Aspects of Police Work

Egon Bittner (1921-), a pioneer in the sociology of policing, is widely credited with largely defining the police function, the role of police use of force, and significant principles of law enforcement organization. Bittner's work is widely considered among the earliest academic treatments of law enforcement that moved away from an applied and practitioner orientation to a systematic social science study that largely redefined our understanding of police functions and roles in contemporary society. He received his doctorate from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1961 and subsequently held faculty appointments at a number of universities, including the University of California at Riverside, the University of California Medical School, a social science research appointment at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Francisco, and the position of Harry Copland Professor in the Social Sciences at Brandeis University. He remains affiliated with Brandeis University where he is professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology. He is a past president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and has served as a consultant to many police departments, the Police Foundation, and the Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice.