“Allow me to help you with your bags, sir.”
- train some guy up for a couple of years
- then put him (or her, obviously, but frankly it’s more likely to be a him) in a uniform
- give him impressive powers to detain/arrest/search people
- let him legally break into places and look at whatever he wants
- give him a big gun with a holster to show it off to the world with
In the latest Ipsos/Apoyo report on corruption in Peru, 68% of people that responded said that police were “corruptable” (i.e. ready to take a bribe). It also puts the police as the second most corrupt body in Peru, just behind the judiciary (and there’s just one degree of separation there, too).
This report (you can link through to it here…the link that says “ver nota de prensa”) came before Interior Minister Remigio Hernani revealed that 246 police officers had been put under suspicion of gasoline theft due to the investigative operation his bureau started on October 1st. He did dismiss talk that three-quarters the $150m in fuel assigned to the police forces was being sold on the black market, but did say that of the 59 control operations that the Interior Ministry had run, 15 had turned up police officers siphoning off fuel and selling it. So if they manage to turn up 246 bent cops in the first place they decide to check, how many officers will be left on the street if they really start asking around? Chances are the figure will be floating around the 32% mark, no?
The solution is for the national government to start respecting its police force. That means it should be moved into a higher pay bracket. You know what happens when you pay peanuts, yeah?