From the first day in police academy to the last day on the force, police officers are told that they could be injured or killed at any moment. No traffic stop or neighborly dispute comes without the risk of violence. The day they let their guard home is the night they don’t go home to their families–or that’s what they believe. Through more than 100 interviews and 1,000 hours riding along on patrol, Michael Sierra-Arévalo outlines a culture that desensitizes violence and values officer safety above all.

Sierra-Arévalo joins host A Public Affair host Jade Iseri-Ramos to talk about The Danger Imperative: Violence, Death, and the Soul of Policing (Columbia University Press). The book is an on the ground report of modern policing. They discuss the training, networks of communication, and on the patrol experiences that further the use of violence by officers.  Sierra-Arévalo argues that in part, “violence is actually not unintentional in policing. That is that is the point of the institution.”

Michael Sierra-Arévalo is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. His writing and research have been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, GQ, Vox, NPR, and other outlets. From 2020 to 2023, he served on the City of Austin’s Public Safety Commission. He holds a PhD in sociology from Yale University.

Photo by AJ Colores on Unsplash

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