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Introduction
Police corruption is “one of the oldest and most persistent problems in American policing” because “for as long as there have been police, there has been police corruption and misconduct” (McElreath et al., 2013, p. 187). While a great deal of research was conducted on police corruption in the USA during the 1960s-1980s[1], much more research is available in recent years on police corruption in other countries[2]. Indeed, police corruption is not confined to the USA as Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer for 2010-2011 has found that the police is perceived as a corrupt institution in these 31 countries: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Taiwan, Uganda, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (Transparency International, 2010).
In Indonesia, the 2,300 respondents in the 2001 national survey identified the traffic police as the most corrupt institution (Partnership for Governance Reform in Indonesia, 2001, pp. 10-11). Similarly, a 1992-1993 survey of 2,243 respondents in Bangkok and four regions identified the Police Department as the most corrupt agency (33.7 percent), followed by the Ministry of Defense (27 percent), the Ministry of the Interior (26 percent), and the Department of Transport (22.5 percent) (Pasuk and Sungsidh, 1996, pp. 155-156). In Malaysia, the Royal Commission found that the divisions in the Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) that were “more susceptible to corrupt practices” were “traffic police personnel, investigating officers and their supervisors, detectives, prosecuting officers and police enquiry office personnel” (Royal Malaysia Police (RMP), 2005, p. 279). Furthermore, corruption was “prevalent in the police lockup” as there were many complaints that detainees had to pay for additional food, to receive and make telephone calls, to see family members or friends, and to be placed in “good” cells. Finally, many police officers have bribed other officers to facilitate their transfer to such “gold-mine” postings as the Commercial Crime Department, Traffic Branch, Criminal Investigation Department (D7 covering secret societies, anti-vice and gambling), Narcotics Department, Logistics Department (Procurement and Development) and Deployment and Promotions Divisions (RMP, 2005, p. 280).
In Indonesia, the police are involved in three levels of organized corruption. The first level is the...