In one of the 76 unnecessary subplots in Michael Mann’s crime film Heat, Donald Breedan arrives for his first day on the job. A recent parolee, Donald wants more than working the grill at a diner but options are limited for ex-cons. Then the scumbag restaurant manager tells him that in addition to working as a line cook, Donald will be mopping floors, pulling trash, in short, everything other than cooking.
Oh, and 25% of Donald’s pay kicks back to the restaurant manager. Rules of the game.
Really, though? Do people do that?
In 1977 my stepfather left the Texas Department of Corrections with $50 in cash, a polyester suit, and a thousand dollars’ worth of tools. The man who hired him “allowed” my dad to sleep in the shop, for a fee. The parole officer who arranged the job kept my dad “out of trouble,” for a fee. This went on for two years. The shop owner got master-mechanic work (during a booming oil economy) for a little over minimum wage. The tools that the TDC gave the old man belonged to the boss.
Rules of the game.
In The Big Easy Detective Remy McSwain barges into a squad room, interrupting “the count” or the division of cash for police officers in on “the take.” The “ill-gotten” part is implied by the two cops jumping to cover the stacks of cash on the table. This scene could’ve been taken directly from Peter Maas’ biography of NYC cop Frank Serpico.
Serpico, testifying before the Knapp Commission on police corruption, said the “take” could be anything from free lunches for cops who didn’t write tickets on restaurant delivery trucks all the way to mob payoffs for information and/or “looking the other way” on mob business. Have you never wondered why there was no random police patrolman just happening-by around any of the mob hits of the last 100 years? Statistically, that is impossible.
For consideration: a 2020 cost of living study cites the Bronx as the lowest cost of living (3-times the average rent) of the five boroughs at $5000/mo before taxes. The starting salary for a New York City police officer in 2020 was $42,500 or $3541/mo. Oh, and NYC requires all NYPD cops to live in the city.
Reads like a recipe for corruption, to me.
In Thief, a judge negotiates his payoff from the bench, trading hand signs with an attorney attempting to buy his client’s release from prison. Again, credulity rears its ugly head. It’s a valid question. Who jeopardizes their liberty, gives up a judge’s bench over crooked sh—tuff?
A lot. A lot of people give up their good government jobs for crooked cash.
Pennsylvania Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella aggressively convicted juvenile offenders for low-level offenses, (trespassing and underage drinking) and then sentenced them to for-profit-juvenile-detention facilities. Investigative journalist William Ecenbarger wrote that 6000 children were sent to for-profit detention centers for which Conahan and Ciavarella received over $2mm kickbacks from the prison owner and the developer who built the prison. Both men are still in grown-up prison after convictions on multiple counts of racketeering and civil rights violations.
In HBO’s excellent television series, The Wire we see Maryland State Senator Clay Davis exercise his influence to get his bagman released from police custody after an arrested—with a literal trash bag full of cash. Coleman Parker, chief of staff to Baltimore Mayor Clarence Royce, tells his boss to ignore a developer’s entreaty for a meeting. When asked what the meeting is about, Parker replies that the developer wants a median break in front of his new building but is only offering $5000.
Fiction, right? It’s not that cut-and-dried in the real…um…
Kenneth McDuff was convicted of killing three teenagers in 1966. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Furman v. Georgia, (striking down existing death-penalty sentences) McDuff’s death penalty was instantly commuted to life in prison.
Texas Monthly Magazine—in an article that would roil the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles—reported that Addie McDuff paid a board member to parole her son, Kenneth. A separate report cited $25,000 as the bribe amount. Within two years after his release in 1989, McDuff murdered a woman that he kidnapped from a carwash in front of witnesses. He would kill two other women (that we know of) before he was apprehended in 1992.
After two years living in a shop and paying over 30% of his pay to his PO and boss, my old man started his own business. My dad would be self-employed for the rest of his life. At different points he owned an auto-salvage yard, a tire shop, and finally an auto-repair shop.
But no matter what side of town he set up shop, after a week or two, a couple of police sergeants would show up and speak with my dad. Every week there after they would come for a visit that would end with my old man handing over an envelope of cash. For that cash the cops “look out” for my old man and made sure he didn’t “jeopardize” his parole.
My old man had to fence stolen car parts, TVs, and guns to keep those envelopes full while also making parole and covering the bills. The cops were good enough to look the other way about those activities, too.
So, yes, bribery really does happen, just like in the movies. Street corner corruption to Wall Street corruption, it all costs. The woman or man who works for a living is hit the hardest in higher prices, higher insurance costs, and higher taxes.
All rules of the game.
The image at the top is in the public domain.
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