The Danger Imperative - by Michael Sierra-Arévalo

About the Book

With unprecedented access to three police departments and drawing on more than 100 interviews and 1,000 hours on patrol, The Danger Imperative provides vital insight into how police culture shapes officers' perception and practice of violence.

Book Synopsis

Policing is violent. And its violence is not distributed equally: stark racial disparities persist despite decades of efforts to address them. Amid public outcry and an ongoing crisis of police legitimacy, there is pressing need to understand not only how police perceive and use violence but also why.

With unprecedented access to three police departments and drawing on more than 100 interviews and 1,000 hours on patrol, The Danger Imperative provides vital insight into how police culture shapes officers' perception and practice of violence. From the front seat of a patrol car, it shows how the institution of policing reinforces a cultural preoccupation with violence through academy training, departmental routines, powerful symbols, and officers' street-level behavior.

This violence-centric culture makes no explicit mention of race, relying on the colorblind language of "threat" and "officer safety." Nonetheless, existing patterns of systemic disadvantage funnel police hyperfocused on survival into poor minority neighborhoods. Without requiring individual bigotry, this combination of social structure, culture, and behavior perpetuates enduring inequalities in police violence.

A trailblazing, on-the-ground account of modern policing, this book shows that violence is the logical consequence of an institutional culture that privileges officer survival over public safety.

Review Quotes

This evenhanded, well written account will appeal to readers interested in public safety. The book benefits from interior photos of police stations and training materials.-- "Library Journal (starred review)"

Michael Sierra-Arévalo has brought a new level of scientific rigor to the study of policing. His research documents how a relentless focus on danger is reinforced through training, channels of information sharing, and institutional practices that provide a constant reminder of the threat posed by every person with whom an officer interacts. The danger imperative dominates policing and helps explain why the institution is so resistant to meaningful reforms.--Patrick Sharkey, author of Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence

The Danger Imperative showcases how danger becomes routinized as an organizing principle of policing through training and the day-to-day practices of officers. Sierra-Arévalo convincingly captures the heart of policing as an institution, and we are left with an understanding of why current proposals for reforming the police often overlook the heart of the problem. The significance of this contribution cannot be overstated.--Brittany Friedman, University of Southern California

Based on rigorous observation and insightful analysis across three police departments, The Danger Imperative is a sobering journey into the "soul" of U.S. public law enforcement--one that reveals police violence not as the product of "bad apples" but as an expected outcome born out of an organizational fixation on death and danger. Carefully attending to police culture on its own terms without losing sight of the broader inequalities that policing reflects and reproduces, Sierra-Arévalo reveals the largely obscured and unappreciated stamp of the "danger imperative" in the everyday rituals of policing as it amplifies officers' fears of vulnerability, exacerbates the perceived likelihood of violence, and crowds out other orientations toward policing. Necessary and troubling, The Danger Imperative shifts the conversation from how police make violence to how violence makes police--and in doing so, invites us to reimagine the relationship between officer safety and public safety in ways that move beyond superficial reforms--and encourages us to rethink our own investment in the danger imperative.--Jennifer Carlson, author of Merchants of the Right: Gun Sellers and the Crisis of American Democracy

From the first day at the academy to the last call at the retirement banquet, a preoccupation with violence and survival runs like a blue thread through American policing. With painstaking research and firsthand observation, Sierra-Arévalo brilliantly traces this "danger imperative" in police training, operations, and seldom seen rituals. A masterful contribution, from its harrowing opening pages to its clear-eyed conclusion.--Christopher Uggen, coauthor of Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy

Michael Sierra-Arévalo compellingly narrates and deconstructs one of the most powerful public beliefs about American policing today: that it is uniquely dangerous and should thus be inoculated from criticism and real change. Beautifully written and rigorously researched, The Danger Imperative should transform how we understand policing at its core.--Monica C. Bell, Yale Law School

Michael Sierra-Arévalo has written an important book that helps us understand why policing in America can be so violent. From academy training to the roll call of the morning shift to the remembrance of fallen officers, police are taught to live in a world filled with mortal danger, even at times when no danger exists. By looking closely at the working lives of patrol officers and rejecting simple tropes of heroes or villains, The Danger Imperative explains why the institution that is charged with keeping us safe can also cause so much harm.--Bruce Western, author of Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison

This clear-eyed analysis lays bare how the "danger imperative"--the preoccupation with violence and the presumption of threat--shapes police culture and guides everyday interactions between police and everyone else. Sierra-Arévalo offers a sophisticated understanding of police officer decision making and how the police institution promotes particular behaviors. This important and timely book should be on the shelves of anyone interested in understanding policing in this country.--Reuben Jonathan Miller, author of Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration

Through deep immersion in the worlds of police, Sierra-Arévalo shows how policing continually re-creates a worldview of acute danger in every civilian encounter. From this sense of constant threat comes a justifying ideology that privileges the possibility of violence toward the policed--sometimes preemptive and often racialized--to ensure officer survival. The Danger Imperative skillfully locates officers and the public within the institutional and social worlds of policing and reveals the situated exchanges that sustain officers' fear and justify their practices. This remarkable book should be read and taught in criminology and sociology and, importantly, throughout the police profession.--Jeffrey Fagan, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Violence against the police is at a historic low, and it is hard to find evidence of a "war on cops." Indeed, police work is usually routine and uneventful. But in this powerful ethnography, Sierra-Arévalo shows us how police departments create a culture where "officer safety" is the organizing principle--the "soul"--of police work. Clearly written and nuanced, The Danger Imperative should be read by anyone concerned with policing today.--Annette Lareau, author of Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life

About the Author

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.