Word: sociologist
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Though nonwhites account for 60% of Los Angeles' polyglot population, white officers make up 61% of the L.A.P.D. Similar imbalances exist in many heavily ethnic communities around the U.S. and, says sociologist James Marquart of Sam Houston State University, this pattern can encourage police violence. "White police officers don't understand a lot of things that go on in these areas," says Marquart. "One way to deal with that is to use force. It goes across all cultural boundaries...
...responding to a police scandal, the city passed a charter that in effect gave the police chief life tenure. The chief cannot be dismissed by the mayor or the five-member police commission without "cause" -- generally defined as misconduct or willful neglect of duty. This system, argues UCLA sociologist Jack Katz, has led to "a kind of organizational egocentrism." Mayor Tom Bradley, himself a former Los Angeles police officer, has had numerous run-ins with Gates and has requested on at least four occasions that the city charter be amended to allow a mayor to fire the police chief. Though...
...example of such leadership, say Gates' critics, ultimately trickles down to the cop on the beat and creates the conditions in which a beating like King's can take place. Sociologist Katz, who has studied the L.A.P.D., says its officers are taught "that there are two kinds of errors police can make on the street. One is not being aggressive when they should be, and the other is being aggressive when they shouldn't." The message the cops get, says Katz, is that they should err on the side of aggressiveness. And although Gates can't be held responsible...
...Yeltsin could win a popular mandate that would enable him to mount a stronger challenge than ever to Gorbachev. The central government has announced that it will not take no for an answer; if any republic returns a negative majority, it still would not be permitted to secede. Radical sociologist Boris Grushin writes that the referendum could begin "a balancing act on the brink of civil...
...effects that it accomplishes in France. In the mid-1960s, some Frenchmen wondered if the Americans would ever make it to the moon if they insisted on calculating distances in feet and inches. Americans were considered "les grands enfants," powerful but childish. Not long ago, a University of Tours sociologist named Jean-Pierre Sergent argued that Americans would not go to war in the Persian Gulf because they cannot face reality, only simulated versions of it. Now, after the battle, a writer named Jean d'Ormesson allows that Bush, an apparent "simpleton . . . has revealed himself, to almost universal surprise...