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The aim of this paper is to provide arguments for the foundation of sociology of police as a new sociological subdiscipline, which is to unite many scientific approaches to police, society and social science interrelations. Sociological conceptual apparatus and theories are used in approaching both police as a social institution and police activity as a special form of social activity: the approach of functionalism which sees police as a form of adaptation ; Weber's notion of police as an institution participating in fulfilling basic functions of the state ; conflict theories approach stressing that police legitimacy is questionable as it serves exclusively authorities ; the approach of interactionism focusing on the everyday interactions of citizens and the police. The result of this approach is that it provides the foundations for a new sociological subdiscipline dealing with: 1) specific forms of socially responsible beahviour institutionalized through the police activity as an opposition to deviant behaviour ; 2) those social relations that are stabilized as the structures of patterns the repetition of which ensures that both efficient prevention and minimal threat to civil security will be long-term ; 3) those social processes, phenomena and events which constatntly demand and renew the purpose of police ; 4) those social values the protection of which presents concrete everyday goals of police activity as well as permanent goals of the police vocation. The paper shows that precisely sociology as a social science has the most comprehensive theoretical conceptual frame for considering the police phenomenon, which has hardly been noticed so far. The paper as a whole as well as the final definition present only a possible introduction and some arguments that can be understood as a contribution both to the constitution of sociology of police and to sociological theoretical conceptualization of those social relations, structures and processes in which the police appears as a social agent. All elements necessary for independent theoretical and research frame in order to constitute sociology of police as a new sociological subdiscipline are at disposal. When we, in addition to this, consider the empirically verifiable fact that the presence and professionality of police are required and expected on a daily basis and on all social levels, it is obvious that sociology of police could satisfy many of the concrete requirements imposed to social science today when approaching social phenomena and events in which the presence and activity of police are necessary. The following concepts and their definitions are for the first time shown in this paper: the purpose and function of the police as a social institution ; process of police activity institutionalization ; civil security as a social state (in case of which the psychological concept of security and the need for security are seen as a social fact) ; basic (homogenous) and differentiated (heterogenous) experience of security ; police activity deviance ; the principle of sociability as the purpose of police. These concepts can serve in further operationalization of indicators for empirical research about social purpose, function, activity and experience of citizens with the police as a social institution. |
