Member-only story
Crooked Cops in the Underground Economy
When corruption enters an honest police department,
it usually comes through a doorway in the vice detail, where breathtaking sums of money and drugs easily turned into money pass through the hands of police officers who have less income than some street dealers, let alone the people we call drug “lords” because they live like lords, dispensing the rough justice imposed by outlawry.
The bard of the boomer generation, Bob Dylan, wrote correctly that “to live outside the law, you must be honest.” All of the commerce within the lord’s fief must proceed according to rules that usually begin as customs and acquire the sanctions necessary to enforce them.
Within his fief, the lord controls the sums that can be demanded for protection, the interest rates allowed to loan sharks, and the borders of markets where the businesses offer “the numbers” (lotteries outside those sanctioned by the government), sports betting, casino games, dog and cock fights, and commercial sex of every description.
When a fief can be well organized, every illicit business pays for peaceful dispute resolution it can’t get from judges like me. Few jurisdictions get that well organized because law enforcement is always trying to bust the underground economy as high up as is possible. Dishonest cops are…
