> Police officers follow what is known as "force continuum". This basically outlines how much force they should be using in any situation...The first 'level' of all continuum protocols is simply 'presence'.
Wow. This set off a chain of fireworks in my brain. What kind of creature takes the role of someone big and strong, who keeps the peace through his presence and the implied possibility of force? What sort of being takes this role in primate behavioral biology? Police are basically the "alpha" primate proxies of the state.
However, if you examine how we deploy and present police officers, it's clear that society is still in denial about our primate origins and nature. What would happen if you took an alpha male chimpanzee, and by modifying various visual and other socially significant sensory markers, you made him seem to be a member of a different group? I'm sure the result wouldn't be harmonious. What's more, what if you did something analogous to sending a couple of policemen in a cruiser through some neighborhood? It would be analogous to a couple of strange young chimpanzee males invading another group's territory.
There is the concept of community policing, where officers are encouraged to be an integral part of the community they are policing. Still, it's clear that society is more interested in carrying forward traditions from the military origins of modern police forces than it is in acknowledging the primate origins of our psychology.
You can complicate this discussion by bringing in different contexts and wrinkles of primate biology. The main point still stands. If you reduce the size of the group, then you get to the point where it's one alpha in the peacekeeper role. Also, the point still stands with betas anyhow.
Wow. This set off a chain of fireworks in my brain. What kind of creature takes the role of someone big and strong, who keeps the peace through his presence and the implied possibility of force? What sort of being takes this role in primate behavioral biology? Police are basically the "alpha" primate proxies of the state.
However, if you examine how we deploy and present police officers, it's clear that society is still in denial about our primate origins and nature. What would happen if you took an alpha male chimpanzee, and by modifying various visual and other socially significant sensory markers, you made him seem to be a member of a different group? I'm sure the result wouldn't be harmonious. What's more, what if you did something analogous to sending a couple of policemen in a cruiser through some neighborhood? It would be analogous to a couple of strange young chimpanzee males invading another group's territory.
There is the concept of community policing, where officers are encouraged to be an integral part of the community they are policing. Still, it's clear that society is more interested in carrying forward traditions from the military origins of modern police forces than it is in acknowledging the primate origins of our psychology.