Resisting (Making an) Arrest: Identity and Violence in Policing

• In Event: 4155 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 11. Police Use of Force

Abstract

When, how, and on whom the police enact violence has increasingly become a topic of public concern. Drawing on one year of ethnographic field work at police training academies, this paper identifies three ways in which identifying as a police officer and gaining membership to this occupational group requires participation in institutionalized violent practices. During their academy training, cadets: (1) participate in initiation rituals into violence; (2) practice violence and control; and (3) are subject to violence and suffering as a group. Through these experiences of enacting and enduring violence, cadets come to identify as police officers. Those who are unwilling or unable to participate in these practices are chastised, berated, alienated, and in some cases, they decide to resign. The findings from this paper expand understandings of police violence by pointing to the ways in which the identity of police officers is built and sustained by violent practices. I argue that a re-imagining of the actual identity, and the ways in which new officers gain membership to the group, is required in order change the how the police use violence in their jobs.

Author

• Samantha Jones Simon, University of Texas at Austin