1.2: Conflicts between the Community and the Criminal Justice System

The underlying assumption is that a police force and the community it serves must reach consensus on the values that guide that police force. Those values, while implicit in our Constitution, must embrace as clearly as possible the protection of individual life and liberty, and, at the same time, the measures necessary to maintain a peaceful and stable society. To accomplish this, a police executive must be familiar not only with his or her own police culture, but with the community culture as well, which is no easy task in neighborhoods experiencing major demographic changes.

Police Departments must identify conflicts that threaten peaceful race relations in communities. Among the causes of such disputes, none is more volatile than allegations of unwarranted police use of deadly force against minority citizens. Even a perception that police follow this practice is cause for concern, because the negative impact on police-citizen relations will be the same.

Another potential hurdle to overcome is the reality of a police culture, or police society. While most occupational groups develop their own identity, the police identity seems to be much stronger because of the nature of the work. There is a belief that one cannot understand the difficulty of the work without having done it. As a result, when a community questions the actions of the police--as can be expected when a police officer uses a firearm--the law enforcement profession has a tendency to close ranks and defend the officer at all costs. The development of this "police society" begins with academy training (or even before in the recruiting and selection process) and continues until the individual becomes an accepted part of the fraternity.

Think about it . . . Police Culture

Read this research article compiled by the Pew research center. Is police officer culture born purely out of safety concerns? What are the pros and cons of this safety culture?

The socialization process is generally subtle, and assignment procedures may well contribute to the police society. Many departments, for example, rotate patrol officers' shifts weekly, which makes association with people other than police officers extremely difficult. In addition to assignment patterns, the job itself tends to cause social isolation. For a police officer, it is not uncommon for an officer to begin avoiding contacts with old friends, even when scheduling permits, because of the tendency to hear stories about traffic tickets and other negative encounters people may have had with the police. The result is the creation of an environment where an officer withdraws further and further from the community. He or she moves towards the protective shell of the police world where colleagues understand the nuances of the work.

From the standpoint of addressing the problem of police-community violence, the "police society" is critical. The reinforcement of narrow views by limiting contact only to other officers has an impact on the creation and perpetuation of violent encounters with citizens. The "police society" also severely hampers efforts to investigate complaints of excessive force. The police profession must reach a point where violence is discouraged at the peer level. When violence does occur, police officers themselves must be involved in providing information to the investigative process impartially and with integrity. At the same time, there are also positive aspects to a close-knit work group, and care must be taken to ensure these positive aspects are not harmed when attempting to deal with the negative ones.