Discrimination in policing: Phenomenological dimension

Abstract

The authors find the purpose of writing this paper in the necessary clarifications of an extremely complex phenomenon which is in the scientific and professional literature known as 'police discrimination.' This is more so because the issue of police discrimination in local literature has not so far been sufficiently discussed, at least not in the scientific-theoretical and empirical research on this phenomenon. Having in mind that the theoretical and working definition of the object of this research is the first and indispensable step to comprehend the indicators of the studied phenomenon, it seemed important to us to consider in the work the very concept of police discrimination and the ways of manifestation of this phenomenon. For this purpose, the paper firstly gives a conceptual definition of police discrimination, and then its basic forms and categorization. Our aspiration was to, at least partially, remove certain ambiguities and increase the interest of the academic community to research this phenomenon, not only in the form of its theoretical analysis, but also through its empirical research in Serbian society. The need for this stems primarily from the fact that, in our environment, the empirical studies have not been conducted in a sufficient number that would systematically and comprehensively research the phenomenon of police discrimination, so that a number of indicators of its phenomenon and its extent are mainly the result of suppositions and free estimations.

Smisao pisanja ovog rada autori pronalaze u potrebi pojašnjenja izuzetno kompleksne pojave u naučnoj i stručnoj literaturi poznatoj kao 'policijska diskriminacija'. Tim pre što u domaćoj literaturi nije do sada bilo dovoljno reči o problemu policijske diskriminacije, bar ne kroz naučno-teorijska i empirijska istraživanja ove pojave. Imajući u vidu da teorijsko i radno definisanje predmeta istraživanja predstavlja prvi i neizostavni korak na putu do spoznaje pokazatelja proučavane pojave, činilo nam se važnim da u radu razmotrimo sam pojam policijske diskriminacije i načine manifestovanja ove pojave. U cilju toga, u radu je najpre dato pojmovno određenje policijske diskriminacije, a zatim njeni osnovni oblici i kategorizacija. Težnja nam je bila da na taj način bar delimično otklonimo određene nedoumice i povećamo zainteresovanost naučne javnosti za istraživanjem ove pojave, ali ne samo u vidu njenih teorijskih analiza već i kroz njena empirijska istraživanja u srpskom društvu. Potreba za tim prevashodno proizlazi iz činjenice da u našim uslovima do sada nisu u dovoljnom broju sprovedene empirijske studije kojim bi se sistemski i sveobuhvatno istražio fenomen policijske diskriminacije tako da su brojni pokazatelji njene pojave i obima uglavnom rezultat nagađanja i slobodnih procena.