Police Corruption Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Police Corruption - Research Paper Example Thus, the author recommends more emphasis in fighting police corruption as a way of promoting governance and democracy. Cole, Smith and DeJong (2013) define police corruption as a form of police misconduct aimed at obtaining personal gains, including financial benefits or career advancement in exchange for selective or non-pursuance of an arrest or investigation. These could take the form of bribery and payoffs where police officers would accept money or its equivalent in exchange for some favours and demand payment from an individual in return for services respectively; shakedowns describes attempts by an officer to coerce money or its equivalent from criminals; and mooching which describes acceptance of free gifts from a person in return for favourable treatment to the gift giver (Gaines & Miller, 2013). Just as other values, attitudes and norms toward corruption, Martin (2011) argues that police corruption would be bound by context and hence would vary across cultures. For example , in the West, bribery was a major factor in hiring and posting the police in the past but has ceased to be a major concern nowadays. Survey also indicates visible and pervasive police corruption in developing countries as opposed to developed countries where it would be common among those working undercover rather than among the uniformed and visible officers (Bayley & Perito, 2011). This variation in police corruption would undoubtedly impact on the public regard for the police, particularly on perception of legitimacy. Police corruption remains widely spread throughout the world. In the US, the Knapp Commission found out that the New York Police Department, NYPD not only engaged in these corrupt dealings but had gone a notch higher to commit the crimes themselves (Gaines & Miller, 2013). In the UK, suppression of evidence and tampering of confessional evidence and perjury has been documented in the famous cases of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six among many other cases. Organised police corruption has also been uncovered in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales in Australia. The holds or worsens in the rest of the world with Transparency International ranking the crime top in its corruption index among nine public services (Bayley & Perito, 2011). Effect of Police Corruption According to Bayley and Perito, police corruption has been noted to be â€Å"severely regressive,† affecting majorly the low income earners (2011, p. 2). Aid administrators, diplomats and other varied field personnel argue that police corruption leads to wastage of resources, mockery of justice, undermining security, alienating populations from their governments and slowing down economic development. Neild (2007) reveals obstacles in the fulfilment of the basic objective of the international community objective of establishing the rule of law. Incorporating corruption in the administration of law amounts to denial of equal justice. This undermines fair elections, fair trials, cultural expression, socio-economic opportunities and access to the basics of food, shelter, health and education. With the police being the primary institution for the implementation of society’s law, police corruption hinders the implementation of the rule of law. When the police resort to selling their services profitably, the rule of law gets compromised. Cole et al. (2013) cite three major effects of police corruption

About privacy and confidentiality in social applications Essay

About privacy and confidentiality in social applications - Essay Example Legal frameworks and ethical standards of various nations protect the interests of the users of social applications such as search engines and wikis in regard to their privacy and confidentiality of personal information. This includes protection of user information from unauthorized access, use or sale of confidential data by hackers. The designers and administrators of social applications are therefore mandated to ensure that private data on users is treated with utmost confidentiality. Regardless of this, the privacy and confidentiality of user information has been infringed by being exposed to unintended or unauthorized parties and used for unintended purposes by system attackers. This essay gives a critical analysis and discussion of the privacy and confidentiality of data and information within social applications including blogs, social networking applications, blogs and wikis. The paper includes a comprehensive review of literature with an aim of giving a background analysis o f the research on the topic. Past literature within journals, conference and workshop papers are analyzed including the methodologies used by the investigators on confidentiality and privacy within social applications. The proposed approach for an investigation into the privacy and confidentiality of data within social applications is also presented within this essay. The paper is based on the assumption that the breach of privacy and confidentiality of users is the greatest challenge that is facing social applications. Surveys on privacy and confidentiality within social networking applications and text chats reveal that these two aspects are considered to be an ethical standard and the recognized around which the development, maintenance and use of social applications should be based (Belanger & Crossler, 2011). Qualitative studies on legal frameworks and regulations on privacy and confidentiality reveal that these aspects are considered as one of