Monday 7 March 2016

Corruption

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary corruption is a "dishonest or illegal behavior especially by powerful people, such as government officials or police officers".

Corruption within the Criminal Justice System occurs at every stage of the chain. It occurs in the police system, court system and also the correctional system, they may be put into a position where they are offered large payoffs to ignore illegal conducts.

Take for example this case that I have found in The Gleaner dated Saturday February 7, 2015, where seven Montego Bay policemen who allegedly accepted money, J$300,000.00, from a St James businessman in exchange for not prosecuting him for a quantity of ganja that was found at his premises during a police operation in November 2013.
Gavel and Money on Scale

Constables Alman Fletcher, Delroy Brown, Marvin Campbell, Devon Bernard, Dwayne Lynch, Paul Williams, and Taj Allen, who were all attached to the St James Police Division, were before the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court, where they were charged with extortion, corruptly soliciting money, corruptly accepting money, and aiding and abetting.

Here we can seen corruption being displayed in a sector of the Criminal Justice System, in particularly the police department and also where they have challenged it by charging the officers associated with the crime. However this is just a minor aspect of corruption being challenged within the Criminal Justice System, because if one should try to fight corruption, as my roommate would say, "it would be like searching for a mustard seed within a container filled with sand".