The Study Of "Soft Violence" Behavior In On-site Law Enforcement

In the process of on-site law enforcement,police often encounter situations of refusing to cooperate,such as actions of insulting the police or conducting crazy moves to interfere the law enforcement.These acts may not be regarded violent and usually do not directly harm the police officer,but seriously disturb the law enforcement process and often cause misunderstanding of the situation and thus damage the public image of the police.Regarding to these type of “non-violent disruption of law enforcement”,the author hereby call it “soft violence behavior” in the thesis.Understanding the “soft violence behavior” is the key for solving this problem.The "soft violence behavior" can be characterized from three measurements: the definition of "soft violence",typical types of “soft violence” behaviors,and constituting violation of public order.Therefore,"soft violence behavior" is an illegal behavior that the perpetrator artificially resists law enforcement through actions of verbally provoking and insulting,passive confrontation,and other actions without physical contact with the police officer.The behavior causes mental pressure to the police officer and disrupt the order of on-site law enforcement.China’s laws do have provisions for dealing with insults and slander actions that obstruct police officers from performing their duties in accordance with the law,but police officers are still caught in the dilemma of "unable to comply with the law" and "unable to take actions" when dealing with such problems at law enforcement sites.This thesis conducted a field study in police station B of city Q.Through interviews,the author found that the risks of uncertainty in law enforcement,the high-pressure working mode of public department,the tension of law enforcement under the "citizens’ eyes",and the generalization of accountability make police officers have concerns when dealing with "soft violence behaviors" against them.The reasons for the emergence of "soft violence behaviors" against police are many.For example,vague legal provisions,poor operational feasibility,misleading media reports and comments from public influencers,citizens’ lack of awareness of their rights,inadequate police system guarantees,and the improper law enforcement actions of some police officers.In this thesis,the author studied the way of solving the current "soft violence behavior" against police:from the legal perspective,further improve the “punishment ladder” legislation to balance regulations towards illegal behaviors and crimes;from the perspective of police department,more efforts should be made to defend the rights of police officers when encountering “soft violence behaviors”,a moderate fault tolerance mechanism should be established and timely public opinion guidance and media publicity are needed;for law enforcement officers,training on the standardization of law enforcement and the use of law enforcement language should be conducted regularly,and psychological guidance for police officers who are subjected to "soft violence behaviors" should be strengthened.Through the above-mentioned approaches together,we expect to ensure the smooth implementation of law enforcement activities.