NCJ Number
144555
Date Published
1994
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Based largely on an analysis of police characterizations of brutality victims in the cases of Rodney King in Los Angeles and Malice Green in Detroit, this essay argues that the process of official police accounting and investigation of brutality incidents can serve to construct an official reality of violent police-citizen encounters.
Abstract
This reality is constructed based on existing ideological biases prevalent in society at large. This official reality is based upon both police perception and distortion of the nature of their encounters with citizens. This essay draws upon the labeling and social constructionist perspectives by focusing on the process by which police-brutality victims are officially characterized and how this process can function to deflect police deviance to brutality victims. Such a conceptual framework goes far in explaining the King characterization and the seemingly unlikely verdict handed down by the California jury. By portraying brutality victims as drug users, even though this may not have been substantiated by drug tests on the victims, the police aim to place brutality victims clearly in the criminal class, from whom the police are committed to protecting the general public. The police know that the public is more likely to view police use of excessive force as acceptable when the victim is viewed by the public as a menace to society. The jury in the Rodney King case was swayed by the police characterization of King as being on PCP (although medical tests did not substantiate this), which made him wild and uncontrollable. By characterizing brutality victims as members of a criminal class with whom the general public will not identify, the police hope to divert public attention from their own deviance to that of their victims. 2 notes and 8 references