A Study Of The Negro Policeman: Book Review :: essays research papers

A Study of the inkiness Policeman Book followNicholas Alex, assistant professor of sociology at The City Universityof New York, holds a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research and a B.S.from the Wharton School. He was formerly a look into assistant with the RussellSage Foundation, an instructor at Adelphi University, and has had workingexperience in his academic specialty-the sociology of professions andoccupations-while an industrial engineer in the aircraft industry, later asbusiness bus of the Walden School. This is his first book.In this book Alex made an effort to examine the peculiar enigmas ofNegro police workforce who live in an age which has not yet resolved to problem ofinequality in an assertedly democratic society. He drawn heavily on thereflections of forty-one Negro policemen who made plain to me the difficultiesinvolved in being caustic in blue. Alex was concerned with the ways in which themen were recruited into the police, the nature of their relations in regard totheir immediate clientele, their counterparts, and the rest of society. In thebroadest terms, the book examines the special problems that Negro policemen facein their efforts to reconcile their race with their work in the presentframework of American values and beliefs.     The research for the study was based on intense interviews collectedover a period of eleven months, from December 1964 to October 1965. During thattime the author talked with Negro police engaged in different types of policespecialties, and men of different rank and backgrounds. Alex was interested inpreserving their anonymity, and substituted code numbers for names. Thelanguage in which their themes were expressed is unchanged.     Most of the interviews were obtained either at the policemans home orthe authors. nigh were held in parks, playgrounds, and luncheonettes. All ofthe interviews were open-ended. All the policemen refused to have thereconversations ta ped. "I know too well what tapes can do to you," said one. "Ican disprove what you write down on that pad, but I cant if its taped. We usetapes too, you know." The author was dealing with a highly expressive andliterate group of men who thought of the study as a way in which they could makethemselves heard.     This book is organized very well. It consist of eight chapters, and eachchapter is broken into subdivisions. The first chapter negotiation about thepolicemen in the community. Within this chapter mainly describes the police asand occupation, and states how the policemens job is uncertain. The secondchapter deals with the recruitment of Negroes for police work.