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Understanding Police Culture

NCJ Number
174812
Author(s)
J P Crank
Date Published
1998
Length
356 pages
Annotation
The author contends that police culture tends to reproduce itself in similar ways in different police organizations and that writings on police culture can be systematically organized.
Abstract
Various ways of thinking about the police are discussed, including academic, media, and cultural perspectives. The first part of the book describes cultural underpinnings of police work and how police cultures are participants in the broader institution of criminal justice. The author notes that police culture is made possible because police officers interact with other groups in routine, observable, and identifiable ways. The second part of the book presents themes that characterize police culture, such as coercive territorial control, the environment of the unknown, cultural themes of solidarity, loosely coupled cultural themes, and death and the police culture. 280 references and 87 endnotes