Police Corruption: Drug Trafficking - Research Paper Example

These forces began to evolve out of earlier night watch systems that utilized volunteers or civilians (Christman, Hertig, Purpura & Segraves, 2003: 23). The GAO (1998) stipulated that “according to a report by the Knapp Commission, when the NYPD was established in 1844 as the first municipal police department in this country, it experienced immediate problems with extortion and other corrupt activities. Subsequently, the NYPD has experienced scandals and investigations approximately every 20 years.

As in New York City, corruption has plagued police departments in many major cities at some point in their history, including Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, and Philadelphia”. As security professionals, police officers must be prepared to deal with various criminal incidents including substance abuse on the job and effectively address the situation to proper authorities. As people live and work in a society where substance abuse is omnipresent, drug trafficking emerge as a major global problem confronting the United States and other nations of the world.

The intricate part is that this becomes the leading cause of crime, health problems, and various sorts of abuse – including police corruption. It is in this regard that this essay is written with the objective of presenting the kinds of drug-related corruption on-duty police officers are involved in. In addition, the factors that led these police officers to commit such crimes would be delved into as well as the sanctions imposed and recommended actions to prevent such incidents. An analysis of the factors would be undertaken to determine why police officers are more susceptible to the commission of drug trafficking crimes.

In an article written for the Drug Policy Alliance Network (2009), “a 1998 report by the General Accounting Office notes that on-duty police officers involved in drug-related corruption