“Process Corruption”. No brown paper bags, but just as sketchy

While headlines often spotlight brown-paper-bag bribery or blatant financial fraud, ‘process corruption’ is just as virulent. John Adams explains.

Process corruption, as defined by the Wood Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service (1994–97), refers to misconduct where officials manipulate or circumvent official procedures for an improper purpose.

Process corruption lurks in the shadows, but unlike traditional bribery, it does not require personal gain. Rather, it distorts the machinery of justice itself, fabricating evidence, perverting investigations, or shielding wrongdoers from scrutiny.

Justice James Wood’s Commission found such corruption rampant within the NSW Police Service in the 1980s and 90s. Officers planted evidence, coerced confessions, withheld key facts, and undermined due process—all justified in the name of “getting the bad guys”. But the result was a travesty: the innocent punished, the guilty unprosecuted, and the public left in the dark.

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