Public Perception of Police Corruption in Zambia

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1: TO THE RESEARCH

The expectations of people about the police force or service, in any part of the world, when it comes to the way service is delivered or rendered has always been one which called for integrity, good morals and being ethical. (Swanton, 1986) The Zambia Police Service falls in that same category and the expectations of Zambians have been like anywhere else in the world. Trust, however, is rapidly eroding between members of the public and those tasked with serving them. The members of the community and the general public had, in the past, a lot of confidence and trust in the police who are presumed by the community to be maintainers of peace but this trust is now falling. This trust is falling because people are seeing and hearing about the increase of corruption in Zambian police and as this is happening levels of police legitimacy continues to fall (Boateng, 2017) To prove this point, the Zambia Police Service was rated as the most corrupt institution in Zambia in the years 2017 (Isbell, 2018). Corruption, wherever it is practiced in Zambia and especially in the police service, paints a negative picture on the police service of the country which has been a constitutional Christian Nation since 1996, when the constitution was changed. (Cheyeka 2016) Police corruption has been defined as actions or omissions committed by police officers where such actions or omissions play a role that leads to the police officer’s misuse of the official position and authority. The purpose and motive for this negative action is in significant part the achievement of personal benefit or gain (Kutnjak Ivkovic, 2005) Police corruption is in the nature of public corruption, because being public officials, police personnel are entrusted with powers and public functions, the misuse of which will amount to corrupt activity. Public perceptions of institutional corruption within the police forces can be indicative of the level of trust that the public has in the institution; perceptions can also lead to the undermining of the success of the police force effectiveness (Lessig, 2013). The compromising of the effectiveness of the police as an institution is due to the weakening of the people’s confidence and trust in the institution (Lessig, 2013). When police forces in a country are systemically corrupt or where the corruption, in the police forces, attains a strategic influence which undermines or compromises the effectiveness of the police forces, it can be said that police corruption has moved from individual to institutional corruption. What this study is seeking is to explore the belief and perceptions of the public with regard to police corruption in Zambia and the reasons why the public may form a negative perception of the police service in Zambia. Although, there is some literature on police corruption in Zambia, there is not much research on how the people in the country perceive the levels of police corruption and whether the public has positive or negative opinions about the effectiveness of the measures of anti-corruption measures within the police service.

1.2 THE RESEARCH QUESTION, AIM(S) & OBJECTIVES.

In this research study, the overarching research question relates to the level of effectiveness of measures to counter the perceived rising levels of police corruption in Zambia, as seen by the people and police officials themselves. The research question is framed as follows: “As Zambia is a Constitutional Christian Nation, how do the Zambian people and the police service in general perceive the effectiveness of the measures taken to counter corruption in the Zambia Police Service in Zambia?” This research has been divided into two parts as follow; the first part concerns the exploration of public perceptions on police corruption. The second part concerns the exploration of the perceptions related to the effectiveness of the anti-corruption measures within the police services. Both these parts are important and relevant because in response to the increased dissatisfaction with the police due to the perceptions of ineffectiveness of the police, and perceptions relating to increasing brutal and indulgent in human rights violations, certain accountability mechanisms were introduced in Zambia, including the parliamentary oversight and the Police Professional Standards Unit (PPSU) established in 2003 (Dissel & Frank, 2012). The task of the latter was to investigate corruption in the police service, complaints of arbitrary arrests of civilians and other unprofessional behaviour (Robins, 2009). Apart from these measures, the Public Police Complaints Authority (PPCA) was established in 2003 for the purpose of investigating complaints from the public as well as complaints into deaths in custody (Mukanga, 2012). The perceptions of the weak oversight in the police service and the increased corruption have in the past been discussed by scholars (Siachiwena, 2014, Robins, 2009) Considering this background of mechanisms, it becomes pertinent to further explore the perceptions of the public with reference to police corruption and to understand the different reasons why some negative perceptions of police corruption have continued in Zambia. This researcher has taken understanding the perceptions on the level of individual and institutional corruption and its effects as the aim of this research and making recommendations on how to effectively prevent and combat it in the Zambia Police service. The objectives of this research are: (i) to explore current literature on police corruption in Zambia; (ii) to explore interlinks between corruption and police activity and the factors for corruption; (iii) to investigate the current approaches to responding to corruption in the Zambia Police service; (iv) to compare objective (iii) with objectives (i) and (ii); and (v) To draw conclusions and make recommendations on how to effectively prevent and combat corruption in the Zambia Police service.

RESEARCH JUSTIFICATION.

Despite Zambia being declared by the second Republican President, Frederick J. T. Chiluba, as a Constitutional Christian Nation where issues like corruption are supposed to be on the decline, one of the results of the findings in an earlier research by Robins (2009); is that there is an increased perception of corruption in the Zambia Police Service which leads to public dissatisfaction with the police service in the country. This has motivated the researcher to do a bit more research and help bring the truth to light. This research does not, however, provide an in-depth overview of the police corruption in Zambia, nor does it clarify its methodology on how it was able to identify the increased rate of dissatisfaction with the police service in Zambia. This research seeks to explore the perceptions on police corruption by collecting primary data from a sample of the public and the police service itself. Corruption is a complex issue and may take many forms within the police service. Corruption can be in the nature of bribes, criminal behaviour, and participation in other illegal activities and vices such as prostitution, drugs, pornography, and smuggling in contrabands (Newburn, 2015). Corruption may also involve ‘opportunistic theft’, where policemen steal something from those arrested by them or where they steal something from dead bodies, and in acts involving planting of fake evidence to frame someone for an offence, or providing advance warnings to criminals about potential raids by police on their premises where some illegal activity is about to be carried out (Newburn, 2015). The rotten apple theory has been used to argue that one bad cop can ruin the entire department. To counter that, the rotten barrel theory’s argument is that the corrupt department creates conditions in which even an uncorrupt officer can eventually be corrupted (Gottschalk, 2012). These two theoretical approaches are opposed to each other. This research will use the theoretical approaches to see whether the Zambia police service corruption is a case of rotten apples or rotten barrels. There is some support for the latter theory in research which tends to emphasise on organisational corruption versus individual corruption. This is most relevant under the literature related to institutional economics theory as the dominant paradigm, which explains the causes of corruption in terms of institutional factors (Hellmann, 2017). The institutional economics approach to corruption is premised on the institutional context, which is said to have an effect on the behaviour of individuals (Rose-Ackerman, 2010). This approach argues that the institutional incentives affect the behaviour of the individuals and drives them to corruption (Rose-Ackerman, 2010).

OUTLINE OF METHODOLOGY.

In this research, the qualitative research methodology has formed part of the research method. As part of this research methodology, a systematic literature review of literature in journals, relevant reports in the library, academic books and electronic data bases has been employed (Rowley & Slack, 2004). The use of electronic and online databases is useful because these help to locate sources and give the researcher an opportunity of appraising high-quality literature and empirical studies (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). Through the said method, the researcher can also identify the grey areas of literature, such as, PhD theses, which are not reported in journals. Such grey literature can be useful because a significant amount of empirical data can be revealed through the primary studies undertaken by the authors of the grey literature (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). Apart from the systematic literature review, primary data has also been collected through semi-structured interviews. The questions in the semi-structured interviews have been informed by the dominant themes in literature suggested by the systematic literature review. This data presents information related to the perceptions on police corruption in the general public and police service in particular. Semi-structured interviews were selected for their potential to help the researcher to gain in-depth knowledge and insight into the perceptions and opinions of the participants on police corruption (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2012). The method was chosen after consideration of literature indicating the use of this method by researchers in other countries. An example of a recent research where the researchers used semi-structured interviews is in the study conducted by Light (2014) on police corruption in Georgia, and on the perceptions on recent police reforms. The research was conducted with 20 semi-structured interviews and was able to shed much light on the perceptions on the reforms in police forces (Light, 2014) No such research has been undertaken in Zambia so far. Semi-structured interviews can be particularly useful in gaining more insight because these allow the researcher to conduct the interview as per the comfort of the participant and allows the participant more control over the process (Hammer & Wildavsky, 1989; Yin, 2009). The sample for the interviews was selected through purposive sampling for the police officers; this is appropriate because this research is being done as per qualitative research methods (Saunders, et al., 2012). However, for the general public sample, random sampling was employed to select a small sample of interviewees. Through these methods, two samples of 10 participants per sample were created.

OUTLINE OF THE REST OF THE DISSERTATION.

The rest of the dissertation has been divided into four chapters with Chapter two dealing with the literature review, which discusses the literature on the subject of corruption and particularly police corruption and relevant literature in Zambia in comparison to other parts of the world. Chapter three discusses the methodology used for the collection and analysis of the data in the research. In the forth chapter the discussion has been elicited from what the researcher has observed from the research and an analytical discussion conducted on the findings which have been thus linked to the literature review. The fifth chapter has been dedicated to discussing the conclusions by linking the findings to the research question so that one can understand the general perceptions of the general public and the police about corruption.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Most scholars and researchers think about corruption as a term that has largely negative connotations, with many of them defining it in pejorative terms (Thomas, 2015). Nyendu (2017) describes it as a disease called cancer. In Africa, today, corruption is compared to a dangerous disease called Ebola (Ndaguba, E.A et al, 2018). Corruption is also likened to a virus by others (Ashford B. et al, 2008). It is also widely acknowledged in literature that corruption is a negative and unethical act (Gueber et all, 2016). Vogl (2012) describes corruption as a crime against humanity. Corruption has become a universal problem and affecting many people but more harmful in developing countries (Munzhedzi, 2016) and despite the near universal condemnation of corruption as an activity however, many challenges have been met by many people in finding the right description for corruption for it to meet with universal consensus. This is due to different approaches to defining and contextualising corruption, which had led to one scholar lamenting about how to describe it (Caiden, 2009, p. 9). Literature on corruption does, however, reveal that there is a near universal stance in condemning corruption, but no universal approach to defining corruption. In presenting this literature review, the researcher’s intentions have been to reveal written principal themes that are related to police corruption and defining of police corruption with different theories in a country that is called a Christian Nation. The researcher, in trying to answer the research question, has tried to bring out some of the available literature related to the asked research question which is; ‘As Zambia is a Constitutional Christian Nation, how do the Zambian people and the police service in general perceive the effectiveness of the measures taken to counter corruption in the Police Service of Zambia?’

2.2 DEFINING CORRUPTION AND POLICE CORRUPTION IN LITERATURE

For one to be of use in answering a given question, it is vital that one reviews written literature from different sources (Hart, 2018). This research is about corruption and how to counter it and defining corruption from many written sources is, therefore vital. There have been many definitions of corruption in general with some associating it to one’s conduct in political participation (Philp & David-Barrett, 2015). There is also what has come to be known as corporate corruption, private corruption (Breit et al., 2015) and public corruption (Rose-Ackerman, 2010). As leaders of countries like; Heads of State, ministers, legislators and other senior officials have become active participants in corrupt activities, the terms grand corruption and political corruption have been used to define them. (Bhargava, 2005) For the police there are others who have described the corruption associated with the police as Police corruption (Kumssa, 2015). Corruption has been refused to be defined by some scholars, for instance, one author prefers to leave the definition of corruption to how people perceive it at the time by saying that corruption can be identified on a case to case basis (Johnston, 1996). Recently this has been explained as corruption that one knows when one sees it (Kohler, 2019). The expectations of the community about people in public office and institutions, and especially in security establishments like the police, is that of integrity and being ethical but there are times when this trust can be abused because of one’s want of personal gain; this is defined as a type of corruption by the World Bank (World Bank, 1997). The above definition of corruption emphasises on corruption as an activity in public office, which sees a person occupying a public office using that office for personal benefits. The definition itself, however, is not free from controversy, particularly because it emphasises on aspects of corruption that are more prevalent in developing economies which see higher incidences of public corruption and ignores aspects of corruption that are prevalent in developed economies which see higher incidences of corporate corruption. The relationship between principal and agent with the latter misusing the power that is entrusted to him also has emphasis in the public context of corruption (Breit, et al., 2015). Public corruption, like other types of corruption, have one thing in common and that is; doing that which is not right and this in most cases has benefits accruing to one of the wrong doers. (Adriana & Milyo, 2016) On corruption and its being defined; the World Bank definition is one of the most widely accepted and widely used and it has been found to be relevant for this researcher to use it in the presentation of this dissertation, this is because corruption in the police is used both at individual and public level and mostly for personal gain. (Andvig & Fjeldstad, 2008) From the above perspective and in defining police corruption most people do agree that; the misuse of powers by police officers for their personal benefits do amount to corruption, this is because the police are associated with law enforcement, peace keeping and being of help to the public (Huey & Ricciardelli. 2015). Police corruption is, therefore, when the police, in their individual capacities or as an institution fail to take action or fail to protect the interests of a victim and leading to the misuse of their official positions all because of personal gain (Ivkovic, 2005). Police corruption, like other types of corruption, is, however, not always about personal gain for the individual or an institution. Certain types of corruption, like ‘Noble cause’, are considered to be good examples of situations where illicit corrupt behaviours are not always undertaken for the individual’s personal benefit but for the ‘attainment of a higher good’ (Caldero & Crank, 2010, p. 18). This kind of corruption involves the law enforcers breaking the law for purposes that are justified by them in the name of higher good ( Kleinig, 2002).This is done when the police utilize unauthorised and illegal methods so that they can obtain what they consider to be desired results; examples of obtaining the desired results include; the unauthorised killings of criminals and giving of false testimony for the sake of securing a conviction against a known offender (Caldero & Crank, 2010). It is claimed, and accepted by some that, personal gain is not the motivating factor for noble cause corruption; rather, it is motivated by the higher good for the society. Nevertheless, this kind of behaviour is still corruption because the police are breaking the law by not using legitimate means but are deviating from rules. (Pohlmann, et al., 2016)

Noble cause corruption is amongst the terms that are associated with the misuse of powers by the police and is amongst the terms used to define police corruption in this dissertation. The impact of this misuse of police power which leads to the erosion of institutional ethics has serious effects (Prenzler, 2009). This type of corruption is also driven by organisational gain (Porter & Warrender, 2009). The common factor in both the public and the noble form type of corruption in the police forces is that both involve the abuse of power. This abuse of power results in lowered peoples’ trust in the police and impacts on its institutional ethics (Newburn, 2015). The impact of corruption on institutional ethics is a serious issue. Literature refers to widespread corruption that may take place within the police forces due to the deterioration of institutional ethics as ‘institutional corruption.’ (Lessig, 2013) The affected institution, in what is pressumed to be a legal and ethical way, does undermine its own effectiveness to an extent where it loses the trust of the people dealing with it. For its ability to lead to institutional corruption, noble cause corruption also has to be included in the discussion because it leads to the weakening of the institutional ethics, which may be one of the reasons for driving widespread corruption (Tankebe, 2010). On the other hand, there are others who describe this type of corruption as phenomenal because, according to them, instead of the standards of the institution deteriorating, there can be an increase in the institution’s standards; this is the view which argues that institutional corruption in some cases can be beneficial to the institution (Thompson, 2018). However, this view is not accepted by Miller & Blackler (2017) who argue that regardless of the motives of the noble cause corruption, it is still morally wrong and must be characterised as police corruption. Literature also indicates the different ways in which police corruption can be put into effect Miller & Blackler (2017). There are different aspects of corrupt acts which involve the violation of set regulations but at times such violations might not even bring in any personal benefits (Bayley & Perito, 2011) Bribes by the police forces are also called as ‘kickbacks’. Kickbacks are illegal payments of some kind which are made, to the one who illegally assists in the transaction, after the completion of the said transaction (Morris, 2011:10). Other forms of corrupt activities may involve opportunistic theft from dead bodies or even those arrested by the police. Police personnel may be involved in what is referred to as a ‘shakedown’, which is the acceptance of bribe for not following lawful procedures. In this kind of corruption the police are ready not to arrest a known criminal or may not even follow up on a committed crime in exchange for a bribe (Sahin, 2010) Corruption in the police forces can be widespread, in which case, it may be characterised as ‘institutional corruption’ (Lessig, 2013) It may be a case of some officers in the forces being corrupt or the forces in general being corrupt, which is explained as a case of ‘bad apples’ in the police forces (Johnson, 2016) Therefore, one of the concerns in context of ascertaining the level of corruption in the police forces would be to establish whether corruption is endemic and widespread in which case it is institutional corruption, or whether it is a case of a few bad apples. In the context of Zambia, there is not much research on the levels of corruption that are prevalent in the police forces. It is not yet contextualized or characterised as to whether corruption in Zambia’s police service has become endemic enough to be characterised as institutional corruption or whether it can be more appropriately conceptualised as a case of some rotten apples.

2.3 THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING CORRUPTION

The Slippery Slope is a term that is used to explain the process in which corruption of police officers happens gradually; this happens when police personnel start with low-level corruption within their departments. The level of corruption does move from one level to another. Research has shown that this unethical behaviour does evolve. (Welsh et al. 2015) Where the senior officers are corrupt they provide opportunities to make personal gains to their subordinates as well. When this happens and over a period of time, the lower ranked officers become more and more corrupt in terms of their actions as well as the level of bribes that they start taking (Buttle, et al., 2016). This then becomes a metaphor to explain the way the conditions created within police departments lead to more and more corruption in the police forces. This is also explained as a promotional ladder where police officers are transferred to more prosperous districts once they show their propensity for corruption and then they are offered increased opportunities to make bigger personal gains (Bail, et al., 2012). There is not much research in the context of Zambia, which explains whether there is a prevalence of a slippery slope that can explain the way officers within the police forces become corrupt over a period of time because of the presence of institutional factors that encourage increase in corruption. There are other theoretical approaches to understanding police corruption which are used by researchers like; the rotten apple theory (Awopeju, 2018), In coming up with this theory (Sherman, 1974) the emphasis was on the wrong doing of an individual and this is used to explain a phenomenon of how one bad policeman can affect the entire department. Rotten barrel, however, is a theory which uses an opposite approach to the rotten apple theory. This one explains the phenomenon of how a corrupt department can create or perpetuate conditions in which uncorrupt policemen are corrupted over a period of time (Gottschalk, 2012). These two theoretical approaches are opposed to each other but do explain the different conditions in which corruption in the police forces can be perpetuated. The rotten barrel theory can be aligned to the Slippery Slope theory because it is also based on the ways in which corruption is increased due to the institutional factors where rather than it being a case of a few corrupt officers who spoil the others, it is a case of the departments being so corrupt that those who join are also corrupted over a period of time (Awopeju, 2018). When the individual in the police is corrupt and when the police department is corrupt, a time comes when even the community around becomes corrupt. This according to Rosenbaum (2016) leads to: 1. rotten apples who are corrupt individuals, 2. rotten barrels which is a corrupt department and 3.rotten orchards which is the broadest and involves the community. This research will use these theoretical approaches to see whether the Zambia police corruption is a case of rotten apples or rotten barrels and whether these have become a rotten orchard. Corruption includes both the public and private sectors and in nearly all types of corruption the individual is involved. The greedy individual who does it for personal gain can become part of a corrupt organisation which does it for that organisation’s benefit. This leads to one of the many challenges of explaining how organisations can become corrupt (Ashford, et al., 2008) With respect to police corruption which, some, consider to be mostly institutional in nature, Albert Bandura’s concept of moral disengagement can explain how organisations can develop into corrupt bodies; this can happen when organisations create conditions that ease and expedite individual unethical decision-making so that the organisational interests are achieved through this corruption (Bandura, 1990). In organisations individuals are tasked to make ethical decisions, for the larger interest of the organisation, but by decreasing the awareness to them on the moral substance of the decisions they make, the organisation will see an increase in corruption. In this way, systemic corruption or institutional corruption can be the result if individuals within the organisation are corrupted. In the context of police corruption, moral disengagement theory may explain the reasons why there is increment of noble cause corruption in departments when a particular department’s objectives of putting criminals behind bars at any cost including the compromising of the ethical decision making of the individuals, leads to the creation of conditions in which police officers make decisions that are inherently corrupt, but they are aligned with the objectives of the organisation. (Bandura, 1990). Due to the moral disengagement between the individuals and their ethical decision making, it becomes possible to create such conditions and drive unethical behaviour of the police personnel. Literature on Zambia and police corruption does not muse on the possibility of corruption in the police, as an institution, being driven by the factors that Have been discussed here on police corruption. There are gaps in this section which can be responded to through this research.

2.4 FACTORS RELEVANT TO POLICE CORRUPTION

Corruption comes in many ways and forms, and amongst some of the considered contributing factors are; social, economic and political factors. (Fijnaut & Huberts, 2002). Factors that cause corruption can be external to the actor; such conditions may be related to the environmental conditions. Factors that cause corruption can also be internal to the actor; the actor may consider corruption as part of his rational decision making, where the actor thinks that corruption will lead to some benefits to himself (Graaf, et al., 2010). Corruption has always been a complex and multifaceted phenomenon with no singular explanation that can describe its causes (Vannucci, 2015, p.3) Literature has presented many causes of corruption and some of these are explained in institutional economics theoretical frameworks. This is rooted on the assumption that causes of corruption are related to the rational choices of the actors who see the corrupt as the most profitable course of action (Rose-Ackerman, 2010; Lambsdorff, 2007). Individuals take corrupt action because they believe that this will have desirable outcomes for themselves. (Lambsdorff, et al., 2004). Corruption in police departments does go unreported because of what Wieslander (2019) calls the “(hidden) silence policy” in the police and it is well known in literature with a special name: Code of Silence. This Code of Silence as a term does explain the phenomenon of how police officers are discouraged from reporting crimes and even aberrations of their colleagues (Tasdoven & Kaya, 2014). Research studies conducted in different jurisdictions have reported on the impact of Code of Silence for police officers not complaining against the wrong behaviour of their colleagues. In a Turkish research, it has been reported that the leaders in the police system themselves encourage the Code of Silence, and do not support those officers who want to report crimes or aberrations of their colleagues (Tasdoven & Kaya, 2014). A research study based on Slovenia reports on the impact of a similar Code of Silence within their police forces (Lobnikar & Meško, 2015). A study based on the UK police forces has reported on a similar phenomenon related to the Code of Silence, which is seen by most police officers as a set of unwritten cultural rules which demand that police officers remain loyal to their department and colleagues (Westmarland & Rowe, 2016). In the UK, research suggests that the reporting of a crime by a colleague is considered by a significant number of members of the police forces as a serious matter (Westmarland & Rowe, 2016). The impact of this leads to honest police officers not enjoying their work as they are considered as threats to the wrong doers. What are called as ‘Whistle-blowers, within the UK police forces are viewed with contempt by their colleagues (Newburn, 2015), this because they are considered to be breakers of the Code of Silence which is premised on the notion of loyalty and solidarity. Whistle-blowers are people who go public with information about corruption or unethical behaviour in an institution (Kenny, 2018) Whistleblowers disclose information which can have a negative effect and can affect the concerned people. They do this by reporting illegal acts like; fraud, embezzlement, abuse of one’s power and other illegal acts. Literature has been changing on the description of whistle-blowers with the current thought tending to include people who do not work for an organisation but have interest in that organisation (Stein, 2019). Depending on which side one is whistleblowers are considered to be heroes by some and traitors by others (Hersh, 2002). Whistleblowers do, however, play an important role. Without whistleblowers, multimillion dollar scandals like the ones that took place at Enron, WorldCom and Tyco would not have been known (Zakaria, 2016). For the police, there is stigma attached to whistleblowers as they are considered to violate the blue code and terms like ‘rats’ or ‘snitch’ are used for such people. Such officers do not receive any protection from the department or support from their fellow officers because they are considered to be violators of an important unwritten code of conduct (Beckley, 2014). In rare circumstances if the aberration is considered to be of such a nature that is serious, such as, behaviour of colleagues like off-duty drinking and driving, brutality, bribery, or perjury, there is higher likelihood that such behaviours would be reported by the colleagues (Westmarland & Rowe, 2016).

2.5 CONCLUSION

Corruption is one of the most discussed subjects in nearly all parts of the world today, Zambia included. This is because it has an effect on nearly all people. Despite corruption being there for a long time throughout the world; it still remains a very difficult subject to define. Corruption affects individuals; it also affects organizations before spreading to society. To help in understanding what has been written about corruption by scholars and other professionals, this literature review has revealed principal themes that are related to police corruption. This has led to the defining of corruption generally with particular emphasis on police corruption with noble cause corruption being a major player of the corruption involving the police. Corruption in the police has negative effects on people and it is for this reason that different theories, such as, rotten apple, rotten barrel, and slippery slope and factors that are related to police corruption have been used to define it. The above issues can be related to Zambia through this research. As corruption has become a topical issue in Zambia. This literature review reveals that there are a number of gaps in the literature around Zambia on police corruption. From a Christian perspective, the term whistleblower which has been discussed does need more exploration as it does affect the conduct of officers in the police service. There are theories and themes that this literature review has revealed which are not very well explored in literature around Zambia. Therefore, there is a lot of potential for adding to literature.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

As a way of understanding the research methodology in this chapter the researcher discusses the methodology that has been planned for conducting this research. The chapter has also presented the research philosophy, strategy, the design, the administration and the ethical issues of the conducted research. Details have been provided on how the researcher gathered the data and information that was used in the research study and how the collected data was analysed and how ethical concerns in this study were responded to by the researcher. This chapter has also detailed where necessary the justification for the research methods that were adopted and used in the research.

3.2: RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY

In research there are two research approaches that are most used and these are either qualitative or quantitative methods and the two do complement each other (Mays & Pope, 2006, Arnkoff., et al, 1996).This researcher has decided to conduct his research using the qualitative research method. The current research problem is related to exploration of perceptions of the public with regard to police corruption in Zambia. The research question is related to how the Zambian Citizens and the police perceive police corruption in Zambia and the effectiveness of the measures taken to counter it. Therefore, this research requires exploring perceptions of police officers and general public members. There are two parts to this research, which involve exploration of public perceptions and police perceptions, this information would be best collected through the use of qualitative methods. Qualitative research design is open and flexible; this gives the researcher the freedom to come up with a design which is considered as most suitable for the research, unlike quantitative methods which are tamed to be more rigid. There are many advantages of qualitative research and one of them is that it gives an opportunity for the researcher to be able to get close to the participants (Opoku et al,. 2016) The role and focus of every qualitative researcher is also to gain more understanding and insight into the topic or the perspectives of the participants. The purpose is to derive relationships between research variables, which is not necessarily done through a structured approach. The emphasis may be on deriving the meaning from the relationships or the social meanings of constructs from the perspective of the participants. Moreover, where the emphasis is on narratives the use of this type of research is considered to be more appropriate. The approach of the qualitative researcher is also subjective and this makes it easy for opinions to be compared. In this research study, the emphasis was on exploring the perceptions of the public and police officers. Therefore, the emphasis was to be on the narratives that were to form the major part of the data that was collected for this research study. Flexibility is offered in this context by the non-requirement of a fixed method or even hypotheses. Therefore, there is no rigid framework that would bind the researcher as in the case of quantitative research. At the same time, qualitative method does allow the researcher to collect multi-layered information from different kinds of participants (public and police officers in this case). In other words, the researcher in this particular study had an aim to take advantage of a flexible approach offered by the qualitative method to create a research design in which the researcher could collect multi-layered data from the participants and secondary sources. From the perspective of research philosophy, the researcher took some time to think about what philosophical stance was best suited for this research. This was important because the philosophy chosen could guide the researcher and shape the research design. Some of the philosophical approaches that are generally associated with qualitative approach are interpretivism and positivism. The choice of interpretivism research philosophy for this research was made because the researcher was conducting a qualitative research where the subjective data was to be interpreted by the researcher during analysis. The researcher was to take a subjective interpretivist stance to the analysis of the data.

3.3: RESEARCH STRATEGY

The field of data collection in research has many different methods and strategies and these include; visual analysis (this involves getting information from books or videos) observations (this involves the monitoring of some set target), textual or and interviews ( this involves gaining required knowledge from an individual or a group through questioning) and this interview system is considered to be the most used method (Gill et al,. 2008) The reason why interviews are commonly preferred in research that seeks more insight into the participants’ opinions and perceptions is because they are flexible, in-depth, and allow room for sharing the opinions and experiences of participants with the researcher(Gill et al,. 2008). Broneus has noted that in-depth interviews can lead to extended discussions and can give an opportunity to the researcher to gain more understanding with well-prepared questions and reflective listening to the participants. It can also be said that the researcher can understand more about the perspectives of the participants in the research through the use of interviews as they give significant insight. (Yin, 2013) Interviewing techniques can themselves be different, with the researchers being able to choose between structured interviews and semi-structured interviews (Longhurst, 2003). In presenting this research, the researcher had decided and selected to use semi-structured interviews. The reason why this selection was considered and utilized was that this gave in-depth knowledge to the researcher in understanding the perceptions and opinions of the participants on police corruption through pre-decided questions but leaving the scope open to the researcher to add more questions as the interview progressed (Saunders, et al., 2012). Semi-structured interviews have been used in similar research studies on police corruption in other countries. For example, Light (2014) used semi-structured interviews in the study on police corruption and the perceptions on recent police reforms in Georgia. This type of interviewing was used in that research study and the researchers were able to make significant revelations through this method (Light, 2014). In Zambia, similar research can be done to reveal data on police corruption. Semi-structured interviews can be particularly useful in gaining more insight because these allow the researcher to conduct the interview as per the comfort of the participant and allows the participant more control over the process (Hammer & Wildavsky, 1989) The sample for the interviews was selected through purposive sampling for the police officers; this is appropriate because this research was done as per qualitative research methods (Saunders, 2012). However, for the general public sample, random sampling was employed to select a small sample of interviewees. Through these methods, two samples of ten (10) participants per sample were created. Admittedly, the sample size is small; however, considering the time constraints and the limitation of the available resources, this is the most appropriate sample that the researcher could employ for the collection of the data. In the collection of secondary data, the systematic literature review was used. This method was chosen by the researcher because it would allow the elimination of bias while selecting the literature for the collection of secondary data and also help the researcher to use a scientific method for identifying the literature to be used for collecting secondary data. A systematic literature review allows the researcher to “collate all empirical evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a specific research question” (Green, et al., 2011, p. 6). As is clear from this statement, the systematic literature review is conducted in such a manner that bias can be eliminated because there is a pre-specified eligibility criteria, which includes the exclusion and inclusion factors, and only the studies that come within these criteria are selected for the research.

Three advantages of a systematic literature review can be identified from this brief discussion, which justifies the use of this method for this research study. First, systematic literature review has been proved to useful and this is because it helps and aids the researcher to locate and organise relevant scientific literature. Second, because pre-determined key words related to the eligibility criteria are being used by the researcher for locating the sources, the element of bias can be eliminated. Finally, the likelihood of missing any relevant sources is reduced because of the use of databases to conduct the literature search (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012).

3.4: RESEARCH DESIGN

While qualitative research methodology allows different methods of collecting data, this research was conducted using two primary methods of collecting data: a qualitative systematic literature review for the collection of secondary data; and interviews for collection of primary data. In this section, the research design with respect to these two methods hereby discussed in detail. A systematic literature review involves review of literature in journals, books, and reports; such a review can be conducted in a desk based library research or on the electronic data bases like Google scholar and others. (Green, et al., 2011). Electronic online databases are increasingly preferred because these can be used more scientifically in locating sources from high-quality literature, empirical studies, and reports from sources from around the world (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012). Electronic databases are also able to locate grey literature like PhD theses as these are not generally reported in print journals that can be located in the library. Grey literature can be a significant source of empirical data. (Schöpfel, & Prost, 2015) A search string is created to search sources on the online databases. The search string is derived from the research question, which is related to perception of the Zambian general public and police service on police corruption in Zambia and how these two groups perceive the effectiveness of the measures taken to counter corruption in Zambia. In order to form the search string the core question was broken up into variables of interest and that of the population as follows: (a) police personnel; (b) corruption; (c) anti-corruption measures. Accordingly, the search string was as follows: (police and officer, law and enforcement,) and (Corruption or Deviance or Bribery or Misconduct) and (Anti-corruption measures or Counter-corruption). With the help of the search string mentioned above, the researcher began the process of identifying the sources on the databases. A key word search was first used to generate the sources on the databases. In ensuring that only relevant articles were identified in the databases, a criteria of inclusion and exclusion was applied. Using the exclusion criteria helped the researcher to weed out irrelevant articles. Inclusion criteria for the research were studies on police corruption which presented original empirical evidence on perceptions on police corruption in Zambia. The first phase of literature search has been carried out on databases like Criminal Justice Periodical Index, Jstor and Google Scholar. These databases were chosen because they were global in nature. In the second phase, to identify the most relevant articles the researcher decided to employ a sifting process (Bettany-Saltikov, 2012) In presenting this research study, semi-structured interviews were used to collect primary data. The literature review has given insight into the dominant themes in literature from which the questions for the interview were derived and data collected from the participants. This data has presented information related to the perceptions on police corruption in the general public and police forces in particular. The primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews based on the critical variables derived from the research question. This was set as follows:

3.5: RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION

In this research, the participants for the research were interviewed using the semi-structured interviews. This is a type of interview which is considered to have no regulated style. (Longhurst, 2003) This means that some questions for the interview can be created by the researcher prior to the interview itself and as the interview progresses, the researcher may ask more questions based on the responses of the participants. In other words, the researcher has the freedom to build on the responses of the researcher. The responses of the participants are then, with the authority of participants, audio recorded. If the participants are not comfortable with the recording of their interview, then the researcher can take short hand of their responses. Each transcript is given to the respective participant so that they can see that their responses are recorded correctly. The participants have got the freedom to withdraw from the interview at any time that they want. Data collected in the interviews, be these be audio recordings or the hand written transcripts, are securely kept in the custody of the researcher. Participants are also informed of this before the interview takes place. With respect to the analysis of the primary data, because this data is taken with the use of semi-structured interviews, it is possible that the data can be subjective in nature. The quantity of the data may also be large. The same can be said of the secondary data collected through systematic literature review. Data collected through both these methods are likely to be challenging in terms of their analysis due to the sheer quantity and qualitative nature of the data. In order to meet this challenge, a thematic analysis method was used for the purpose of organising and analysing the data. Thematic analysis method is conducted by the researcher by organising the data under major themes or the key messages in the data. By using this method, the researcher was able to organise the data collected from the systematic literature review and the primary data collected from the interviews under the major themes and analysed the data by using these themes and seeing how some of the themes were recurrent in both kinds of data collected.

3.6: RESEARCH ETHICS

The research strategy for this research involved collection of data through interviews and systematic literature review. Both these methods involve certain ethical issues that need to be considered and attended to. The principle or theory of ethics is concerned with what is right or wrong (Dooley, 2008). It is of vital importance, therefore to understand that the focus of ethics in research is the moral principle that researchers must follow in their respective fields of research. The main ethical issues involved are concerned with the ethical collection and analysing of data, in that, the data sources (literature review) are credible and the referencing of sources is correctly done. So as to make sure that the sources are credible, articles are sifted carefully, with an emphasis on methodology and evidence of the articles. Each source used can be credited properly throughout the writing. With regard to the research ethics concerning interviews, these are related to free consent of the participants (Josselson, 2007). This is done through a consent information form. This form also contains information about how the researcher’s personal information is to be kept confidentially and how the data is to be stored. Moreover, the researcher has the moral obligation to keep the personal information of the participant confidential at all times. In order to ensure that the participants’ consent was properly attained by the researcher, in this research, the participants were made to understand the purpose and nature of study before getting their consent. Participants were to be informed through the consent form that they could leave the interview at any time that they wished to do so and that they were free to not answer any questions that they did not want to. It is also necessary that background and the purposes of the study are informed to the participants. The latter is necessary for free and informed consent (Tasse & Kibby, 2017) Confidentiality and anonymity are the other two important aspects of participation in research. Some of these requirements are met through the consent form and the others are premised on the researcher’s ethics as to how he treats the data collected and how he safeguards the confidentiality and anonymity of the researcher. The researcher also has a moral obligation in an ethical way to the participants; to protect and safeguard their welfare (Sin, 2005). This makes it possible for the participants in any given research to trust the researcher.

4. RESEARCH FINDINGS.

4.1 Introduction.

As a constitutional Christian nation, the Zambia Police Service is supposed to strive to live by the ideals of the Bible, among them the pursuit of morality and being ethical. In this way, specific practices and habits are supposed to be shunned by the police and this includes corruption and any other immoral behaviour. In this chapter of the dissertation, the focus has been on the research question, which was about the Zambian public and police understanding and perception of corruption, specifically corruption within the Zambia Police Service. It then dealt with the perception and thoughts on the phenomenon. This research was conducted using two primary methods of collecting data: a qualitative systematic literature review for the collection of secondary data; and interviews for collection of primary data. The research sub-questions that were presented in the research methodology were used to help in answering the research question.

4.2 PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF POLICE CORRUPTION IN ZAMBIA

In Zambia, a Constitutional Christian nation, the overall awareness of ethics and morality is high. Many citizens now understand and have opinions on the phenomenon of corruption – with many viewing the phenomenon as a vice that should be combated robustly (Clarke, 2019). Just as much, most people, police included, in the Southern African republic hold the view that corruption is erosive to the national values of the country. Majority see corruption as taking money or resources for personal gain at the expense of the poor. The public perception in Zambia on police corruption is one of strong disapproval (Hope Sr. 2019). However, even with this, the country ranks highly in the global corruption index, with the incidences of bribery (for instance) standing at 68% (Pillay, 2017). One of the institutions in Zambia with the highest rate of corruption is the police service, with as many as 43% of Zambians who have dealt with the police in 2017-2018 complaining about corrupt practices in the delivery of services by the police ( Isbell, 2018). To the public, the term corruption in reference to the police service connotes the issuance of bribes to the police in the pursuit of, or escape from justice. Similarly, Zambians understand that bribes need to be given to the police for services such as the maintenance of vigilance, or the protection of life and property, or even response to emergencies to be delivered. A number of reasons have been identified as being responsible for the high incidences of the vice within the Police Service of Zambia. Most people have a feeling that, the low pay that the officers get has acted as an incentive for them to engage in corrupt practices such as bribery, abuse of office, and even the misuse of public resources to gain economic benefits. Secondly, the limited avenues, for the supervision of police behaviour and conduct whilst on duty have also been responsible for the high corruption rates. Majority of the people also feel that the police in Zambia operate with little checks and balances; thus, their conduct whilst on duty has almost always been self-directed. Thirdly, both the police and the general public agree that police recruitment has been politicised, especially in the past few years and this has led to political interference in the operations of the police. Those who are politically connected are considered to be untouchable. This in itself has bred the corruption recorded within the service. Furthermore, the public perception of corruption is that it has become a normal vice (that is still undesirable) but which, some people feel, hurts nobody. This has reduced the likelihood of individuals reporting any incidences involving police corruption (Martin, 2019). With no reports on corruption, the enforcement of the existing anticorruption statutes has become impossible.

4.3 PERCEPTION OF CORRUPTION

Zambians have varied opinions on the existence of corruption within the police service of the country. There are sections made up of a majority of the citizens that view police corruption as an externality of the service they perform. That is, police are charged with the enforcement of laws, and thus may not be easily affected by such laws. Martin (2019) for example, notes that Zambians believe the police cannot enforce the law against themselves; thus, many believe nobody can tame the corruption within the Zambian Police Service unless the government gets involved in the fight. The challenge, however, is that many in the country think that, Zambia has a very ineffective public service where the delivery of services to citizens has not only been slow but also unreliable (Gundani, 2018). In this way, for services to be delivered effectively and in requisite haste, many Zambians have been willing to issue bribes to public officers and especially the police. This has been among the reasons why police corruption has been rampant in Zambia. Due to this; many citizens in the country have come to the conclusion that police corruption is a necessary evil – especially in the pursuit of certain ends. Finally, some Zambians now hold the view that where crimes do not hurt anybody, they pose no problem for the society ( Hope Sr., 2019: Azeez, 2019). This attitude, according to some, breeds the ‘see-nothing-say-nothing’ approach that Zambians have taken when dealing with police corruption in the country.

4.4 IMPACTS OF POLICE CORRUPTION ON ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

Organizations in Zambia are also influenced and affected by the open occurrence of corruption in the Zambian public service (such as the police service). Organizations, being legal entities, have to submit to the laws of the republic. In Zambia, the high incidences of police corruption have influenced the organizational behaviour in different ways. Most firms, now, prefer paying for security services on their premises rather than relying on the actions of the police. The incompetence of the police service, which is tasked with offering security to all lives and property in the nation, has thus led to increased economic costs for firms (Clarke, 2019). The corruption in the police service in Zambia may also be linked to the high incidences of corporate crimes in the nation. Employees of organizations are likely to be involved in criminal conduct such as fraud, fully aware of the incompetence of the police service (Phiri and Guven-Uslu, 2019). In the end, the culprits would be able to buy the loyalty of the police services, rendering any legal actions null and void even before they can begin. There may also be times when, the relationship between organizations and firms may deteriorate, with firms offering a harmful, undesirable, and poor quality of goods and services to their customers. In the end, these firms would face no consequences because of the inadequate enforcement by the police, of the relevant consumer protection rules and regulations. This, a number of people feel, has led to low quality of service delivery in many fields like; education and health services, because of reduced revenue for the government.

4.5 WHY CORRUPTION GOES UNREPORTED

The Zambian Government realised that the measures in place to fight corruption were not bearing much fruit and in 2009 came up with a new anticorruption policy (Mbao, 2011). The anticorruption offices are found in all the ten (10) provincial capitals of Zambia with Zambia Police Stations being the local agents, wherever they are found. Thus, for an individual to report incidences of corruption, they would have to, most of the times, go through the police service, although it is a fact that service delivery by the police in the country is less than desirable (Phiri and Guven-Uslu 2019). As such, reporting corruption would make little difference as the culprits are not likely to be brought to justice in good time, if at all. The situation worsens in instances when the suspects perpetrating corruption are members of the police service. It would make little sense for impartiality to prevail in instances where the police are tasked with investigating their own, and then prosecuting them. Conflict of interest, within the police, also reduces the likelihood of bringing rogue and corrupt members of the police force to book (Bayley & Perito, 2011). This is an issue which is further confounded by the absence of a robust judiciary that can zealously enforce the laws. Zambian courts have been identified to be avenues of incompetence and miscarriage of justice due to the tightly linked chain of corruption and incompetence along with the law enforcement - justice delivery chain (Eme, et., al., 2017). It, therefore, makes little sense to report cases of corruption that would most likely not be investigated and even where they are, would likely not achieve much justice in court (Punch, 2009), it is also possible that the complainants and witnesses may be subjected to harassment and intimidation. There might also be times when the corrupt players within the police can hide, suppress or even destroy evidence. This, therefore, has reduced the available incentives to report corruption even where evidence of its occurrence might have been glaring and obvious.

4.6 CURRENT MEASURES TO CURB POLICE CORRUPTION

A basic question asked on whether the current measures taken to curb police corruption were enough got a, 100% NO, response from both the police and the general public respondents. To redeem the image and integrity of the police service in Zambia, however, the government has tried to take steps to reduce the incidences of corruption therein. Some of these measures are slow-acting in helping to reduce corruption, but are likely to be of use in the future. Others have not been so helpful and may not achieve much in curbing the vice within the Zambian Police Service. For instance, the training on morality and ethics of work performance carried out in the police colleges might not have immediate benefits, but could help in the coming days (Martin, 2019: Isbell, 2018). The implementation of better pay and working conditions for police may also take a while to help root out the vice by greatly reducing the propensity to corrupt practices among police officers. Further, greater surveillance and supervision of police officers that have been put in place have not been very helpful, because they have been reactionary rather than preventive measures (Azeez, 2019: Clarke, 2019). The involvement and participation of the public in police reforms may not be likely to help soon. There still exist great fears of possible victimization by suspects who can subvert justice (Pillay, 2017: Gundani, 2018). The imperfect systems of prosecution also greatly negate the efforts of involving the Zambian public in police reforms. Overall, more needs to be done by the government of the Republic of Zambia in order to address corruption within its National Police Service. There are many who agree with Pillay (2017) who states that the current statutes are in themselves not strong enough to decisively root out the vice.

4.7 RESEARCH PARTCIPANTS

The researcher in this research had initially planned to interview a minimum of twenty people and had sent out fifty research sub-questions out of which only sixteen responded. Another set of fifty of the same were sent and out of which twelve gave their responses. The total number of people who participated in the research was, therefore twenty eight. After receiving responses from respondents, follow up questions were made through the use of email, WhatsApp and phone conversation. In conducting this research, the number of people who took part in the research were; eleven Police Officers and seventeen ordinary citizens and are hereby tabulated and classified as follows;

4.8 CONCLUSION

This chapter has discussed and tried to answer the research question that was asked in chapter one by use of literature review and interviews. The research methodology that was planned for the findings in a qualitative style review has been utilised to help in answering the research question with sub-questions used for field review. Answers have been given as a result of the said findings to help one understand more about the asked research question.

REFERENCES

Azeez, A., 2018. Democratic Consolidation and Good Governance in Africa: Assessing the Incidences of Poverty and Corruption in four African States. Bangladesh e-journal of Sociology,15(1), pp.42-58.

Bayley, D., & Perito, R. (2011). Police corruption: What past scandals teach about current challenges (Special Report No. 294). Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.

Clarke, G. R., 2019. Is Corruption a Greater Burden for Registered MSEs? Evidence from Zambia. Review of Development Economics, 23(4), 1604-1623.

Eme, O.I., Samuel, I.I., and Chidubem, E.E., 2017. African Anti-Corruption Agencies: Challenges and Prospects.Management Studies and Economic Systems, 54(5805), pp.1-19.

Hope, Sr, K. R., (2019.) Controlling Corruption through Integrity Committees: The Case of Zambia. Public Integrity 21(3), pp. 248-262.

Matthew 27:1–10, Holy Bible: King James Version.

Isbell. 2018. Zambians see Corruption Rising, Government Failing in Anti-Graft Fight. Lusaka, Zambia: McMillan Publishers

Martin, B., 2019. Bribery and Corruption. In: Survival or Extinction? (pp. 257-267). Springer, Cham.

Phiri, J. and Guven-Uslu, P.( 2019). Social Networks, Corruption and Institutions of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal.

Pillay, P., 2017. Anti-Corruption Agencies in South Africa and Brazil: Trends and Challenges. African Journal of Public Affairs, 9(8), pp.1-14.

Punch, M. (2009), Police Corruption: Deviancy, Accountability and Reform in Policing, Cullompton, Devon: Willan.