ABSTRACT
Police patrol work is commonly perceived to be a dangerous undertaking, principally because it involves contact with potential and actual offenders. However, although the potential for officers to experience confrontation in their daily activities is certainly high, officers are only rarely assaulted, and full compliance by suspects to officers’ requests or no contact at all with potential offenders are much more frequent outcomes (Wilson & Brewer, 1991). This is not to negate the fact that officers sometimes are placed in dangerous situations in which a conflict escalates to the point where injury is sustained by police, suspect, and/or bystander. By attempting to develop an understanding of the variables that distinguish these dangerous encounters from the more frequently occurring benign interactions, risk to both officers and the public can be minimized.
