Policing Troost: a replication and expansion of Herbert's territoriality and normative orders thesis
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Police officers in the United States constantly fluctuate in their roles between being formal agents of state control and simple public servants. This dynamic societal role allows significant fluidity in officer behavior, belief system, and activities. Herbert (1997) argued that this dynamic can be explored and interpreted within the understanding that officers affect social control though the maintenance and control of geographic space. Territoriality and the six normative orders function to organize, interpret, and typify officer attitude, actions, and orientations. Using non-participant observation, the author observed the Kansas City Police Department exploring the validity and applicability of territoriality in the social context of urban Kansas City, Missouri. Spending over 120 hours in the field, the author found Herbert's (1997) thesis to be both applicable to the Kansas City Police and informative for social, racial, and political realities in the urban core. Within the social landscape of Kansas City, the effect of territoriality on officers and citizens was inexplicable. Officers' behavior and cognitive processing was shaped by their spatial and social distance from citizens. Going forward, police managers, researchers, and citizens must consider environmental context and its relationship to police officer behavior.
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Introduction -- Literature review -- Methodology -- Results -- Discussion -- Appendix
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M.S.