Should Officers Be Rewarded For Refusing Bribes?

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Some regions in the world are regarded as being thoroughly more corrupt than others.

If you've spent some time traveling then it's likely that you might have witnessed the actions of law enforcement in different countries firsthand. There have been numerous travelers who have admitted that they've witnessed bribery for example while traveling overseas.

Some countries have been seen to have a higher bribery rate than others and India for example has been seen to be among the worst.

It has been estimated that roughly 7 in 10 people who accessed public services in India had paid a bribe to an official.

The cost of trying to start a business in India is also wildly expensive and the hoops that one must jump through first before they can serve the community is daunting, the never-ending mountain of legislation hasn't helped the issue of bribes any and likely contributed greatly to the problem.

In some regions it's allegedly common to find officers accepting bribes on a regular basis and any who do only prove that they aren't fit to hold their position; that they cannot be trusted and that they should be fired from their position in law enforcement. For those officers that do refuse bribes some say it's something to be commended, but this should be a basic requirement of the job.

According to one former assistant commissioner from the Royal Bahamas Police Force, officers are being increasingly offered substantial bribes to compromise their duties.

Former assistant commissioner P Thompson feels that there still are some good officers out there and he says and they are willing to turn down these bribes, which is something he feels that they should be rewarded for.

However, any money that gets paid to officers is ultimately coming from the pockets of the people and those people expect these officers who are employed to enforce the law to maintain their duties in an honest and trustworthy manner. Refusing bribes isn't something that should be celebrated but a duty that should be expected at a most basic level of job performance.

The Bahamas is also billions of dollars in debt right now, like most every country in the world, and they can't afford to start paying out unlimited amounts of rewards that are supposed to replace bribe offers.

Their incentive for doing the “right thing” should be their original interest that they held in enforcing the law which is what prompted them originally to seek employment in the field. If they accept bribes then they only foster corruption and breed distrust within the community. And if they feel that they aren't being paid enough to begin with then they should seek out alternative employment which doesn't involve them inflicting violence upon their fellow community members on a regular basis, rather than asking for the people to subsidize bribery.

Pics:
pic 1 - businessadvice
pic 2 - transparency.org
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Should Officers Be Rewarded For Refusing Bribes? | Ecency