Citation

Sykes RE, Clark JP. Am. J. Sociol. 1975; 81(3): 584-600.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1975, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/226109

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The authors suggest an explanation of police-civilian behavior based on a normative and interpersonal construct rather than on a psychological construct. Police behavior must be explained in terms of the rules which order their relations with civilians and which are usually mutually acknowledged by both. Among these rules the authors posit that in a typical encounter relations are governed by asymmetrical status norm when deference exchange is involved. This norm effects various statuses in different ways. Data from an extensive study of police-civilian encounters in which the process of interaction was coded using a special interaction process analysis category system are used to test hypotheses derived from the theory.