Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

struggle for status in urban America. To put it bluntly, no institution whichhad so great an impact on the lives and livelihoods of so many citizenscould have been separated from the political process. Nor, so long as thenation was committed to democracy and pluralism, should it have been.None of the reform proposals-neither the schemes to centralize thepolice forces, upgrade their personnel. and narrow their function nor theappeals to transform them along the lines of a military organizationcouldhave changed this situation.'('In effect, the city government was wrested from the grip of the political machines,and the police were removed from the control of the city government, but thebourgeoisie exercised a high level of influence over both the city governmentand the police. l11e Progressive Era saw simultaneously an increase in staleautonomy and the full rise of capitalist class hegemony.To understand this concurrence, we must recognize that "hegemony" is notsynonymous with dictatorial rule.'7 It is more subtle, more flexible, and thereforealso more insidious and more resilient. It is characterized less by the direct issuingof orders than by the setting of agendas, the framing of debate, the articulationof standards, the valuation of alternatives, and the delineatjon of availableoptions.'s It is through hegemony that the ruling class creates a bounded sphereof institutional autonomy. Without need of conspiracies or actual censorship,its ideological ascendancy determines in advance which issues will be raised,which debates will be aired, and ultimately, whose interests will be consideredand whose rights respected.PROFESSIONALIZATION: A CON SPIRACY AGAIN ST THE LAITYAll professions arc conspiracies against the laity.-Bern:lrd Sh\y79Despite the linUtations of their actual reforms, the Progressives' ideology prevailed,and a perspective that was both Nativist and bureaucratic became the acceptedvi.ew of newspapers, churches, commercial organizations, civic associations,universities, and other opinion-makers.8o It also, predictably, found an audienceamong police administrators.A second wave of police reform originated from within law enforcement.s1More specifically, it was brought to policing by newcomers to the field. Duringthe 1930s, depressed economic conditions made police work attractive to thelarge numbers of men seeking steady employment. Police departments becamemore selective,H2 and the sudden influx of middle-class officers-many of whomshared the values of the Progressive reformers-changed the character of theinstitution. This "new breed" of officer found their backgrounds and ideals inconflict with the lowly status of their jobs and the ideology of the departments,but thanks to the civil service procedures, they soon moved through the ranksand into command positions.HiThe new police reformers retained Progressive assumptions about the purposeof the police, the need for its leaders to be autonomous, and the nature of politicallegitimacy, but were motivated by their own in1mediate frustration with the lowlevel of respect accorded the occupation.84 Despite the previous wave of reforms,130