Conflict and Power Between Law Enforcement and Citizens

Conflict and Power Between Law Enforcement and Citizens

Factors or Conditions that Contribute to Conflict Situations Between Law Enforcement and Citizens

Conflicts between law enforcement and citizens have been a significant issue in many societies. According to Nix & Pickett (2017), conflict situations are caused by hostile perceptions of law enforcement officers created by the media, history, and lack of trust. Conflict situations may also arise if law enforcement officers are accused of abusing their power. For instance, in the United States, police officers have been criticized for using excessive force when arresting African Americans and other minorities, leading to conflict between citizens who belong to the minority group and law enforcement officers. Conflict situations between law enforcement and citizens may also occur if police officers are accused of unlawful acts such as bribery. For instance, if a police officer has a reputation for taking bribes from criminals to protect them from being arrested, citizens may seek his or her removal from office to reduce crime.

How Perceptions of Power may Contribute to Conflict Situations between Law Enforcement and Members of a Community

According to Hocker et al. (2022), power is the ability to influence another person’s behavior and resist other people’s influence attempts. The perceptions of power may contribute to conflict between law enforcement and community members in various situations. For instance, if the community believes that law enforcement officers have more power than them, they may get intimidated when they have an encounter with them, leading to a negative attitude towards them, which could result in a conflict. Conflict situations may also arise if police officers perceive their power as the ability to command a citizen to do something. For instance, if a police officer requests a bribe from a citizen to release them from custody or ignore their crime, a conflict may arise if the citizen fails to offer the bribe and threatens to report the officer.

How Perceptions of Power Affect the Ability to Resolve Police-Community Conflict Based on the Relational Theory of Power

The relational theory of power posits that the influence a person has over another individual is equal to the individual’s reliance on them and vice versa. According to this idea, if the community thinks the police are more powerful than them or the police think the community is more powerful than them, it may have an impact on the ability to resolve police-community conflict. For instance, the conflict caused by police brutality in the community, especially among minority groups, may be hard to resolve when the minority groups perceive that the police have control over them and may accuse them of any crime to get them arrested because they have a reputation of committing crimes such as armed robbery, gang membership and illegal immigration. The community may also have more power over the police when they unite and protest against a police officer or the police department, which could intensify the conflict between them and the police, making it hard to settle on common ground.

Strategies that Might be Effective in Reducing or Resolving Conflicts Between Police and Communities

Conflicts between police and communities reduce people’s trust in law enforcement, which could impact the ability of law enforcement to protect the community from crimes within the community. One of the strategies that can be applied to resolve conflict between police and communities effectively is collaborative partnerships. According to Walden et al. (2014), collaborative partnerships focus on creating a setting where stakeholders share resources and responsibilities. The most effective collaborative partnership between police and communities is community policing. The police and communities can embrace community policing to reduce conflict by working together to identify criminal activities in the community and ensuring that both the community and the police adhere to the laws that govern their conduct. The conflicts between police and communities can also be reduced by creating positive interactions between the police and communities through collaboration in community events such as food drives, marathons, and charity events. Deutsch et al. (2014) argue that positive interactions between individuals of hostile groups can improve the attitude of the individuals within the group when interactions involve cooperation, equal status, and supporting relevant authority. Therefore, it is essential for communities to organize charity events that focus on raising funds to support law enforcement officers. The community and police may also embrace negotiation to resolve conflicts as soon as they emerge to maintain positive interactions.

The outcome of Collaborative Partnerships

Collaborative partnerships between the police and communities are likely to create a positive interaction between the community and the police by ensuring that the two groups have a mutual understanding of how to resolve conflicts. Community policing can also reduce conflict between communities and police by ensuring that both the police and the community follow the laws that regulate their conduct. For instance, community policing can reduce and prevent abuse of power because the community is involved in decision-making. Community policing also gives the community assurance that law enforcement’s actions are directed towards the community’s best interests, thus promoting collaboration between the police and the community in resolving the issues that could create conflicts, such as corruption cases in the police department and the collaboration between the police and gang members. For instance, law enforcement can use community members to identify rogue police officers and take action before the community members hold demonstrations or use social media platforms to publicize the officers’ actions.

References

Deutsch, M., Coleman, P. T., & Marcus, E. C. (2014). The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice. Jossey-Bass.

Hocker, J., Berry, K., & Wilmot, W. W. (2022). Interpersonal conflict. McGraw-Hill LLC.

Nix, J., & Pickett, J. T. (2017). Third-person perceptions, hostile media effects, and policing: Developing a theoretical framework for assessing the Ferguson effect. Journal of Criminal Justice, 51, 24–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2017.05.016

Walden, A. L., Javdani, S., & Allen, N. E. (2014). Engaging conflict: Supporting power‐sharing through constructive conflict resolution. Journal of Community Psychology, 42(7), 854–868. https://doi.org/10.1002/

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Write a 3-5 page paper titled “Conflict and Power” that explains how individual perceptions of power can create conflict situations between law enforcement and members of a community. Use the relational theory of power to explain how perceptions affect the ability to resolve conflict. Then, identify a conflict resolution strategy and predict the outcome

.Complete the following:

Describe the factors or conditions that contribute to conflict situations between law enforcement and citizens.
Explain how perceptions of power may contribute to conflict situations between law enforcement and members of a community. Be sure you consider the perceptions of both the police and individual citizens.
Use the relational theory of power to explain how perceptions of power affect the ability to resolve police-community conflict.
Identify strategies you believe might be effective in reducing or resolving conflicts between police and communities.
Choose one strategy and determine the likely outcome.