Law Enforcement Deviance

Law Enforcement Deviance

The Rampart division of the Los Angeles Police Department suffered an enduring scandal over police threats and treatment of gangs in an attempt to control gang and other criminal activity in the area. There were numerous forms of police deviance performed by officers in the Rampart district, and two of the most important were perjury and false arrest reports along with planting of evidence. All of these forms of deviance were overlooked and ignored by department leadership and management, which led to continued police deviance and abuses.

Some of the reasons behind the Rampart deviance include an intense desire to control crime in the Rampart district at any cause, and, as one convicted police officer noted the officers felt they were above the law. He said, "[T]hey were LAPD and could do whatever they wished'" (Editors 5). This attitude may have helped them control crime in the Rampart area, but it also led to a severe distrust of the police by the people, and ultimately an undermining of the entire criminal justice process in Los Angeles. The attitude was so widespread that a group of police officers robbed a bank in the area, and another checked out cocaine for a court trial that had already taken place for the purpose of selling it. The Rampart district officers were essentially given free reign in their war on gangs, and this freedom turned to corruption and abuse.

The activity was allowed to flourish for a number of reasons. First, the report stated that the CRASH unit was so elite and its purpose so specialized, that it received little support or influence from its chain of command. Thus, the officers were given too much power with too little input or responsibility, and the officers began to think and operate as if they were above the law. Supervisors gave them too much freedom and overlooked their transgressions because they were effectively reducing crime in the area. Because the program became very successful, a few "bad seeds" were allowed to continue to operate without supervisory management, and this grew into an operational policy that most officers followed.

Of course, Rampart is not the only police unit to illustrate this type of behavior. In neighboring Orange County in 2006, Huntington Beach police officers were changed with planting evidence in suspect's cars during patrols, and a Boston police officer was charged and convicted of aiding drug dealers and guarding drug shipments. Both of these cases indicate that police deviance continues to exist, partly because the stakes are so high, and the rewards are so great for officers who successfully steal or become corrupt in the system. Most of the corruption stems from money and greed, and when it is present every day in the officers' lives, it is difficult for at least some to resist temptation. It also seems that officers are paid relatively little in the terms of the risks they take, and seeing so many opportunities for corruption around them may tempt some of them to engage in illegal and deviant activities simply because the opportunities are so great, and risk of being caught much smaller than if they were not on the force.