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6 Police Q. 3 (2003)

handle is hein.journals/policqurt6 and id is 1 raw text is: ANGRY AGGRESSION AMONG POLICE OFFICERS SEAN P. GRIFFIN Clemson University THOMAS J. BERNARD The Pennsylvania State University This article uses angry aggression theory to explain police use of extralegal force. As applied to police behavior, angry aggression theory argues that the chronic stress ofpolice work along with the inability to respond to the actual sources of that stress increase both the perception of threats and the aggres- siveness of responses to perceived threats. In addition, social isolation of police officers increases their tendency to displace aggression onto visible and vulnerable targets in the immediate environment. The theory does not assert that these tendencies are necessarily actualized. Indeed, cognitive structuring techniques and stress-reduction policies can prevent such actualization. Keywords: police; abuse offorce; police behavior; excessive force The use of excessive force by police is frequently discussed in the volumi- nous academic literature on policing (Crank, 1998). Interest in the subject goes back to Westley's (1953, 1956) original observational study and was most intense in the 1960s in response to police violence in several U.S. cit- ies (Walker, 1999). Explanations of police use of excessive force usually focus either on police subcultures or on personality characteristics of indi- vidual police officers. However, there are well-known shortcomings with each of these types of theoretical explanation. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1999 meetings of the American Society of Crimi- nology in Toronto. POLICE QUARTERLY Vol. 6 No. 1, March 2003 3-21 DOI: 10.1177/1098611102250365 © 2003 Sage Publications

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