Michaelene Cox
corruption within the U. S. remains controversial, in part because of the various methods by which it is defined and measured.
There is not a universally accepted definition of political corruption, primarily because the concept is subject to different interpretations. Observers often remark that search for a precise definition of corruption compares to the exhausting and futile pursuit of the Holy Grail. By its very nature corruption is secretive, and thus all incidences are not observable or reported. One observer notes that,“ If corruption could be measured, it could probably be eliminated”( Tanzi 1998, 580). Another quips that,“ Like pornography, corruption is difficult to quantify, but you know it when you see it”( Wei 1999, 4). This elusive enterprise to precisely define corruption marks one of the difficulties facing U. S. legislators working to craft domestic reform initiatives at the federal, state and local levels. Although there are already more than 20 federal statutes alone to address corruption by government officials, last year both the U. S. House and Senate proposed new bills to further refine and tighten the definition, monitoring, prosecution and criminal penalties for such activities. S. 995 Public Officials Accountability Act and H. R. 2572 Clean Up Government Act of 2011 are designed to amend federal criminal code Title 18. Lively discussion emerged in the House subcommittee about how to categorize acts that appeared to fall outside of sharp lines, with concern that aggressive prosecutors would overlook extenuating circumstances or that public officials would be unnecessarily hampered in legitimately fulfilling their duties. Although committee members agreed that intent and disclosure were critical elements to consider in weighing the illegality of an act, one of the authors of the proposal noted that“ the whole purpose of this bill is to try to have very clear definitions, so that public officials know what is a violation and what isn’ t. And I’ m afraid that … witnesses today indicate that there isn’ t any agreement on what is a violation and what isn’ t”( U. S. House of Representatives 2011).
The difficulties in defining public corruption also challenge academic researchers but despite shortcomings found in any single interpretation of the concept, most studies generally converge upon one serviceable definition. The intentional abuse of public office for private gain is the most widely used and straightforward definition of corruption, and includes illegal acts such as fraud, bribery, embezzlement, extortion, graft, kickbacks, racketeering, and patronage appointments. Effective U. S. domestic policy to control political avarice necessitates systematic investigation into the extent of and the relative determinants of corruption. Measures of corruption are as controversial and varied as its definition. Researchers might turn to risk assessments of government accountability and ethics such as produced by the Center for Public Integrity, one of the country’ s largest non‐profit investigative organizations. The Center grades the probity of each U. S. state based on more than a dozen categories such as lobbying disclosure, political financing, internal auditing and ethics enforcement agencies. A report released this year revealed that most states scored poorly on risks of political corruption, with many receiving an F. Although a handful scored a high B, no state earned an A. Counterintuitively, most of the highest marks for government integrity go to states with a history of indictments against their officials for corruption such as Connecticut, New Jersey and Illinois( Center for Public Integrity 2012). The watchdog organization notes that the most fertile environments for political corruption to occur are those states without a statewide ethics commission and those that offer little public access to information. It should be remembered, however, that the Center for Public Integrity is not reporting actual or perceived corruption levels in making policy recommendations but considering institutional structures and processes believed to dampen illicit activity. Alternatively, while scholars have found polls of public perceptions helpful in measuring political corruption, to date popular survey‐based indices such as Transparency International provide only country‐level assessments. Still lacking in studies of U. S. political corruption are adequate datadriven analyses.
Consequently many researchers measure political corruption as the number of public officials convicted on corruption charges( Goel and Nelson 1998, Fisman and Gatti 2000). Undoubtedly, conviction rates reflect enforcement policies and / or quality of the judicial system, and so naturally neither arrests nor convictions mirror undiscovered incidences of corruption. Nevertheless, publicity of such cases goes far to influence public perceptions of corruption, and indeed perceptions matter in driving policy debates. The Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice( DOJ) maintains a database of federal prosecutions of corrupt public officials in federal, state and local government. The most recent publication of these cases was for 2011 and reports a total of 1,184 officials charged with corruption and 554 awaiting trial in that year alone( DOJ 2012). Since 1976, the District of Columbia and Louisiana hold the highest numbers of convictions for political corruption, with Illinois holding the record when state population is factored in Illinois also is home to one of
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