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ABSTRACT
The interactions between young, disadvantaged, urban men and the rank-and-file officers who police them should be understood as layered structural, cultural and emotional phenomena. Using data from a multi-dimensional ethnographic project, this paper demonstrates that structural issues manifest in cultural scripts which place both groups in confrontation with each other. Within a tightly bound geographic district, competitiveness between them can be animated by intense emotionality. Frustration, humiliation, disdain and the potential for elation push both parties into behaviours that cannot be understood through discretion and confidence models of decision-making alone. Ultimately, through recognising how questions of inclusion/exclusion play out in simultaneously structural, cultural and emotive ways, the problems generated by negative interactions between the two groups might be meaningfully understood.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. People and places have been assigned pseudonyms to protect the identity of participants.
2. The police force of the Irish Republic is known as the ‘Garda Síochana’ (Guardians of the Peace). Officers are referred to in their plural as Gardaí, and in the singular as Garda (but often as its anglicised equivalent of ‘Guard’). For more on the organisation and configuration of the Irish police force see Conway (Citation2013).
3. A number of male police participants reported preferring to be paired with a male when undertaking patrol work as they felt that men are more capable of dealing with physical challenges. A number of female participants reported awareness of this preference whilst others reported not encountering it.