TY - JOUR AU - Moreau de Bellaing, Cédric PY - 2021/07/20 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - The State, a Police Matter? What the Work of Internal Police Oversight Agencies Teaches Us about the State JF - SocietàMutamentoPolitica JA - smp VL - 12 IS - 23 SE - Articles DO - 10.36253/smp-13001 UR - https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/smp/article/view/13001 SP - 113-122 AB - <p class="p1">The stateness of the police institution is often assumed by social scientists. This article attempts to show that making that stateness uncertain may contribute to a renewal of the sociology of the State. Based on a fieldwork led on a French police internal affairs device, this article shows that its investigations concerning acts of violence and acts of what we will call “misuse of police authority” uncover the boundaries of <span class="s1">police discretion</span>. The analysis of the distribution of sanctions by police internal affairs units permits the author to explore a sociology of <span class="s1">trials in the State</span>, that is to say of moments in which police stateness is experienced.</p> ER -