Police misconduct obviously undermines the public’s belief in the legitimacy of the police as well as trust in the criminal justice system. But it can do more than that.
“Police misconduct might be more decisive in influencing political legitimacy than crime or insecurity,” argues José Miguel Cruz in his study of police corruption in Central America. He writes that
since direct police abuse shatters any sense of fairness, outrage at police misconduct—whether perceived or experienced—may be more significant in reducing citizens’ loyalty towards the overall regime than failures in tackling crime.
The core of the classic model of the state is a monopoly on the use of force. The unwritten agreement between state and citizen is that the state will use a measure of force for the protection of the citizen, for the benefit of society. This gives the state a supposedly legitimate use of violence. But there’s a fine line, a razor’s edge, to the relationship. History, race, class, and definitions of citizenship all play their roles in complicating the relationship. Abuse of the monopoly, as with any monopoly, works to undermine its legitimacy—and the core of the state’s legitimacy.
“The police play a fundamental role in any political regime,” Cruz writes. Whatever the form of government
[w]hether an authoritarian regime or a liberal democracy, police actions are intertwined with regime performance as they showcase the state’s response to day-to-day issues. […] Citizens’ perceptions of the police, therefore, can be an essential component of regime legitimacy, sometimes contributing as much or more than other political institutions.
Cruz defines police misconduct as all types of “illegal police behavior.” Examples include bribery, drug-trafficking, working with organized crime, brutality, and extra-judicial killings. In Central American countries with authoritarian histories, examples “of misconduct do not appear to be isolated cases of individual deviance, but systematic forms of abuse perpetuated by entire units and organizations.” The onset of democratic rule did “little to transform these relations of domination of the streets,” meaning the “pervasiveness of police corruption under the era of authoritarian regimes continued during post-transition regimes.”
This is a critical problem. As examples of police misconduct, Cruz cites the suspension of all the officers of Honduras’s national investigation unit in 2013 for corruption. Other examples include the Guatemalan and Nicaraguan police chiefs charged with links to organized crime. The first woman to lead a Guatemalan law enforcement institution was arrested in 2009 for her involvement in extra-judicial assassinations.
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In 2008, 65.9 percent of survey respondents in Guatemala, 48.8 percent in El Salvador, and 47.2 percent in Honduras said that they believed the police in their countries were involved in criminal activities.
“The urgent need to tackle rising levels of crime and to placate public outcry over insecurity have not helped to strengthen police institutions in Central America,” writes Cruz. This is because “tough-on-crime” stances seem to “strengthen corrupt and abusive elements within the police.”
Meanwhile, “police adherence to the rule of law creates confidence towards the regime and enhanced people’s allegiance to the democratic political order.”
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“The less the police employ public use of force, the less likely it is that government will find itself justifying some abuses,” writes Cruz. “Hence, gross police misconduct may have a direct influence on political stability not only because if affects public safety and order, but because it showcases the regime’s willingness to abuse its power.”
Ultimately, “police wrongdoings can effectively subvert the prospects of democratic governance and affect the cultural reserves of political stability,” concludes Cruz. “A law-abiding police force is a not a sufficient condition for political stability or for democratic governance, but a corrupt police force may be a significant deterrent to democratic consolidation.”
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