ABSTRACT
The image of Darth Vader’s storm troopers clad in a protective white shell with superior weaponry is one visual that surfaces at the notion that law enforcement’s primary purpose is not to serve the public, but to suppress it. Absent the uniform and laser-firing weapons, police do serve as the state’s arm of violence to ensure social compliance with the laws and regulations enacted by the governing body. To clarify the terms force and violence, it is expressed to cover the range of actions available to officers from the mere threat of calling the police to applying lethal force and taking someone’s life.
