This essay will specifically focus on the excerpt of Captain Louis De Koster’s social biography as presented in Altbeker’s the Dirty Work of Democracy. Its main objective will be to engage in the structure-agency debate and how its major concepts are brought out in consideration of Captain Louis De Koster’s life and also to show how and where I stand in this debate.
I will begin by a definition of key concepts.Structure is the enduring orderly and patterned relationships between elements of society (Abercrombie et al, 1988:228) in short it is the social framework in which we exist. Agency is an individual’s ability to act make choices and plans and to make sense of or intepret their surroundings(van Huysteen,2003: page not known). A social
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However, just like any other individual Captain De Koster does not live in a vacuum that is devoid of a society. He works within a certain structure/ “framework.” And there are indeed multiple structures in his case; most of which he feels are working against him as a white policeman in Post Apartheid South Africa. These frameworks govern the conditions and setting in which he works and thereby are a major influence in his attitude towards his work. De Koster lives in an era where the Police Force in which he works is general being restructured through affirmative action to accommodate previously the oppressed black policeman. Since all this is being done at the expense of the white policeman and has meant a reduction in the standards at the Force De Koster has inevitably become indignant and bitter. His incessant complaining about the force are evidence of how this framework has affected him …show more content…
The major thing that Captain De Koster does is complaining. But is he complaining as a knee jerk response to the conditions or is he complaining as a result of a conscious choice to do so? One would argue that since De Koster isn’t finding his transfer so bad and since he’s doing his duties it is safe to say he is more comfortable and hence he is complaining as a conscious choice to do so. Hence this shows how agency also explains his
For instance, the novel states at one point that there was a total of six police officers within the tiny establishment (Chariandy 116). It becomes apparent that the criminal justice system associates places like Desirae’s with crime and more unwanted attention to hip hop members who already suffer from other forms of discrimination. Relate to
Claude-Joseph Vernet’s oil on canvas painting titled Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm was created in 1775, and it is currently located in the European Art Galleries (18th- 19th Century North) 2nd Floor at the Dallas Museum of Art. It is a large-scale painting with overall dimensions of 64 1/2 x 103 1/4 in. (1 m 63.83 cm x 2 m 62.26 cm) and frame dimensions of 76 1/8 x 115 1/4 x 4 3/4 in. (1 m 93.36 cm x 2 m 92.74 cm x 12.07 cm). Vernet creates this piece by painting elements from nature and using organic shapes in order to create atmospheric effects, weather and different moods. This piece primarily depicts a landscape with a rocky mountainous terrain and villagers scrambling to an upcoming storm.
This essay will introduce two competing perspectives of policing, they are the orthodox and revisionist perspectives. This essay will then relate the orthodox and revisionist perspectives to the themes of lack of structure, industrialisation and finally hostility. The essay will then discuss whether the creation of the Metropolitan Police by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 was an effective
Act One of Scales Of Justice is a study of the limits of integrity. It shows the naivety of a policeman in which his ideas bring him into conflict with his colleagues.
Many cases of police brutality where the victim is of different ethnicity can be highlighted more significantly. According to the book “Continuing the Struggle for Justice” (p.216), many people believe that the issue of race and police brutality should be treated as one and that on occasion police officers do...
Second Treatise of Government by John Locke and Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau are books written to try and explain the origin of society. Both try to explain the evils and inequalities of society, and to a certain degree to discuss whether man in his natural state is better than man in society. These political science based theories do not appear, at first, to have anything in common with J. Hector St. John De Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer, which are letters written by Crèvecoeur during the settling of America and the beginning of the American Revolution, however with examination we can see reflection of both Locke’s and Rousseau’s ideas about things such as human nature, government, and inequality.
The use of force, particularly with correlation to officer morale and/or inadequate education/training, has become particularly problematic. Measures should be taken to reduce the injury to suspects, particularly physical injury resulting from poor officer tactics or malicious intentions not related to upholding the law. These are problems, which, if properly handled and rectified, will result in improved officer morale, improved relationships with the public as well as ensure a continued upstanding reputation for the oldest police force in the nation.
For many individuals, police brutality is a non-existent matter because it does not directly affect them or the community in which they live. Yet for others, this is an everyday occurrence and few limitations have been set as to what is unjust and malicious behavior of an officer towards the public, therefore, several officers are rarel...
Schieber, Sylvester J., and John B. Shoven. The Real Deal: the History and Future of Social
So much is written about policing. Despite the resentments, the police, charged with the task of keeping us safe remains undeterred in their mission so we can live to see another day. Moskos' autobiography evokes graphic images that we often see, but fail to acknowledge. A
It is a myth to believe that an officers job is spend fighting dangerous crimes, in reality officers spend more time handing smaller cases. For example, police officers spend a lot of time doing daily tasks such as giving speeding tickets and being mediators in disputes (Kappeler & Potter, 2005). Handing out speeding tickers and handling minor disputes are far from fighting crime. Police officers spend more time doing preventive measures (Kappeler & Potter, 2005). Preventive measures involve officers intervening to prevent further altercations. Victor Kappeler and Gary Potter discussed the myth of crime fighting as invalid and misleading notions of an officer’s employment.
Third, institutions consist of a new type of power, so that all individual relations constitute a power relationship. (Foucault, “Truth and Juridical Forms” 82-83) A relationship of power may be described as a mode of action that acts upon an individual’s actions through which the behavior of an active subject is able to inscribe itself. (Foucault, “The Subject and Power” 342) Institutions work through an authority network of individuals, and power is employed and exercised by individuals through a netlike organization. “Not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power.
After then, I will articulate a criticism of Johnston's argument, and will offer a plausible response to the criticism. Liberty and equality according to Johnston are imbedded in natural rights amenable to reason, but fraternity constitutes a moral obligation upon citizens instead of. . We can differentiate between two types of fraternity; local community based and global based. French philosopher Rousseau's educational prescriptions for the government of Poland aims to establish a local community based fraternity in which he proposes: “It is education that must give souls a national formation, and direct their opinions and tastes in such a way that they will be patriotic by inclination, by passion, by necessity.” Durkheim, a French social theorist, also prescribes the direct contact method.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, and Donald A. Cress. "On Democracy." Basic Political Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 1987. 179-80. Print.
As stated by Abercrombie (in Van Huyssteen, 2003: 228) the Structure-agency debate refers to “what extent individuals are the product of social structures, and to what extent can they act upon those social structures.” Social structures are frameworks within society that influence the way in which we behave such as the education, family, race, and rules. (Kendall, 2013, p. 119) In other words, the structure agency debate is an argument between three different ideologies that explain and analyze individual’s actions and decisions.