Effects of Corruption within America’s Criminal Justice System
1.0 Introduction
Corruption is one of the main issues that American law enforcement agencies have to deal with due to the effects it has on its effectiveness. Corruption is an unethical practice and one that potentially affects countries in different ways adversely. The United States law enforcement agencies, courts, and prisons have had to battle with the issues of corruption that manifest in different ways. The focus of this study would be to analyze the effects of corruption within America’s law enforcement agencies, the courts, and corrections. A detailed analysis of the impacts of fraud on the effectiveness and performance of these agencies is critical in the process of developing a better roadmap that would lead to the effectiveness of law enforcement.
2.1 Judicial/Court Corruption
The judiciary is in charge of the operations of the court. The American judicial system has been prone to corruption due to the corrupt practices that are enhanced by judicial officers. Judicial officers, including the lawyers, prosecutors, court judges, court officers, and other persons involved directly or indirectly in the enforcement of court procedures are prone to engaging in corrupt practices. Corruption in the American courts takes place in the form of abuse of powers by judicial officers to alter the outcomes of the court. Common corruption cases in the American courts include the accounts of bribery and manipulation of the court officers to determine the findings of the cases heard in court. Cases where lawyers representing defendants bribing lawyers representing the plaintiff is one of the corruption issues affecting the court. Besides, bribery involving judges being bribed in order to influence the outcomes of the case is sa major issue that affects the delivery of justice. Bribery and manipulation of the court officials to change the outcomes of cases have heavy impacts on the distribution of justice by the courts (Ivkovic, 2005). The latter happens by the fact that this unethical practice gets to provide one party with an undue advantage over the other, and this makes it a challenge for justice to be served.
The other impact of corruption in the courts is increased costs to victims of the corrupt cases. Corruption cases would make cases that had an outright ruling to prologue through the subsequent appeals that have to be made by the victims who have convictions that the court rulings made were not fair. This leads to delayed delivery of justice on the people who need justice. Also, corruption hurts the confidence that the population has on the courts. Trust of the people on the impartiality and ethical codes of practice of the courts is critical in the process of justice delivery. Justice begins when the parties in court have trust that the courts are impartial and would deliver rulings without bias. Increased corruption among court officials, lawyers, and judges has been one of the leading causes of mistrust between the population and the courts (Stanford, 2015). The latter affects the delivery of justice to the people and maintenance of law and order in society. This is one of the critical items that can risk a country to fall into anarchy, especially when the majority of the people cannot trust the courts.
2.2 Police Corruption
Police corruption is one of the major concerns of the criminal justice system. The latter is a significant concern in the United States following several cases where police officers have been accused of taking on corrupt and related unethical practices. The USA, as a democratic country governed by the rule of law, implies that the police play a significant role since they are responsible for the enforcement of the law. As a result of their significant responsibility and powers, some of the police officers have taken on corrupt practices. One of the impacts of police corruption in the United States is the low confidence and trust of the people on the police. Effectiveness in policing depends on the existing trust that the community has on the police. When police are increasingly involved in corrupt deals such as taking bribes to aid crimes such as drug trafficking, this action often will lead the community to have low levels of trust in the police. Low levels of trust in the police has seen a poor performance of policing work in some of the remote poor neighborhoods of the United States (Søreide, 2016). The latter happens as a result of the ineffectiveness of the police in working with communities to apprehend criminals.
In the context of police corruption, bribery through giving or receiving any item of value to influence the decision of the officer has led to injustice. Cases, where people bribe the police so that their cases are not filed in court, deny justice to the victims. Also, cases where police receive bribe to present a false account lead to the victimization of the victim by misleading the judgments made by court judges. For instance, a police officer who accepts money in exchange for not arresting a drug trafficking suspect is one that comes with other social costs. The suspect who is not arrested could end up continuing with the drug trafficking practice, and this has adverse social costs on the affected persons. Another case of police corruption is extortion, which happens when the police threaten people to obtain money (Larmour & Wolanin, 2013). Cases of extortion in the USA have involved corrupt police officers threatening to falsely accuse a person if they fail to pay certain amounts of money. One of the effects of this corruption is that it promotes anarchy among officials, leads to the victimization of the innocent citizens, and lead to economic inequality.
2.3 Prison Corruption
The American prison system is also one of the areas that have been primarily impacted by corruption. Prisons are correctional facilities whose primary role is to facilitate the court orders to incarcerating convicted prisoners and keeping them in custody until they complete their terms. The prison system is also intended to facilitate correction and behavior change among the people who are apprehended. The American prison system has been one of the institutions that are vulnerable to acts of corruption as a result of the way the courts work. The closed nature of imprisonment, as well as little room for sufficient public scrutiny by internal and external auditing firms, has been responsible for the challenges of corruption in the courts. One of the cases of corruption in the prison system involves bribes offered to prison officers by the inmates or their relatives in exchange for the promise that these officers would safeguard the interests of the said inmates is a significant issue (Hardi & Heywood, 2015). This form of corruption is responsible for inequality in the way prisoners are treated in the prison facilities.
Corruption among the prison staff to allow the flow of mobile phones, drugs, and weapons is also one of the major issues in the prison system. The latter form of corruption becomes one that leads the prisoners to access drugs and mobile phones. Illegal access to drugs and mobile phones among imprisoned people comes with the danger to the officers and other prisoners who are incarcerated. Such a practice comes with consequences to the prisoners who would continue with drug abuse practice. The continued practice of drug abuse becomes one of the barriers that make the prison system ineffective in leading to a positive change of behavior among the inmates. This form of corruption also could lead to heightened risks when high-risk prisoners can access power positions through corrupt prison officials.
3.0 Conclusion
Conclusively, the study makes clear that the impacts of corruption in American criminal justice are severe. Corruption is an unethical practice that has both short term and long term impacts on the victim, the community, and the nation. The responsibilities of law enforcement agency staff need them to conduct their duty with a high level of integrity. Within American criminal justice, various workers are prone to participating in corrupt deals (Larmour & Wolanin, 2013). These include officers such as the police, lawyers, detectives, prosecutors, prison wardens, and so on. The latter happens as a result of the powers and decisions that these officers have been given, which could be abused, leading to corrupt practices. Efforts need to be taken to encourage ethics among criminal justice officers.