The Politics of Crime and Corruption

The politics of crime and corruption are flourishing under the globalization regime creating greater landscapes in which to infiltrate and carry out vulpine efforts. If I may answer this generally speaking because as each of these constructs poses the potential for severe damage, it seems that crime and corruption is the most insidious of the three. The puppetmasters of crime and corruption attempt organizational takeovers internally and externally for the root purposes of greed and control and to increase the growing criminal economy. They launder money, evade taxes, practice rogue-banking, cover-up illegal profits and siphon the life out of every legal act. The headlining policy is “don’t ask, don’t tell”. “Law may often be part of the problem of corruption. Too many laws, often by excessive formalism, and vexatious procedures help create corruption (by forcing people to get around them) and weaken attempts to control it. Law diffuses responsibility; investigations and punishment over-dramatize; and the need to distinguish between the legal and illegal creates artificial dichotomies between behavior” (Fitzsimons, 2002). The perpetrators of corruption become trapped in the deviance of rationalization and denial, often capitalizing on “the inherent complexity, ambiguity, and dynamism that pervade organizations” (Anand et. al., 2005, p. 3). The corruption is organizationally generationalized by socializing newcomers into the corrupt practices so as to perpetuate the criminal/corrupt activities. As CEO, my stand to end these activities and behaviors would be simpler to close the organization and to begin again, however, to work with the existing issues at hand to thwart future attempts of corruption and dislodge the current foothold my focus would begin with prevention as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The first step would be to adopt and enforce a new code of ethics and the following four activities will be helpful in creating an environment of prevention: foster awareness among employees; use performance evaluations that go beyond numbers; nurture an ethical environment; and, top management needs to serve as ethical role models (Anand et. al., 2005). In addition to these prior actions, reversing deeply embedded rationalization and socialization is a hugely difficult challenge that may involve public exposure and the involvement of external change agents to be the impetus in recognizing the imperative of change.
Reference:
Anand, V., Ashforth, B.E. & Joshi, M. (2005). Business as usual: the acceptance and perpetuation of corruption in organizations. Academy of Management Executive; Vol. 19, No. 4. Retrieved March 24, 2009 from http://www.theaveygroup.com/Readings/Chapter%203-%20Ethics%20AME%20Classic.pdf.
Fitzsimons, P. (2002). The politics of corruption in the 21st century. White paper. Retrieved March 24, 2009 from http://globalization.icaap.org/content/v2.1/07_fitzsimons.html.