WHAT KEPT ME HONEST

  In the 50's and 60's Georgia was so notorious for the bogus traffic tickets given to Yankees that the AAA routed drivers around the entire state. If you drove through Georgia in a car with a New York, New Jersey, or other northern plate you were going to get a ticket. How? Small cities had a bad habit of abruptly lowering the speed limit, or hiding traffic lights in trees, or stop signs behind bushes. Once, in Georgia, a CCSO Deputy was put in the same cell as the prisoner he was extraditing. The Deputy's crime: running a hidden stop sign. Cost Sheriff Doug Hendry $100 to get him out.
 It got so shameful that a Georgia state law enforcement agency finally stepped in. Disguising agents as tourists, they'd wait until the sleazy traffic net was dropped on them, then spring their own trap, arresting the thieves in uniforms. 

 That's when I discovered that cops, in sting operations, would arrested cops. It was one of the things that kept me honest on the job for over 40 years.

 Then there was the thing about taking bribes. One of my mentors, Chief Ben Caruthers, explained it to me early on. "Before you take that bribe," he said, "do some mathematics. Figure out how much money you'll probably make over your law enforcement career. Then how much in retirement you're likely to collect. Then calculate how much a lawyers is going to cost you if you get caught. Add it all up and if the bribe isn't more than that--what you'll be losing when you're in jail and out of law enforcement--it's not a smart financial move."

 Next, you have to worry about the jail thing. Cops in jail usually have to be put in protective custody to stay alive. You're in a jungle where cop killers are revered as heros. The only thing in prison more hated is a child molester. Made me wonder, recently, when I saw a local cop was accused of being a child molester and another with kiddie porn on his computer. If these guys are found guilty and sent to the joint. . . 
 So my motto was I'm not saying I can't be had, but your offer better be way the hell up there. Enough to replace the lifetime of earnings I'll lose when I get caught.  
 Or maybe even my life.