Government Corruption in the Suburbs—Is it Happening in Geneva, Too?

Is there corruption in local government? And does it happen here in quiet, suburban Geneva, IL?

That's the local focus that logically follows a new University of Illinois (UIC) study released Monday.

The University of Illinois-Chicago Political Science Department's sixth Anti-Corruption Report released Monday says that political misbehavior in the suburban ring around Chicago is as prevalent as it is in the big city, but faces far less scrutiny.

The report maps arrests stemming from corruption charges including instances of nepotism, police officers aiding or extorting criminals, kickbacks and bribes to administrators and public officials with ties to organized crime; a total of six categories of impropriety that are well-represented in many of the examined suburbs.

The six categories of corruption-related convictions in suburban Chicago, according to the report, are:

• Public officials with ties to organized crime,
• Nepotism,
• Police officers aiding or extorting criminals,
• Kickbacks and bribes to officials and administrators,
• Large development projects, and
• Stealing of funds by leaders of school districts and special purpose districts.

To read the entire UIC report, click here.

According to the Huffington Post, the head of the department and co-author of the study, former Chicago alderman Dick Simpson, called for the creation of an independent Suburban Inspector General to police suburban politics at a press conference Monday.

At that conference, Simpson released the study's findings, which included detailed outlines of corruption incidents involving more than 130 individuals across 60 suburbs since the 1970s.