Ethics in Criminal Justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Ethics in Criminal Justice - Essay Example Blagojevich was, ultimately, found guilty of nearly 20 different counts of soliciting bribes, conspiracy to illicit and accept bribes, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit extortion, and attempted extortion.(Davey, and Emma G. Fitzsimmons ) But why does it exist? What causes people within politics to attempt such acts? What can be done to deter and prevent it? In order to get the answers to these questions it is necessary to understand more about corruption in government. Political corruption has a very strict definition, in that it involves political decision makers at high levels of the political system. When the people who are charged with the responsibility of making and upholding the laws are the very people who are corrupt, that is political corruption. It is widely accepted that corruption and the temptation to commit it is highly dependent on a person’s ability to believe they can successfully â€Å"get away with it.† The act of bribery, extortion, selling votes, accepting gifts and kickbacks are all reprehensible behaviors that can undermine the people’s faith in their elected officials. The overall cost of corruption is, also, rather high, and manifest in three typical ways. The first is, is the funds required to finance the bribes to get the favorable treatment , financing meetings, maintaining silence, and negotiating all add cost to whatever endeavor the involved group are attempting to illicit. The second, corruptio n can undermine the efficiency of the free market. Lastly, it can misrepresent resources towards the projects that generate â€Å"payoffs.†(Lanza, 2004) There are two ways that are encouraged to help curtail and deter corruption. The first is eliminating opportunity. Much in the way businesses are working harder and harder to fortify their companies from potential fraud. They structure their company to make the likelihood of successfully succeeding in committing fraud more and more risky to attempt.