Violence and Symbolic Violence (From Police and Society: Touchstone Readings, P 357-364, 1995, Victor E. Kappeler, ed. - See NCJ-151401)

• NCJ Number: 151420
• Author(s): P K Manning
• 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 essay responds to the one by Carl Klockars' regarding the police mandate and its relationship to violence.

Abstract

This author agrees that violence is an integral aspect of policing in western democracies, where the police are granted an almost exclusive legitimate right to use violence. However, in this article, the author builds on Klockars by outlining the changing meaning and definition of violence and police adaptation to such changes. The emerging police focus on risk prevention through proactive and community-based solutions, as well as an increasing reliance on new types of technologically assisted surveillance, allow the police to create different forms of symbolic violence. The growth in the use of symbolic violence by the police can be seen in their increased penetration of family and private relations, their use of quasi-legal powers, their use of forensic-genetic evidence, their encouragement of random drug testing, and the integration of public and private police services. 7 references