Samantha Simon

Examines police training and recruitment in the U.S., revealing how cadets are socialized into engaging in state-sanctioned violence. Turns the attention away from explanations of police violence that point to officers’ racial biases, the purported necessity of using force in high-crime areas, or inadequate de-escalation training, and instead highlights how police training contributes to violence.

Uses the case of women in policing to examine how organizational diversity initiatives can either alleviate or entrench existing inequalities. Finds that police departments often use women to strengthen the existing masculine culture of policing. Argues that these departments use a framework of essentialized utility, in which essentialized perspectives of minoritized groups—in this case, women—are used to reify organizational inequalities.

Examines how the warrior-guardian framework shapes police training, and highlights how this construct is itself gendered and racialized. Argues that police training is an organized effort to condition officers to conceptualize their relationship with the public as a war.

Explores how police and Black women civilians understand the role of racial diversity in policing. Findings highlight discrepancies in how these two groups frame the utility of racial diversity in policing, revealing conflicting conceptions of race and racism.

Explores how the practice of carrying guns is shaped by both cognitive beliefs about risk and safety and sensory experiences associated with handling firearms. Demonstrates that the need to carry guns involves learned cognitive schemas and embodied sensations of comfort and pleasure, arguing that these practices are not innate but acquired through social processes.