“Losing the Humanity of the Street”: Retired Police Officer Narratives of the Evolution of Low-level Enforcement in New York City

Authors

Megan Welsh, San Diego State University

Abstract

"Low-level enforcement activities such as pedestrian and traffic stops, the issuance of criminal court summonses (tickets or citations), and misdemeanor arrests comprise the vast majority of police-citizen encounters relative to the policing of more serious, felony-level offenses. The complexities of these activities – particularly from the perspectives of the police officers who carry them out – have received relatively little scholarly attention. In an effort to more fully understand the nuances of low-level enforcement, in particular how such activities have changed over time and how police officers have experienced such changes, in-depth interviews were conducted with a small sample of retired New York Police Department (NYPD) officers. Findings shed light on how officers understand and experience proactive policing tactics and the pressures associated with data-driven accountability. The implications of this research for improving police-community relations are explored."

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Welsh, Megan (2017) "“Losing the Humanity of the Street”: Retired Police Officer Narratives of the Evolution of Low-level Enforcement in New York City," Qualitative Criminology (QC): Vol. 5: No. 2, Article 4.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/qc/vol5/iss2/4