This book sets out to examine the impact of corruption in and on criminal justice systems and the public acceptance and legitimacy, or lack of it, of the stateâs power to punish, particularly once exposed as corrupt. The inspiration for this book comes from cases of corruption that regularly surface around the world that discredit criminal justice in democratic and non-democratic nations. Whilst corruption is perhaps expected under dictatorships and/or an absolute monarchy (Greitens 2016; Yadav and Mukherrjee 2016) for at least some of the population in these states, it is perhaps most disappointing if or when corruption occurs in democratic nations where there is the expectation that criminal justice and the law is impartial and objective.
Most of the international literature on criminal justice corruption examines law enforcement, or more specifically, the police (Punch 2003; Del Pozo 2005; Ivkovic 2005; Alpert and Noble 2009; Skolnick 2010; Tankebe 2010; Campbell and Campbell 2010; Caldero and Crank 2011; Kane and White 2013; Bacon 2014; Stanford 2015; Greitens 2016; Miller 2017; Beare 2017). The police, however, are only one agency in any criminal justice system, and whilst powerful, with the discretion conferred upon them by the state, and some of the public, depending on the country and/or sections of it, they are not the only agency that is sometimes corrupt. Law enforcement is sometimes accused of institutional and cultural racial bias but the whole criminal justice systemâlaw courts; prison and probation servicesâin democratic nations have also appeared to âacceptâ such practice(s) (Brown and Frank 2006; Michelle 2010; Rodriguez 2010; Tonry 2010, 2011; Tyler 2014; Spohn 2015; Gottschalk 2015).
A note of clarification is needed before reading this book, though. I use the term âcriminal corruptionâ (Brooks 2016) to indicate that a criminal act has occurred rather than one that falls under some moral code. In addition I refer to law enforcement rather than the police. I make this distinction here because referring only to the police is a somewhat understated reach of a statesâ law enforcement capacity. Border and immigration and revenue, customs and excise also âpoliceâ both its borders, citizens and threats to state security, and can also be corrupt. Finally, I prefer to use narcotic(s) to describe the use of and/or manufacture of illegal substances in this book; the reason is to make a clear distinction, if possible, between proscriptive and prescriptive substances and illegal and legal consumption of some kind of medication and/or alcohol. Narcotics are associated with corrupt ânarcoâ states (Grillo 2011) and corrupt criminal justice systems, which is the theme in the book.
However, where relevant I will explicitly state that different types of corruption also influence criminal justice, and sometimes lead to criminal corruption. These are:
- Unethical corruption âan unethical but still legal act or one that is on the cusp of illegality but presented as an âerrorâ or âmistakeâ, e.g. lawyers holding on to information in a case that clears a suspect of the crime (see Chapter 10).
- Corruption of process/procedureâwhere ârulesâ of policing are breached, e.g. arrest suspect on limited evidence and/or fail to follow set process at arrest, interview and charging stage(s) (see Chapters 3 and 4).
- Corruption of an idealâthe ideal of rehabilitation in probation is marginalized in favour of punishment in the community (see Chapter 8).
These often unethical acts lead to a criminal act(s) and individuals and organizations are victimized by the system that is there to protect them and offer redress as a victim of crime. Acts of corruption hit the poorest in our midst the hardest, but all of us, even those that are lucky enough to spend our life without any direct encounter or recourse to use criminal justice are still victims, particularly in democratic nations, if our system of âjusticeâ is built on corruption.
This book is an attempt to address this issue. This is not a criticism of the corruption literature of which there are excellent texts available. I am unable to name them all here but I recommend (Rose-Ackermann 1978; Johnston 2005; Rothstein 2011; Graycar and Prenzler 2013; Heywood 2015; Miller 2017; Banks 2017). This book is a contribution to the debates regarding corruption but primarily criminal justice systems and the impact this can have on the public and ultimately legitimacy of power exercised by a state (Bottoms and Tankebe 2012). Criminal justice on a national and international scale is open to substantial corruption be it a public agency or private sector or a combination of both and this is a threat to local, national and international criminal justice.
Furthermore, and still under-researched in sociology and criminology is the unethical and criminal corruption that is part of awarding criminal justice contracts to the private sector. There is excellent literature on private sector involvement in criminal justice but the majority of this literature tends to consider the impact of privatization on provision of police services (South 1988; White 2014, 2015; Diphoorn 2016), prison systems (Burkhardt 2014; Gottschalk 2015; Eisen 2017) and probation services (Fitzgibbon and Lea 2014; Fitzgibbon 2016), instead of the private sectors attempts to secure public legitimacy (Fitzgibbon and Lea 2017) in the field of criminal justice. This is understandable but the reach of corruption is such that it can occur before a contract is awarded. A contract can be awarded to a private company by a public body due to aggressive lobbying, âsponsorshipâ of events, or employing ex-public sector employees with contacts working in the criminal justice system or simple straightforward bribery to secure a contract. Before a contract is signed, a brick is laid as a foundation for a prison, immigration centre, or probation offices, and/or computer systems installed in law enforcement officers there is the potential for corruption. It is here as well as the end result of providing services in criminal justice that is in need of more attention from criminology.
There is literature on state power (Foucault 1977), or abuse of it, privatization of criminal justice services (Fitzgibbon 2016) and legitimacy (Beetham 1991; Coicaud 2002; Bottoms and Tankebe 2012) and trying to prevent and reduce acts of fraud and corruption (Brooks 2016) but little on business practices where criminal justice contracts are secured via corruption. A contract secured by corruption can lead to the corruption of services provided to the police, e.g. manipulation of emergency telephone calls data to reach a contracted threshold of emergency calls (White 2015; Fitzgibbon and Lea 2017). This is a corruption of criminal justice and one that affects us all.
Such corruption though is no different to any type of business, but criminal justice systems and those that work in them are vested with power to alter the shape of an individualâs and family current and future life. As a victim of fraud or some type of corruption, which we sometimes not might be aware (e.g. price fixing a product or service we purchase) we still maintain our liberty and have no criminal record. Once defined and labelled as a âcriminalâ ex-offender our employment prospects often narrow (Schmitt and Warner 2011; Flake 2015) as do our relationships with others. This is not an attempt to excuse individual or organizational criminal acts; this, in fact, is my concern here. Corruption of criminal justice is and should be about more than miscarriages of justice. I highlight here how criminal justice is itself a victim and purported notions of justice are sometimes a sham, a system that is rigged and abused by those working in it, but also the private sector to secure criminal justice contracts.
The numbers of criminal justice services involved in putting individualsâinnocent or suspectedâunder surveillance, and/or transporting innocent or suspected offenders to a court or prison, processing cases in a court, analysis of police data, management of police call centres, building or managing a prison, providing inmates with clothes, food, healthcare, education, telephone calls to and from prison, and probation services and surveillance in the community are only a few potential ave...