Question

Holmes and Smith focus on extralegal police aggression when dealing with force. What is extralegal police aggression? Discuss the reasons why Holmes and Smith say that extralegal police aggression may be preferable to force.

Answer 1

In their research article, Intergroup Dynamics of extra-legal police aggression: an integrated theory of race and place by Malcolm D. Holmes and Brad W. Smith, the authors debate the issue of use of excesive force by police authorities to control and maintain order in communities where there is presence of racial minorities that are perceived sometimes as a threat to the larger community. They define extra-legal police aggression as the use of extra means, sometimes unnecessary and illegal, to enforce control and good behavior within communities. These extra means can be the use of actual physical force, coercion, threats, verbal abuse, and others. Also, it seems that this attitude on the part of police forces comes in direct response to the presence of racial and ethnic minorities in communities, that for some reason are perceived as factors for greater criminal activities and unsafety. The authors mention in their article that sometimes, due to the characteristics of a community, especially those with the presence of minorities, where in fact there is a higher criminal rate, police officers seem to feel almost forced to use extra means of control, because their regular tactics do not produce the desired effects and they are the ones who suffer the consequences, both public and personally. It seems that the use of certain extralegal tactics, such as verbal threats and certain attitudes from police officers, instead of the use of outright force, are preferable because while they give results, they are not producing direct violations to human and civil rights and also because the use of physical force only produces the use of more violent acts, instead of helping control violence and crime.