Sequential Standoffs in Police Encounters With the Public

Abstract

Research on interactions involving police officers foregrounds the importance of their communicative practices for fostering civilians’ perceptions of police legitimacy. Building on this research, we describe a pattern of conduct that is a recurrent source of trouble in such encounters, which we call sequential standoffs. These standoffs emerge when two parties persistently pursue alternative courses of action, producing a stalemate in which neither progress in, nor exit from, either course of action appears viable. They are routinely resolved by officers (re)casting civilians’ pursuit of one course of action as constituting resistance to the officers’ proposed course of action, and thus as warranting officers’ use of coercive violence to resolve the stalemate. In some cases, however, officers resolve standoffs cooperatively using sequentially accommodative methods. We consider how these findings advance approaches to communicative dilemmas in policing, and their broader significance for scholars of social interaction, and of the interactional organization of conflicts.

A Gradient of More and Less Demanding Impositions: Reflections on the Special Issue on Resistance

“…For example, we see the call-taker in Benwell and Rhys's (2023/this issue) study of complaints to the NHS being firm about where they want the conversation to go: “ you’re complaining about the nurse's attitude … ((lists the caller's complaints)) … what's your date of birth, sir? ” The parent in Flint and Rhys issues an unequivocal threat about homework: “ if you haven’t gotten one page done in ten minutes ˚you'll go-˚ ((downstairs and finish it)) ”; and the police officer in Raymond et al (2023/this issue) is entitled to be blunter still: “OUTside right now. Right now.” It seems to be that only in very sensitive situations will the imposer tread more warily.…”

“…Authority turns critical in the paper by Raymond et al (2023/this issue) who chart what happens when a civilian's projects are in conflict with those of an officer in uniform, who can call on the authority of the law. The degree of imposition and the stakes involved are perhaps most clearly illustrated in this bald exchange between police and civilian, which Raymond et al use as their example of a counter : Police: “What, (.)…”

“…The picture that you will see in these pages is, as (Raymond et al, 2023/this issue) and, more explicitly and firmly, Humă and Stokoe (2023/2023/this issue) insist, very different: what is being studied and analyzed is always something in a real encounter, and usually involves some kind of action—physical action, perhaps in the case of the police talking down the person from a bridge, or a parent getting a child to do their homework; or conversational action, for example in a call-taker trying to move the caller on to the next phase of the call, or a tutor try to persuade a student of the benefits of accurate quotation. No doubt there is some mental processing going on, but it's not of interest to the people involved—and, in any case, there is no easy way of getting to it from what is actually happening in public view, where all the action is.…”

“…The matters being addressed here, then, are all episodes of resistance in the real world, with real consequences. The range is wide: being shepherded along the stages of a help-line call (Benwell & Rhys, 2023/this issue); being made to answer an interviewer's tricky question (Hepburn et al, 2023/this issue); being asked to get on with your homework (Flint & Rhys, 2023/this issue); being sold something on the phone (Humă & Stokoe, 2023/2023/this issue); getting advice from a tutor (West); answering police questions (Raymond et al, 2023/2023/this issue); even, in the most arresting article in the collection, being persuaded not to jump from a bridge (in Sikveland & Stokoe, 2023/this issue). What the authors uncover is not a fixed pattern.…”