ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the related issues of police violence, terror and the abuse of human rights. The liberal view of policing conceives of police actions as contextualised by the rule of law. Police intervention and the use of force are justified both by the legitimacy of such actions in a legal sense and by the political legitimacy of a consensual social order. Much of the traditional literature on policing considers police violence within a limited institutional context. Explanations for violence tend to revolve around situational factors which confront police and therefore tend to individualise the violence, or they consider the social context through analysis of the subculture and social behaviour of either the victim of violence and the police officer. The most extensive consideration of violence against Indigenous people occurred with the National Inquiry into Racist Violence. The interviews with Indigenous young people revealed two particular situational factors underpinning police violence.
