Week 3 Police subculture PDF

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Week 3 Police subculture ●

characteristics of the police subculture Self-differentiation: How the police subculture defines itself as distinct from the public that it is supposed to be protecting and serving. Solidarity: The social cohesiveness of the police subculture that expects police officers to stick together and help each other out as members of the same "team" under all sorts of circumstances, minor and major. Isolation.isolation: The sense of self-differentiation that pervades policing, which if taken to its extreme and without the balance provided by countervailing experiences, results in police officers feeling that they are separate from every other group in society.

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aspects of police subculture shared with the parent culture Law: Police officers may base their actions and behaviour on subcultural socialization about how to use their discretion. However, they are still bound by the basic responsibilities and powers as defined by the law and act in concrete situations that they encounter based on these definitions. • Bureaucratic control: Many researchers underscore how the informal norms of the police subculture often serve to skirt and subvert bureaucratic rules; Herbert (1998: 354) suggests that these descriptions do not recognize that "Bureaucratic stipulations principally define the social and spatial world of concern for officers-they determine the type and location of incidents for which officers will assume responsibility." Thus, the overlap between the subculture and the larger bureaucratic culture determines the officer's actions. • Adventure/machismo: While there has been increased emphasis on community policing, both the formal culture and informal subculture of policing continue to emphasize the importance of aggressiveness and bravery. • Safety: Both the police administration and fellow officers encourage officers to be safe and to value their own personal security in the process of policing communities, particularly those known to be unfriendly to them. • Competence: The police subculture emphasizes the importance of being able to take control over areas of responsibility, that is, each officer should be able to pull his or her own weight. The formal bureaucracy similarly looks for and rewards officers who are competent, for example, are able to make a number of felony arrests or traffic citations. • Morality: Police officers see themselves as involved in a battle between good and evil in which they are unequivocally warriors on the side of good. The formal

bureaucracy encourages these attributions as well. ●

how recruits are socialised both during and after training choice, introduction, encounter, and metamorphosis

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sociological perspectives on police subculture. From a functionalist point of view, the police subculture performs some extremely important functions within a police department and among police officers in general. Conflict theorists. They are likely to focus on the pernicious and negative aspects of police subculture and how it affects its members in ways that either (a) result in them siding with powerful groups against others in society or (b) separate them from the people in society that they are supposedly sworn to serve in a manner that makes policing an "us vs. them" endeavour. interactionism is likely to be interested in the mechanisms by which these are transmitted and learned by individual members. For example, where do lessons on what is acceptable and unacceptable in terms of the use of force take place? While some of them occur during police academy training and during field training, probably the most influential is what a new officer learns just by watching others and then possibly talking to them informally later....