BOOK REVIEW

Police Corruption: Deviance, Accountability and Reformin PolicingMaurice Punch. Willan Publishing, Cullompton, 2009,ISBN: 978-1-84392-410-4, 281 pages, £21.99 (Hardcover)

Luciana Echazu

Received: 30 March 2011 /Accepted: 1 April 2011 /Published online: 12 May 2011# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Maurice Punch’s Police Corruption explores the paradoxical world of law enforcersbecoming law breakers, and looks into what could be the underlying causes for such apervasive phenomenon around the world. The book is based on cases found in the literatureand sources such as documentaries as well as the author’s familiarity and personalexperiences with police departments in three different countries: the United Kingdom, theUnited States and the Netherlands.

Punch’s definition of police corruption is rather broad and could be best explained asdeviant behavior in that any deviation from the general established rules is consideredcorruption. This broad spectrum of corrupt behavior then encompasses all types ofcharacters, from the low level ‘grass eating’ deviant behavior of some officers acceptingkickbacks from neighborhood retailers such as a free coffee, to the overzealous youngpolice officer who is up to fight crime by all means necessary (a character Punch accuratelydepicts as the ‘Dirty Harry’), to the police officer who resorts to criminal behavior as a wayof living: stealing, dealing drugs and even murdering.

In the beginning I must say, I was not so sure that I agreed with such a broad definitionof corruption, but as the book goes along, the reader inevitably realizes (as much as Punchalso mentions it) that many police criminals were ‘Dirty Harrys’ at some point. There seemsto be a very thin line between the idealist young police officer who joins the force to keepcriminals off the streets and to become a hero, and the overworked, disappointed policeofficer who ends up joining a gang once he realizes that the system is ‘broken’ and there isnothing that can be done to efficiently fight crime. There also seems to be a thin linebetween accepting a free lunch, or a free ‘token of gratitude’, and ending up extortingmoney for protection. How far is far enough? Punch does an excellent job in describing thattransition and transformation from a seemingly ‘straight’ officer to a criminal with capitalletters.

Another interesting point of this book is—in my opinion—that it considers thepsychological turmoil that police officers go through in a corrupt environment. This issomething that affects all, the honest and the corrupt. In a broken system, honest police

Asian Criminology (2012) 7:201–202DOI 10.1007/s11417-011-9107-x

L. Echazu (*)Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699, USAe-mail: lechazu@clarkson.edu

officers are often ostracized and excluded. Sometimes, they are also threatened if theydiscover corrupt behavior and they consider reporting it. In the case of corrupt officers,dealing with the guilt can be very stressful and they often seek justification for their actions.In many cases, these police officers are able to do so rather convincingly with the commonidiom of ‘it is no crime to steal from a thief’. But, when all rationalization fails, some ofthem resort to substance abuse and, in the worst cases, when things get ‘out of hand’ evensuicide.

Throughout the book, Punch searches for an answer to the nature of police corruptionand its pervasiveness, and perhaps finding a solution to such a ubiquitous phenomenon thatseems to be present in so many countries. The answer is one that at times seemsdiscouraging: this is not a ‘bad apple that contaminates the rest’ phenomenon, it is a ‘badorchard’ phenomenon. An excellent example of this is the case of Northern Ireland, wherecases had been fabricated against suspects of IRA bombings, and nobody in the system(from police to judges) seemed to question the methods utilized to acquire confessions. Allthe way through the book, Punch repeatedly points out to the reader that system failure maybe to blame.

This same system failure may be the reason why often times there have been clean-upefforts that, on average, lasted about a decade—such as the many examples cited from theU.S. Knowing how the problem starts, however, is very helpful since it shows thatcorruption is like a chronic disease. As such, there may not be a permanent cure against it,but there may be enough measures that can be taken to minimize its impact and ensure agood quality of life for the ‘patient’.

Although the book looks into cases for only three countries, Punch makes a remarkabledistinction between corruption in the Netherlands and corruption in the U.S., explainingthat the reason some of the causes for corruption are less pervasive in the Netherlands maybe due to the Dutch system being more centralized. It is well known in the economicliterature that, when dealing with the industrial organization of corruption, a centralizedbureaucracy tends to lead to lower corruption levels than a decentralized one (Shleifer andVishny 1993). There seems to be a similar relationship with regards to police corruption.The examples portrayed in this book may help policy makers in other countries recognizethat there may be some of the same elements of corruption in their systems like the onesportrayed in this book. This, in turn, may aid in the search for a solution to any policecorruption (and police crime) problems in their nations. One, of course, needs to considerthat differences in cultures with bring about differences in corrupt behavior, and, thus,police corruption may be easier to ‘clean up’ in some countries than in others.

To the general audience, this book will help in understanding the nature and scope ofpolice corruption, its secrecy, the paranoia it generates among its protagonists, and thesystem failures that make it so pervasive. But above all, it helps put a face on, and almostdescribes the personality of, the typical police officer who starts as a straight arrow, with allthe illusion of fighting crime, and ends up transforming him/herself into a deeply deviantand corrupt officer. I believe, however, that this book is best suited for scholar readers as itprovides an excellent source of anecdotal evidence for those who do research in the area,from economists to lawyers to political scientists.

Reference

Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. (1993). Corruption. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 109(3), 599–617.

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