Corruption: An Ancient Malady 

Thomas Molnar, wrote that in ancient societies, man had a religiously rooted reverence for his social superiors, to whom he felt he ought to bring propitiating 'gifts." as one did to gods, spirits, and demons, "Civilization" has dismantled the traditional network, replacing it with a rootless and "often more abusive" bureaucracy. Nonetheless, Molnar believes that the tribal connection has remained as the only genuine political reality in most of the Third World. He adds that what has changed is not the mentality of bribery but the amounts, which have increased (Molnar 1986). 

A Cyclical Pattern

Writters on corruption have discerned a cyclical pattern to corruption. In Iran trends toward democratization of administrative systems were followed- by rebureaucratization and application of most of the old laws and regulations; corruption returned along with the bureaucrats In Mexico, a similar cycle can be seew each presidential tenn, or sexenio, begins with an emergency period to clean up the economic disnrder left by the previous administration, followed by expansion, succeeded by crisis, and by belt-tightening. 

Francis T. Liu developed a model of corruption deterrence by analyzing events in the People's Republic of China His dynamic model of corruption exhibits several scenarios of "corruption equilibria," that is, points at which a "balance" is achieved between audit effort, on the one hand, and the activities of corrupt officials, on the othec The Lin (1985) fonnula may help national leaders to determine the optimum mix of audit resource allocation and contemporaneous penalties for vinlators Also, the cyclical patrem has great practical importance becanse it enables audito" and regulators to assail corrupters at the opportune time and at points of vulnerability, thereby enhancing prospects for success.

Absence of Rudimentary Precautions 

Basic measures of prevention tend to be ignored by both government and industry. The late American criminologist Donald Cressey explained the basics: for fraud to take place there must be: (I) an item worth stealing; (2) a potential perpetrator willing to steal; and (3) an opportunity for the crime to take place. It follows that isolation of the perpetrator from the asset, and from the opportunity and knowledge for access, involves erecting figurative or literal walls of policies, procedures, and controls around each part of the equation. Each asset should receive protection appropriate to its nature, value, and proneness to theft, wastage, or diffusion. The term asset includes all things owned, including intangibles such as an organization's books, records, and information resources.

Typically, deficiencies are fundamental. A 1987 U.K. survey of computer fraud and abuse concluded that: 

There is a disturbing lack of (those) basic, well-defined control mechanisms which the text books have been extolling for years. The most obvious control which was absent or deficient in nearly all reported cases was that of separating the functions of a particular process, so that one individual (did) not have absolute control" (The Audit Commission 1987).