Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-cjp7w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T06:05:27.299Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

American Policing and the Danger Imperative

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Michael Sierra-Arévalo Open the ORCID record for Michael Sierra-Arévalo [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In spite of long-term declines in the violent victimization of U.S. police officers, the danger of police work continues to structure police socialization, culture, and behavior. Existing research, though attentive to police behavior and deviance that negatively affects the public, analytically ignores how the danger of policing engenders officer behavior that harms police themselves. Drawing on ethnographic observations and interviews in three U.S. police departments, this article describes how police are informally and formally socialized into the danger imperative—a cultural frame that emphasizes violence and the need for officer safety—and its effect on officer behavior. As a result of perception mediated through the danger imperative, officers engage in policy-compliant and policy-deviant behaviors to protect themselves from violence. Unfortunately, policy-deviant behaviors such as unauthorized highspeed driving and not wearing a seatbelt, though justified in the name of safety, lead to catastrophic car accidents that injure and kill both police and members of the public. This article concludes with discussion of how seemingly mundane policy deviant behaviors are a reflection of assumptions within police culture that undergird police practices that damage public wellbeing and perpetuate broader inequalities in U.S. policing.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 70 - 103
Copyright
© 2021 Law and Society Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This project was supported by the Justice Collaboratory at the Yale Law School and the Macarthur Foundation (15-108050-000-USP). The author would also like to thank Andrew Papachristos, Tracey Meares, Frederick Wherry, Joshua Page, Jooyoung Lee, Nicholas Occhiuto, and Tony Cheng for their generous insights and comments, as well as participants at workshops in the Yale Department of Sociology and the Deconstructing Ferguson Working Group.

References

Anderson, Elijah. 1999. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York, NY: Norton.Google Scholar
Anderson, Elijah 2012. “The Iconic Ghetto.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 642: 8-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716212446299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armenta, Amada. 2017. Protect, Serve, and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banton, Michael. 1964. The Policeman in the Community. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Barr, William P. 2019. “Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Remarks at the Grand Lodge Fraternal Order of Police's 64th National Biennial Conference.” The United States Department of Justice, https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-grand-lodge-fraternal-order-polices-64th (accessed August 13, 2019).Google Scholar
Bittner, Egon. 1970. The Functions of the Police in Modern Society: A Review of Background Factors, Current Practices, and Possible Role Models. National Institute of Mental Health, Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency.Google Scholar
Brayne, Sarah. 2014. “Surveillance and System Avoidance: Criminal Justice Contact and Institutional Attachment.” American Sociological Review 79: 367-91. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122414530398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brayne, Sarah 2017. “Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing.” American Sociological Review 82: 977-1008. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122417725865.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2014. National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 2013 (Preliminary Results). Washington, DC: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor.Google Scholar
Canterbury, Chuck. 2015. Testimony before the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Capers, I. Bennett. 2009. “Policing, Race, and Place.” Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 44: 43-78.Google Scholar
Carlson, Jennifer. 2020. “Police Warriors and Police Guardians: Race, Masculinity, and the Construction of Gun Violence.” Social Problems 67: 399-417. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spz020.Google Scholar
Cobbina, Jennifer E. 2019. Hands Up, Don't Shoot: Why the Protests in Ferguson and Baltimore Matter, and How They Changed America. NYU Press.Google Scholar
Contreras, Randol. 2012. The Stickup Kids: Race, Drugs, Violence, and the American Dream. University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crank, John P. 2014. Understanding Police Culture. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craven, Julia. 2017. “32 Blue Lives Matter Bills Have Been Introduced Across 14 States This Year.” Huffington Post, March 1.Google Scholar
Crepeau, Megan, and St. Clair, Stacy. 2018. “Will Van Dyke Testify? Defense Begins Presenting Evidence Monday.” Chicago Tribune, September 22.Google Scholar
Cubic Defence UK. 2019. “PRISim Suite Judgement Trainer.” Cubic Defense UK. http://www.ais-solutions.co.uk/training-simulators/prisim-suite/judgement-trainer.php (accessed January 8, 2019).Google Scholar
Desmond, Matthew. 2006. “Becoming a Firefighter.” Ethnography 7: 387-421. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138106073142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul J. and Powell, Walter W. 1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48: 147-60. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Mary and Wildavsky, Aaron. 1983. Risk and Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eberhardt, Jennifer L., Goff, Phillip Atiba, Purdie, Valerie J., and Davies, Paul G. 2004. “Seeing Black: Race, Crime, and Visual Processing.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87: 876-93. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.6.876.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Engelson, Wade. 1999. “The Organizational Values of Law Enforcement Agencies: The Impact of Field Training Officers in the Socialization of Police Recruits to Law Enforcement Organizations.” Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology 14: 11-19. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02830064.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epp, Charles R., Maynard-Moody, Steven, and Haider-Markel, Donald P. 2014. Pulled Over: How Police Stops Define Race and Citizenship. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fassin, Didier. 2013. Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
FBI. 2019a. “About LEOKA.” FBI, https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018/resource-pages/about-leoka (accessed January 13, 2020).Google Scholar
FBI. 2019b. “Full-Time Law Enforcement Employees by Population Group, Percent Male and Female, 2018.” FBI, https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/table-74/table-74.xls (accessed January 30, 2020).Google Scholar
Frank, Thomas. 2015. “High-Speed Police Chases Have Killed Thousands of Innocent Bystanders.” USA TODAY, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/30/police-pursuits-fatal-injuries/30187827/.Google Scholar
Garrett, Brandon and Stoughton, Seth. 2017. “A Tactical Fourth Amendment.” Virginia Law Review 103: 211-308.Google Scholar
Gaston, Shytierra. 2019. “Producing Race Disparities: A Study of Drug Arrests across Place and Race.” Criminology 57: 424-51. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gau, Jacinta M. and Brunson, Rod K. 2010. “Procedural Justice and Order Maintenance Policing: A Study of Inner-City Young Men's Perceptions of Police Legitimacy.” Justice Quarterly 27: 255-79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1988. Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1986. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. 1. paperback ed.. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Glaser, Barney and Strauss, Anselm L. 1999. Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Somerset: Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar
Goff, Phillip Atiba, Jackson, Matthew Christian, Di Leone, Brooke Allison Lewis, Culotta, Carmen Marie, and DiTomasso, Natalie Ann. 2014. “The Essence of Innocence: Consequences of Dehumanizing Black Children.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106: 526-45. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haag, Matthew. 2018. “Cleveland Officer Who Killed Tamir Rice Is Hired by an Ohio Police Department.” The New York Times, October 8.Google Scholar
Harmon, Rachel A. 2008. “When Is Police Violence Justified?” Northwestern University Law Review 102: 1119-88.Google Scholar
Hureau, David M. and Braga, Anthony A. 2018. “The Trade in Tools: The Market for Illicit Guns in High-Risk Networks.” Criminology 56: 510-45. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingraham, Christopher. 2017. “Officer Who Shot Philando Castile Said Smell of Marijuana Made Him Fear for His Life.” Washington Post, June 21.Google Scholar
Ingram, Jason R., Terrill, William, and Paoline, Eugene A. 2018. “Police Culture and Officer Behavior: Application of a Multilevel Framework.” Criminology 56: 780-811. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karp, Aaron. 2018. Estimating Global Civilian-Held Firearms Numbers. Briefing Paper. Geneva, Switzerland: Small Arms Survey.Google Scholar
Kasperson, Roger E., Renn, Ortwin, Slovic, Paul, Brown, Halina S., Emel, Jacque, Goble, Robert, Kasperson, Jeanne X., and Ratick, Samuel. 1988. “The Social Amplification of Risk: A Conceptual Framework.” Risk Analysis 8: 177-87. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1988.tb01168.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirk, David S. and Papachristos, Andrew V. 2011. “Cultural Mechanisms and the Persistence of Neighborhood Violence.” American Journal of Sociology 116: 1190-233. https://doi.org/10.1086/655754.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klinger, David, Rosenfeld, Richard, Isom, Daniel, and Deckard, Michael. 2016. “Race, Crime, and the Micro-Ecology of Deadly Force.” Criminology & Public Policy 15: 193-222. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Rory and Remster, Brianna. 2018. “Stop, Frisk, and Assault? Racial Disparities in Police Use of Force During Investigatory Stops.” Law & Society Review 52: 960-93. https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamont, Michèle and Small, Mario. 2008. “How Culture Matters: Enriching Our Understanding of Poverty.” In The Colors of Poverty: Why Racial and Ethnic Disparities Persist, edited by Harris, A. L. and Harris, D., 76-102.New York, NY: Russel Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Law Officer. 2017. “The Kyle Dinkheller Murder Shows Us Why There Is More To The Tulsa Incident.” Law Officer. http://lawofficer.com/2016/09/the-kyle-dinkheller-murder-shows-us-why-there-is-more-to-the-tulsa-incident/ (accessed October 5, 2016).Google Scholar
Legewie, Joscha and Fagan, Jeffrey. 2019. “Aggressive Policing and the Educational Performance of Minority Youth.” American Sociological Review 0003122419826020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419826020.Google Scholar
Lempert, Lora Bex. 2011. “Advancing Ethnographic Research through Grounded Theory Practice.” In The SAGE Handbook of Grounded Theory, edited by Bryant, A. and Charmaz, K., 245-64.Los Angeles, Calif.: Sage Publ.Google Scholar
Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. 30th Anniversary Expanded ed.. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Loftus, Bethan. 2010. “Police Occupational Culture: Classic Themes, Altered Times.” Policing and Society 20: 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439460903281547.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mac Donald, Heather. 2016. The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone less Safe. New York, NY: Encounter Books.Google Scholar
Maguire, Edward R., Nix, Justin, and Campbell, Bradley A. 2017. “A War on Cops? The Effects of Ferguson on the Number of U.S. Police Officers Murdered in the Line of Duty.” Justice Quarterly 34: 739-58. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2016.1236205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manning, Peter K. 1978. “The Police: Mandate, Strategies, and Appearances.” In Policing: A View from the Street, edited by Manning, Peter K. and Van Maanen, John, 7-31.New York, NY: Random House.Google Scholar
Manning, Peter K. 2011. The Technology of Policing: Crime Mapping, Information Technology, and the Rationality of Crime Control. New York; Chesham: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Moskos, Peter. 2009. Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ouellet, Marie, Hashimi, Sadaf, Gravel, Jason, and Papachristos, Andrew V. 2019. “Network Exposure and Excessive Use of Force.” Criminology & Public Policy 18: 675-704. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perkins, Gráinne. 2018. “Danger and Death: Organisational and Occupational Responses to the Murder of Police in South Africa—A Case Study.” 1–276.Google Scholar
Rayman, Graham. 2020. “Cops, Fire, Correction Unions Sue de Blasio Administration over Release of Disciplinary Records.” New York Daily News, July 15.Google Scholar
Reaves, Brian A. 2011. Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies, 2008. Bulletin. NCJ 233982. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.Google Scholar
Reaves, Brian A. 2015. Local Police Departments, 2013: Equipment and Technology. NCJ 248767. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.Google Scholar
Reiner, Robert. 2010. The Politics of the Police, 4th ed.. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rios, Victor M. 2011. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York, NY: NYU Press.Google Scholar
Rojek, Jeff, Smith, Hayden P., and Alpert, Geoffrey P. 2012. “The Prevalence and Characteristics of Police Practitioner-Researcher Partnerships.” Police Quarterly 241-61. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611112440698.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rushin, Stephen. 2017. “Police Union Contracts.” Duke Law Journal 66: 1191-266.Google Scholar
Sanburn, Josh. 2014. “All The Ways Darren Wilson Described Being Afraid of Michael Brown.” Time, November 25.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Michael S., and Apuzzo, Matt. 2015. “South Carolina Officer Is Charged With Murder of Walter Scott.” The New York Times, April 7.Google Scholar
Sewell, Abigail A. and Jefferson, Kevin A. 2016. “Collateral Damage: The Health Effects of Invasive Police Encounters in New York City.” Journal of Urban Health 93: 42-67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-015-0016-7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shjarback, John A. and Maguire, Edward R. 2019. “Extending Research on the ‘War on Cops’: The Effects of Ferguson on Nonfatal Assaults Against U.S. Police Officers.” Crime & Delinquency 0011128719890266. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128719890266.Google Scholar
Short, James F. 1984. “The Social Fabric at Risk: Toward the Social Transformation of Risk Analysis.” American Sociological Review 49: 711-25. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sierra-Arévalo, Michael. 2019a. “Technological Innovation and Police Officers' Understanding and Use of Force.” Law & Society Review 53: 420-51. https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sierra-Arévalo, Michael 2019b. “The Commemoration of Death, Organizational Memory, and Police Culture.” Criminology 57: 632-58. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sierra-Arévalo, Michael and Nix, Justin. 2020. “Gun Victimization in the Line of Duty: Fatal and Nonfatal Firearm Assaults on Police Officers in the United States, 2014–2019.” Criminology & Public Policy 1745-9133.12507. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12507.Google Scholar
Skolnick, Jerome H. 2002. “Corruption and the Blue Code of Silence.” Police Practice and Research 3: 7-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15614260290011309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skolnick, Jerome H. 2011. Justice without Trial: Law Enforcement in Democratic Society, 4th ed.. New Orleans, LA: Quid Pro Quo Books.Google Scholar
Skolnick, Jerome H. and Fyfe, James J. 1994. Above the Law: Police and the Excessive Use of Force. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Spradley, James P. 1979. The Ethnographic Interview. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Stoughton, Seth W. 2014a. “Law Enforcement's Warrior Problem.” Harvard Law Review Forum 128: 225-34.Google Scholar
Stoughton, Seth W. 2014b. “Policing Facts.” Tulane Law Review 88: 847-98.Google Scholar
Stuart, Forrest. 2016. Down, Out, and under Arrest: Policing and Everyday Life in Skid Row. Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuart, Forrest 2018. “Introspection, Positionality, and the Self as Research Instrument— Toward a Model of Abductive Reflexivity.” In Approaches to Ethnography: Analysis and Representation in Participant Observation, edited by Jerolmack, C. and Khan, S. R., 211-37.Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sugie, Naomi F. and Turney, Kristin. 2017. “Beyond Incarceration: Criminal Justice Contact and Mental Health.” American Sociological Review 82: 719-43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122417713188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taggart, Kendall, and Hayes, Mike. 2018. “Police Union Tried To Block Publication Of NYPD Database.” BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/police-union-tried-to-block-publication-of-nypd-database (accessed August 25, 2020).Google Scholar
Timmermans, Stefan and Tavory, Iddo. 2012. “Theory Construction in Qualitative Research: From Grounded Theory to Abductive Analysis.” Sociological Theory 30: 167-86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275112457914.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Maanen, John. 1974. “Working the Street: A Developmental View of Police Behavior.” In The Potential for Reform of Criminal Justice, edited by Jacob, H., 83-130.Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Van Maanen, John 1978a. “Observations on the Making of a Policeman.” In Policing: A View from the Street, edited by Manning, Peter K. and Van Maanen, John, 292-308.New York, NY: Random House.Google Scholar
Van Maanen, John 1978b. “The Asshole.” In Policing: A View from the Street, edited by Manning, P. K. and Van Maanen, J., 221-37.New York, NY: Random House.Google Scholar
Van Maanen, John and Barley, Stephen R. 1984. “Occupational Communities: Culture and Control in Organizations.” In Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 6, edited by Staw, B. M. and Cummings, L. L., 287-365.Greenwood, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Vaughan, Diane. 1996. The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Waddington, P. A. J. 1999. “Police (Canteen) Sub-Culture. An Appreciation.” British Journal of Criminology 39: 287-309. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/39.2.287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Samuel E. and Archbold, Carol A. 2013. The New World of Police Accountability. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Weitzer, Ronald. 2015. “American Policing under Fire: Misconduct and Reform.” Society 52: 475-80. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-015-9931-1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westley, William A. 1970. Violence and the Police: A Sociological Study of Law, Custom, and Morality. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
White, Michael D., Dario, Lisa M., and Shjarback, John A. 2019. “Assessing Dangerousness in Policing: An Analysis of Officer Deaths in the United States, 1970–2016.” Criminology & Public Policy 18: 11-35. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimring, Franklin E. 2017. When Police Kill. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

A correction has been issued for this article:

Corrigendum