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Solving Somebody Else's Blues - A Study of Police Mediation Activities

NCJ Number
72101
Author(s)
P E Lawson
Date Published
1977
Length
223 pages
Annotation
The process by which police officers attempt to negotiate neighborly disputes and maintain general peace in the community was analyzed in this dissertation.
Abstract
The policemen's mediation activities place them between the system (governmental expectations concerning adherence to official moral codes, usually expressed through criminal statutes) and the public. They must mediate between collectively held, public moral expectations and privately held situational ethics; calls for absolute social responsiblitiy and calls for increased personal freedom; and between opposing social groups with great variations in power, wealth, and political ideologies. At best, officers hope for temporary resolutions, knowing that no one is entirely happy with their mediation efforts. Not only do officers suffer from various community expectations, but their spouse and children can suffer also. Many patrol officer wives retreat from social encounters with the public, and their children are often mistrusted by other children,. Thus, police clannishness is facilitated. A study involving 210 officers in 3 cities and using questionnaires and 28 taped interviews revealed that 3 forms of adaptation emerged when the police attempted to mediate conflicts in hostile environments: (1) they develop a professional combatant perspective for nearly all encounters with the public; (2) they systematically engage in quasi-legal or outright illegal activities to maintain community peace and then develop elaborate mechanisms for concealing these activities; and (3) they become extremely critical of other criminal justice agencies, particularly the 'lenient' courts and the 'permissive' correctional programs. Data are presented in tabular form. Footnotes and a bibliography of about 100 citations are included, and appendixes contain procedural notes and the questionnaire. (Author abstract modified)