The Causes of Police Corruption and Working towards Prevention in Conflict-Stricken States

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The Causes of Police Corruption and Working Towards Prevention in Conflict-Stricken States

Review

LAWS

The manuscript does not report on new research but covers topics related to (or associated with) police corruption through a review of existing work.

The topics covered have been widely discussed elsewhere: the definition and nature of police corruption, its various types or manifestations, the causes of police corruption, and responses to it.

Many sources are noted and, given the widespread attention given to this topic in the research literature, many more sources could be added. Perhaps a greater reliance on meta-work or studies involving large samples would be helpful? For example, an analysis of 32 special commissions on police conduct in 58 English-speaking countries over the last 100 years found common themes (Bayley and Perito 2011; see also Pyman et al. 2012). (This study is cited later by the author, but only in narrow terms.) To reduce police corruption, the various commission recommendations suggest that the risks for corruption involving police display remarkable similarities across jurisdictions and nations.
Other large studies of police corruption:
Stinson Sr, P. M., Liederbach, J., Buerger, M., & Brewer Jr, S. L. (2018). To protect and collect: a nationwide study of profit-motivated police crime. Criminal Justice Studies, 31(3), 310-331.
Gerber, T. P., & Mendelson, S. E. (2008). Public experiences of police violence and corruption in contemporary Russia: a case of predatory policing? Law & Society Review, 42(1), 1-44.

There are other issues that require some attention:

a. Low police salaries are cited as a cause of corruption in many places in the paper. Yet, the research literature (including a study cited by the author) has not found this to be true consistently. The author must address the limitations of what seems like an intuitive fix.

Some examples noted here, and there are others.
Lambsdorff, J. G. (1999). Corruption in empirical research: A review. Transparency International, processed, 6. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.463.2378&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Gong, T., & Wu, A. M. (2012). Does increased civil service pay deter corruption? Evidence from China. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 32(2), 192-204.

b. There are several places where declarative statements are made without empirical support: For example:
p. 5 - “Police administrators and chiefs profit handsomely with predatory tactics on low-ranked police officers to participate in bribery and avoid pursuing drug offenders” – empirical evidence is needed.

c. pp. 5-6 – Many examples are related describing police corruption in conflict areas or in states with weak rule of law, yet similar kinds of corruption events occur in many non-conflict areas. It has to be made clear to the reader how the political weakness/instability, public corruption, and related conditions in weak states are different in some ways compared to very similar behaviors occurring in some developed and non-conflict states described in the research literature.

d. p. 7 – Citing the work of AID, World Bank, UN is very relevant in connecting public corruption in general to police corruption. What is missing is an assessment of whether any of their recommendations, where implemented, have made a difference in corruption?

e. One or two sources are used too frequently, given the large size of the research literature on this topic.

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In sum, this manuscript is interesting in broadening the discussion of the environment of police corruption outside the West and in conflict areas. What needs to be better specified for the reader is how the linkages among corruption risks, corruption practices, and effective responses are similar and different in non-conflict versus conflict areas.

Is there a difference in degree, or is it the absence of rule of law (requiring definition) or something else that is needed to explain police corruption in general versus police corruption in conflict zones?

Note: this reviewer is not an author of any of the studies mentioned above. And it is not a requirement for them to be included in any manuscript revision, but they are provided as support for the reviewer’s points.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf