Re: The Knapp Commission Report on Police Corruption: Commis
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:34 am
Chapter Twenty-Three: THE OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE
The Commission found that corruption within the Department was so pervasive that honest rookies joining the police force were subject to strong pressures to conform to patterns of behavior which tended to make cynics of them and ultimately led many of them into the most serious kinds of corruption. This situation was the result of an extremely tolerant attitude toward corruption which had existed in the Department for the better part of a century and had flourished despite the efforts -- sometimes vigorous and sometimes not -- of police commissioners and various law enforcement agencies.
Two important factors which perpetuated this attitude were: (1) a stubborn belief held by officials of the Department and of other law enforcement agencies that the existence and extent of police corruption should not be publicly acknowledged, because it might damage the image of the Department, thus reducing its effectiveness; and (2) a code of silence, honored by those in the Department who were honest as well as by those who were corrupt, which discouraged officers from reporting the corrupt activities of their fellows and which sometimes seemed to mark the reporting of corruption as an offense more heinous than the practice of corruption.
The effect of these attitudes was compounded by the fact that law enforcement agencies concerned with police corruption traditionally were commanded by persons who substantially agreed that it was contrary to the public interest to acknowledge the full extent of police corruption, and relied for their investigative efforts upon police officers who themselves were sympathetic to the code of silence.
We believe a beginning has been made towards a fundamental correction of these conditions. Our Commission, with the support of the Mayor and of Commissioner Murphy, has made full public disclosure of those patterns of corruption we found to exist. Commissioner Murphy and his administration, aided by the change in public opinion generated by our revelations, has instituted important and imaginative reforms. There has been official recognition that the appearance of honesty is no longer to be deemed more important than its actuality. The code of silence seems, for the time being at least, to have been weakened. Whereas two years ago it was thought inconceivable that rank and file police officers would testify publicly against the corrupt activities of their fellows, a number of officers have since followed the ground broken in this regard by Detective Leuci and by Patrolmen Phillips, Droge and Logan. Moreover, as already noted, Commissioner Murphy has been successful in instituting a program wherein officers volunteer on a regular basis to do undercover work in conjunction with the Departmental anti-corruption efforts.
The question is, will these new trends continue after this Commission has disbanded and public attention has ceased to be focused on police reform ~ It is the Commission's conclusion that there is a reasonable chance for an affirmative answer to that question if the momentum for reform can be continued until new attitudes can be institutionalized. It must become routine for the upper echelon of the Department to feel that integrity is more important than the appearance of integrity and for at least the honest members of the rank and file to consider that the exposure of corruption is both honorable and necessary to the proper functioning of a responsible police force. Once these attitudes become securely established, the Commission feels, the momentum toward integrity will have a chance to become self-generating and the Department's internal anti-corruption machinery, assisted by the district attorneys and other regular law enforcement agencies, should be adequate to cope with corruption. Until such time, we feel that some ongoing independent anti-corruption effort is essential.
It was to meet this need that the Commission made its first -- and what turned out to be its most controversial -- recommendation. The Commission envisaged a Special Deputy Attorney General who would have his own staff of investigators with no ties to the Police Department and who would supplement the efforts of the district attorneys and other law enforcement agencies. The Commission suggested that the job of this new official should be to continue this Commission's role of spotting patterns of corruption and providing impetus for reform as well as to prosecute corruption-related crimes. Because police corruption is only one -- and not necessarily the most important -- aspect of a much broader problem, the Commission recommended that this Special Deputy Attorney General have jurisdiction over all corruption in the criminal process. For the same reason, the Commission urged that the Special Deputy emphasize the prosecution of members of the public who offer bribes as well as those who receive them.
On September 19, 1972, Governor Rockefeller responded to our recommendation by taking two actions: He announced the appointment of Maurice Nadjari as a Special Deputy Attorney General to supersede the district attorneys in the five counties of New York City with respect to corruption in the criminal justice system; he established a special unit of the State Commission of Investigation, under the direction of Commission Chairman Paul Curran, to perform ongoing monitoring work in the same field.
These innovations represent an important addition to the anticorruption forces in the City. The Special Deputy Attorney General's office will provide an independent prosecuting arm with the capabilities of being wholly independent of other law enforcement agencies and of devoting its full attention to the problems of corruption in the criminal justice system on a citywide basis. Equally important is the continuing focus which the new unit of the State Commission of Investigation can maintain on existing anti-corruption machinery through the ongoing examination of patterns of corruption and the means of combating them.
Any long-range hope of meaningful reform, however, depends upon the Department itself. If, as the Commission suggested, the Department's Inspectional Services Bureau is reorganized along the lines of the Inspections Office of the Department of Internal Revenue, with officers spending their entire careers in anti-corruption work, the Department's anti-corruption machinery will be strengthened and provided with a measure of continuity which will afford some hope of its surviving intact the tenure of commissioners less effective than Commissioner Murphy.
In addition, if the momentum already generated is to be maintained and the needed reforms implemented, Commissioner Murphy and whoever succeeds him must have the clear support of the public in taking the difficult measures necessary. New Yorkers must stop going along with demands for graft payments and must stop offering them. The business community, in particular, was most uncooperative with this Commission, apparently preferring to retain its ability to buy its way out of tangles with the law, while placing full blame for corruption squarely on the heads of the police. New Yorkers must realize that seemingly harmless small bribes made to policemen often lead to acceptance of larger and more serious bribes from gamblers and narcotics pushers. In addition, the prevalence of bribes from businessmen who are apparent leaders in the community, such as contractors and hotel executives, lends an aura of respectability to the practice, making it much easier for an officer to justify to himself the acceptance of payoffs from organized crime.
New York City policemen, whatever their other problems, are traditionally men of extraordinary courage. To protect our lives and property, they face armed men on darkened rooftops and a host of less dramatic dangers. New Yorkers must now find the courage to sacrifice narrow self-interest in helping these men to do their extremely difficult jobs with integrity. The goals of all of us should parallel those expressed by Captain Daniel McGowan during the Commission's public hearings:
The Commission found that corruption within the Department was so pervasive that honest rookies joining the police force were subject to strong pressures to conform to patterns of behavior which tended to make cynics of them and ultimately led many of them into the most serious kinds of corruption. This situation was the result of an extremely tolerant attitude toward corruption which had existed in the Department for the better part of a century and had flourished despite the efforts -- sometimes vigorous and sometimes not -- of police commissioners and various law enforcement agencies.
Two important factors which perpetuated this attitude were: (1) a stubborn belief held by officials of the Department and of other law enforcement agencies that the existence and extent of police corruption should not be publicly acknowledged, because it might damage the image of the Department, thus reducing its effectiveness; and (2) a code of silence, honored by those in the Department who were honest as well as by those who were corrupt, which discouraged officers from reporting the corrupt activities of their fellows and which sometimes seemed to mark the reporting of corruption as an offense more heinous than the practice of corruption.
The effect of these attitudes was compounded by the fact that law enforcement agencies concerned with police corruption traditionally were commanded by persons who substantially agreed that it was contrary to the public interest to acknowledge the full extent of police corruption, and relied for their investigative efforts upon police officers who themselves were sympathetic to the code of silence.
We believe a beginning has been made towards a fundamental correction of these conditions. Our Commission, with the support of the Mayor and of Commissioner Murphy, has made full public disclosure of those patterns of corruption we found to exist. Commissioner Murphy and his administration, aided by the change in public opinion generated by our revelations, has instituted important and imaginative reforms. There has been official recognition that the appearance of honesty is no longer to be deemed more important than its actuality. The code of silence seems, for the time being at least, to have been weakened. Whereas two years ago it was thought inconceivable that rank and file police officers would testify publicly against the corrupt activities of their fellows, a number of officers have since followed the ground broken in this regard by Detective Leuci and by Patrolmen Phillips, Droge and Logan. Moreover, as already noted, Commissioner Murphy has been successful in instituting a program wherein officers volunteer on a regular basis to do undercover work in conjunction with the Departmental anti-corruption efforts.
The question is, will these new trends continue after this Commission has disbanded and public attention has ceased to be focused on police reform ~ It is the Commission's conclusion that there is a reasonable chance for an affirmative answer to that question if the momentum for reform can be continued until new attitudes can be institutionalized. It must become routine for the upper echelon of the Department to feel that integrity is more important than the appearance of integrity and for at least the honest members of the rank and file to consider that the exposure of corruption is both honorable and necessary to the proper functioning of a responsible police force. Once these attitudes become securely established, the Commission feels, the momentum toward integrity will have a chance to become self-generating and the Department's internal anti-corruption machinery, assisted by the district attorneys and other regular law enforcement agencies, should be adequate to cope with corruption. Until such time, we feel that some ongoing independent anti-corruption effort is essential.
It was to meet this need that the Commission made its first -- and what turned out to be its most controversial -- recommendation. The Commission envisaged a Special Deputy Attorney General who would have his own staff of investigators with no ties to the Police Department and who would supplement the efforts of the district attorneys and other law enforcement agencies. The Commission suggested that the job of this new official should be to continue this Commission's role of spotting patterns of corruption and providing impetus for reform as well as to prosecute corruption-related crimes. Because police corruption is only one -- and not necessarily the most important -- aspect of a much broader problem, the Commission recommended that this Special Deputy Attorney General have jurisdiction over all corruption in the criminal process. For the same reason, the Commission urged that the Special Deputy emphasize the prosecution of members of the public who offer bribes as well as those who receive them.
On September 19, 1972, Governor Rockefeller responded to our recommendation by taking two actions: He announced the appointment of Maurice Nadjari as a Special Deputy Attorney General to supersede the district attorneys in the five counties of New York City with respect to corruption in the criminal justice system; he established a special unit of the State Commission of Investigation, under the direction of Commission Chairman Paul Curran, to perform ongoing monitoring work in the same field.
These innovations represent an important addition to the anticorruption forces in the City. The Special Deputy Attorney General's office will provide an independent prosecuting arm with the capabilities of being wholly independent of other law enforcement agencies and of devoting its full attention to the problems of corruption in the criminal justice system on a citywide basis. Equally important is the continuing focus which the new unit of the State Commission of Investigation can maintain on existing anti-corruption machinery through the ongoing examination of patterns of corruption and the means of combating them.
Any long-range hope of meaningful reform, however, depends upon the Department itself. If, as the Commission suggested, the Department's Inspectional Services Bureau is reorganized along the lines of the Inspections Office of the Department of Internal Revenue, with officers spending their entire careers in anti-corruption work, the Department's anti-corruption machinery will be strengthened and provided with a measure of continuity which will afford some hope of its surviving intact the tenure of commissioners less effective than Commissioner Murphy.
In addition, if the momentum already generated is to be maintained and the needed reforms implemented, Commissioner Murphy and whoever succeeds him must have the clear support of the public in taking the difficult measures necessary. New Yorkers must stop going along with demands for graft payments and must stop offering them. The business community, in particular, was most uncooperative with this Commission, apparently preferring to retain its ability to buy its way out of tangles with the law, while placing full blame for corruption squarely on the heads of the police. New Yorkers must realize that seemingly harmless small bribes made to policemen often lead to acceptance of larger and more serious bribes from gamblers and narcotics pushers. In addition, the prevalence of bribes from businessmen who are apparent leaders in the community, such as contractors and hotel executives, lends an aura of respectability to the practice, making it much easier for an officer to justify to himself the acceptance of payoffs from organized crime.
New York City policemen, whatever their other problems, are traditionally men of extraordinary courage. To protect our lives and property, they face armed men on darkened rooftops and a host of less dramatic dangers. New Yorkers must now find the courage to sacrifice narrow self-interest in helping these men to do their extremely difficult jobs with integrity. The goals of all of us should parallel those expressed by Captain Daniel McGowan during the Commission's public hearings:
"[I would like to] contribute in some small measure to rooting out the weaknesses in the system that permits fine young men with high ideals to come into the Department and within a few years be involved in corruptive practices. The tragedy of these men and their families [is] so demonstrably shown here with Patrolman Droge.
" ... I've spent over half of my life in the Police Department. I'm the son of a man who spent thirty-nine years in the Police Department. I want both of us to look back on that service with honor.
"And, last, I'm a resident and a citizen of this City. I have a vested interest that the quality of life in this City should become somewhat better, and that my wife and my children and my grandchild, together with all citizens, can point to the Police Department and truly say, 'It's the finest.'"