Public expectations expand police duties into social conflicts beyond traditional crime

Evidence

One dimension of service demand is quantitative. Public expectations of and demands for certain public services increase over time. In the case of the police, for example, society expects them to intervene in many more social conflicts-interracial violence, black assaults on blacks, family disputes, juvenile justice-than was the case perhaps forty years ago. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 285

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to the modern discourse on policing as social service — the expansion of police scope the author notes here is the same trajectory critics of police overreach describe today.