The policing arm of the state is necessary in order to put boots on the ground, so as to enforce the law upon miscreants in a competent and fair manner. The thing about policing, is that at least some of the time, it is a thankless job, with incumbent dangers, and of which, police have to deal with the type of people, that most of us, would make it a point, to avoid at all costs. So then, because police officers have to do the type of a job, that most would never be up for, there should be correspondingly, a decent wage for such a valuable service.
To the degree that police officers are well respected, appreciated, and compensated fairly, one would therefore logically think, that then the amount of corruption of those officers would be minimal. On the other hand, when officers are not well compensated, we do so find, such as in Mexico, that a huge swath of those officers thereby become corrupt, for they have to make up for their lack of a good and fair salary, somewhere; and that somewhere, is typically through the aegis of those that are outside of the law, who therefore take care of compensating those officers so that they themselves can continue to do the unlawful things that they need to get done, and further by that corruption are often able to co-opt those crooked officers to actually aid them in such.
When it comes to police officers in America, those that perceive themselves as being undercompensated, and/or are in need of extra funds, have a strong tendency to desire to work the system so that they can make up for their lack of adequate base pay, by working overtime, and of which, many a police department does indeed issue a lot of overtime hours, which thereby addresses that problem in a manner which seems to satisfy such for those that are its participants. That is relevant, for police work, is invariably going to involve both a lot of discretion as well as temptation for these officers, in which, those entities that are outside of the law, or on the very edge of it, are going to want to work whatever angles that they feel will be beneficial for their enterprise, so that they can reap that which they desire to have, and having officers that either look the other way, or directly or indirectly aid them, is something which is, for those enterprises, both good business, as well as being sensible.
This thus signifies, that because of these temptations that officers will have to deal with, and because officers have so much discretion as to who or who they don’t arrest, the charges, thereof, and so on and so forth, that good police departments, make it their point to first of all, see that their budget, adequately compensates their officers, and further that they also have a robust internal affairs department, ideally aided and abetted by agencies outside of that actual police department, to nip in the bud, that which needs to be addressed in a meaningful and comprehensive manner, for if not, then what so occurs, is that justice is not served, fairness is not upheld, and in short, the law is unequally applied.