Connecting Work To Workers’ Social Past: a Dispositional Analysis of Police Work

This article explores the impact of experiences police officers went through before they joined the Force on how they see and perform their job. I propose a new approach to police culture and practices based on a Bourdieu-inspired model of analysis, which includes its subsequent development by Lahir...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pichonnaz, David (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2021
In: The British journal of criminology
Year: 2021, Volume: 61, Issue: 1, Pages: 123-142
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Keywords:
Bourdieu, Pierre
Culture
Dispositional analysis
Lahire, Bernard
Police
Socialization
Description
Summary:This article explores the impact of experiences police officers went through before they joined the Force on how they see and perform their job. I propose a new approach to police culture and practices based on a Bourdieu-inspired model of analysis, which includes its subsequent development by Lahire’s ‘dispositional analysis’. The model looks at how dispositions interiorized—particularly through the experience of social mobility and gender socialization—have a great impact on how police officers see and perform their job. The results suggest that divisions within police culture, long acknowledged by criminologists and sociologists, can be explained by the prior socialization of police officers.
ISSN:1464-3529
DOI:10.1093/bjc/azaa052