Raids, Manhunts, and Seizures: Understanding Aggressive Policing through the “Police”

• In Event: Policing Perspectives and Policies

Abstract

Several recent studies have explored the consequences of aggressive policing in minority neighborhoods (e.g. Boyles, 2015; Goffman, 2014). Yet, these studies have largely failed to locate the police within their ethnographic studies of policing. The politics and logics of police detectives in manhunts, seizures, and raids reveals the symbolic tropes used to justify aggressive police actions. This study explores the phenomenology, politics, and logics of aggressive policing through a 21-month ethnography of two street-level detective units who “jump street corners” and conduct “raids” as primary tactics in the “war on drugs” and “crime.” The study explains how the politics of crime control favors the use of aggressive tactics as a spectacle of police authority and the accumulation of revenue. Furthermore, the construction and understanding of detectives’ narratives reveals how aggressive policing manifests and harms low-income communities and will inhibit meaningful reform.

Author

• Brian P. Schaefer, University of Central Missouri