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Beyond Account - The Personal Impact of Police Shootings

NCJ Number
75317
Journal
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Volume: 452 Dated: (November 1980) Pages: 145-156
Author(s)
J VanMaanen
Date Published
1980
Length
12 pages
Annotation
The consequences of a shooting of a citizen by a police officer are felt and acted upon at several levels of police organizations, producing a number of reports which differ in detail according to the audiences for which they are produced.
Abstract
Official, collegial, and individual versions of a particular shooting often contrast in both form (external, internal, or private) and content (representation, symbol, or feeling). Based on commitment to the police role and social position within a department, an officer will attempt to build an account for a shooting that will protect his or her sense of self as shaped by the relationships he or she has with professional colleagues and the organization. Because shootings are to a degree 'routine matters' within many police agencies, especially large ones, individual accounts are worked out in line with mutually held background understandings of what constitutes proper police conduct before, during, and after a shooting. This is not so much a matter of constructing a coverup for wrongdoing as producing a comprehensible report. That such accounts are only partial indicators of the actual circumstances of the shootings is a point well understood by the police. Eleven footnotes are included, as are actual accounts of shootings and personal reactions to them produced for different audiences. For related articles, see NCJ 75304. (Author abstract modified)

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