Phenomenological Analysis of Police Officers’Experience of Citizens’ Activist Violence in Sanandaj

Ensuring public security is always associated with the emergence of mutual violent assaults between police and citizens, during which police officers often face citizens’ behavioral-activist violence. The present research aims to phenomenologically analyze police officers’ experiences of citizens’ activist violence, emphasizing the geography of the city of Sanandaj in Kurdistan Province. 

The present study was conducted based on a qualitative approach using interpretive phenomenology. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 22 police officers who had lived experiences of violence in the city of Sanandaj. Purposeful sampling was used to select the samples, and then data collection continued based on the criterion of theoretical saturation, ultimately leading to a thematic analysis of the information. 

The findings indicate police officers’ narratives of experienced violence (verbal-psychological and at times physical) as a normalization of rebellion in their lifeworld. Most violence in operational units occurs as a result of verbal-physical encounters between police and citizens. Regarding the factors and contexts of violent assaults, 8 main categories emerged: coercive-aggressive responses to protests and gatherings, enforcement of laws and notification-execution of judicial verdicts, structural violence, and distrust in the police officers and authority of the law, lack of structural support, security atmosphere of the province, media modeling, police officers’ weak communication skills. Concerning the consequences of violence, 6 categories were identified and obtained: continuity of rebellion and escalation of social violence, weakening police authority and its social prestige, breaking the taboo of law violations and increasing crime rate, feelings of helplessness, and weakening of the employees and their families’ psychological spirit, erosion of social capital, and reduction of work efficiency.

The results indicate that the adverse economic-living conditions of the people on one hand, the weaknesses in the communication skills of some officers, the poor performance of the judiciary in handling relevant cases, inadequate organizational training in institutionalizing self-control, failure to publicize police actions, and the unfamiliarity of many officers with local culture, the dominance of a security viewpoint among officers, and delayed response to sensitive situations at the provincial level have had an increasing impact on the behaviors and violent assaults of citizens.