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In society, police officers have become a key part in protecting the public. However, in recent years the topic of police misconduct has taken over the spotlight. Although the media seems obsessed with highlighting only the negative side of the force, there is more to the story. Police officers are as human as everyone else, and even they are not impervious to the pressures of society. Additionally, Professor Ervin Staub, of Amy Novotney’s article, “Preventing Police Misconduct”, believes that commonplace conformity and active bystander ship leads to more misconduct among police officers. Solomon E. Asch would agree with this claim based off of his research in social psychology. His research proves that pressure from a majority group can lead a person to conform. As well as people regulating their behavior in terms of the norms and values of the group. When police officers are faced with the issue of seeing the majority of those around them behaving in an improper manner, they too will feel the need to act accordingly.
When the majority of police officers are involved in police misconduct, others will feel pressured to do the same because it’s the social norm. First, Solomon Asch wanted to figure out how group pressure affected individuals. His experiment included displaying a series of lines, a “standard” line and other multiple lines to which his participants would match to the standard line. Asch’s (1995) study found the following,
Whereas in ordinary