NCJ Number
85654
Journal
Police Studies Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Dated: (Fall 1982) Pages: 17-30
Date Published
1982
Length
14 pages
Annotation
The pluralist model and the class model are two competing paradigms of the relationship between the police and the state that have emerged in recent scholarship and that are examined here in terms of police officer perceptions of their role.
Abstract
According to the pluralist model, police accord different treatment to different groups as such groups gain and lose access to the process of the formation of state policy. In the class model, the police are one of the institutions of government essential to maintaining class relationships. Through extensive interviews with police officers, their perceived relationship between themselves and the state is analyzed. Police officers acknowledged tensions of their role in representing both the people and the state, and in enforcing the law and exercising discretion, thus indicating that their position is far more complex than either paradigm can explain by itself. Notes and 30 references are given. (Author abstract modified)