The purpose of this paper is to analyse the contextual differences and causes of police corruption in Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan and to assess their governments’ effectiveness in minimising this problem.
The paper begins by identifying the contextual differences in the five countries before analysing their major causes of police corruption and their governments’ effectiveness in minimising it.
Police corruption is a more serious problem in Indonesia and the Philippines because of their more difficult governance environments, low salaries of police officers, red tape, lack of meritocracy in recruitment and promotion, and lack of accountability of police officers. By contrast, the perceived extent of police corruption has declined in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan in recent years because of the improvement in the salaries of their police officers and the implementation of various police reforms.
This comparative analysis of combating police corruption in five Asian countries will be of interest to policy makers and scholars concerned with minimising this problem.
