Frank Serpco Police Corruption

Tiller Russell’s enthralling film “The Seven Five” is shameful yet engaging that it gives a valuable lesson. The documentary focuses on the occurrences in the 75th precinct of East New York during the dark days of the 1980s and the true-crime deeds of Michael Dowd, a corrupt officer, through interviews with Dowd himself, investigators, Dowd’s partners, and drug dealers. Joined the New York Police Department in 1982 when he was 20 years old, Michael Dowd became a patrol officer for 10 years and 5 months, and within that decade, he confessed into using his authority to commit crimes and acts of corruption in violation of his sworn duty to uphold the law.

This film really grabbed my interest by depicting real life situations and corruption in today’s

Serpico” is a film that based on the of New York City Police Officer named Frank Serpico and the difficult obstacles he had to face working for the NYPD. Serpico is a “cops cop” that had to deal with persuasive organized corruption, police crime, and ethical dilemmas etc. All these obstacles were hard for Serpico to work with on a daily basis. He refused to take bribes and his co-workers begin distrust him. Serpico informed his superiors about the corruption but they did nothing about it. The superior’s just transferred him from the Bronx. Brooklyn, and Harlem. The higher ups in the police department were more concerned if Serpico spoke to any outside private organizations about the police misconduct.

Frank Serpico was remembered for that significant feat he accomplished because most police officers had just fallen in the arms of unscrupulous and Serpico was the first officer to not fall into misconduct while faced with many tempting opportunities as a plainclothesmen. Why couldn’t there be more police officers like Frank Serpico? Why did police officers allow that criminality to happen or why did police officers partake in that criminality? At least Frank Serpico had made a huge step into the right direction of transformation. The officers in the New York Police department had just gone with the flow before Serpico came around, as if corruption was a part of their job. If Frank Serpico didn’t speak up about the corruption, would it have continued to occur as if nothing was illicit?

It is important that police officers be ethical especially while on the job. An officer’s

The first thing that caught my attention was how unprofessional the two Newark Police Officers in the patrol car were while on duty. I did not find it appropriate to be smoking cigars or cursing at the citizens they were trying to detain for absolutely no reason. Furthermore, it was a bit unsettling to hear them justify their violent attacks on innocent citizens. The officers in the film claimed these actions were done to protect themselves and “protect” the young men of color they are trying to detain. This was ironic because most victims of stop and frisk, which is essentially what these officers are doing, feel threatened. Which explains why they react in such a defensive manner. However, to some officers this behavior comes off as criminal.

Another interesting research that was conducted on reducing police corruption, involved the Chicago Police Department. This research on completed by University of Illinois at Chicago, the Department of Political Science in 2013 by John Hagedorn, Bart Kmiecik, Dick Simpson, Thomas Gradel, Melissa Zumda, David Sterrett along with Ivana Savic, Justin Escamilla, Magdalena Waluszko, Dalibor Juricis, and Tricia Chebat. The first part of their research touched a topic every person in law enforcement is familiar with - The Code of Silence (also known as ’The Thin Blue Lines’). One example of corruption, proved even more to researchers that corruption won’t stop until the unspoken of code of silence is gone away with and forgotten. According to Curry (2012), in 2007 Officer Anthony Abbate jumped over a bar, and repeatedly beat on the bartender after she said he had too many drinks and refused to give him anymore all while being filmed on their surveillance tape. When police officers were called to the scene, they failed to mention that the attacker was indeed a police officer with the Chicago Police Department. During their research, they noted that after the attack, over 200 hundred phone calls were made between Police Officer Abbate, fellow police officers and also supervisors. Officer Abbate was arrested, charged and convicted of felony battery and was later fired. During the investigation, text messages between Abbate and a fellow officer, showed that Abbate

Special units in police forces are essential to the function of any organization, however some of these special units might evolve into feeling superior to the rest of the agency. The mentality of doing it their own way sets in and more likely than not this behavior is not cohesive with the policies and procedures in place by the agency. Unfortunately, this attitude develops from not being checked, and leads to the unit feeling as though they are untouchable. When not having checks and balances

Corruption within the New York Police Department is a quickly growing phenomenon; to an extent, this is largely due to the cop culture that encourages silence and draws the line at honesty. The good, honest officers are afraid to speak up against co-workers and in the process become corrupt themselves. When police departments were first established in the mid-nineteenth century, corruption quickly followed suit. It began with minor acts of misconduct and today deals with serious criminal activities. Scholars have noted that there is a strong correlation between the officers taking part in corrupt acts and officers wanting to fit in with the culture. In this paper, I argue that the deeper an officer in the New York police department gets into the police culture, the more likely it is that they become involved in narcotic corruption

Police corruption can also be explained by the lack of protection and security police feel they have. They also feel like they are being disrespected by individuals in society, which is why they rely on the subculture for protection and support (Skolnick, 1966). The police subculture has created a lot of secrecy within the organization, which contributes to police misconduct. Police officers will often ignore another police officer’s corrupt actions in order to maintain a good reputation within the subculture (Tator & Henry, 2006). For example, 84% of police officers have directly witnessed another officer using more force than necessary out on the streets (US Department of Justice, 2017). However, instead of reporting the acts of others, 52%

In 1994 a report by the Mollen commission on police corruption in New York exposed disproportionate corruption within the department. Violent crime, including gang type activity, cops in uniform routinely storming drug locations and stealing narcotics, money weapons and whatever they felt like taking. On duty police officers riding alongside drug dealers, providing protection while the dealers carried big amounts of drugs and cash. The commission also found cops who became drug dealers themselves starting up their own drug dealing networks and delivery centers. (Neighborhood Explanations) Although most officers are honest and hard-working, the Mollen report exposed serious, violent activity by some in the department.

It is obvious that police officers are using their jobs as law enforcers to obtain illegal items and are shamefully betraying their police departments. The policemen who were involved in this drug smuggle were veterans. When people think of veterans, whether it be a veteran of war or a veteran of a police department, we think of someone who has devoted many years, served and been loyal to the service. People have admiration for veterans and recognize them for being committed to the service as well as being faithful to every year they have been involved in it. Now the four veteran police officers from Chicago will be spending time in prison instead of adding more years to the service of policing. Those years that the veteran police officers were dedicated to the policing is now history, they could have helped lower crime rates in Chicago, but instead they are facing prison time.

Do you know how many cops turns corrupt every year? Also do you know how much money the corrupted cops receive from criminals every year? Between April of 2009 and June of 2010 6,724 of corrupted cops. The average amount that corrupted cops receive are from a few thousand to 3.3 million the most recorded. “There are more than 900,000 sworn law enforcement officers now serving in the United States“.

For years police corruption has been a major problem in American society but where is the line between moral and unethical police corruption, many modern movies address this vary issue. Some films portray how types of police corruption can have a positive influence on society, while others show the dark side of police corruption. Many law enforcement agents join the criminal justice with the basic idea of "justice for all," however, most of them do not realize that the nice guy doesn't always win. Even though there are vast amounts of movies which specifically address police corruption we will use three main movies for our argument today, mostly LA Confidential, however, also Training Day.

Police officers may or may not actively support noble-cause corruption. Sometimes when officers become aware of corrupt or illegal forms of misconduct, they are inclined to “turn a blind eye or look the other way.” It puts their fellow officers in a very difficult position, most officers tend to think that if they turn away and ignore it and do not acknowledge what is going on that they are not part of the misconduct or illegal activity. Most