Summary
"Policing in Germany has been discussed in the literature from organizational and historical perspectives, but little is currently available to the Anglophone reader regarding the daily work practices of German police officers. This qualitative perspective on policing in Munich utilized participant-observation as the primary data-gathering method. Officers were observed while on patrol for a period of six-and-a-half months, with the author occasionally engaging in significant participation. Symbolic interactionism, and particularly Goffman's "frame analysis", provide the theoretical standpoints from which discrete events are analyzed. Although narratives are constructed around varying encounters, five particular frames reflecting police response categories are analyzed from both cultural and communicative aspects. Throughout the text there is also a comparative structure in place utilizing earlier fieldwork undertaken with the Ottawa police. The five analytical frames were therefore chosen because of either their complete similarity to Canadian policing (like traffic accidents), or their complete dissimilarity (for example,"beleidigung" which essentially means 'insult'). ... Communication strategies also become an important connective tissue to the cultural levels that are implicated. Policing relies fundamentally on the spoken word and non-verbal cues to resolve conflict far more often than physical intervention. The blend of communicative practices with multiple levels of cultural expectation create a picture of German policing that displays both similarities and differences when compared to the Canadian context."--Abstract.