Corruption crackdowns work only if the public administration is simplified to the point where bribe-taking becomes either unnecessary or highly conspicuous.
So they want their home to be a better place — where bribe-takers are punished and bribe-payers live happily ever after.
The arrest of Smalls in 1972 for a string of highly-lucrative robberies conducted since the late 1960s coincided in particular with an inglorious episode in the history of the Yard where bribe-taking, occasional collusion and the practice of "verballing" or fabricating evidence was rife among detectives.
In regions of the world where bribe-taking has long been baked into business transactions — East Asia, the former Soviet Union, Africa and Latin America, for example — legal investigations could make the company vulnerable as those areas become more desirable for military contractors looking for new clients.
But financial matters are different, especially where bribes, conflicts of interest or taxpayers' money may be concerned, and that distinction is starting to take hold.
If the leaders do not have strong enough personalities, the men said, corruption will be rife, as it is in Iraq, where bribes are commonplace.
"You have to change minds before you can change laws," she says.Such campaigns might be risky in countries where bribes are extorted at gunpoint.
The naive Western tourists sometimes thought that they were in countries with slacker legal regimes, or where bribes could see them right.
The issue of corruption and bad governance is nothing new in India, where bribes and kick-backs are part of everyday life for hundreds of millions of people.
The bad news here is that countries where bribes and corruption are the cost of doing business or that are dominated by organized interest groups, tend to be the economic losers.
