Bittner and Police
(9 minutes read)
Egon Bittner (1921–2005) was an American sociologist who became one of the most influential scholars in the field of police studies. His work substantially influenced how the western world think about the role of police in society. His most famous contribution came is his 1970 work The Functions of the Police in Modern Society.
This article tries to summarise what Bittner said in that work. Note that he was writing on police in the United States in the late sixties; the observations may not exactly fit the policing that we see today, or elsewhere.
Police work necessarily involves profound moral ambiguities. Unlike doctors who fight disease (a universally agreed-upon evil), police intervene in conflicts between human interests where unanimity on the rights and wrongs are elusive. Police are required to act swiftly and forcefully against appearances of transgression, mostly without the luxury of deep moral reflection, often leading to crude and potentially unjust interventions.
The police are best understood not as law enforcers, but as a mechanism for the distribution of non-negotiably coercive force. While society aspires for peace, it recognizes that some situations require immediate, unquestioned intervention that cannot be negotiated. The police are the only agency authorized to use force to resolve these situations. This authority is "essentially unrestricted"; there are no detailed guidelines on when to use force, only vague admonitions to be humane. The power to use force is not incidental to arrest; rather, the ability to arrest is incidental to the power to use force. Whether dealing with a mental health crisis, a domestic dispute, or a crime, the defining feature of police intervention is the capacity to overpower resistance. This definition unifies the diverse tasks of the police and explains why the public "calls the cops" for problems that have nothing to do with crime. The core function is to provide a remedy that is coercible at the point of occurrence.
Courts do not control the police. Historically, justices of the peace combined judicial and police roles, but the modern separation was enforced to prevent tyranny and to maintain judicial impartiality. If judges controlled police investigations, they would be implicated in the prosecution, compromising their neutrality. Practically, the police must operate in a realm of intuition and force that is incompatible with the rational, peaceful atmosphere of the courtroom; The police monopoly on the use of force is the exclusive domain that allows the courts to remain "clean" and rational. The courts at best exercise "influence," and do not "control” police. The relationship is not hierarchical; the judge is not the police officer's superior.
The "esprit de corps" in police departments is often misunderstood as genuine brotherhood. In reality, it functions as a code of secrecy that isolates officers from each other and from the public. While solidarity is necessary for safety in dangerous situations, it manifests as a network of information denial. Officers hoard information about suspects, informants, and local conditions to gain personal advantage and protect their turf. This "fraternal" loyalty is outwardly directed against critics but internally divisive, preventing effective cooperation between units and officers. Secrecy hinders the development of a professional craft, as knowledge is not shared or systematized. The military-bureaucratic structure exacerbates this by flooding channels with downward commands while blocking upward feedback, leaving the department ignorant of the ground-level realities its officers possess.
The adoption of a quasi-military structure by police departments is a self-defeating pretense. While military discipline helped eliminate political corruption and instil basic order, it is incompatible with the development of a professional police role. Military organization emphasizes internal rules, dress, and obedience, but provides no guidance for the complex, discretionary decisions required in the field.
Police discretion is hard to remove. Arrest and detention are often used as practical remedies rather than legal processes. Police frequently arrest individuals not to prosecute them, but to remove them from a situation, cool down a dispute, or harass them into compliance. This "discretionary law enforcement" allows police to use vague laws as pretexts for detention. While often legally dubious, these practices serve immediate peacekeeping needs. Bittner argues that this discretionary power cannot be eliminated by more laws, as officers will always find ways to justify detention. Instead, the focus should be on ensuring that officers are trustworthy and expert. The "golden rule" of detaining drunkards or derelicts for their own protection highlights the police role as a social safety net. Professionalization would create conditions where such decisions are made with greater judgment and in cooperation with social services, rather than as ad hoc, arbitrary acts.
The modern police force is a product of a cultural shift toward the aspiration of peace and non-violence. Western society began to view violence as "foolish" and inefficient, seeking to replace it with rational, bureaucratic governance. This quest for peace led to the pacification of the administration of justice, where the criminal process became a rational, non-violent argument rather than a physical ordeal. However, because total elimination of force is impossible, society needed a mechanism to handle the residual violence that occurs when rational persuasion fails. The police were created to fill this gap, authorized to use force only when peaceful means are exhausted, thereby allowing the rest of society to function under the ideal of non-violence.
To understand the police, one must look at the practical urgencies that trigger police responses and how the resulting actions relate to the aspirations of a democratic society, rather than starting with abstract ideals. Approaches that try to define the police by what they ought to do according to legal theory may not vey productive. In comparison,, analyzing the "reality conditions" of police work would be more fruitful.
Currently, police work lacks a system of professional accreditation. All officers enter with identical qualifications, and promotions are based on seniority or political connections rather than specific competence. This undifferentiated status means officers can be ordered to perform any task, from directing traffic to investigating murders, regardless of their skill. This prevents the development of a specialized profession. Bittner argues for a licensing system similar to teaching or medicine, where only certified officers are empowered to use coercive force. Departments should shed menial tasks (chauffeur duty, clerical work) and assign them to non-sworn staff. Licensing would allow for the recognition of individual competence and create a market for police skills, encouraging officers to develop professional expertise rather than relying on departmental tenure. Professionalization requires a connection to scientific scholarship. Historically, professions evolved from sacred or craft-based origins to secular, scientific foundations. The police, rooted in the "man of arms," must sever ties with this military origin and align with academic scholarship. This does not mean merely taking college courses in sociology or law, which often fail to connect theory to practice. Instead, the police need their own professional schools, modeled after medical or law schools, where the curriculum is developed by practitioners and scholars together. These schools would serve as the locus for developing a body of technical knowledge and methodical procedures. The goal is not just to educate individual officers but to establish the occupation as a field of study, fostering a culture of inquiry and critical reason that is currently absent in police departments. To move toward professionalization, recruitment standards must be raised. Bittner recommends making a college degree a minimum requirement for entry. This would attract candidates with higher cognitive abilities and a willingness to engage in rigorous study, shifting the occupation away from those who cannot find other employment. In-service training should be extended to at least two years of part-time college work, emphasizing broad education in law, sociology, and psychology alongside supervised practice. Existing personnel should be required to complete similar educational requirements to maintain licensure. Successful study should be rewarded with pay increases and advancement. While these measures may not immediately teach specific police skills, they would select for individuals who value education and professional status, creating a cadre of officers capable of resisting mechanical discipline and demanding a more sophisticated approach to their work.
Effective officers possess detailed, ethnographic knowledge of their patrol areas, knowing residents, businesses, and local dynamics. This allows them to interpret situations intelligently rather than applying rigid rules. Second is technical concern: officers should approach crime problems with a dispassionate, business-like attitude, focusing on control and prevention rather than emotional crusading. They prioritize wit over brawn, using intelligence to solve problems efficiently. This technical approach requires emotional control and the ability to remain objective in the face of provocation. These skills are currently optional and personal, but they should be recognized as the core of professional competence and systematically taught.
The use of force must be normalized as a technical element of peacekeeping, not a display of heroism. The primary maxim is that force should be used only as a last resort to effect restraint, and then only to the minimum extent necessary. Bittner describes techniques for avoiding force, such as isolation (removing an incident from public view to prevent escalation) and alter-casting (shifting the roles of participants to de-escalate conflict). Officers should be trained to isolate incidents and offer alternatives that allow suspects to comply without losing face. Marksmanship training should emphasize avoiding fatal injury, and the use of firearms should be subject to rigorous review. Physical force techniques should be standardized to minimize pain and injury, drawing on martial arts or other effective restraint methods. The goal is to treat force like surgery: a necessary but undesirable intervention that requires high skill to minimize harm.
The metaphor of the "war on crime" is problematic rhetorical device that implies an enemy that must be ruthlessly destroyed. Crime is a normal aspect of social life, like organic malfunction, and cannot be "won" against. A "war" mentality justifies methods that violate civil liberties and ignores the context in which crime occurs. It suggests a "will to ruthlessness" that is structurally impossible for police to mobilize because they must maintain the moral cooperation of civil society.
The distribution of police work is discriminatory. Surveillance is concentrated in poor, minority, and youth populations not just because crime rates are higher there, but because public expectations and statistical probabilities instruct officers to be more suspicious of these groups. This focussed enforcement magnifies social cleavages, making the police appear as a partisan force.
Police work is perceived as a "tainted occupation." This has two components. Firstly, what modern police is doing is a work that was historically associated with tyranny and the underworld; police are feared as necessary evils who deal with the "darkness" others avoid. Secondly, they are despised for their low status and the potential for abuse.
Community Relations units are often reactive, poorly staffed, and ineffective. They tend to either engage in superficial public relations with "responsible" citizens (ignoring alienated groups) or attempt grassroots outreach that isolates the officers from their department. Bittner suggests that community relations should be integrated into the core training of all officers, providing them with supervised field experience in diverse communities. This would help officers understand the sociocultural context of crime and deviance, moving beyond an individual-focused view of problems to a systemic one. By understanding the effects of their interventions on the community, officers can develop a more nuanced approach to peacekeeping. This requires officers to see themselves as part of the social fabric rather than an external force imposing order.