how they operationalized corruption as a 

term, whether it referred to misbehavior for personal gain or for the noble cause of criminal 

deterrence. The 1985 Neesham Committee of Inquiry in Victoria State, Australia recognized the 

difference, but linked the two in a compelling way: “What this Report demonstrates,” they said, 

“is that noble cause corruption is the nursery of entrenched systematic corruption. If a police 

force wants to rid itself of corruption it must attack noble cause corruption.”15

The commission recommendations are recycled again and again in the secondary writing 

about police corruption.16 Agreed reforms include creation of permanent, special purpose, 

Efforts to reduce police corruption 

should be based on analyses of 

differences in the who, what, and 

when of local corruption. 
 7

external monitoring of police integrity; greater attention to developing a moral climate in 

policing conducive to effective self-regulation; acceptance by police that corruption is inevitable and requires constant proactive anticipation; insistence that supervisors of all ranks lead by 

example as well as exhortation; and a determination to hold all command officers to account 

for the misdeeds of their subordinates. This consensus on police corruption reform involves a 

set of essentially administrative solutions to the problem, activities that, by and large, police 

forces can undertake themselves. Simply put, under the goad of permanent, independent oversight, reform will come about through changing the way policing is managed.

Knowledge about Police Corruption Is Limited by Context

Knowledge of the forms of and remedies to police corruption is surprisingly limited in its coverage. Of the thirty-two special commissions that investigated the police in English-speaking 

countries, thirteen were in the United States, six in Australia, three in the United Kingdom, 

four in Canada, and one each in India, Ireland, Kenya, Malaysia, Uganda, and Israel. Only 

four of these—India, Kenya, Malaysia, and Uganda—are from the developing world. In other 

words, the knowledge upon which the secondary literature is based, and which informs strategies that the international community recommends abroad, is based largely on the experience 

of Western countries—in particular that of Australia and the United States. Seventeen of the 

thirty-two commissions that focused on police generally and seven of the ten commissions 

that focused exclusively on corruption were from those two countries. Furthermore, all three 

of the American commissions on police corruption dealt exclusively with New York City.

Why have blue-ribbon investigations independent of government in English-speaking 

countries been dominated by a few countries? One obvious explanation might be that it 

reflects differences in the incidence of police corruption. Simply put, American and Australian police may be more corrupt than police elsewhere. This explanation, however, is not 

supported by international evidence.17 It is doubtful that Australia and the United States 

are so much worse than other developed English-speaking countries or that New York City is 

much worse than Philadelphia, Chicago, or Los Angeles. 

A more plausible explanation is that investigatory responses to police corruption are 

highly variable and do not reflect either the incidence of corruption or public concern about 

it. Their distribution suggests that jurisdictions differ sharply about whether extraordinary 

investigations are needed. Remedies for police corruption would seem to depend upon local 

political dynamics and traditions, as well as, perhaps, the capacity of local jurisdictions to 

manage them. At the moment, there is no research that explains the variability of official 

responses to allegations of police corruption. 

If it is true, as the data suggest, that the mode of investigation of police corruption 

depends on context, then international efforts to remedy such corruption in particular 

countries will require local assessments of traditions and capacities. The device of one-off, 

independent, blue-ribbon commissions may itself be a distinctly Western phenomenon, and 

by no means universal even there.

Police Reform Depends on the External Environment 

The problem with the above recommendations, then, is that they constitute a largely Western consensus and cannot be undertaken in the contexts where reform is most needed and 

where the international community is most engaged. The recommendations assume conditions that simply do not exist in countries emerging from conflict. For example, that 

•	 existing police and other security-sector institutions have sufficient capacity to ensure a 

reasonable level of public safety;

Under the goad of permanent, 

independent oversight, reform 

will come about through 

changing the way policing 

is managed.
8 

•	 existing security personnel are reliable;

•	 public service is regarded by police personnel as a public good;

•	 police officers are not under strong social pressure to support large extended families, clans, 

and tribes;

•	 regulations about behavior and discipline are stipulated in law;

•	 the judiciary is independent;

•	 policing is operationally independent of politics;

•	 police managers possess the skills required to supervise and manage effectively;

•	 police pay and benefits are acceptable compared with occupations of comparable status 

and power; 

•	 the police role takes precedence over the social identities of its personnel.

The point is that the consensus among knowledgeable experts about what may work in 

reducing police corruption is limited in its applicability. It underestimates the range of what 

must be changed in order to be successful. Efforts at reform in most of the world require 

more than managerial reform undertaken by the police themselves. They require addressing 

the prerequisites for successful administrative action. 

Reform faces not only the above exigent circumstances but perhaps others even more 

deeply embedded in traditional institutions, cultural attitudes, and economic conditions. 

Analyses based on contemporary data aggregated by country have found that levels of corruption are associated with the following kinds of factors:

•	 Institutional: traditions of oversight, governmental capacity, democracy, strength of civil 

society, independence of media, and the stability of elites.18

•	 Cultural: individualistic as opposed to communitarian orientations, egalitarian values, and 

trust in institutions.19

•	 Economic: life expectancy, poverty, and scarce resources coupled with tight government 

regulation.20

In the face of these impediments it is hard to be optimistic about the prospects for 

reducing police corruption in most of the world. Certainly the administrative solutions proposed for the police commissions based on Western experience seem naïve and should be 

adopted with very modest expectations for success.

Recommendations for Controlling Corruption in Conflict States

What then can be done? Are efforts to reduce police corruption hopeless except in established, relatively prosperous democracies? This is a plausible conclusion considering the 

research cited as well as experience in the field. Notwithstanding these obstacles, abandoning efforts at reform is not warranted. There are ways that international efforts may be 

improved with respect to reducing police corruption. They are, first, triage in countries that 

have reached a certain level of development and where conditions support change; and, 

second, bootstraps in crisis and postconflict countries, where governments have limited 

capacity to affect change. 

Triage

Triage involves explicitly recognizing the limits to what the international community, 

unilaterally or multilaterally, can achieve by way of reform. These limits should be analyzed country by country and assistance efforts targeted according to the possibilities 

of success. Following this logic, assistance would not be given to countries where reform 

The consensus among 

knowledgeable experts about 

what may work in reducing 

police corruption is limited in 

its applicability. 
 9

requires changing deeply rooted structural and cultural obstacles. Modest assistance would 

be provided on a short-term basis to countries where reform is already taking place. Most 

assistance would be given where it is reasonably likely that outside material and technical assistance can tip development toward reform, as in countries where there is tangible 

political commitment to reform plus evidence that the structural and cultural requisites for 

success are being created. 

The implications of a triage-based strategy for the distribution of international police 

assistance are unclear at the moment. Some useful research, as we have seen, maps macrolevel requisites for reform globally, but much more is needed.21 The number of countries 

that may truly be regarded as having democratic police observant of the rule of law is not 

very large—certainly much smaller than the number in need of substantial reform. The art 

of the triage exercise, therefore, would be to carve out a select list of feasible possibilities 

from the substantial number of countries where reform is needed. 

There are two problems with the triage strategy in addition to lack of reliable global data 

on macro-level constraints. First, it is not known how much macro-level social conditions 

can constrain police-corruption reform. Countries cannot be assigned to hopeless or possible 

categories if constraints on reform have not been weighted. Precisely because a concerted 

international initiative to address police corruption selectively is so new, there is a lack of 

experience to weight constraints properly. The studies cited above show correlations of corruption generally with several macro-level variables. It would be unwise to disregard these 

correlations, but associations are not causes. There is no basis for estimating how much 

space for reform there may be within different sets of potential constraints. This implies that 

reforms in police corruption need to be undertaken systematically, mapping carefully the 

initiatives attempted and assessing their success against select sets of potential contextual 

determinants. To move in this direction, it is essential that any programs directed at reducing police corruption abroad evaluate their success against factors within both the police 

administrative system and the larger socio-political context. Cognizant that recommendations like this have been made many times, how much longer, however, can the international 

community continue to assist blindly?

Second, a triage strategy is attractive as a rough way to make assistance decisions, but 

it may also cut across donors’ powerful geopolitical interests. Assistance to police abroad 

has many purposes, only some of which involve generating sustainable democratic reform. 

International donors are more likely to channel their assistance to controlling global forms 

of crime, such as narcotics trafficking and alien smuggling, than to improving transparency 

and reducing opportunities for petty corruption.

Bootstraps

Even when local environments may be loaded against undertaking successful corruption 

reform, it may be possible to nudge behavior in the right direction by focusing narrowly 

on the problem of police corruption. Rather than deferring to contextual obstacles, police 

reform can be used as a lever for systemic reform, governmental and cultural. Police reform 

may be exactly the place where democratic, rule-of-law transitions need to begin. Pulling 

themselves up by their own bootstraps, embattled regimes can produce visible changes that 

may have transformative effects on a larger scale. Security and justice are fundamental to 

good governance, and people care deeply about both. Reducing the more blatant, in-yourface forms of police corruption can set an example for what government should become. The 

police tail cannot wag the governmental dog, but it may at least make it quiver. 

There is one contextual prerequisite even for such a modest approach: Police reform is 

impossible without permission from the political establishment. Regimes must allow reform 

Police reform may be exactly 

the place where democratic, 

rule-of-law transitions need 

to begin. 
10 

to occur, providing support in laws and resources as needed. In particular, the supervising 

ministry must be a compliant partner. In a survey of public attitudes toward police corruption in Nepal, respondents believed the primary reason for the failure of the Nepalese police 

to provide adequate security was political pressure. Political elites, parties, and affiliated 

groups were seen by the public as second only to criminals in responsibility for illegal 

activities. They were also seen as responsible for inhibiting the police in enforcing laws and 

maintaining public order, often through manipulating the promotion and transfer process 

within the police organization.22 Foreign assistance for police reform should be conditional 

on the willingness of host governments to reinforce anticorruption guidelines, such as merit 

promotions for honest performance and punishments for offenders. Without political buy-in 

from elements in the executive, legislature, and the supervising ministry, investments such 

as human rights training for police forces are wasted.

In order to exploit transformative possibilities by focusing narrowly on police reform, and 

ignoring exigent as well as more deeply rooted obstacles, six suggestions are offered about 

how realistic, carefully crafted corruption reform might proceed. 

•	 Prioritize. Reform of corrupt police practices should not be undertaken across the board. The 

process should begin selectively, with the particular forms of corruption that most alienate 

the population. In many countries, the place to start would be eliminating what in India is 

referred to as speed money, the small bribes required to get anything done. Other examples 

might be shaking down drivers at vehicle checkpoints; requiring payment for registering a 

criminal complaint at a police station; accepting bribes for suppressing criminal charges; 

and levying fees for legal businesses, such as licensed street vending. Improvement in 

highly visible places will generate public support for reform that will help to keep the 

political space open for further reform.

•	 Insist on leadership from the top. Reform starts at the top; it does not percolate up from the 

bottom. If the top leadership in the police does not visibly and persistently lead reform, 

then change will not occur. Leaders must articulate what is expected, create opportunities 

to reinforce the message through personal appearances throughout the organization, especially with the rank and file, and raise public expectations about what police practices will 

be. Even in the face of significant contextual obstacles, managerial insistence on change, 

coupled with discipline, can change traditional behavior. This requires senior leaders to 

accept responsibility for organizational behavior, never excusing endemic corruption as 

being the fault of a few “bad apples.” It follows that all supervising officers, especially 

those on the front line, must be held to account for the misbehavior of their subordinates. 

Police organizations are quasi-military; rank matters and directions are commands. To some 

extent, police can create their own norms, and though strict discipline has limits, it can, 

when targeted consistently at visible corruption, change behavior. It may not change the 

hearts of police officers, but it can produce conforming action.

•	 Think tactically. In reducing corruption, police should adopt what is referred to in the crimeprevention literature as routine activities theory.23 Crime, particularly theft, is facilitated 

by the presence together in time and space of tempting targets, willing offenders, and an 

absence of guardians. Thus, even if police officers may not see bribery as wrong, they may 

be deterred from receiving them if the likelihood of being caught is high. Police organizations need to think of ways of calling attention to the standards expected and the penalties 

for disregarding bribes when they occur. Just because behavior is not perceived as immoral 

does not mean that it is inevitable. Corruption, like criminality generally, is often a matter 

of individual cost-benefit calculations. 

Reformers should think of ways to remind officers about what is expected in particular situations. Signs can be posted at the receiving counters at police stations that 
 11

complaints must be registered without monetary charge. Rules regarding access can be 

displayed on the doors to police property rooms. Written and thus auditable forms can 

be created for applications for sick leave, payments to informants, drawing of police 

supplies, and filing expense claims. Police property can be labeled plainly to deter appropriation for private use. The rights of vendors with respect to police inspection can be 

provided along with required licenses. Information about procedures for filing complaints 

can be posted in all police facilities to which the public has access. Injunctions about 

what is proper and improper can be posted prominently in police offices (e.g., “paid work 

unapproved in writing while on sick leave is stealing” or “these supplies must not be 

used for private purposes”).

•	 Require discipline. In taking responsibility for corruption, police organizations must create 

the capacity to monitor, investigate, and discipline noncompliant behavior. To do this, 

they need to create a specialized internal office with good resources, staff, and management.24 This office would report to a very senior officer and be independent of all other 

operational lines of authority. The commissions surveyed recommended that internal affairs 

units review all complaints about police officers, examine them for patterns of occurrence, 

undertake proactive investigations of suspected officers, monitor officers assigned to tasks 

where exposure to bribery is likely, recruit officers to work as informants about corruption 

in the units in which they work, and even test the integrity of officers by offering bribes.

•	 Cultivate the public. Police should regard the public as an ally in efforts to reduce corruption, and thus should develop programs informing the public about anticorruption initiatives and publicizing procedures for complaining. This benefits reform in three ways. First, 

a public educated about what the police organization considers improper is more likely to 

resist solicitations for bribes. This reinforces the new norms and raises anxiety among officers that people may complain. Second, the public is the most important source of information about the forms that corruption takes and also whether reform efforts are succeeding; 

tapping public knowledge is essential to directing reform strategies and measuring their 

success. Third, when the public is shown that the police are serious about curbing corruption, respect for the police rises. This is psychologically rewarding to police officers, raising 

their self-esteem. They learn that being a police officer creates status, not just fear and 

anxiety, and begin to take pride in being police officers, which in turn gives them a vested 

interest in protecting the organization’s reputation.25 In short, when policing becomes a 

vocation rather than just a job, deviant behavior is likely to decline.

In Nepal, the U.S. Institute of Peace instituted a series of dialogues about justice 

and security that brought together police officers with civil society representatives to 

overcome a legacy of suspicion and fear. Participants in these dialogues exchanged information about the sources of crime and violence and discussed ways that the police could 

best reestablish control in the community. The revelation that the police and the community could jointly devise solutions to common problems inspired a determination to 

remain in contact and continue the dialogue process. It also resulted in practical results. 

The Nepal police recorded a substantial drop in crime, while the community benefited 

from improved security and police services.26

•	 Create independent, nonpolitical oversight. This is the only corruption-reducing suggestion 

that is not under the complete control of the police. Whether it happens, however, depends 

crucially on whether the police accept the need for it. The function of external oversight is 

to hold the chief officer to account for creating the internal discipline that the law requires 

and the public wants. Its operational mode is investigation and monitoring; its leverage 

is through public reporting of its findings. In extreme circumstances, it may take over in 

particular cases so that manifest injustice does not continue or is not covered over. But 

The public is the most 

important source of information 

about the forms that corruption 

takes and also whether reform 

efforts are succeeding; tapping 

public knowledge is essential to 

directing reform strategies and 

measuring their success. 
12 

this should only happen when the police have been shown to be unable or unwilling to 

perform as expected. 

External oversight cannot substitute for discipline administered by the police themselves. As several police commissions have recommended, the chief police officer should be 

responsible for all aspects of police performance and behavior. The police will always know 

more about what happens within the organization than will outsiders. Police also have 

more standing than outsiders in legitimizing higher standards within the organization as 

well as the procedures for validating them. External oversight is needed to keep the organization up to the mark, but the work of discipline must be done by the organization itself. 

Four Questions

The two strategies—triage and bootstraps—suggested as a way forward in reducing police 

corruption through foreign assistance cannot be successfully undertaken without developing 

answers to four questions. 

•	 What are the contextual conditions that absolutely undermine any prospects for corruption 

reform in the police, at least in any reasonable period? 

•	 What do regimes need to do to indicate that they are willing to facilitate anticorruption 

programs under the direction of police administrators as required?

•	 What constitutes adequate policy space in which reform efforts may succeed?

•	 What tactics might be used in different places to reduce the most prevalent and visible 

forms of corruption? An inventory is needed, founded on field experience that goes beyond 

the generalities of existing research.

These are not easy questions to answer, but experts with experience abroad can come to 

useful conclusions about each of them if given the time and resources. There are no reasons 

in principle to think they cannot be answered expeditiously to guide policy. 

Conclusion

Knowledge about controlling police corruption is more limited than is generally recognized, 

and especially thin where corruption significantly impedes establishing the rule of law. This 

is not just because corruption is a hidden, concealed activity. At the moment, knowledge 

is drawn from only a handful of countries where the results of corruption investigations 

have been publicized. Apart from accounts by victims themselves, sometimes echoed in the 

media, there are almost no detailed studies of causes of police corruption in conflict countries. Although the forms of corruption may seem similar globally, the particulars of who 

does what, when, and how vary considerably. Understanding these particulars is essential 

for formulating programs of remediation. 

Even less is known about either the contextual conditions or programmatic tactics that 

determine success in corruption reform. Efforts at reform, rare as they are, have not been 

systematically evaluated; they have rarely been even adequately described. This may change 

due to the creation of permanent, independent agencies in several countries that monitor 

and report on police corruption. At the moment, however, there are little more than scattered anecdotes about what works. 

People working in conflict intervention and governance reconstruction tend to be pessimistic about the prospects for reducing police corruption. It seems to be an endemic problem over which foreign donors have little leverage. Pessimism is justified. Not only are there 

operational problems of insecurity, unreliable personnel, and dysfunctional institutions, but 

police corruption is supported by social structures and attitudes that are embedded in local 

Apart from accounts by victims 

themselves . . . there are 

almost no detailed studies of 

causes of police corruption in 

conflict countries. 
 13

ways of life. It can seem as if reducing corruption requires ambitious nation building and 

the transformation of local cultures.

At the same time, there are a few examples of successful corruption reduction. Hong 

Kong made a concerted attack on police corruption in the 1970s, establishing an Independent Commission Against Corruption and a Police Corruption Prevention Group. In the 

1990s, following the report of the Fitzgerald Commission, the state of Queensland, Australia, 

created a permanent, independent Criminal Justice Commission to oversee performance 

throughout the justice system. Singapore and New Zealand also have addressed the problem 

directly, although without creating permanent oversight agencies.27 In the United States, 

serious efforts at reducing police corruption have taken place within the last fifty years in 

Los Angeles, Oakland, Kansas City, and New York City.28

Unfortunately, the success of these efforts, especially in the United States, seems to be 

short term, as little as twenty years.29 Even more worrying, the examples cited come from 

relatively prosperous, political stable, mostly Western countries. This reinforces the pessimistic view that corruption reform requires conditions unlikely to be found in the world’s 

most troubled places—unless, of course, foreign intervention is undertaken on a long-term, 

nation-building scale.

Insufficient as knowledge is about reducing police corruption, any international efforts 

to foster and support the rule of law must prioritize attacking police corruption. To do otherwise is to be as willfully blind as police executives who blame “bad apples” for systemic 

misbehavior. All programs seeking to strengthen the rule of law should insist on creating 

programs that eliminate police corruption in the forms that matter most to local populations. Reformers need not solve the problem across the board in the police, or in other governmental sectors, or forever. But they must begin. Eliminating police corruption in its most 

blatant forms should be a required condition for any foreign assistance program undertaken 

to facilitate democratic governance.

 15

Appendix A

Police Commissions 

Commissions on police corruption come in two forms: one-off commissions appointed for a 

limited time arising out of particular allegations and commissions permanently empowered 

to investigate police corruption whenever it occurs. Permanent investigatory commissions 

with substantial powers focusing on the police are growing in number. They exist in all 

Australian states, Canadian provinces, all forty-three British police jurisdictions, and several 

American cities. A few have been created to monitor police integrity specifically, such as 

the Independent Commission against Corruption in Hong Kong or the Police Integrity Commission in New South Wales, Australia. Although these bodies have issued reports regularly, 

they vary in the scope of oversight, powers, and funding. Those created to investigate police 

generally have rarely investigated police corruption. 

In the approximately fifty-eight countries that constitute the English-speaking world, 

there have been thirty-two blue-ribbon commissions since the late nineteenth century. Ten 

of them were created exclusively to investigate police corruption; the other twenty-two 

were created to investigate the police generally, commenting on corruption as appropriate 

(see table 1).

Curran and Lexow are included even though they were undertaken by governments, thus 

possibly violating the principle of independence. The Curran committee was composed of 

a group of New York City aldermen, in effect a municipal council, and the Lexow Committee by senators from the state legislature. Both investigations were explicitly about police 

corruption and both focused on New York City. They were instigated by public pressure, 

mobilized by the media. Their investigations took place before free-standing commissions 

had been invented, thus constituting the only form of independence people could imagine 

at the time. The Zeiler report’s inclusion is anomalous because it is available only in Hebrew, 

although Israel is classified as an English-speaking country. The Keable inquiry into illegal 

police activities, particularly by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, never published a 

report. The Special Committee of the Council of the District of Columbia is included because 

it harkens back to the older tradition, represented by Curran and Lexow, of a special legislative investigation. It was undertaken by the full council in response to public concerns about 

mismanagement and misconduct.

Only ten special-purpose, independent investigations have focused exclusively on police 

corruption—a surprisingly small number. Moreover, seven of them are from only two countries, Australia and the United States; there have been none in the United Kingdom and 

only one in Canada. Britain undertook one special investigation of corruption in the London 

Metropolitan Police and City of London Police in 1978, code-named Operation Countryman. 

It was conducted by the assistant chief constable of the Dorset Police and hence cannot 

be considered independent. The Home Office has also never published its report, despite 

repeated requests by members of Parliament. Canada has had commissions of inquiry, 

equivalent to royal commissions, into police corruption at the provincial level—Quebec 

especially—but only one into corruption.30

The creation of special-purpose commissions independent of government to investigate 

the police, particularly corruption, is a fairly recent development. Only three of the ten 

commissions focusing exclusively on corruption occurred before 1970 (Curran, Lexow, Vancouver). Similarly, only nine of the thirty-two special-purpose commissions on the police 

generally were before 1970 (British Royal, 1962; Lexow; 1895; MacKenzie, 1968; Piper, 1904; 

President’s Commission, 1967; President’s Commission’s Task Force on the Police, 1967; British Royal Commission on Police Powers, 1929; Vancouver, 1956; and Wickersham, 1931). 
16 

There have been two commissions sponsored by private groups, neither focusing on corruption narrowly defined, both in the United States (Piper, Chicago, 1904, and Chemerinsky, 

Los Angeles, 2000).

The search for independent investigations of police corruption also included a final set of 

fifteen special commissions that focused broadly on problems of crime and criminal justice. 

See appendix B. None of these provide information on the forms of or remedies for police 

corruption.

Table 1. Blue-Ribbon Commissions Investigating Police

I. Exclusively on corruption

• Beach Inquiry, Victoria, Australia, 1978.

• Curran Committee, New York City, 1912. 

• Kennedy Royal Commission, Western Australia, 2004. 

• Knapp Commission, New York City, 1972. 

• Lexow Committee, New York City, 1895. 

• Mollen Commission, New York City, 1974.

• Uganda Corruption Commission, 2000. 

• Vancouver Inquiry, 1956

• Wood Royal Commission, New South Wales, Australia, 1997. 

• Zeiler Commission, Israel, 2007. 

II. On police generally

• Chemerinsky Report, Los Angeles, 2000. 

• Chicago Commission on Police Integrity, United States, 1997. 

• Christopher Commission, Los Angeles, 1992. 

• District of Columbia Special Committee, Washington, DC, 1998. 

• Fitzgerald Commission, Queensland, Australia, 1989.

• Keable Inquiry, Quebec, Canada, 1977.

• Kenya National Task Force on Police Reform, 2009. 

• Lusher Commission, New South Wales, Australia, 1981. 

• MacKenzie Commission, Canada, 1968. 

• McDonald Commission, Canada, 1978.

• Malaysia, Royal Commission on the Police, 2005. 

• Morris Tribunal, Ireland, 2008. 

• National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals: Task Force on Police, 

U.S., 1973. 

• National Police Commission, India, 1981. 

• Neesham Inquiry, Victoria, Australia, 1985.

• Patten Commission, Northern Ireland, 1999. 

• Pennsylvania Crime Commission, Philadelphia, 1974. 

• Piper Report, Chicago, 1904.

• President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, Task Force on Police, 

1967.

• Royal Commission on the Police, United Kingdom, 1962.

• Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedures, United Kingdom, 1929. 

• Wickersham Commission, United States, 1931.
 17

Appendix B

Crime and Criminal Justice Commissions

•	 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Australia, 1987–1991. 

•	 Cawsey Task Force, Alberta, Canada, 1991. 

•	 The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, 1922. 

•	 Cillie Commission, South Africa, 1977. 

•	 Harper Inquiry, Manitoba, Canada, 1991. 

•	 Illinois Crime Survey, United States, 1929. 

•	 Kerner Commission, United States, 1968. 

•	 Marshall Prosecution, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1989. 

•	 McCone Commission (Watts), Los Angeles, 1965. 

•	 Moffit Royal Commission, New South Wales, Australia, 1974. 

•	 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, United 

States, 1967.

•	 Scarman Inquiry (Brixton Disorders, April 10–12, 1981), United Kingdom, 1981. 

•	 Scott Drug Report, Trinidad and Tobago, 1986. 

•	 Seabury Report, New York City, 1932. 

•	 Steven Lawrence Inquiry, United Kingdom, 1999. 

The Scott Drug Report in Trinidad and Tobago, 1986, inquired into the “extent and the 

problem of drug abuse.” These reports, with the exception of the Scott Drug Report, have 

almost nothing to say about police corruption. The American Kerner Commission investigated race-based riots in the United States, and the Cawsey Task Force looked into the effect 

of the criminal justice system on the Metis people. Accordingly, they are not included in 

larger list of commissions studied for information about the nature, causation, and remediation of police corruption. 

 19

Notes

1. Bertram Spector, Negotiating Peace and Confronting Corruption (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace 

Press, 2011). 

2. Transparency International, Global Corruption Barometer (Berlin: Transparency International, 2010).

3. This bloc comprises Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine.

4. Human Rights Watch, Everyone’s in on the Game: Corruption and Human Rights Abuses by the Nigerian Police Force

(New York: Human Rights Watch, 2010), 2, www.hrw.org/reports/2010/08/17/everyone-s-game-0.

5. Samantha Power, “The Enforcer: A Christian Lawyer’s Global Crusade,” The New Yorker, January 19, 2009, 52ff.

6. International Council on Human Rights Policy (ICHRP) and Transparency International, Corruption and Human 

Rights: Making the Connection (Geneva, Switzerland: ICHRP, 2009).

7. Seth G. Jones, Olga Oliker, Peter Chalk, C. Christine Fair, Rollie Lal, and James Dobbins, Securing Tyrants or 

Fostering Reform? U.S. Internal Security Assistance to Repressive and Transitioning Regimes (Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND Corporation, 2006), www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG550/.

8. Bilal Sarway, “Bribery Rules on Afghan Roads,” BBC News, July 7, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_

asia/7519189.stm.

9. Richard A. Oppel, Jr., “Corruption Undercuts Hopes for Afghan Police,” New York Times, April 8, 2009.

10. Australian Broadcasting Corporation News, “60 pc of Helmand Police Use Drugs: Official,” February 18, 2009, www.

abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/18/2495328.htm.

11. ICHRP and Transparency International, Corruption and Human Rights.

12. B. Jauregui, “Policing in Northern India as a Different Kind of Political Science: Ethnographic Rethinking of 

Normative ‘Political Interference’ in Investigations and Order Maintenance,” Asian Policing 5, no. 1 (2007). 

13. Franklin E. Zimring and David T. Johnson, “On the Comparative Study of Corruption,” British Journal of Criminology 45, 

no. 6 (November 2005), 793–809.

14. T.R. Tyler, ed., Legitimacy and Criminal Justice: International Perspectives (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 

2007).

15. T.A. Neesham, Commission of Inquiry—Victoria Police Force (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1985), 135.

16. Tim Newburn, Understanding and Preventing Police Corruption: Lessons from the Literature (London: Home Office, 

Research, Development, and Statistics Directorate, 1999); see also Tim Prenzler and Janet Ransley, eds., Police 

Reform: Building Integrity (Sydney: Hawkins Press, 2002), and Office of Police Integrity, Past Patterns—Future 

Directions: Victoria Police and the Problem of Corruption and Serious Misconduct (Melbourne: Government of 

Victoria, 2007).

17. Transparency International, Global Corruption Barometer, Berlin, Germany, 2009.

18. Susanne Karstedt and Gary LaFree, “Democracy, Crime, and Justice,” The Annals of the American Academy 

of Political and Social Science, vol. 605 (May 2006), 6–22; Susanne Karstedt, “The Strength of Institutions: 

Corruption, Cultural Values, and Institutional Regime,” unpublished paper delivered at the annual conference 

of the American Society of Criminology, San Francisco, CA, 2010; Johann Graf Lambsdorff, The Institutional 

Economics of Corruption and Reform: Theory, Evidence, and Policy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 

2007); T. Murney, “The Rule of Law,” unpublished presentation to the International Police Deployment Group, 

Canberra, Australia, 2010; Lawrence W. Sherman, Scandal and Reform: Controlling Police Corruption (Berkeley, CA: 

University of California Press, 1978).

19. Karstedt and LaFree, “Democracy, Crime, and Justice”; Lambsdorff, Institutional Economics.

20. Lambsdorff, Institutional Economics; Murney, “Rule of Law.” 

21. Murney, “Rule of Law.”

22. Karon Cochran-Budhathoki, Calling for Security and Justice in Nepal: Citizens’ Perspectives on the Rule of Law and 

the Role of the Nepal Police (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2011), 7–8. 

23. Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson, “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach,” 

American Sociological Review 44, no. 4 (1979), 588–608.

24. Newburn, Understanding and Preventing Police Corruption.

25. David H. Bayley, “The Limits of Police Reform,” in David H. Bayley, ed., The Police and Society (Beverly Hills, CA: 

Sage Publications, 1977), 232; David H. Bayley, Forces of Order: Policing Modern Japan (Berkeley, CA: University of 

California Press, 1991); T. Newburn, Understanding and Preventing Police Corruption: Lessons from the Literature.

26. See Nigel Quinney, “Justice and Security Dialogue in Nepal,” Building Peace no. 1, U.S. Institute of Peace, 

Washington, DC, June 2011, www.usip.org/publications/justice-and-security-dialogue-in-nepal. See www.usip.

org/publications/justice-and-security-dialogue-new-tool-peacebuilders.

27. United Nations Development Programme, Asia Pacific Human Development Report on Corruption (New York: 

United Nations, 2007); see also Robert I. Rotberg, “Leadership Alters Corrupt Behavior,” in Robert I. Rotberg, 

ed., Corruption, Global Security, and World Order (Boston and Washington, DC: World Peace Foundation, American 

Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Brookings Institution Press, 2009).

28. Herman Goldstein, Police Corruption: A Perspective on Its Nature and Control (Washington, DC: The Police 

Foundation, 1975).

29. Newburn, Understanding and Preventing Police Corruption; see also Office of Police Integrity, Past Patterns—Future 

Directions; the Mollen Commission: Milton Mollen, Joseph Armao, Leslie Cornfeld, Harold Baer, Jr., Herbert Evans, 

Roderick C. Lankler, and Harold R. Tyler, 1994. “Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and 

the Anti-Corruption Procedures of the Police Department,” The City of New York, 1994; Samuel Walker and Morgan 

MacDonald, “An Alternative Remedy for Police Misconduct: A Model State ‘Pattern or Practice’ Statute,” Civil Rights 

Law Journal, vol. 19, no. 3 (2009), 479–552.

30. “Vancouver City Police Force Inquiry,” British Columbia Archives, 1956.
Of Related Interest

•	 The Iraq Federal Police: U.S. Police Building under Fire by Robert Perito (Special Report, 

October 2011)

•	 Lessons from Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq by John Naland (Special 

Report, October 2011)

•	 Security Sector Transformation in North Africa and the Middle East by Mark Sedra (Special 

Report, November 2011)

•	 Who Controls Pakistan’s Security Forces? by Shuja Nawaz (Special Report, November 2011)

•	 Afghanistan’s Police: The Weak Link in Security Sector Reform by Robert Perito (Special 

Report, August 2009)

•	 Iraq’s Interior Ministry by Robert Perito and Madeline Kristoff (Peace Brief, August 2009)

•	 The Role of the Ministerial Advisor in Security Sector Reform: Navigating Institutional Terrains

by Liz Panarelli (Peace Brief, April 2009)

•	 The Private Sector in Security Sector Reform: Essential But Not Yet Optimized by Robert Perito 

(Peace Brief, January 2009)

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Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20037

www.usip.org

An online edition of this and related 

reports can be found on our Web site 

(www.usip.org), together with additional 

information on the subject.