Based on unprecedented empirical research conducted with lower levels of the Afghan police, this unique study assesses how institutional legacy and external intervention, from countries including the UK and the US, have shaped the structural conditions of corruption in the police force and the state.
Taking a social constructivist approach, the book combines an in-depth analysis of internal political, cultural and economic drivers with references to several regime changes affecting policing and security, from the Soviet occupation and Mujahidin militias to Taliban religious police.
Crossing disciplinary boundaries, Singh offers an invaluable contribution to the literature and to anti-corruption policy in developing and conflict-affected societies.
In a critical analysis of conventional understanding, leading authors Claire Davis and Marisa Silvestri present bold new conceptualisations of police leadership.
Drawing on empirical research in criminology, sociology and leadership studies, they present a thoughtful critique of the nature and practice of leadership in contemporary policing. The book:
- Critically explores the identities of leaders and their positions within wider organisational structures and processes;
- Provides a critique of contemporary reform to police professionalisation, training and education, equalities and diversity by situating these developments within wider historical, social and political contexts;
- Draws on critical theory to offer an alternative, challenging and novel interpretation of police leaders as not simply the result of individual experiences and attitudes, but of the social, institutional and historical processes of policing and the cultures that exist within it;
- Points towards future directions and a reimagining of leadership in the police.
Accessible and stimulating, this is an essential text for policing students and valuable reading for current leaders and those interested in policing, criminology and leadership.
corruption, police solidarity was emphasised by over half of the structured interview respondents in 2016 as a practice of corruption that occurs when police officers protect their colleagues and/or superiors for wrongdoings. Violence, protection rackets and perjury were additional practices of corruption stressed by the respondents. These are also part of police culture because police officers may arrest criminals with excessive use of force and fabricate police reports and evidence for no noble cause. These aspects of police culture, related to the practices of
The second chapter opens with the rationale behind commissions on inquiry in the aftermath of a police corruption scandal to expose the truth and provide recommendations to mitigate institutional corruption. The cases of the New York and New South Wales police forces are examined with the responses of the relevant commissions. The commissions stated that the police seniors attempted to blame ‘a few bad apples’ but the commissioners exposed that it was rather ‘a rotten orchard’ that pointed at systemic corruption and high forms of police solidarity that can evade dealing with embedded corruption. The ‘slippery slope’ analogy infers that police officers socialise milder grass-eating forms of corruption – such as accepting minor gratuities – to more severe meat-eating corruption such as engaging in vice areas within a self-perpetuating system in which all parties benefit in corrupt transactions. The chapter closes by analysing a range of cases that have trialled pay reform, rotation strategy and anti-corruption training initiatives to mitigate police corruption.
) recognised that police peers encourage corruption and secrecy as part of police culture. Taking this literature into consideration, it can be argued that peer pressure and solidarity can inform police corruption as part of the socialisation process that is integral to police culture. Police solidarity was expressed as a main cause of corruption in the Afghan police force from over half of the structured interview participants in 2016. In particular, 27 out of the 50 structured interview respondents claimed that corruption existed when police officers protected
outcome, which is referred to as noble cause corruption. In other words, police officers may exercise their moral judgement to anticipate arrests, due to moral and justified values, by bending some rules for an alleged noble cause (Pyman et al, 2012: 27). As part of divisional advantage, police solidarity may be high, which may prevent whistle-blowing against corrupt colleagues to protect a department (Miller, 2003). Police discretion and the nature of police work can also influence how choices are made regarding performing an action or inaction for particular
). Police organisations have long been criticised for ‘closing ranks’, with occupational secrecy and police solidarity being problematic features of police occupational culture (Westmarland, 2005). Junior officers therefore have considerable power to resist leadership. However, follower compliance is not always positive and desirable. Tourish (2013) argues 61 Conventional leadership theories that compliance in organisations can inadvertently support unethical and dysfunctional business practices, which was similarly identified in Hough et al’s (2018) study of
from the street police and teach subordinates to cover themselves when bending rules (Reiner, 2010: 114–15). Moreover, historically within the police solidarity has become a mutual police organisational culture. Internal solidarity is based on police officers sharing their dangers and confronting them with the support of their colleagues, which leads to bonding and a feeling of isolation from other members of society (Skolnick, 1994: 52–3). Solidarity can play a role in officers shielding one another for wrongdoing, which means that corrupt and delinquent
