Distinction between corrupt behavior and similar phenomena as a contribution to defining corruption in the police

Abstract

It is known that to define the object of research is the first and indispensable step on the road to a more objective indicators of the studied phenomena. Specifically, precise and unambiguous definition is one of the key preconditions for success of the research. However, anyone who chooses police corruption as the subject of his research will encounter, at the very outset, the problem of how to define the phenomenon which he intends to investigate. The reason for this is the fact that corruption in general, and thus the 'police corruption', is interpreted in very different ways. As a result, it is obvious that the literature designates as police corruptions a wide range of behaviors and even phenomena of significantly different nature, such as violent behavior, for example. Such behavior is admittedly much easier to separate from corruption and to look into independently, whereas it is much harder to do so in case of practices which are very close to corruption, especially as some of them are referred to as being corrupt. In this sense, two phenomena appear to be particularly indicative - conflicts of interest and process corruption. The tendency of the author is to - as part of this study - examine the characteristics of these two phenomena and their relationship with corruption, trying in this way to contribute to finding the most precise definition of 'police corruption'.

Poznato je da definisanje predmeta istraživanja predstavlja prvi i neizostavni korak na putu do što objektivnijih pokazatelja proučavane pojave. Tačnije, precizno i nedvosmisleno definisanje je ključni preduslov uspešnosti samog istraživanja. Međutim, svako ko izabere korupciju u policiji za predmet svog istraživanja već na samom početku će se susresti sa problemom kako da definiše pojavu koju namerava da istraži.Razlog tome treba tražiti u činjenici što se korupcija generalno, pa time i 'policijska korupcija', tumači na veoma različite načine. Kao posledica takvog stanja primetno je da se u literaturi pod pojam korupcije u policije svrstavaju brojna ponašanja, pa čak i pojave bitno drugačije prirode, kao što su recimo ponašanja sa elementima nasilja. Ovakva ponašanja je doduše znatno lakše odvojiti i nezavisno sagledati od korupcije, dok je to mnogo teže učiniti u slučaju pojava koje su veoma bliske korupciji, posebno što neke od njih u svom nazivu čak i nose tu odrednicu. U tom smislu posebno indikativnim smatramo dve pojave - sukob interesa i tzv. 'korupciju procesa'. Težnja autora je da u sklopu ovog rada sagleda osobenosti ovih dveju pojava i njihov odnos sa korupcijom, nastojeći na taj način da doprinese iznalaženju što preciznije definicije 'policijske korupcije'.