ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the contexts that characterize practices of corruption in public services, especially the opportunity factor and its characteristics. The model of analysis used to investigate the opportunity factor in public services is based on Cressey's fraud triangle theory. According to this theory, based on the study of practices of occupational fraud in different kind of organizations, fraudulent and corrupt acts result from the combination of three factors: Rationalization, Pressure and Opportunity for committing fraud and corruption actions. Opportunity arises in the context of the administrative duties of each public servant, and opting for these practices is always in contradiction with existing social expectations of administrative function. Opportunity is a factor that has been incorporated in every criminological theory to explain crime practices. According to the informants, in order to reduce the opportunities for corruption practices, strategies need to be developed to create codes of conduct in each public service.
