This study aims to explain the demarcations regarding which crimes that are seen as “acceptable” to commit as an police officer, and those who categorizes as “not acceptable”. The study is based on a qualitative, narrative method of semi-structured interviews. Antecedent research shows the strong subculture in the police force and the approach of seeing the police profession as a lifestyle. This study uses Erving Goffmans dramaturgic perspective on society by applying “Team”, “Front Stage and “Back Stage” to explain why the demarcations is the way it is. By studying “Front Stage” as police officers in front of the public and “Back Stage” as a closed space for the police officers, the essay intends to see how police officers, seen as a team, deal with wrongful acts made by an police officer. By using an constructed sorting model the study separated the data from ten interviewed police officers by categorizing into ways of legitimizing crimes commited by an police officer. The study aims to show understanding in why unethic and unlegal deeds by police officers are not reported, and therefore legitimized by the subculture. The conclusion of this essay is that there are two ways to legitimize wrongful acts of police officers. These two ways are by the norms “Us versus them” and the silence code. We created two concepts in combination with the use of the theories of Goffman. This paper will show how the two concepts, ”team offset” and ”team censoring”, can legitimize crimes as a part of the subculture. To be able to legitimize a wrongful act, the police officer needs to use his team. If the team can not legitimize the crime, it categorizes as “not acceptable”.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-61478 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Marttala, Amanda, Ahlstedt, Nicolina |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS), Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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