Policing is violent. And its violence is not distributed equally:
stark racial disparities persist despite decades of efforts to
address them. Amid public outcry and an ongoing crisis of police
legitimacy, there is pressing need to understand not only how police
perceive and use violence but also why.
With unprecedented
access to three police departments and drawing on more than 100
interviews and 1,000 hours on patrol, The Danger Imperative
provides vital insight into how police culture shapes officers'
perception and practice of violence. From the front seat of a patrol
car, it shows how the institution of policing reinforces a cultural
preoccupation with violence through academy training, departmental
routines, powerful symbols, and officers' street-level behavior.
This
violence-centric culture makes no explicit mention of race, relying
on the colorblind language of "threat" and "officer
safety." Nonetheless, existing patterns of systemic disadvantage
funnel police hyperfocused on survival into poor minority
neighborhoods. Without requiring individual bigotry, this combination
of social structure, culture, and behavior perpetuates enduring
inequalities in police violence.
A trailblazing,
on-the-ground account of modern policing, this book shows that
violence is the logical consequence of an institutional culture that
privileges officer survival over public safety.