A Comparative Analysis Of William Muir's Police Personalities

Police Personalities: Analyzed and Compared When analyzing and studying the criminal justice system, much attention has always been directed toward the federal court system as well as the Supreme Court; however, over the last few decades, more and more attention has been drawn toward the smaller criminal justice institutions, such as police officers. Political controversies arising from incidents such as those played out in Ferguson and Baltimore have resulted in the magnification in attention toward societies law enforcement officials, putting such institutions under the public scope. In a time littered with widespread mistrust between police officers and the communities the have sworn to protect, it is critical to understand the policeman’s

This paper will analyze William Muir’s “Police: Street-corner Politicians” as well as evaluate Muir’s theoretical validity in opposition to the work of other scholars

The Perspective dimension revolves around the police officer’s outlook upon the citizen of the community. He elaborates on the concept by explaining, “…that Perspective is ‘intellectual objectivity,’ or ‘ the knowledge of tragedy with which all action . . . is truly interwoven,’” (Hochstedler, 304). Muir identifies two outlooks within Perspective. The Tragic Perspective pays homage to both sides of every issue while comprehending the “commonality of human kind”. In contrast to the Tragic Perspective is the Cynic Perspective. This perspective leaves no gray area in a situation. The second dimension described by Muir is the Passion dimension, which, represents an officer’s examination of the action he is to take, especially in regards to an officer’s ability to justify the morality of the use of force in a given situation. Muir illustrates that the officer with an “Integrated Morality of Coercion” is capable of justifying use of force, as well as feeling at ease with applying coercion when the situation demands it. Conversely, officers with a “Conflicted Morality of Coercion, a reluctant to use force or coercion, even when