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This makes the citizens feel unsafe and lose all faith in the legal system in our country. In many places, the police are expected to collect revenue for local politicians which leads to more instances of excessive force by police officers and police brutality with very little repercussions. For example, greedy government officials will often push their local police forces to act as “tax-collectors”. Greed can even go as far as affecting local law enforcement and the legal system. There have been many accounts of mayors and other local officials pleading guilty to crimes such as bribery and extortion which causes major distrust in the government by the citizens. Citizens trust that their tax dollars will be used in a way that will benefit the public whether they go to education, health care or development in the city but when government leaders decide to use tax dollars to do things such as fund their own political campaign or give their department unwarranted bonuses, the tax-paying citizens have to suffer. These practices often misuse tax dollars and abuse the trust of the citizens. Greed often leads to corrupt practices such as bribery, embezzlement and extortion.
![cause this is a big rich town cause this is a big rich town](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dE_082hzvgk/hqdefault.jpg)
When government leaders allow their personal greed to take over, the citizens of the states or cities that they work for suffer. The lack of transparency in state and local government is one of the largest contributors to the high level of political corruption and decreasing the level of corruption will require an open government that encourages citizen interaction.Īlong with a lack of transparency, personal greed plays a major role in the corruption of state and local government. Allowing adequate access to government information will make government bodies more responsive while simultaneously having a positive effect on the levels of public participation in state and local government. State and local governments often do not provide adequate access to information which leads to distrust from the citizens and the possibility for even more corruption. Transparency is important on all levels of government but when it comes to addressing transparency on a local level it is important to focus on transparency in strategic management and transparency with citizen interaction. This lack of transparency allows high levels of corrupt practice because citizens are not able to question the actions of their government leaders. When state and local governments lack transparency, participation decreases, there is limited access to information and citizens are overall left in the dark. The most significant of those is the lack of transparency of affairs. There are many causes for political corruption on the state and local level including personal greed, lack of efficient punishment, and lack of transparency in affairs. Lack of transparency leaves citizens unaware of these corrupt practices and their effect which makes it important to be aware of the causes of this corruption in order to put an end to it. State and local governments have a high level corruption and this can be harmful to the citizens in these cities and states even more so that corruption on the federal level. Many efforts have been made to stop these corrupt practices from taking place in the US government but they have been difficult to enforce and have not proven to be effective. Although many studies of these corrupt governmental practices focus on the federal government, political corruption occurs just as often on the state and local level of government. The negative effects of political corruption includes the lack of quality services, the lack of justice, disregard for government officials and a lack in trust in the government. These corrupt practices often have a negative effect on public life. This corruption takes place in the US in many different forms including, bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement.
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Political corruption occurs when political leaders abuse their power in order to further their own agenda.