Legacy of Conservative Ideology and Police (From Police and Society: Touchstone Readings, P 349-356, 1995, Victor E. Kappeler, ed. - See NCJ-151401)

• NCJ Number: 151419
• Author(s): C B Klockars
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 8 pages
• Sale Source: Waveland Press, Inc.
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Police Forum, 3 (1) (1993): 1-6. Reprinted with permission of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

Annotation

This article examines the relationship between the police and three strains of conservative ideology, including traditionalism, populism, and libertarianism.

Abstract

Each strain of ideology has shaped the institution of the police as well as its practitioners and the societal response to them. Because police are called upon to defend the status quo, and because many officers are reasonably likely to begin with a traditional political orientation, they often develop occupational ideologies that are more conservative than those in the general population. Populism, which celebrates the ignorance and prejudices of the common man, is often an occupational hazard of police work. Nonetheless, although officers who deal routinely with crises of all types, will develop a certain hardness and insensitivity to suffering, police leaders are obliged to stand against such sentiments. Both traditionalist and populist sympathies for police have overwhelmed the libertarian sentiments that ought to erode that base of support among the population.