Corruption can be in many form. It can be a political corruption or police corruption or corporate corruption or corruption in government or its administration. Another form of corruption is called bribery. Bribery is an act implying money or gift given that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery like corruption constitutes a crime and is defined by
Black's Law Dictionary as the
offering,
giving,
receiving, or
soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or other person in charge of a public or
legal duty.
The bribe is the gift bestowed to influence the recipient's conduct. It may be any
money,
good,
right in action,
property,
preferment,
privilege,
emolument, object of value, advantage, or merely a promise or undertaking to induce or influence the action, vote, or influence of a person in an official or public capacity.
However, in this modern world can we live without bribery and/or corruption?
1) Let us take an example about political corruption.
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. However, in certain country the misuse of
government power for other purposes, such as
repression of political opponents and general
police brutality, is not considered as political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by private persons or corporations not directly involved with the government. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is directly related to their official duties.
Forms of corruption vary, but include
bribery,
extortion,
cronyism,
nepotism,
patronage, graft, and
embezzlement. While corruption may facilitate
criminal enterprise such as
drug trafficking,
money laundering, and
human trafficking, it is not restricted to these activities.
The activities that constitute illegal corruption differ depending on the country or jurisdiction. For instance, certain political funding practices that are legal in one place may be illegal in another. In some cases, government officials have broad or poorly defined powers, which make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions. Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually.
A state of unrestrained political corruption is known as a
kleptocracy, literally meaning "rule by thieves".
In certain country, the ruling political party may spend the government's money for funding projects in the area where the by elections or general elections are held. The opponent parties will strongly argue that such projects created during the elections are an attempt to buy votes from citizens. But, in answer to that allegation the ruling party said that the projects were planned long time ago and it will be constructed irrespective of whether the ruling party will win or lose in the elections. So, it does not fall within the meaning of bribery or political corruption.
2) Police corruption. It is a specific form of
police misconduct designed to obtain financial benefits, other personal gain, and/or career advancement for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest.
More rarely, police officers may deliberately and systematically participate in
organized One common form of police corruption is soliciting and/or accepting
bribes in exchange for not reporting organized drug abuse or prostitution rings or other illegal activities. Another example is police officers flouting the police
code of conduct in order to secure convictions of suspects — for example, through the use of
crime themselves.
In most major cities there are
internal affairs sections to investigate suspected police corruption or misconduct. Similar entities include the British
Independent Police Complaints Commission. In Malaysia, they have MACC (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission) formerly known as ACA (Anti-Corruption Agency) as the government's agency which has power to investigate and prosecute corruption in the public and private sectors.
3) Corporate Corruption. In
criminology,
corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a
corporation (i.e., a
business entity having a separate legal personality from the
natural persons that manage its activities), or by individuals that may be identified with a corporation or other business entity (see
vicarious liability and
corporate liability). Note that some forms of corporate corruption may not actually be criminal if they are not specifically illegal under a given system of laws. For example, some jurisdictions allow
insider trading.
Corporate crime overlaps with:
- white-collar crime, because the majority of individuals who may act as or represent the interests of the corporation are employees or professionals of a higher social class;
- organized crime, because criminals can set up corporations either for the purposes of crime or as vehicles for laundering the proceeds of crime. Organized crime has become a branch of big business and is simply the illegal sector of major capital. It has been estimated that, by the middle of the 1990s, the "gross criminal product" of organized crime made it the twentieth richest organization in the world—richer than 150 sovereign states (Castells 1998: 169). The world’s gross criminal product has been estimated at 20 percent of world trade. (de Brie 2000); and
- state-corporate crime because, in many contexts, the opportunity to commit crime emerges from the relationship between the corporation and the state. But again, different country has different definition and/or interpretation about the crime concerned.
4) Administrative Corruption. This type of corruption usually involving the officers in public sectors who have power to decide, approve, grant, give or award some projects, movable or immovable government's property, licenses, permits or other approvals from the appropriate authority or government's agencies. The abuse of power is quite similar in the police corruption, where a person having such power gains monetary consideration from the applicant of the particular project or property or approvals of the government.
In my opinion, the war against bribery and corruption is very difficult and in certain countries it is almost impossible to win the war because corruption has became the tradition of the nation. In some countries, the bribery has been the way of life and a symbol of survival where the drug traffickers became the kings.
In Malaysia, there is a tradition among Malays that a person has to give money or other gift to a newly born child when he visited the mother and the baby. Even if our friend brings along his child to our house for the
first time, we will give the child some money, as a token perhaps. During Hari Raya Puasa the giving of money is a normal scene every where and almost at every Malay house.
Chinese and Indians societies in Malaysia are also not excepted. The Chinese are popular with 'angpow' gift during the Chinese New Year celebration. Chinese 'taukeh' will present Mandarin Oranges to public officers or police officers before or during the celebration. This is the actual events occurred year by year and our societies had accepted this as our multi racial tradition not amounting to bribery. I do not know what the Indians call for their gifts given during Deepavali.
So, we can say that the elements of bribe had been planted in our society ever since we are a newly born babies. How could we stop a person from committing a bribery if that person had been living in a society which practices some elements of bribery?
