The symbolic interaction theory was developed by scholarly theorists such as Cooley (1902) and Mead (1934, 1938). The most important theorist of the symbolic interaction theory is George Herbert Mead. Aksan, Kisac, Aydin and Demirbuken (2009:902) state that the symbolic interaction theory “examines the meanings emerging from the mutual interaction of individuals in [a] social environment with other individuals”. In line with the current study, the symbolic interaction theory emphasises that the meanings attached to the events of police torture and assault by police officers emerge as a result of the interaction of police officers with suspects. Therefore, it is theorised that the activities of the police and suspects occur predominately in response to one another or in relation to one another.
Kruger (1999:92) contends that symbolic interactionism is a social theory of philosophy that rests on four assumptions, namely that:
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(a) people [re]act towards all things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them;
(b) those meanings are produced through social interaction between people in society;
(c) mutual role-taking is the mechanism of all social interaction and communication;
(d) the meanings of things are interpreted and modified by the individual person.
The discussion of this theory in relation to police behaviour resulting in torture and assault rests on these assumptions. Stryker (1959:113) expresses that humans do not respond to the environment as physically given, but to an environment as it is mediated through symbols such as facial expressions, words, gestures, sounds and actions, and that these symbols entail a plan of action, and they function in completing acts by reflecting the interests from which the acts stem. Blumer (1986) focuses on gestures as one of the symbols and provides the example that a gesture can be shaking of a fist as an indication of a possible attack. In the context of police torture and assault, a suspect may shake a fist at a police officer which, according to Beek and Gorfert (2012), signals a suspect’s intended violence towards the police, and the police may then respond with acts of torture or assault.
Stryker (1959:113) argues that the individual who is the appropriate object does not "stand still when the two individuals interact but he, too, acts with reference to the first actor because people are active participants instead of being acted upon”. In a case where a police officer initiates the interaction, a suspect as the appropriate object acts in response to police signals – i.e., based on the actions (or signals) of a police officer as the first actor when they cross paths.
However, along the way in their interaction, a police officer may become the appropriate object that acts towards the actions (or signals) of the suspect. The interaction between the two (opposing) groups is therefore a social process in which people exchange symbols (Mead, 1938) that lead to particular responses.
Blumer (1986) further explains that gestures convey to the person who recognizes them an idea or intention of forthcoming action by the individual who makes these gestures. The person who then responds to these gestures organizes his/her response on the basis of what the gestures mean to him/her. This therefore means that, before a police officer acts or responds to a gesture made by a suspect (e.g., resisting an arrest or refusing to provide information), police officers must define the situation; that is, represent it to themselves in symbolic terms. Stryker (1959) terms the products of this defining behaviour as "definitions of the situations”. The definition of the situation is derived from the gesture presented by the suspect that serves as an indication or sign of what the suspect is planning to do (e.g., fleeing the scene) as well as what he/she
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wants the respondent (i.e., the police officer) to do or understand. The response of a police officer to the gestures of a suspect may be torture or assault based on the meaning or definition that the police officer attaches to the situation.
Thus, gestures have meaning for both the person who makes them and for the person at whom they are directed. Mead (1938) suggests a triadic nature of the meaning of gestures as they signify:
(a) what the person to whom they are directed is to do;
(b) what the person who is making the gesture plans to do; and
(c) the joint actions that are to arise by the articulation of the acts of both.
Stryker (1959:113) states that the human being is an actor as well as reactor and that, in this context, “symbols provide a basis for adjusting our activity before that later behaviour has occurred since [sic] they function in the context of the act in place of that which they symbolize, organize behaviour with reference to that which is symbolized [all sic]”. In this way, the meaning that is attached to the gesture of the suspect which serves to symbolise the context of the act changes the behaviour that the police officer intends to do before the suspect behaved in a particular manner. For instance, the suspect may shake a fist (Blumer, 1986) as an indication of a possible attack. Therefore, social interaction between the police and the suspect shapes police conduct. Blumer (1986) states that social interaction is not just a means or a setting for the expression or release of human conduct, but it forms conduct.
Blumer (1986:8) also states that “the actions of other enter to set what one plans to do [sic], may oppose or prevent such plans, may require a revision of such plans, and may demand a very different set of such plans…one has to fit one’s own line of activity in some manner to the actions of others”. This is possible through the process of assuming the perspective of the other and then directing oneself accordingly, which is regarded in symbolic interactionism as a centrally important human process (Kruger, 1999). It may therefore be argued that this is how police conduct of torture and assault is formed. A police officer acts towards the suspect on the basis of the meanings that the suspect has for him/her, which may include everything that a police officer may note in his occupational setting. As Aksan et al. (2009:903) state, “meaning is created as a result of the interaction between people, and meaning allows people to produce some of the facts forming the sensory world”. In cases of torture and assault, the meaning that
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the police attach to the actions of a suspect results in the use of excessive force, abuse of authority and power of arrest by the police.
However, Kruger (1999) states that the meaning of things is interpreted and modified by the individual person. This means the meaning attached to suspects are modified through an interpretative process used by the police officer in dealing with the suspects that he comes across in the execution of his duties. For instance, through their interaction with suspects in a particular situation, the police may adopt the belief that a certain amount of violence is necessary to protect themselves. According to Simmons (2010:386), this belief is based on the assumption that the occupational surrounding of the police, where they interact with suspects, exposes them to potential dangers or physical harm as they work on the streets and they face the harsh reality that they may be killed or injured in the line of duty (Steyn & Meyer, 2007).
Hence, Blumer (1986:8) states that “human beings in interacting with one another have to take account of what each other is doing or is about to do; they are forced to direct their own conduct or handle their situations in terms of what they take into account”. In this way, the behaviour of suspects may play a role in the formation of police conduct or behaviour towards them, irrespective of whether it results in acceptable or unacceptable behaviour.
Furthermore, Stryker (1959:113) states that “an object becomes a stimulus when it serves to link impulses with satisfaction”. For instance, by interacting with the police, a suspect links the desire of the police to arrest him or to obtain crucial information from him with the fulfilment of the expectation that the information will lead to the conviction of the perpetrators, and therefore, to oppose this desire, the suspect may refuse to comply. In this context Schiemann (2012:4) argues that a police officer may then torture a detainee (detainee is a stimulus) who fails to provide valuable information (impulse – the need to get information) in cases where innocent lives are threatened (police’s satisfaction rely on the safety of the lives in danger). In this case, according to Stryker (1959:112), the human being does not simply respond to stimuli occurring outside himself, but to a stimulus that depends on the activity in which the organism is engaged. Aksan et al. (2009) highlight three assumptions of the symbolic interaction theory (see Table 3.1).
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Table 3.1: Assumptions of the Symbolic Interaction Theory in Relation to Torture and Assault
Source: Adapted from Aksan, Kisac, Aydin and Demirbuken (2009:903).
In summary, police officers engage in social interaction with suspects and these interactions occur characteristically and predominantly on a symbolic level, which means that, as the police and suspects encounter one another, they are inevitably required to take account of the actions of one another as each of them devises their own gestures and actions. These gestures and actions occur as a two-way process as one indicates to the other how to interpret and then act on the signals sent by the other.