Understanding Police Culture, Second Edition

Police culture has been widely criticized as a source of resistance to change and reform, and is often misunderstood. This book seeks to capture the heart of police culture-including its tragedies and celebrations-and to understand its powerful themes of morality, solidarity, and common sense, by systematically integrating a broad literature on police culture into middle-range theory, and developing original perspectives about many aspects of police work.

• The first section addresses the definition of culture and the understanding of police culture, while section two moves on to themes of police culture.

John P. Crank is a Professor in School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He received his M.A. in Sociology from the University of Arizona, his M.P.A. from the University of Illinois, and his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado. He has published in the area of police effectiveness, and in the areas of organizational culture and structure, focusing on the police and on parole and probation. He has also published on criminal justice theory and counter-terrorism and was the recipient of the Academy of Criminal Justice Science's Outstanding Book Award in 2004 for his book Imagining Justice (Anderson Publishing).