Egon Bittner

Egon Bittner (April 16, 1921 – May 7, 2011) was an American sociologist who made groundbreaking contributions to the sociology of policing. He was born into a Jewish family in Skřečoň, a village in Silesia, an historically much-disputed part of Czechoslovakia, now in the Czech Republic. He died in the Bay Area of San Francisco, leaving a wife, Jean (Szeina Blacharowicz) and two children, Debora Seys and Tom Bittner.

Early life

In 1939 Bittner worked as a reporter for a small newspaper in Kraków in the south of Poland. In the September of that year, Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic and the Soviet Union. The invasion marked the beginning of World War II and inaugurated the Holocaust. As a Jew, and along with his future wife and her two sisters, Bittner was arrested and incarcerated for the whole of the war. He later attributed his survived of concentration camp life to his belief that the SS officers under whom he worked valued his practical skills.

Education and academic career

Bitttner emigrated to the Los Angeles area in the United States in 1949. Shortly afterwards he married and became a naturalized American citizen. His initial interests in sociology related to phenomenology and ethnomethodology, which led to him undertaking with Donald Cressey a Ph.D. in the University of California at Los Angeles. He began his teaching career in its Riverside campus. Afterwards, from 1963 to 1968, he taught at the University of California Medical School.

In the late 1960s, Bittner joined Brandeis University. While there he held the Harry Coplan Professorship in the Social Sciences, he was chair of the sociology department and supervised the dissertation of Nancy J. Chodorow. Bittner is known for his ground breaking studies of the relationships between police and society.

Bittner's most notable work is his book The Functions of the Police in Modern Society (1970), in which he argued that police are defined by their capacity to use force. Other significant works include his two articles The Police on Skid Row (1967) and Florence Nightingale in Pursuit of Willie Sutton: A Theory of the Police (1974), The Capacity to Use Force as the Core of the Police Role (1985), and his book Aspects of Police Work (1990).

Bittner's revision of his 1982 presidential address to the Society for the Study of Social Problems was published in 1983 as 'Technique and the conduct of life'.

In 1998, Bittner's contributions to police scholarship earned him the Police Executive Research Forum's Leadership Award.

The Bittner Award is in honor of Egon Bittner and is presented by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) to chief executive officers in recognition of their distinguished service in law enforcement and their leadership of an agency accredited by CALEA for fifteen continuous years.

Selected publications

Articles

• Bittner, Egon (1963). "Radicalism and the organization of radical movements". American Sociological Review. 28 (6): 928-940. doi:10.2307/2090312.
• —— (1965). "The concept of organization". Social Research. 32 (3): 239-255. Retrieved 22 September 2024.
• —— (1967). "Police discretion in emergency apprehension of mentally ill persons". Social Problem. 14 (3): 278-292.
• —— (1967). "The police on skid-row: A study of peace keeping". American Sociological Review. 32 (5): 699-715. Retrieved 22 September 2024.
• —— (1968). "The structure of psychiatric influence". Mental Hygiene. 52 (3): 423-430.
• —— (1974). "Florence Nightingale in pursuit of Willie Sutton: A theory of the police". The Potential for Reform of Criminal Justice. 3 (1): 233-268.
• —— (1983). "Technique and the conduct of life". Social Problems. 30 (3): 249-261.

Miscellaneous

• Bittner, Egon (1985). "The capacity to use force as the core of the police role". In Elliston, Frederick A.; Feldberg, Michael (eds.). Moral issues in police work. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld. ISBN 0-8476-7191-7. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
• Bittner, Egon (1968). "Radicalism". In Sills, David L. (ed.). International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol. 13. New York: The Macmillan Company & The Free Press. pp. 294–300. Retrieved 27 September 2024.

Books

• Bittner, Egon (November 1970). The functions of the police in modern society. Chevy Chase, Maryland: Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency, Institute of Mental Health. Retrieved 22 September 2024.
• —— (1990). Aspects of police work. Boston: Northeastern University Press. ISBN 1-55553-069-9. Retrieved 22 September 2024.

Further reading

• Brodeur, Jean-Paul (2007). "An encounter with Egon Bittner". Crime, Law and Social Change. 48: 105-132. doi:10.1007/s10611-007-9084-2.
• Button, Graham (2013). "Meeting Egon Bittner in 1974 and some thoughts about organisations". Ethnographic Studies. 13: 30-32. doi:10.5449/idslu-001091479. ISSN 1366-4964.
• Carlin, A.P.; Slack, R.S. (2013). "Egon Bittner: Approaching Explications". Ethnographic Studies. 13 (1): 1-17. doi:10.5449/idslu-001091476.
• Carlin, Andrew P.; Slack, Roger S. (2013). "Egon Bittner: Select Bibliography". Ethnographic Studies. 13: 105-114. doi:10.5449/idslu-001091495. ISSN 1366-4964.
• Cicourel, Aaron V. (2013). "Remembering Egon Bittner". Ethnographic Studies. 13. doi:10.5449/idslu-001091481. ISSN 1366-4964.
• Jennings, Wesley G. (2014). "Egon Bittner". In Miller, J. Mitchell (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Theoretical Criminology. Vol. 1 A-K. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 61–64.
• Manning, Peter K. (2013). "The work of Egon Bittner". Ethnographic Studies. 13: 51-66. doi:10.5449/idslu-001091487. ISSN 1366-4964.
• Meehan, Albert J. (2018). "Egon Bittner and the Language Practices of the Police". Ethnographic Studies. 15: 159-188. doi:10.5449/idslu-001091487. ISSN 1366-4964.
• Miller, J. Mitchell (2007). "Egon Bittner". In Greene, Jack R. (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Police Science. Vol. 1 A-I (Third ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 92–93. ISBN 0-415-97000-8.