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Albert Ramirez

Senior English 2

Ms. Figueroa

10 March 2019

Corruption of Society

The motivation behind corruption is greed. The infamous Steinbeck once stated, “power

does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” Corruption is a topic that

people do not like to talk about however, that does not make it less of a problem. It is something

that has been seen for many years. It can be traced back to the Shakespeare times. Shakespeare

wrote the story Macbeth and included several examples of corruption. One example would be

when Macbeth uses his power as king and sends three murderers to kill Banquo. In this example

corruption relates to a person with power just like in many cases today. In today’s society, it can

be seen in many ways for example in sports, with the police, as well as in politics.

To begin with, the sports industry is involved in corrupt situations at times. There are so

many different scenarios on how corruption can be seen in sports. An article by Sport Digest

says, “This list is extensive: Performance enhancing drugs, illegal equipment, paying young

athletes and their associates to attend particular colleges, bid rigging from the Olympics to FIFA

to the NFL, payouts, graft, bribery, and on and on”. It can be seen in multiple different ways. The

most common one would have to be bid rigging an important match between teams. A more

specific example of how corruption is seen is when the Referees are involved. It is said that the

referees are paid to help a certain team win. A reading from 247 sport says, “The refs also

manipulate who win” (247sports). This is the biggest form of corruption there is in sports. The
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referees have the favor of what team will win and will favor the team with fouls and bad calls to

the opposing team. At the end of the day the refs do play a big part in who wins the game.

To make things worse, police officers are also amongst the many that are corrupt. A

country where this can be very obvious is in Mexico. The article published by GAN says,

“Bribery is widespread in the country’s judiciary and police”(GAN). Officers constantly get

money out of people for various reasons. It can be something as simple as not wanting to get a

ticket. You can simply give the officer some money and he will let you go. However, at times it

is much deeper than that. There has been cases where the officers are involved in conflicts

involving drugs. The same article of GAN stated, “The police have also frequently been involved

with drug organizations and accused of other law violations (BTI 2018)” (GAN). Mexico is

greatly known for their drug cartels which are technically illegal. It is tragic that corruption has

gotten to the point where even the police is involved in these types of problems.

Lastly, political corruption is a major issue. Political corruption is the abuse of power of a

government official. These are least heard of since they are scandals involving the government

but, they do occur. An article on politics and government says, “It’s natural to think of elections

when we think of political corruption. People or organizations with their own agendas can skew

voting” (TransparencyInternational). It is said that people who give big donations can influence

the outcome of an election. In fact, votes can even be bought. Aside from elections, corruption

from the inside of the government is also seen. Once someone has already obtained a position in

government they have a greater say in things. In this case, this is a bad thing for a couple of

reasons. It is greatly because “Their decisions can benefit those who fund them. The public

interest comes second” (Transparency International). They can now steer away from helping the

public as a whole and focus on the well-being of specific people. Among these people might be
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their donators or even people above them who can bribe them to be on their side of things. To

sum it all up, unfortunately political corruption exists and has a great influence in our society.

In conclusion, corruption is seen in more ways than one can imagine. Just like it was seen

in Macbeth with the murder of Banquo, it is seen today in sports, police, and politics. Overall,

corruption occurs everywhere but has a bigger influence towards society as a whole when it

comes to these three key points. It is still something that more people should be trying to resolve

because it effects society in one way or another. With all these examples of consequences of

corruption the reader can learn that it is not a benefit to this world but an injustice.
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Works Cited

“Corruption in Sport.” Stress and Anxiety in Athletics | The Sport Digest, 27 Feb. 2018,

thesportdigest.com/2018/02/corruption-in-sport/.

“Corruption Quotes (798 Quotes).” Goodreads, Goodreads,

www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/corruption.

“Detroit Lions Forum.” Carolina Panthers, 247sports, 247sports.com/nfl/detroit-

lions/Board/103102/Contents/Do-you-believe-the-NFL-is-riggedbecause-I-do-

71918951/.

e.V., Transparency International. “Thank You for Donating ToTransparency International!”

Www.transparency.org, www.transparency.org/topic/detail/politics_and_government.

“Mexico Corruption Report.” Business Anti-Corruption Portal, www.business-anti-

corruption.com/country-profiles/mexico/.