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

even be supported by the lieutenant or the captain all the way up the linewhen they do take action against some individual.l36Rank-and-file cops, likewise, are extremely reluctant to report the abusesthey witness. Some of this reluctance, surely, is a reflection of their superiors'indifference. (After all, if nothing's going to come of it, why report it?)But their peers also enforce this silence. AN ational Institute of Justice studyon police integrity discovereda large gap between attitudes and behavior. That is, even though officersdo not believe in protecting wrongdoers, they often do not turn them in.More than 80 percent of police surveyed reported that they do notaccept the "code of silence" (i.e., keeping quiet in the face of misconductby others) as an essential part of the mutual trust necessary to goodpolicing .... However, about one-quarter (24.9 percent) of the sampleagreed or strongly agreed that whistle blowing is not worth it, morethan two thirds (67.4 percent) reported that police officers who reportincidents of misconduct are likely to be given a "cold shoulder" by fellowofficers, and a majority (52.4 percent) agreed or strongly agreed that itis not unusual for police officers to "turn a blind eye" to other officers'improper conduct.. . . A surprising 6 in 10 (61 percent) indicated thatpolice officers do not always report even serious criminal violations thatinvolve the abuse of authority by fellow officers.13?We should remember that these numbers reflect the reluctance ofpolice to report misconduct when they recognize it as such. Given policeattitudes about the use of force (when nearly a quarter of officers-24.5 percent-thinkit acceptable to use illegal force against a suspect who assaultsan officer) , llS we can reasonably conclude that the police report their colleagues'excessive force only in the rarest of circumstances.I have, to this point, concentrated on the means by which violence (andexcessive force in particular) is institutionalized by police agencies. That is, Ihave discussed the ways police organizations produce and sanction violence,even outside the bounds of their own rules and the law. This examinationhas provided a brief sketch of the way the institution shapes violence, buthas not thus far considered the implications of this violence for the institution.It seems paradoxical that an institution responsible for enforcing thelaw would frequently rely on illegal practices. The police resolve this tensionbetween nominally lawful ends and illegal means by substituting their ownoccupational and organizational norms for the legal duties assigned to them.Westley suggests:This process then results in a transfer in property from the state to thecolleague group. The means of violence which were originally a propertyof the state, in loan to its law-enforcement agent, the police, are ina psychological sense confiscated by the police, to be conceived of as apersonal property to be used at their discretion. 1.39From the officers' perspective, the center of authority is shifted and therelationship between the state and its agents is reversed. The police becomea law unto themselves.This account reflects the attitudes of the officers, and explains many of23