Police Subculture Essay

Police live different life’s that differ from the ordinary. Whether you consider it good or bad know that police create a subculture just like any other group whether it being sports teams or just your group of friends. Don’t confuse culture with subculture either. A culture looked at in a big picture is everyone from the place that has the traditions and do the same things. Subcultures are usually made in cultures and are made up of a smaller group of people that you might call friends. Why does the police subculture exist and what are the sources? There are a lot of factors that create a police subculture. First, we have the organizational factors. In policing there are usually 3 shifts of work. Each shift is made up of a certain number of officers. A group of officers working the same shift are sometimes called a platoon or a squad (Schmalleger, Worrall, 2010). Officers tend to create a little subculture in between each other depending on the shifts you may work. An officer who works the graveyard shift will most likely hang out with another officer who has that same shift. Another organizational factor that plays a role is the fact that police may not get a weekend off or a holiday. This makes it hard for police to intermingle with people outside of their profession (Schmalleger, Worrall, 2010).

From my understanding I feel the street environment is the attitude of officers when they take certain calls. Calls that may not be interesting can be looked at with respect or hostility. Depending on the officer he may want to hang out with other officers who may share similar views thus creating another factor in the subculture. Something that does affect negatively the police subculture is traffic stops. Most traffic stops are doomed to begin with because civilians would rather not get stopped and it causes a tension and it affects how police talk about people with each other (Schmalleger, Worrall,