My Personal Nemesis

 Professor Coppock, I hear you loud and clear re the DMV. They're the worst. Or at least they're the worst bureaucracy in the US. I'll see your DMV and raise you the Nicaraguan National Police.

This bureaucracy suffers from both of the sources of slack that we discussed in class the other day. It is extremely difficult to measure what the 'output' of the police is and even harder to measure what the 'output' should be. Are the police working merely to maximize the number of arrests or the amount of material goods that they bring in through fines and confiscations. Are they working to minimize the number of wrongful arrests and trying to improve relations with the community? I would argue that the majority of the Nicaraguan Police force is working to satisfy the ends posed in question number one. This is done to satisfy the desires of their bosses but also to maximize their own power and utility. They are also a monopoly supplier as there are no neighborhood watches and no community support systems that people can go to instead of the police. Because of the this the police know that they don't have to be efficient or even helpful. You have to put up with them because they are your only choice.

I know for a fact that this is how the system works because I have had to deal with it personally. I was driving in Nicaragua and my car was hit by a drunk driver. The drunk driver bribed the police to file a report saying it was my fault. The police took my license meaning I had to sit in line for 5 hours at the precinct (while they allegedly were doing paperwork) and then bribe them $20 to get it back before I left the country the next day because there was no other system or institution for me to appeal to. The police won on all fronts because they got to move towards their quota for tickets, they got a bribe from the drunk driver, they got a bribe from me, and they got their regular paycheck for 'doing' their job. I guess you could also say that they won because they got to exercise power over me. Luckily I have only had to deal with this kind of thing once but it happens with such alarming frequency throughout the country that it is even mentioned on TripAdvisor reviews.

The system is so frustrating and corrupt that one time when my mother was wrongfully pulled over by the police she simply thrust her joined hands out the window and pleaded 'just take me to jail'. To her this was the easier alternative than having to deal with all of the inefficiencies and corruption of the Nicaraguan police bureaucracy.