Collin's Theory Of Police Violence

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The beating of Rodney King – the presence of situational and emotional dynamics in violent situations.

Most incidents of police violence which have created a public scandal has the appearance of atrocity due to its disproportionate use of force. The Rodney King beating in Los Angeles, March 1991 is an archetypal instance. King was caught by police officers after a high-speed chase and was brutally beaten (Karstedt, Loader & Strang, 2013). Local witness George Holiday filmed much of it from his balcony and the video later aired around the world, which raised concerns about police treatment of minorities in America (Karstedt, Loader & Strang, 2013). After a three-month trial the officers were acquitted and the outrage sparked the violent 1992 …show more content…

Randall Collin's (2009) micro-sociological theory of violence can be employed. According to this theory, violence is successful when antagonists overcome the barrier of confrontational tension/fear. This essay focuses on the role of situational and emotional dynamics that caused the violence event to occur. The essential thesis of the essay is to fit the police violence into the framework of Collin’s theory. This leads to the discussion of the theory of the “tunnel of violence”, where actual violence involves dominating the emotional attention space and the attacker enters an altered state of consciousness (Collins, 2013). Collin’s proposed "pathways" that lead into the tunnel of violence will also be drawn upon. The pathway of the "forward panic" is particularly useful for illustrating the finer details of precisely how the police mobilised the violence. Collins (2008) shifted the attention away from background and cultural conditions in this case, suggesting that there are "no violent individuals, but [only] violent situations" (p.70). This essay concludes by suggesting important implications about confrontations between police and civilians, especially when officers are in full forward panic