A study on the perception of the corruption phenomenon within the Inland Revenue

In spite of many national and international studies on the causes of corruption, it is rarely investigated in which terms the criminological theories can provide useful suggestions to better understand the etiology of this form of criminality. The present work aimed to study how the corruption phenomenon is perceived by the employees of the Inland Revenue. The research was conducted on a sample of 50 subjects between 30 and 65 years old. For the purposes of the research, a questionnaire consisting of 19 items was distributed to them. It was significantly found that the subjects did not have problems to respond to general questions, despite particular questions, where instead the sampling found considerable difficulties. Therefore the knowledge is resulted in general terms and not in specific terms. A limitation of this study is that perceptions can rapidly change as a result of political scandals or different cultural settings. The different answers can be influenced by both the quality in the formulation of the application and the little experience of the interviewed subjects. Given the found data we can consider that this study confirms what is already evident in the literature. Corruption is the result of contacts with criminal patterns and the removal from anti-criminal patterns, since each individual assimilates the culture surrounding him.