Police and Society: from the solitary “us and them” dyad to the univocal and supportive citizen identity.

Abstract

In this article, we propose to readers, especially those directly involved in public security, a reflection on the phenomenon of a significant portion of police forces distancing themselves from their original assumptions of serving, protecting and being accountable to the society to which they belong, particularly when these practices refer to the most vulnerable social segments, denying the indispensable dimensions of empathy and otherness, which reveal their reason for being and give them meaning. Through bibliographical research and the author's experiences, it can be inferred that this distancing comes from the feeling of belonging to total institutions, corporatism, ego-synchrony and the warrior ethos that fosters paranoid ideas in relation to those considered “outsiders” of the institutions. Finally, it is proposed that overcoming these limitations can only be achieved by moving away from the false dichotomy between police and society, through more appropriate and contemporary administrative practices, by building a culture of accountability and by recovering the sense of being citizen police officers, servants of the community and promoters of rights.