SOC 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Encounter Killings By Police, False Imprisonment, False Arrest
Document Summary
Interpret what is disorderly behaviour, how much noise is a public nuisance , when a quarrel becomes a criminal assault and so on. Police have a lot of decisional latitude. Police encounter people on an individual level and must determine what actions to take. Because police engage people on individual level, we must investigate police as a group to determine if they have biases. Such determination helps to understand social problems having to do with crime and deviance. Perceptions shaped as enforcers of the law, which leads to their belief in their ultimate power over people. As protectors of the law, they protect status quo. Danger of the job instills a sense of suspicion of behaviour that is nonconformist, which leads to assuming the worst about people. Police are socially isolated due to power over citizens, which breeds hostility by targeted groups, leading to self-fulfilling prophecies about need for force.
