Citation

Koci A. Crime Prev. Community Safety 2000; 2(2): 75-81.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group -- Palgrave-Macmillan)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

This paper discusses the present political discourse on the extent of police corruption in Albania. It approaches this at two levels of analysis. First, it argues that while corruption in the Albanian police poses serious threats to the establishment of law and order in the country, the current political discourse surrounding this phenomenon has tended to politicise the issue: to treat it either as an internal effect of the present government's resolve to stay in power, or as an external menace, on the part of organised crime, to public administration. Both approaches fail to address the fundamental reasons for the emergence of corruption and, in an atmosphere of on-going conflictual politics, they represent populist and expedient exercises in pursuit of political goals. Accordingly, corruption has become another variable in the political myths in Albanian society. Second, the paper attempts to deconstruct the mystification of corruption and to search for the causalities and reasons behind it. Accordingly, the myth of corruption in the Albanian police force and public administration appears either to blame it on the policies of a specific ruling party, or to view it as being culturally congruous to the country at large. Although they both contain an element of truth, these perceptions are at best simplistic. To this extent, the paper argues rather that corruption is a consequence of the weakening of state institutions and the lack of adequate administrative control.