Natural born violence? Understanding street‐level bureaucrats' use of violence: Police officers and protests

Abstract

What factors influence street‐level bureaucrats' (SLBs) use of violence? To answer this question, we focus on police officers, a typical example of SLBs, who can lawfully use violence whenever they deem it necessary. Based on ethnographic work among Brazilian police officers dealing with protests, we analyze how violence erupts in the interaction between police officers and protesters. We contribute to the literature by suggesting that no single factor alone can explain the actions of SLBs regarding the use of violence, as previous research has posited. We demonstrate how the interplay between four factors explains the use of violence by SLBs: (1) institutional logic, (2) type of situation, (3) desire for revenge and having fun, and (4) lack of accountability. As such, we propose a more complex account of SLB's use of violence.

(De)Centering Whiteness through community dialogues about safety problems and solutions

“…In several respects, Falcon Heights is an “exemplary, revelatory case” (Eisenhardt, 1989) through which to study processes of White people's recognition of Whiteness, privilege, and racism. First, Philando Castile's murder was a revelatory moment for many people about the reality of anti‐Black police brutality in the United States (Furber & Pérez‐Peña, 2016; Reinka & Leach, 2018) and a galvanizing moment in the Black Lives Matter movement, not just locally, but internationally as his death drew attention to racialized disparities in patterns of youth arrests by police (Jackson et al, 2023) and the use of violence by police officers elsewhere (c.f., Alcadipani et al, 2023). Second, this longitudinal project is an exemplar of the early stages of White awakening to the reality and consequences of Whiteness, coming to recognize that White racial supremacy is a pernicious myth (Gaynor & Lopez‐Littleton, 2022), and reckoning with White privilege.…”