The Police Community Dimensions of an Occupational Subculture

This is a collection of readings concerned with the occupational, psychological, political, and social dimensions of the police community. The police community attempts to identify and define those distinctive cultural and behavioral patterns that are associated with the occupational role of the policeman, authoritarian acting-out, intra-departmental socialization, and the training of recruits by senior patrolmen are three of the factors that, according to the authors, tend to perpetuate this subcultural pattern. The concept of the police community has been separated into four dimensions for the purpose of organizing the readings. The occupational dimension considers the policeman as an 'economic man' in his role as worker. The readings in this section attempt to determine how membership in the police community shapes on-the-job behavior and how his unique job situation affects the policeman. The psychological dimension refers to the existence and nature of a 'police personality' type. Some of these readings equate the police personality with authoritarianism, while others portray it as a reflection of the social groups from which police are likely to be recruited. The political dimension is concerned with the political phenomena of interest group activities, the policeman as an agent of government, the police political ideology, and local community power over police activities. Finally, the social dimension readings examine the theme of recruit socialization from the perspectives of police solidarity and the development of codes of behavior.