Police officer misconduct has been a publicly controversial topic for many years. Many people are familiar with the infamous “Ramparts” division of the LAPD where they committed acts of beatings and extortion and the “Riders” of the Oakland Police Department in their brutality against suspects (Criminal Law, n.d.).These examples are just a few of the problems that have occurred and occurring within our criminal justice system. The examples previously described also provide a connection of one familiar form of police misconduct and that is brutality. Police brutality is just one of the many forms of police misconduct and the types that follow under misconduct include theft/fraud, bribery, sexual misconduct, use of excessive force, domestic …show more content…
This essay will go in further detail on providing examples of police misconduct and will also describe the criminal behaviors of sworn law enforcement officers with research and controlling methods to reduce these …show more content…
Policing holds a great amount of discretion and forcible activity that usually takes place in a private setting. Most of their daily routine including patrols is out of the sight of supervisors. With that being said, the opportunities for misconduct such as corruption are easily obtainable. Lyman defines corruption as “the abuse of police authority for gain” (Lyman, 2010). The types of police corruption are broken into four major categories. The first category is internal corruption. This includes the acts made by a police officer which could be them just bending the rules or behaviors resulting in illegal acts. The second category deals with police officers and them using their on duty discretion. This is referred to as selective enforcement. In Lyman’s chapter on ethics and deviance, he provides an excellent example of this type of police corruption. He talks about how discretion is used when a detective arrests and releases a drug trafficker in exchange for information is not abusing his/her authority, however, when this detective releases them for money then it clearly is a form of corruption and abuse of their authority for personal gain (Lyman,