Full Description
Disputes standard explanations of police brutality against minority citizens to offer new insights and suggestions on dealing with this problem.
What causes police brutality, and why are minority citizens the primary victims? Social scientists often attribute the behavior to poorly managed police departments, bad cops, or the interests of the powerful in controlling minorities perceived as criminal threats. Malcolm D. Holmes and Brad W. Smith contend that these explanations fail to identify key causes of police misconduct, particularly the use of excessive force. Focusing on the interaction of ordinary social-psychological processes and the disadvantaged conditions of minority neighborhoods, Holmes and Smith develop an integrated model of police brutality that takes into account contemporary theory and research on social identity, stereotypes, and emotions-factors that produce intergroup tensions and may trigger unwarranted acts of aggression. Their approach overcomes existing theoretical difficulties and raises the question of how this complex social problem might be effectively addressed.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. THE NATURE OF POLICE BRUTALITY
What Is Police Brutality?
How Can Police Brutality Be Explained?
Outline of an Alternative Theory
2. SOCIAL THREAT AND POLICE VIOLENCE
Police Organization and Police Violence in American History
Group-Conflict Theory
Police-Minority Conflict
Police-Minority Conflicts and Police Violence
3. SOCIAL IDENTITY AND INGROUP BIAS
Cognitive Perspectives on Intergroup Relations
The Social Identity Model
Social Identity and Policing
Racial and Ethnic Identity
Social Identity and Police-Minority Relations
4. STEREOTYPING AND OUTGROUP BIAS
The Information Processing Model
Cultural Stereotypes of Race and Crime
Stereotyping and the Working Personality of the Police Officer
Minority Stereotypes of Police
Stereotypes and Police-Minority Relations
5. THE EMOTIONAL ROOTS OF INTERGROUP RELATIONS
The Nature of Human Emotions
The Emotions of the Police
The Emotions of Minority Citizens
Emotion and Cognition in Police-Minority Relations
6. TRANSLATING INTERGROUP BIASES INTO INTERGROUP AGGRESSION
The Dimensions of Intergroup Relations
The Emotional and Cognitive Foundation of Aggression
The Inseparability of Emotional and Cognitive Responses
7. A SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL, AND COGNITIVE THEORY OF EXCESSIVE FORCE
Background Variables and Psychological Preconditions
Threatening Situations and Mental Responses
Mediators of Police Brutality
Is Police Brutality Inevitable?
8. CAN POPULAR POLICIES REDUCE POLICE BRUTALITY?
Changing Police Organizations to Change Police Behavior
Prospects for Organizational Reforms
9. ROOTS OF AN URBAN DILEMMA
Notes
References
Index
