Hirschi Case Study

In recent events there has been a lot of animosity between the public and the police due to what the public perceives as excessive violence on the part of the police officers. Such as the example of the situation that happened in Ferguson, where a white officer shot a black man and the incident ensued riots, and other acts of violence in the streets of Ferguson for days. Two years ago, a black man “died in New York City after allegedly being placed in a chokehold” (Kirk, 2015 para.1) by white police officers, a young black man “died of spinal injuries sustained while in police custody” (Kirk, 2015 para 1) in Maryland. All three of these cases had similarities, one that they were widely publicized via both social media, news media and in two

The foundation of Hirschi’s theory is based on four elements “attachment, commitment; involvement; and belief” (Donner et al. 2016 p.418), he determines that if a police officer or any person has good strong social bonds they are less likely to be involved in misconduct or criminal activities for fear of losing what they have or what others think of them such as co-workers, friends, family or how the public would view

204). When the public begins to fear the police officers then that will cause an issue in the officer’s ability to do their jobs productively. Some even take the notion that crimes committed by police officers “a result of bad practice, lack of resources or mismanagement, rather than acts of criminals” (Gottschalk, 2012 para. 4). There are five basic types of crimes that police officers can be charged with and/or convicted of and they are “sex-related police crime, alcohol-related police crime, drug-related police crime, violence-related police crime, and profit-motivated police crime” (Stinson, 2015, para 1) not all of which are committed