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.