Louisiana takes the cake with a per-capita corruption rate twice that of the rate in Illinois. Our neighbor to the west, of course, is still smarting from the January impeachment of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich over allegations of abusing his power.
Indiana shows up as best in the Rust Belt, though not by much. Indiana had 1.9 federal public-corruption convictions per 1,000 residents from 1998 to 2007, the Tribune found.
Does Indiana’s relatively clean number sound on the mark to you? Are there other ways to explain this — perhaps that some states don’t prosecute corruption as aggressively as other states?
Other thoughts?