Police Ignoring Laws in Florida: A Case of Systemic Corruption

Systemic corruption means not only that a department or agency has an organizational culture that allows for and may even laud corruption, but also that a city hall, as well as larger jurisdictions such as member-states and even federal agencies may be enabling the corruption by looking the other way and even lying to cover-up the lower-level corruption. A study at Florida Atlantic University published in the Journal of Criminal Justice identifies 24 categories of police misconduct in Florida from 2012 to 2023. Even though it is tempting to highlight violent illegal acts by police employees, lying regarding criminal law and refusing to take reports of criminal activity may be more detrimental because such misconduct is probably more common than is the violent sort. If so, the extent of corruption and the underlying false sense of entitlement by police patrol-employees and even their supervisors may be vastly understated in the United States.

The full essay is at "Local Police Enabled in Florida."

Public Policy on Housing in the E.U.: On the Impact on Federalism

With rents and the price of houses being historically high in 2024 in the E.U., it is no surprise that housing was a salient issue in the E.U. election campaigns that summer. Legislative action on the state level had been insufficient. Hence, President von der Leyen told the parliament, “I want this Commission to support people where it matters most, and if it matters to Europeans, it matters to Europe.”[1] The Union complementing legislative action by state governments on such an important issue is admittedly a step in the direction of solving an urgent problem, but the impact on the federal system in the future should not be ignored. As important as a pressing issue of the day is, someone should be keeping an eye on the shop itself. The gradual political consolidation of the U.S. federal system over more than two centuries at the expense of federalism is an example of what can happen when policy-makers are too oriented in putting out policy “brush fires” without bothering to ask how the federal system itself could be impacted. 

The full essay is at "Public Policy on Housing in the E.U."

---

1. Paula Soler, “Von der Leyen Promised an EU Commissioner to Tackle the Housing Crisis,” Euronews, August 13, 2024.