Comments on Cop in the Hood: Juking the Stats

I ask about teachers' pay because they general...

2010-02-22T20:36:12.361-05:00

I ask about teachers' pay because they generally mark the low end of a decent middle-class wage.

Plumbers, even if they're not rich, make enough to live on (or they're wouldn't be plumbers).

If a cop in Moscow is making less than the national average wage (and perhaps not enough to live on), of course he's corrupt. If it's not enough to live on, he should be corrupt! That's better than seeing your kids go hungry.

Unless police wages go up to something approaching the average wage, there's no chance at defeating police corruption. Any other belief is simply naive.

Would the middle class be willing to pay for a better police force? The poor have no money and rich love poor police. All the better to buy.

Teachers and plumbers are probably not great indic...

2010-02-22T20:28:22.701-05:00

Teachers and plumbers are probably not great indicators of middle class wages - the former are underpaid (if they're paid at all), and the latter are not the entrepreneurial tradesmen that we know in the West who live well of of $150 plunging jobs.

The average Moscow policeman makes $400-450 a month, which is substantially lower than the national average wage of $650, and much lower than the average salary in Moscow, which is much richer than the rest of the country. In the provinces, policemen's wages are much, much lower, and like many public sector employees, they are subjected to frequent wage arrears.

In addition to the economic necessity of bribe-taking and other corrupt activities, the police have a deep-seated culture of entitlement - many officers feel that they deserve the bribes they take, that it's a part of their job (this situation is not unique to Russia).

In short, police officers hardly fit into the narrow middle class in Russia, at least not if they live off of their wages.

Seems doomed to failure. I think you sum it up wel...

2010-02-22T19:57:17.303-05:00

Seems doomed to failure. I think you sum it up well.

To clean up a department like that, I think you need 1) to pay officers a good living wage, and 2) only after #1, have some internal system to get rid of corrupt officers without too much hassle.

But unless officers are paid well, there's no chance police won't be corrupt and any attempt at reform is futile.

How much does a Russian police officer make? And how much do you need to live a middle-class life? For comparison, what's the income of a teacher and a plumber?

The Russian president has recently called on the p...

2010-02-22T19:25:47.619-05:00

The Russian president has recently called on the police there to increase their clearance rates, which are massively manipulated and completely unreliable. Putting too much emphasis on statistical indicators can create pressure to juke stats, and it undermines good police work; in a law enforcement culture that has historically had no accountability, this emphasis only reinforces corrupt practices.

http://walterdurantyreport.blogspot.com/2010/02/medvedev-promises-police-reform-but.html

Any thoughts about this problem of applying Compstat-style systems to police forces in undemocratic or previously undemocratic societies?