Integrity, culture, and scale: an empirical test of the big bad police agency

Building on Klockars et. al. (2000) analysis of survey data on police agency integrity, this analysis develops an economic model of police corruption within police agencies. Empirical estimates of the economic model are consistent with Klockars et. al. (2000) in that there is no evidence to support the traditional theory that police agency corruption is attributable to the “individual bad-apple.” Independent of other factors, the present analysis shows that police culture fosters corruption. Furthermore, the present analysis shows that incentive structures within police agencies increase the problem of corruption as the scale of police agency operation increases. Policies that would promote higher levels of integrity are considered.