Supporting this school of thought, which originated from Marxist tradition, Holmes and his colleagues (2008) found that along with the rational choice logic, Minority Threat Perspectives (a branch of Social Conflict Theory) “capture important external political influences on the allocation of police resources” (p. The main function of the police is to preserve the status quo of inequality and to assist the powerful to exploit the powerless (Holmes et al. Government institutions, including police departments, are the product of political processes which reveal the interests of the powerful of the society. Social Conflict theorists maintain that the state functions as an instrument of the dominant class, “such as whites and moneyed elites” (Lersch 1998:82). Finally, I will attempt to dovetail these theories with a new integrative theoretical framework of police brutality in order to provide a more accurate and valid account for understanding the phenomenon.ġ.1 Social Conflict Theory and Police Brutality I will provide the basic logic and the presumptions of said theories in addition to pointing out several important ramifications and shortcomings of each, by providing sufficient explanation for the cause of police brutality.
In what follows, three of the more popular existing theories will be applied: Social Conflict Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, and the Control Balance Theory. 2008 Jacobs and Britt 1979 and Westmarland 2006). There are theorists of various orientations who seek to attribute causality for police violence (i.e. Yet, many scholars assert that theory-based research has only recently emerged to specifically explain this police behaviour (Chamlin 1989 Hickman et al. The topic of police brutality has attracted a substantial amount of scholarly attention over the last few decades (i.e. Thus, a more refined and prudent theoretical framework is required in order to enhance our understanding of the intricate processes of individual behaviours. Throughout the paper, it will be argued that most existing theory-based research seeks to explain the processes only as a part of an interconnected whole. In light of these facts, one is left with three questions: First, why do some law enforcement officers engage in abusive behaviours against civilians despite their duty to ensure the public’s safety? Second, why are the weak in our society more prone to victimization from police? And finally, how do micro- and macro-level factors come to influence their individual-level behaviours? This paper attempts to contribute to the existing body of theoretical research on the topic of police brutality by establishing an alternative integrative theoretical framework.
#Elucidate police series
The excessive use of force by police has instigated a series of violent turmoil (Lersch 1998 Lersch and Mieszkowski 2005). With the increasing development of communication technology, the incidents of police misbehaviour and police-public tension have become ever more visible (Frank 2009). Yet, for as long as they have existed, police departments have received a significant amount of public scrutiny over the issues of corruption, unfairness, overall lack of professionalism, and excessive use of force (Lersch and Mieszkowski 2005 Lundman 1980 Walker 1977, 1992). In democratic societies, police officers adopt the role of social control agents and “accountability is of the essence” (Buckler and Unnever 2008 Punch and Gilmour 2010:11). For about 150 years, the police force has been organized as a form of public institution entrusted with the duty of enforcing the law (Fry and Berkes 1983). The police force is one of the most visible features of governance in the United States. She discusses the applicability and shortcomings of each of the three theories, and introduces a new integrative theoretical framework for understanding police brutality.
Her application of Charles Tittle’s Control Balance Theory to understandings of police violence provides us with deeper insight into how “control ratio” balancing officers consciously make decisions on whether or not to use excessive force given a certain set of preconditions. The first two theories explain the necessary macro- and micro-level preconditions of the act of police brutality – which the last theory downplays. In this paper, the author analyzes the phenomenon of police brutality by dovetailing the following three theories to explain why there are only a few “bad-apple” officers who are responsible for ruthless acts, and why they tend to use excessive force against only certain types of citizens: (1) Social Conflict Theory, (2) Symbolic Interactionism, and (3) Control Balance Theory. Towards a Theoretical Understanding of Police Brutality
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