Police Officers' Conflict Management and Restorative Justice

Generally, citizens call the police when things happen that deviate from normality and (may) lead to all sorts of conflicts. In particular, interpersonal conflicts have to be solved by police officers. Consequently, police officers’ respective conflict resolution activities need to be sustainable and fair to prevent conflicts from new and repeated outbreaks. Restorative justice approaches refer to the idea of sustainable and fair conflict resolution, e.g., by defining principles of restorative justice. However, there is only scarce literature on police officers’ daily conflict resolution. Additionally, there is little literature on the link between conflict resolution by the police and restorative justice. We addressed this topic by conducting an interview study with 12 German police officers examining their view on conflict resolution by the police. We asked them which strategies of conflict resolution were applied, and which obstacles occurred during conflict resolution. Interview data were analyzed using grounded theory methodology. The research shows that police officers use cooperative as well as dominating strategies of conflict resolution. Main obstacles are formal requirements and citizens’ role expectations of the “typical police officer”. Furthermore restorative principles like respectful communication were named as critical conditions for successful conflict resolution. This is the first study to investigate the interplay of police officers’ subjective theory of professional conflict resolution and restorative principles. Study findings can be used for police officers’ conflict management trainings.