Policing and Minority Communities

James F. AlbrechtGarth den HeyerPerry Stanislas

Informasi Umum

Kode

20.21.359

Klasifikasi

307 - Communities

Jenis

Buku - Elektronik (E-Book)

Subjek

Communities

No. Rak

Tel-U Gedung Manterawu Lantai 5 : Rak 7b
Tel-U Purwokerto : Rak 4

Dilihat

64 kali

Informasi Lainnya

Abstraksi

The police have power, and they use it. The precise dimensions of their authority certainly vary from country to country, according to legal systems and forms of government, but exercising the coercive power of the state is a defining characteristic of the police institution. The question of who benefits when police exercise their power is a crucial one. In totalitarian states, the police role is mainly regime protection. In free societies, by contrast, police are expected to protect and serve all the people. These differences are a reflection of the fact that state power can be used to benefit just a few, or to benefit many. The reality, of course, is much more complex. Totalitarian and free are two ends of a continuum, not a simple dichotomy. The degree to which political, economic, and coercive power are dispersed among competing interests varies widely among countries around the world. Furthermore, the distribution is not static but rather shifts over time, sometimes becoming more concentrated in the hands of a few, sometimes becoming more widely dispersed, and sometimes simply being redistributed among competing groups. To the extent that states are totalitarian, there is not likely to be much concern about police-community relations or what we now call police legitimacy, as it is simply assumed that police will act in a repressive manner to protect those in power. At the other extreme, however, in democratic and free countries where police are expected to act in the interests of the people, any evidence of poor police-community relations is likely to be a concern, since it may indicate that police are not serving the public as well as they should. For states that are in the process of trying to become more free and democratic, which applies to many countries around the world, finding ways to improve police-community relations is typically a key focus of reform. If the public can be convinced that the police are paying more attention to their needs, that may be a big step toward building more confidence in the rest of the government. So police-community relations are a concern in many countries. But why are those relations often poor? Some reasons are just inherent in the police function. Police are called upon to handle difficult situations – political protests, labor unrest, viii and family disputes – in which any