The recent literature on the police has alluded to a "clean "and "dirty" money distinction among the various patterns of police corruption, and has suggested that police peer groups use this distinction to arrive at various social definitions of accepted and tolerated forms of police corrupt behavior. This study examines the existence of various social definitions of police corruption in one Southern police organization. The findings indicate that members of this police organization do draw such a distinction, and the perceived extent of ten patterns of corruption varies inversely with the perceived deviance or "wrongness" of the corrupt behavior in question.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Barker, T.
, & Roebuck, J.An empirical typology of police corruption. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas, 1973.
2.
Gibbons, D. C.Society, crime and criminal careers. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973.
3.
Jessor, R.
, et al. Society, personality and deviant behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
4.
Knapp Commission
. The Knapp Commission report on police corruption. New York: George Braziller, 1973.
5.
Meyer, J. C.Definitional and etiological issues in police corruption: Assessment and synthesis of competing perspectives
. Journal of Police and Administration, 1976, 4, 46-55.
6.
Skolnick, J. H.Justice without trial: Law enforcement in democratic society. New York: John Wiley, 1967.
