National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

make contact with one another. By disclosing personal information, police
officers make themselves vulnerable for corruption.
As a counterpoint to the risk factors stated, the increased emphasis on integrity
should also be mentioned. In recent years more attention has been paid to
corruption, which is reflected in more laws and regulations, for example, as
well as in the development of integrity policy by government and businesses.
According to some commentators, a lot can be achieved by supervising public
servants in this area. They also indicate that the ‘selection, remuneration and
training’ model should be applied in order to reduce integrity risks because
these three issues are seen as key in the fight against corruption.
It is not easy to know what to expect in the development of the corruption
of public servants. Not enough figures are available to detect a trend and
the crime-related factors are also ambiguous.
However, criminals will be just as interested in (criminal investigation)
information in the coming years, so it can be expected that attempts to bribe
public servants will still be discovered in future.
Conclusion
The general opinion is that corruption of public servants is relatively rare
in the Netherlands. There does not appear to be a direct need for criminal
organisations to bribe public servants on a large scale. This does not mean
that the consequences of corruption should not be taken seriously, even if the
number of cases is small. The level of interest that criminal organisations have
in obtaining inside information will not diminish. As a result, the integrity
of the state under the rule of law runs the risk of being seriously damaged.
Furthermore, due to increased and improved (technical) security, the key
to information is held by individuals more and more frequently; they have
passwords and the required biometric data. As a result, individuals are becoming
increasingly vulnerable. It is possible that this will result in more cases of
corruption or corruption attempts.
This is sufficient reason to designate corruption of public servants as a threat
for the next four years.
5.2.3 Corruption in the business community
Introduction and scope
Corruption in the business community was not studied separately for this
NTA. However, the various reports on which this NTA is based frequently
report this phenomenon. That is why we will discuss it separately in this
184 National Threat Assessment 2008 – Organised crime