NCJ Number
160212
Date Published
1996
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This chapter analyzes the elements of the police milieu -- danger, authority, and efficiency -- as they combine to generate distinctive cognitive and behavioral responses in the police "working personality."
Abstract
The police officer's role contains two principal variables, danger and authority, that should be interpreted in the context of a constant pressure to appear efficient. The element of danger apparently makes the police officer attentive to signs that show a potential for violence and lawbreaking. As a result, the officer is generally a "suspicious" person. Furthermore, the character of police work makes an officer less desirable than others as a friend, because norms of friendship implicate others in the officer's work. Accordingly, the element of danger isolates the police socially from that segment of the citizenry that they regard as symbolically dangerous and also from the conventional citizenry with whom they identify. The element of authority reinforces the element of danger in isolating the police. Typically, the police are required to enforce laws that represent puritanical morality, such as those that prohibit drunkenness, and also laws that regulate the flow of public activity, such as traffic laws. In these situations, the police direct the citizenry, whose typical response denies recognition of the officers' authority and emphasizes their obligation to respond to danger. The kinds of people who respond well to danger, however, do not normally subscribe to codes of puritanical morality; consequently, the police are unusually liable to the charge of hypocrisy. That the whole civilian world is an audience for the police further promotes police isolation and, consequently, solidarity. Finally, danger undermines the judicious use of authority. 2 tables, 54 notes, questions for discussion, and suggested student applications of chapter material