Chapter 5

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# Police Subculture

[Justin Nix](https://jnix.netlify.app)  
*School of Criminology and Criminal Justice*  
*University of Nebraska Omaha*

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.white[March 1, 2022]

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# Pop Quiz!

Take out a sheet of paper and jot down your answers to the following:

1. Do officers become **socialized** to think and behave certain ways, or does the profession attract people who are already **predisposed** to think and behave certain ways?

2. What comes to mind when you hear the phrase **police subculture**?

3. Are the problems we have in policing the result of **a few bad apples**, a problematic **subculture**, or something else?

4. Regardless of your answer to #3, how can we change **culture**?

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# Before proceeding...

Read this [op-ed](https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2020/06/sierra-arevalo-police-training/)

Listen to this ~50 minute episode of the [Criminal Injustice Podcast](http://www.criminalinjusticepodcast.com/blog/2021/06/01/138-to-fix-policing-understand-it)

And watch this [brief clip](https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/us/georgia-cobb-county-officer-racial-comment-trnd/index.html) of a traffic stop in Georgia in 2016

???

**Michael's op-ed**. He concludes by saying:
- *This policing system, stretching from the 18,000 local departments to the Supreme Court, was built, expanded, and strengthened over more than a century. It is why the tragic killings of Floyd and so many others should not be thought of as cases of individual immorality. Instead, such killings and the lack of consequences for officers involved are evidence of a system working as intended.*
  - Agree or disagree?

Regarding the **clip** - is this just a joke in poor taste, or do you think it's a symptom of a broader, cultural problem in policing?
- **Canteen Subculture**, Tank Waddington
  - Water cooler war stories are a way for officers to cope with stress
  - Perhaps this officer has made the same joke to his colleagues in the past, but here he is saying it to a citizen right in front of his dash camera!

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# Let's define some key terms

**Culture**

???

Culture = a shared set of values, norms, and behaviors that form a particular way of life

- **Values**

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Values = things that are perceived to be important

- Cultural values might include a belief about the "best way" to go about a task
- But also, the "moral superiority" of one approach over another
- ***Consider how a scientific approach to a problem might differ from a faith-based approach.***

- **Norms**

???

Norms = rules and expectations about which forms of behavior are acceptable and which are not

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**Subculture**

???

Subculture = cultural patterns of a group that differ meaningfully from the larger population's culture

- **Police subculture**

???

Police subculture = shared values and norms, and the established patterns of behavior, that are found among police officers
  
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Social institutions *construct* and *maintain* culture

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# Sources of Police Subculture

## Organizational factors

- Starts with basic and field training

- Colleagues working the same shifts and beats

- [Klinger (1997)](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1997.tb00877.x): "territorially based independent work groups"
  
  - See also [Ingram et al. (2018)](https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12192)

<div class="figure" style="text-align: center">
<img src="squad.png" alt="[Image by U.S. Marshals Service on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)]" width="35%" />
<p class="caption">[Image by U.S. Marshals Service on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)]</p>
</div>

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# Sources of Police Subculture

## Organizational factors

- Command staff and immediate supervisors

???

Employees of any organization value **fairness** - and police organizations are no different.

What does **fairness** look like?

- **DJ** = fairness of outcomes. Raises, promotions, special assignments, discipline, etc., should be distributed fairly/based on merit
- **PJ** = fairness of procedures. Explain decisions. Give officers a voice in the process. Make decisions based on facts.
- **IJ** = treating officers with dignity and respect. Like human beings. Providing them with timely information.

Study after study shows officers who view their agency as more fair...
- More likely to treat citizens fairly
- Less reliant on using force
- Less likely to engage in misconduct
- More supportive of due process for citizens…
- Less sensitive to criticism from the media (Ferguson Effect)

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# Sources of Police Subculture

## The Street

- Interactions with citizens

- People who have criminally offended and been victimized
  
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- Can result in stereotyping, [illusory correlations](https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0093854807304484)
  
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- E.G., "all people of Group X are dangerous" or "most people in this neighborhood are up to no good"
      
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  - Can also lead to a sense of helplessness
  
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# Sources of Police Subculture

## The Media

Your textbook says the media has the most influence on police subculture...

- ***Do you agree or disagree?***
  
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- See the so-called [Ferguson Effect](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3715223)
  
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# Sources of Police Subculture

## Other Criminal Justice System Entities

- Prosecutors and judges

- E.G., newly elected Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg [recently announced](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/08/nyregion/alvin-bragg-police-chief-eric-adams.html) a policy to "avoid seeking jail or prison time for all but the most serious crimes, and to cease charging a number of lower level crimes"
  
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- ***Regardless what you think of the policy, how might this affect police subculture?***

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# So what?

## Police subculture 👉 officer perceptions and behaviors

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# Components of Police Subculture

> Policing in the United States is very much like going to war. Three times a day in countless locker rooms across the land, large men and a growing number of women carefully arm and armor themselves for the day’s events. They begin by strapping on flak jackets…Then they pick up a wide, heavy, black leather belt and hang around it the tools of their trade: gun, mace, handcuffs, bullets. When it is fully loaded, they swing the belt around their hips with the same practiced motion of the gun-fighter in Western movies, slugging it down and buckling it in front. Many officers slip an additional small-caliber pistol into their trouser pocket or a leg holster just above the ankle. Inspecting themselves in a full-length mirror, officers thread their night sticks into a metal ring on the side of their belt.

<div style="text-align: right"> - Skolnick & Bayley (1986: 142) </div>

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# Components of Police Subculture

- The so-called [warrior mentality](https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/forharoc128&i=225)

- Control

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- E.G., order maintenance in the general sense
- But also maintaining control while interacting with citizens
  - Including the seemingly slightest details, such as posturing

- Suspicion

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Officers are basically always working on suspicions. A key question we'll wrestle with in later chapters is **what makes a suspicion (un)reasonable.**
- And importantly, their lack of trust in others permeates their personal lives, too.

- Secrecy

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Maybe you've heard of the "blue wall of silence." Unclear how widespread this is, but there are certainly anecdotal accounts of officers covering for or looking the other way during peer misconduct

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# Components of Police Subculture

- Moral superiority

> I guess what our job really boils down to is not letting the assholes take over the city...What I'm talking about are those shitheads out to prove they can push everybody around. Those are the assholes we gotta deal with and take care of on patrol...They're the ones that make it tough on the decent people out there. You take the majority of what we do and its nothing more than asshole control.

<div style="text-align: right"> - A veteran Patrolman as quoted in Van Maanen (1978:221) </div>

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# Components of Police Subculture

- The [*Danger Imperative*](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2864104)

???

Again, the **danger imperative** = a cultural frame that emphasizes **violence** and the need for **officer safety**.
- It justifies risky/reckless behaviors such as breaking departmental policies
  - E.G., to speed across town to assist an officer in distress
- It is also salient every single time officers approach vehicles during a traffic stop.
  - E.g., touching three fingers to the trunk

- Fear of the so-called *Ninja Assassin* leads some officers to engage in risky behaviors like [not wearing their seat belts](https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1098611120923159)...
  
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<div style="text-align: center">Average line-of-duty deaths per decade </div>

| Decade | Firearms-Related | Traffic-Related | Other |
|--------|:----------------:|:---------------:|:-----:|
| 1970s  |        128       |        60       |   47  |
| 1980s  |        87        |        64       |   40  |
| 1990s  |        68        |        59       |   36  |
| 2000s  |        57        |        71       |   43  |
| 2010s  |        53        |        52       |   58  |
| 2020   |        48        |        44       |  172  |

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.small[Source: National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum, [2020 Law Enforcement Officers Fatality Report](https://www.aamva.org/2020-LE-Officers-Fatalities-Report/)]

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# Have a great day! 😄

### *The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.*

<div style="text-align: right"> - Amelia Earhart </div>