American Policing and the Danger Imperative

• In Event: 213 - Regular Session. Deviance and Social Control

Abstract

Despite the increasing safety of police work in the United States, the danger associated with policing continues to structure departmental training and police behaviors. Using 600 hours of participant observation and 60 interviews with two urban police departments, I describe how the shared understanding of police work as dangerous manifests in a pervasive preoccupation with violence and the provision of officer safety – a cultural frame that I term the danger imperative. Results from Eastern and Western City show that officers are socialized into the danger imperative through formal and informal training processes within the police department, and learn both policy-sanctioned and policy-deviant techniques for ensuring their safety. In particular, the threat of armed criminals and the need to guard against violence is used by officers to justify the policy-deviant behavior of not wearing a seatbelt when driving. Though police believe leaving their seatbelt off enhances their safety, it in fact places them at very serious risk of injury or death in high speed crashes. The implications of the danger imperative and its emphasis on violence for police behavior more generally are considered.

Author

• Michael Sierra-Arevalo, Yale University