Corruption
Encyclopedia
In philosophical
, theological
, or moral discussions, corruption is spiritual
or moral
impurity
or deviation from an ideal
. In economy
, corruption is payment
for services or material which the recipient is not due, under law. This may be called bribery
, kickback
, or, in the Middle East, baksheesh
.
pref. and rumpere, to break) when used as an adjective literally means "utterly broken".
, the complete subversion of a political or economic system.
Governmental corruption of judiciary is broadly known in many transitional and developing countries because the budget
is almost completely controlled by the executive. The latter undermines the separation of powers, as it creates a critical financial dependence of the judiciary. The proper national wealth distribution including the government spending on the judiciary is subject of the constitutional economics
.
It is important to distinguish between the two methods of corruption of the judiciary: the government (through budget planning and various privileges), and the private.
designed to obtain financial benefits, other personal gain, and/or career advancement for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest. One common form of police corruption is soliciting and/or accepting bribes in exchange for not reporting organized drug or prostitution rings or other illegal activities. Another example is police officers flouting the police code of conduct
in order to secure convictions of suspects — for example, through the use of falsified evidence
. More rarely, police officers may deliberately and systematically participate in organized crime
themselves. In most major cities, there are internal affairs
sections to investigate suspected police corruption or misconduct. Similar entities include the British Independent Police Complaints Commission
.
being the most famous example of this school of thought). The Book of Genesis 6:12 similarly describes a world before the flood
where 'everyone on earth was corrupt' (NLT
).
Another philosophical use of the term "corruption" is in opposition to "generation," as in Aristotle's book On Generation and Corruption
also known as On Coming to Be and Passing Away. In this sense, corruption is the process of ceasing to exist and is closely related to the concept of dying given certain views about the nature of living things. In a moral sense, corruption generally refers to decadence
or hedonism
. In theological or political debates, certain viewpoints are sometimes accused of being corruptions of orthodox systems of belief, which is to say, they are accused of having deviated from some older correct view.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, theological
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, or moral discussions, corruption is spiritual
Spiritual
Spiritual may refer to:*Spirituality, a concern with matters of the spirit*Spiritual , an African American song, usually with a Christian religious text...
or moral
Moral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
impurity
Impurity
Impurities are substances inside a confined amount of liquid, gas, or solid, which differ from the chemical composition of the material or compound.Impurities are either naturally occurring or added during synthesis of a chemical or commercial product...
or deviation from an ideal
Ideal (ethics)
An ideal is a principle or value that one actively pursues as a goal. Ideals are particularly important in ethics, as the order in which one places them tends to determine the degree to which one reveals them as real and sincere. It is the application, in ethics, of a universal...
. In economy
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
, corruption is payment
Payment
A payment is the transfer of wealth from one party to another. A payment is usually made in exchange for the provision of goods, services or both, or to fulfill a legal obligation....
for services or material which the recipient is not due, under law. This may be called bribery
Bribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
, kickback
Kickback
Kickback may refer to:* a form of bribery* the recoil from a firearm* Kickback , when the force on the saw blade throws it back towards the user* The sports section of the long defunct Channel Four Daily...
, or, in the Middle East, baksheesh
Baksheesh
Baksheesh is a term used to describe tipping, charitable giving, and certain forms of political corruption and bribery in the Middle East and South Asia...
.
Etymology
The word corrupt (Middle English, from Latin corruptus, past participle of corrumpere, to abuse or destroy : com-, intensiveIntensive
In grammar, an intensive word form is one which denotes stronger or more forceful action relative to the root on which the intensive is built. Intensives are usually lexical formations, but there may be a regular process for forming intensives from a root...
pref. and rumpere, to break) when used as an adjective literally means "utterly broken".
Corrupt activities
- Abuse of the system
- Bid riggingBid riggingBid rigging is a form of fraud in which a commercial contract is promised to one party even though for the sake of appearance several other parties also present a bid. This form of collusion is illegal in most countries...
- BriberyBriberyBribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
in politics, business, or sport - CartelCartelA cartel is a formal agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers and manufacturers that agree to fix prices, marketing, and production. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products...
- CollusionCollusionCollusion is an agreement between two or more persons, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage...
, an agreement between two or more persons, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage - CronyismCronyismCronyism is partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications. Hence, cronyism is contrary in practice and principle to meritocracy....
- Electoral fraudElectoral fraudElectoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
- EmbezzlementEmbezzlementEmbezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
- Influence peddlingInfluence peddlingInfluence peddling is the illegal practice of using one's influence in government or connections with persons in authority to obtain favors or preferential treatment for another, usually in return for payment. Also called traffic of influence or trading in influence ...
- NepotismNepotismNepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. The word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, nepotis , from which modern Romanian nepot and Italian nipote, "nephew" or "grandchild" are also descended....
- Organized crimeOrganized crimeOrganized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
- PatronagePatronagePatronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...
- Price FixingPrice fixingPrice fixing is an agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given level by controlling supply and demand...
Politics
Political corruption is the abuse of public power, office, or resources by elected government officials for personal gain, e.g. by extortion, soliciting or offering bribes It can also take the form of office holders maintaining themselves in office by purchasing votes by enacting laws which use taxpayer money. Systemic corruptionSystemic corruption
Systemic corruption is corruption which is primarily due to a weaknesses of an organisation or process.It can be contrasted with individual officials or agents who act corruptly within the system....
, the complete subversion of a political or economic system.
Governmental corruption of judiciary is broadly known in many transitional and developing countries because the budget
Budget
A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...
is almost completely controlled by the executive. The latter undermines the separation of powers, as it creates a critical financial dependence of the judiciary. The proper national wealth distribution including the government spending on the judiciary is subject of the constitutional economics
Constitutional economics
Constitutional economics is a research program in economics and constitutionalism that has been described as extending beyond the definition of 'the economic analysis of constitutional law' in explaining the choice "of alternative sets of legal-institutional-constitutional rules that constrain the...
.
It is important to distinguish between the two methods of corruption of the judiciary: the government (through budget planning and various privileges), and the private.
Police
Police corruption is a specific form of police misconductPolice misconduct
Police misconduct refers to inappropriate actions taken by police officers in connection with their official duties. Police misconduct can lead to a miscarriage of justice and sometimes involves discrimination...
designed to obtain financial benefits, other personal gain, and/or career advancement for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest. One common form of police corruption is soliciting and/or accepting bribes in exchange for not reporting organized drug or prostitution rings or other illegal activities. Another example is police officers flouting the police code of conduct
Code of Conduct
A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the responsibilities of or proper practices for an individual, party or organization. Related concepts include ethical codes and honor codes....
in order to secure convictions of suspects — for example, through the use of falsified evidence
Falsified evidence
False evidence, forged evidence or tainted evidence is information created or obtained illegally, to sway the verdict in a court case. Also, misleading by suppressing evidence can be used to sway a verdict; however, in some cases, suppressed evidence is excluded because it was found hidden or...
. More rarely, police officers may deliberately and systematically participate in organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
themselves. In most major cities, there are internal affairs
Internal affairs (law enforcement)
The internal affairs division of a law enforcement agency investigates incidents and plausible suspicions of lawbreaking and professional misconduct attributed to officers on the force...
sections to investigate suspected police corruption or misconduct. Similar entities include the British Independent Police Complaints Commission
Independent Police Complaints Commission
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is a non-departmental public body in England and Wales responsible for overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales.-Role:...
.
Philosophy
Frequently in philosophical discussions, corruption takes the form of contrasting a pure spiritual form with a corrupted manifestation in the physical world. Many philosophers, in fact, have regarded the physical world as inevitably corrupt (PlatoPlato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
being the most famous example of this school of thought). The Book of Genesis 6:12 similarly describes a world before the flood
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
where 'everyone on earth was corrupt' (NLT
New Living Translation
The New Living Translation is a translation of the Bible into modern English. Originally starting out as an effort to revise The Living Bible, the project evolved into a new English translation from Hebrew and Greek texts...
).
Another philosophical use of the term "corruption" is in opposition to "generation," as in Aristotle's book On Generation and Corruption
On Generation and Corruption
On Generation and Corruption , , also known as On Coming to Be and Passing Away) is a treatise by Aristotle. Like many of his texts, it is both scientific and philosophic...
also known as On Coming to Be and Passing Away. In this sense, corruption is the process of ceasing to exist and is closely related to the concept of dying given certain views about the nature of living things. In a moral sense, corruption generally refers to decadence
Decadence
Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"...
or hedonism
Hedonism
Hedonism is a school of thought which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure .-Etymology:The name derives from the Greek word for "delight" ....
. In theological or political debates, certain viewpoints are sometimes accused of being corruptions of orthodox systems of belief, which is to say, they are accused of having deviated from some older correct view.