Author(s)

Pp. Rutherford Johnson

University of Minnesota Crookston, Crookston, Minnesota, USA.

Negative police-public interactions in the United States and around the world raise legitimate concerns about human rights, public safety, and negative externalities that directly impact on UN Sustainable Development Goals 1 (No Poverty), 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and 16 (Peace, Justice, and Stronger Institutions). These interactions can be in the form of unnecessary or avoidable arrests, unpleasant vocal exchanges, physical violence, and even lethal force. Such events have happened in the United States and in other countries to a level that has caused concern both in government and in the public. These negative interactions can both exacerbate and stem from inequalities and act against both true justice and local peace, as well as easily weaken valuable institutions. In order to gain insight for the purpose of improving these aspects of social sustainability, such negative police-public interactions can be conceptualised by mechanisms of strategic interaction and subconscious games. That conceptual framework can provide underlying justification for a pathway to improvement. This study applies a multipoint gravitational model as a model of influence, and considers the presence of subconscious games in the style of Eric Berne and their impact on strategic interaction. The study then subdivides the police, government, and public into several logical categories regarding attitudes and opinions and associated decision strategy regarding negative police-public interaction, and models them according to Choice Waves within the framework of the Theory of Economic Parallel Rationality. That is then used to propose a mechanism for reducing and potentially eliminating negative police-public interactions and provide mathematical, statistical, and logical justification for improvement pathways. The current apparent misalignment of incentives identified in the study will continue to provide a significant challenge to overcome. The result of not doing so, however, is a continued cost to peace, true justice, and strength of institutions. This study’s ultimate purpose is to apply strategic decision analysis to help reduce violence and other forms of negative results during interactions between the police and the public.

Police Violence, Decision Strategy, Strategic Analysis, Parallel Rationality, Choice Wave

Rutherford Johnson, P. (2021) Improving Police-Public Conflict Resolution to Improve Sustainability Decision Strategy. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, 9, 570-595. doi: 10.4236/jhrss.2021.94036.