Once Again, Pennsylvania In The Top 10 Most Corrupt States

Once again, Pennsylvania has ranked among the most corrupt states in the USA. A recent Forbes article has Pennsylvania ranked 6th in the nation for The Worst US States For Corruption. The report looked at the number of federal public corruption convictions per 10,000 residents between the years 1976 and 2018.

It's perhaps no surprise that Washington DC came in first place at almost 17 cases per 10,000 residents. Pennsylvania was the most corrupt of its immediate neighbors, except for New York. New Jersey and Ohio made the Top 10 list as well. Since Washington DC isn't technically a state, this makes Pennsylvania the 5th Most Corrupt State in the United States for several years running.

The S.W.A.M.P Index grades each state according to its corruption and ethics framework holds up to eight questions. These eight questions included topics like:

• Whether they have an ethics enforcement agency at all (and if it has any real power)
• Rules around gift-giving to officials
• Campaign finance reporting for entities like PACs
• Officials' personal finance reporting requirements

Pennsylvania has a score of 51% which leaves it in 28th place. Washington State, California, and Rhode Island are the top three states.

A 2015 report by The Center for Public Integrity gives Pennsylvania an "F", even emblazoning the article with the subtitle An entrenched culture of malfeasance.

A 2015 CPI investigation shows Pennsylvania earning a failing grade in nearly every category. The worst offenses? Judicial Accountability and Electoral Oversight.

A FiveThirtyEight article reports the same: Pennsylvania is about the 5th best state in the US to be a corrupt official.

Going back even farther, a 2014 Harvard University study that looked at both legal and illegal corruption, found Pennsylvania to be the 5th most corrupt state in the USA. This study was significant for asking about reporters' perceptions as a proxy for unreported, uninvestigated, and unprosecuted crimes of public corruption. Their reasoning was that reporters are more intimately familiar with the operations of government officials.

"It is all bad news for Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, New Jersey and Pennsylvania as their aggregate scores are in the highest quartiles of both illegal and legal corruption," the study found., mic.com reports

What kinds of corruption are rampant in Pennsylvania? 

• The Cash for Kids Scandal is perhaps the most infamous case, where judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella were convicted of, you guessed it, selling children to private prisons in exchange for money.
• Luzerne County corrections officer John Stachokus, of Plains Township pleaded guilty to extortion and tampering with a witness. He was accused of extorting money from work-release inmates and trying to get a government witness to give false statements to law enforcement.
• Luzerne County Correctional Facility work release officer Louis Elmy, of Wilkes-Barre, was convicted of extortion and a firearms violation. Prosecutors say he extorted money and other items from prisoners on work release.
• Former Pennsylvania Treasurer Barbara Hafer is charged with two counts of making false statements to federal agents during an FBI-IRS investigation of possible pay-to-play activities involving the PA State government.
• Delaware County social worker Candace Tally, of Winslow, New Jersey, has been charged with human trafficking, having been accused of coercing a mother into prostitution in exchange for a favorable custody recommendation.