The following document was produced by New Atlantis is 1998 or early 1999, as a discussion document ahead of the Independent Inquiry Society starting their study of police corruption within the UK.
It attempts to define corruption, not as just police officers receiving brown enveloped stuffed with money, but other corrupt practices that had been encountered during other investigations.
We could expand this list now, but for now have left the old document that many officers and others have seen in the past.
If you look through official papers and reports you see corruption featured. for example in the police inspectorates annual report. It is said to be a minority of bad apples,
You hear us talk of corruption and you close ranks, None you know of.
The problem is perhaps in the definition of corruption. You in most cases are thinking of corruption in terms of payments received by officers for advantage by criminal groups. By this definition the police inspectorate and others are correct, their are a few bad apples. They exist in small numbers in every police force in the UK. Yes you have had rule changes about evidence levels needed to throw them out.
Our definition is wider,
You may have been persuaded that some guilty people will escape what you are told is justice. That it is a war, and that you cannot win a war by playing according to the rules. That some casualties in war are unavoidable. the problem is the Innocent victims of the police play by the rules while those with experience as well as paid advisors do not.
Yes, you start as a flat foot, pound the beat, sort out the drunks, eventually perhaps you get a chance to get involved in something more interesting or into CID. Other officers show you how its done. Time is limited you need to make an impression, perhaps some niceties get overlooked, perhaps the gang attitude prevailing means you get carried along with the lynch mob. Before long the occasional slip has become standard practice.
Time is short, particularly where time has been spent on an investigation you feel the need for something to show for all those hours.
After all everyone else does it, Dixon of Dock Green (historic TV character) no longer has a place in the modern police force. your involved in a war of crime, not a social worker.
Stop. As soon as you are involved in corruption, you are a criminal, so is it a war on crime or a gangland war you think you are in?
A vast section of the population has lost all confidence in the police, most would rather avoid than help, many of your superiors have very limited ability, and often the criminals are perceived to be more intelligent or have better resources.
You act as a gang for your own protection, and because you have few friends in the community, old style policing is largely gone. You realize that the spiral of corruption is becoming wider known and therefore the amount of free help you can get from the public is reducing. Most reasonably well educated people will either avoid helping or bring a solicitor with them even when making a witness statement.
Back some time ago, when aprentiships was common people could either have an aprentiship or stay on to gain qualifications for an office job. If they did not get the qualifications, then they could not then get an aprentiship and was left with military service or passing the far easier police entry exams. many who stayed on but were not up to GCE, ended up in the police, now these people are 50 or more and are running the show. OK some are not the brainiest, but do they need to be. All they have to do is follow the rules, and collect information. Probably a larger problem is that they are also poor people managers, but that is not an intelligence problem just a case of selecting from the ranks as opposed to selecting from the wider population. Moving officers fairly frequently in an attempt to avoid opportunities for cash corruption also means skill in a specialty is not gained. Added to this compared with other countries we have very little training and a legal system that no-one understands.
You could leave, as you will know many honest officers can no longer stomach what is happening, don't feel they can do anything about it and feel the need to all show a united front. We don't want you to leave, that will not cure the problem, it just means that more corrupt officers get promoted faster. We realize you are in a paramilitary gang style organization, and as an individual you can do very little. But start working on your colleagues, get them to do a little more work, and point out their victims to them.
We would welcome you to join New Atlantis, yes you need to behave honorably. Do it openly, if you can, you will get problems, but document these, and when the time comes publish. If you have to leave the police force, due to intimidation or bullying tell your local press, they problem will not cover it, but eventually they may get the massage.
An amnesty, a full stop, and start again. From that point corruption within the police is not accepted by any of you. Never ever again.
Police officers, solicitors and others offered a two month amnesty where if they admit the various miscarriages of justice, corrupt practices used and fake evidence created they will not be prosecuted. Where they have many years of corrupt practices that have effected thousands of victims they may need to be given longer to complete the full disclosure process. They have to say who else was involved.
A commission of independent people who would look at misdeeds in the past and try to put as much right as they can, this means getting innocent people out of prisons fast, giving compensation in some cases, setting the record straight and in effect society saying sorry to those who it has let down so badly.
By the use of computers and the commission to identify those corrupt officers who have not come forward and to immediately suspend them without pay until the case against them is investigated.
To establish a complaints investigation group, made up of some military intelligence, honest officers and members of the public, to follow up all complaints from this point on very rapidly and to maintain records of complaints made to spot patterns emerging.
To establish a justice department that takes a first look at all cases to see if their is any reason to proceed with any prosecution, and in every case where it can to find another arrangement that allows the individual to become a valid member of society.
Some may say these ideas are not realistic, that too many people have their snout in the trough, that the best officers have got out and only the scum is left. That these thugs that run our police force, the gangs, don't mix with ordinary people, and protect their own. But the spiral is gaining momentum, more corrupt actions go on now than last year, and so on. Eventually the society that you live in will not only not work with you, but turn against you. You know that, and many police stations are now being created castle like for defending, but you are a minority, you can only operate with the will of the people. Do something quick or it may be too late.
Why not email our president with your views, openly or without letting us know who you are. You can contact him at President @ new-atlantis.org (no spaces before or after the @)
We would also like to hear from victims of the police.