TY  - CHAP
AB  - Abstract In this paper on police officers who monitor coffee shops in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, I relate their work to Becker’s moral entrepreneur (1963). Becker describes two categories of moral entrepreneurs: rule creators, such as the crusading reformer, and rule enforcers, for example the police. According to Becker, the rule enforcer is less naïve and more pragmatic than the rule creator. The main question of this paper is: in what respect can the work of the police officers be described as moral entrepreneurship? To answer this question I conducted in-depth interviews with six police officers on the meaning they attach to their duties of monitoring coffee shops. The research shows that police officers take a pragmatic approach, which also contains layers of morality that influence their rule enforcing. For instance, the way they define the character and intentions of the coffee shop managers is decisive in how they act towards them. Another difference is observed in relation to the two interests of the rule enforcer described by Becker. The police officers interviewed did not have to justify their existence and they did not have to gain respect by coercion. This is explained by (a) the routine character of the monitoring, which has created a predictable situation and a modus operandi known to all parties and (b) the criminalization of cannabis in recent years. The effect of this process is that the position of police officers in relation to cannabis sellers is not questioned.
VL  - 44
SN  - 978-1-78441-854-0, 978-1-78441-853-3/0163-2396
DO  - 10.1108/S0163-239620150000044007
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-239620150000044007
AU  - Müller Thaddeus
PY  - 2015
Y1  - 2015/01/01
TI  - Moral Entrepreneurship Revisited: Police Officers Monitoring Cannabis Retailers in Rotterdam, the Netherlands
T2  - Contributions from European Symbolic Interactionists: Reflections on Methods
T3  - Studies in Symbolic Interaction
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 139
EP  - 157
Y2  - 2024/04/25
ER  -