Jonathan Rubinstein

I read this book several decades ago and it made a profound impression. I was reminded of it while reading the news stories related to the Cambridge arrest of Henry Louis Gates, an incident which has resurrected all sorts of constitutional, societal, and racial concerns.

Ever since reading this book, I have tried to place actions of the police within the context of the pressures they are under from "normal" society. Rubenstein, a sociologist, spent a year, if I remember correctly, working as patrol officer in Philadelphia as the second cop in a squad car. It was a fascinating look at how police regard themselves, their officers, but most importantly the public.

In the book, we see police work through the eyes and experiences of the street cop and how their job and their self-image are controlled by very different public expectations. When a cop pulls over a vehicle, he has no idea what to expect. It could be a vicious criminal with a gun, an uncontrollable drunk, a pregnant woman or, worst of all, a normal white citizen. I say worst of all because it's the normal white guy who has the potential to cause him the most trouble down the road, self-righteously believing he has done nothing wrong and should not have been stopped. The public wants the police to be mean and rough on criminals, but really polite and nice to the generally honest citizen. But because the cop doesn't know anything about the person he's stopped, he has to assume the guy is a crook and acts accordingly. And the normal, honest citizen sometimes becomes irate because he's not treated as a normal white guy.

Notice I keep saying normal white guy. That's deliberate, because as we have just seen in the Gates case, if you are a black male, the police response will always be different. (I have 6 black children and know whereof I speak.) Just as Gates' white neighbor lady assumed that two black guys trying to unjam a door, had to be bad guys, so do the cops. Clearly, the cops, in this case, should have backed off immediately as soon as Gates showed his ID, regardless of how vocal he might have been. After all, the guy has just returned from a long flight from China, was frustrated because his door had been stuck, and just wanted to go to bed, when a neighbor!! had called the cops. He was being assisted by another black guy, the cab driver, apparently. Now why the presence of a cab didn't allay the situation again speaks to the cop's insensitivity. Clearly, badly handled all around.

But, as I noted above, the dichotomy created by the public's expectations of police behavior coupled with the cop's having to constantly face the unknown, makes for an insular environment for cops who feel that no one else can ever understand what they face, which makes them even less understanding of how they are perceived by the public.

Even though now a little dated (it was written in the seventies) I think it should be required reading in high school.… (plus d'informations)