“THOSE WHO WOULD CONTROL IT TO THEIR OWN ENDS”: POLICE-COMMUNITY RELATIONS IN SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA 1960-1970

Abstract

During the 1960s, communities of color challenged the free exercise of police discretion and demanded transparency and accountability. Their actions become cornerstones of citizen complaints against the police. In reaction, rank-and-file police officers began to advocate a platform that allowed them to act as their own interest group to counter what they viewed as attacks on their autonomy. In San Jose, California, rank-and-file officers formed the San Jose Peace Officers Association to act as their vehicle in local politics. This thesis explores the relationship between police and community in San Jose, paying particular attention to the role of the organizational culture cultivated in the pages the association’s weekly bulletin and its impact on efforts to improve police-community relations between 1960 and 1970. The polemical framework constructed by association leadership ultimately prevented the improvement of police-community relations, galvanized community commitment to the struggle for justice, politicized police conduct in the city of San José, and laid the foundation for an urban social conflict that has spanned decades.