World Perspective on the Role of the Police in Social Control (From Maintenance of Order in Society, P 1-11, 1982, Rita Donelan, ed. - See NCJ-88674)

• NCJ Number: 88675
• Author(s): D H Bayley
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 11 pages
• Sale Source: Canada Ministry of Supply and Services
• Language: English
• Country: Canada

Annotation

Police approaches to social control throughout the world may be classified as authoritarian, oriental, and Anglo-Saxon.

Abstract

In authoritarian policing, the state regulates society in whatever way is required to achieve desired ends. Executive, legislative, and judicial functions are not as rigorously separated as in other systems. The police may be empowered to enact regulations which have the force of law and also determine guilt and impose punishment. Authoritarian police emphasize deterrence through extensive regulation of citizens and symbolic demonstrations of force rather than prevention through amelioration. Authoritarian systems exist in the Soviet Union, east Europe, some countries of Africa and the Middle East, and much of Latin America. Oriental social control systems enmesh police in the daily life of local communities, and, unlike authoritarian systems, they maintain control informally through persuasion, counseling, and deflection. Police encourage the public to help them in matters of social control, and the police role of dealing with citizen problems through service functions is emphasized. Police personnel are expected to raise the moral consciousness of the public, leading by admonition and example. Such systems are found in Japan, Malaysia, China, and Korea. Anglo-Saxon police are more specialized than in the other systems, as they focus narrowly on tasks related to law enforcement. The police are deployed mostly for emergency response rather than for routine, low-visibility interaction with the public. Relations between the police and the public tend to be adversarial. Anglo-Saxon policing has neither the unrestrained authority of authoritarian systems nor the moral authority of oriental systems implemented through informal interaction with citizens. The challenge of Anglo-Saxon policing is to avoid slipping into the authoritarian mold while mobilizing the community to assist in social control in a manner similar to the oriental system. A conference discussion on the paper is included.