Conflict And Conflict Theory

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Conflict theory is a perspective derived from the work of Karl Marx, who believe that society is a dynamic entity and it is constantly undergoing changes driven by class conflict, who holds different interests, ideas and values, for competing scare resources and aiming to maximize their own-benefits. According to the founder of conflict theory, Karl Marx, society are divided into two category: the have and the do not have, the latter is dominated by the former ones who are those people with power in hands and with the greatest political, economic and social resources. Conflict theory assumes that society makes the norms to serve the interests of the powerful.

With respect to relationship between police and citizen, the likelihood of conflict can be explained by their different culture and norms. Their behavior conform to a substantially different set of rules or belief. Citizens want to gain a position to manifest their discontent or express a specific opinion about something in the assembling or demonstration, where police force want to maintain public order and security among these protester, and it sometimes leads police to use force to control, and the sad truth is gently force is not practical, when people may get hurt as the result of the police using strong force. In 1 July 2011, a group of demonstrators gathered in the government headquarters refused to leave. Therefore, in order to clear the situation, police used the pepper spray to the demonstrator without prior notice and using a plastic tap and handcraft to take away the protestors. The use of excessive force against citizens being seen at public and arouse people to think whether police is protecting citizen or they are doing harm to the public. “Power tends to corr...

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...ed is controversial over internet user, police using the extreme force to control the protestor’s behaviors regardless the safety of the protestors. Some of the internet user regard them as “police dogs”, implying that they are too obedient to authority. Besides, the news of the police scandal, selective enforcement, power abusing and other improper conduct issue also provoke public anger.

In particular, public attitude towards police will be negatively influenced by the well-publicized corruption news of the police force. It might further induce a negative outcome that public would not trust police force anymore or even become less cooperative with the police and tend to believe allegations of police misconduct even when the force behave properly. In the end, the future citizen-police relationship and efficiency of police investigation will be seriously affected.

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