Perspectives on the Legal Order - The Capacity for Social Control

• NCJ Number: 86046
• Journal: American Journal of Sociology Volume: 87 Issue: 2 Dated: (September 1981) Pages: 413-426
• Author(s): A E Liska; J J Lawrence; M Benson
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 14 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The effect of racial composition on police departmental size depends on geographical region and year (before or after the 1960's civil disorders).

Abstract

This research focuses on the size of municipal police departments. The consensus perspective assumes that the legal order reflects social consensus and that the size of crime-control bureaucracies is a response to reported infractions of that order (reported crime rates). The conflict perspective assumes that the legal order reflects the interests of the powerful and that the size of crime-control bureaucracies is a response to perceived threats to such interests. Work by Turk and Blauner suggests that the size of crime-control bureaucracies reflects the relative size of groups dissimilar to authorities and the extent the which such groups are segregated. The above perspectives are tested for 109 U.S. municipal police departments from 1950 to 1972. Empirical support for the conflict perspective appears strongest in the South and after the civil disorders of the 1960's. Study data, 13 footnotes, and about 30 references are included. (Author abstract modified)