Police Bullshit

Abstract

The police say brutal things. Research has documented how officers, when amongst themselves, talk about people in derogatory ways or openly fantasize about the use of excessive violence. In the literature, such backstage talk is in general analyzed in two ways: It is understood as proof of how the police really think – as evidencing police (im)morality or misconduct. Alternatively, scholars argue that police officers’ transgressive talk is a warped yet nevertheless meaning-generating way for them to deal with their, at times, harsh profession. Certainly, perspectives resonate with the empirical material of this article – an empirical material stemming from an ethnographic study of two Danish detective units. Yet, as this article argues, simply applying this analytical twofold would risk misrepresenting or, perhaps rather, overinterpreting the indeed brutal things the Danish detectives said. While some of the detectives’ language could/should be understood as representing police immorality or reflecting their troublesome profession, this article proposes a counterintuitive reading, namely that their vicious words were, paradoxically, often analytically ordinary. They were examples of “bullshitting” (Frankfurt 2009) – a genre of offensive talk yet, nevertheless, a genre with no specific internal nor intended meaning to it. Therefore, although (police and others’) bullshit is extremely evocative, and thus includes the risk of drawing the ethnographer in, one should be cautious about taking it too seriously. At least when it came to these Danish detectives, their vicious words habitually had little purchase on their general perceptions or practices. Their words were certainly distasteful but, really, just bullshit.

Obscenity Factories: Profanity and Community in Workgroup Cultures

“…13 In this account of firefighters claiming adultery with each others' spouses in their "shit-talkin' institution," what could be the basis of a fight becomes the basis of fellowship (Desmond 2007: 94-96). "Talking shit" or "bullshitting" (Frankfurt 2009) is a form of emotive sociability (Sausdal 2020;Simmel 1984) based on group culture, building coordination, and, ultimately, if successful, creating additional commitment.…”

A collaborator? Ethnographic issues of police and peer suspicion

“…On a more minor scale, this has involved everything from detectives asking questions about my background, and who (if anyone) I know in the police, to them asking about my political and moral beliefs. Moreover, it has involved the police openly and rather provokingly talking about matters in my presence that they knew were controversial (Sausdal, 2020), such as immigration politics and policing, with some of them flaunting controversial beliefs and most of them arguing for a (much!) harsher approach.…”

Fuck: The Police

“…Police officers use brutal language, which has occasionally been the target of scholarly disapproval. 1 Taking a less critical view, other scholars have portrayed the profanity used by police officers as "analytically ordinary" (Sausdal, 2020) and no more than backstage (Goffman, 1959) bullshit (Frankfurt, 2009), lacking either specific intent or meaning (or both). Profanity, scholars have recently suggested, is not merely something the police use, but also describes a core police function: "they unfuck people's problems" (Huey & Johnston, 2023, p. 1).…”