Policing as Social Discipline.

• Author: Ferrall, Bard R.
• Position: Review

SATNAM CHOUNGH, POLICING AS SOCIAL DISCIPLINE (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) 262 pp.

Through interviews with arrested and detained subjects at two police stations in England, and through examination previous arrest records, the author finds that police power can be used, not as a component of the larger judicial system, but as a method of control and discipline of certain population groups. The author found instances where police, unconcerned with judicial guilt, detain, search, arrest, interrogate and subsequently release persons, without the intention of sending them further along the judicial system. This type of policing is motivated not by criminal investigation; rather it is to inform the...