ABSTRACT
In the arts and entertainment industries, special role types called “contact men”—agents, talent scouts, and public relations professionals to name a few—are said to have a knack of reading and acquiring talented performing artists and signing them to contracts for the organization. These role types are effective in filtering new products from creative personnel and placing them in the hands of a mass audience by way of the managerial system of the organization. This concept has never been seen as relevant to police operations, but in this chapter I contend it is. Especially under community policing, police officers act as contact persons, sifting through the raw creative (or destructive) potential of the mass of humanity with whom they come into contact, in the production of social order. In this chapter I explain how and under what circumstances modern municipal police officers act like contact persons.
