Egon Bittner, was born in Czechoslovakia and emigrated to the United States after World War II. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Los Angeles. He held the Harry Coplan Professorship in the Social Sciences and was chair of the sociology department at Brandeis University

Brandeis University

Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...

. He is known for his ground breaking studies of the relationships between police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

 and society

Society

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

.

His most notable work is The Functions of the Police in Modern Society (1970), in which he argues that police are defined by their capacity to use force. Other significant works include
Aspects of Police Work (1970),The Capacity to Use Force as the Core of the Police Role (1985), Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...

 in Pursuit of Willie Sutton

Willie Sutton

William "Willie" Sutton was a prolific U.S. bank robber. During his forty-year criminal career he stole an estimated $2 million, and eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison...

: A Theory of the Police (1974), and The Police on Skid Row

Skid row

A skid row or skid road is a run-down or dilapidated urban area with a large, impoverished population. The term originally referred literally to a path along which working men skidded logs. Its current sense appears to have originated in the Pacific Northwest...

 (1967). The latter first presented police discretion as a necessary and positive police attribute. The latter was featured by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) as "The Week's Citation Classic" on March 30, 1987.

Bittner's contributions to police scholarship earned him the Police Executive Research Forum

Police Executive Research Forum

The Police Executive Research Forum is a national membership organization of police executives from the largest city, county and state law enforcement agencies, primarily in the United States. The organization is dedicated to improving policing and advancing professionalism through research and...

's 1998 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

• The concept of organization. Social Research,32(3), 1965. *J.-P. Brodeur. An Encounter with Egon Bittner. Crime, Law and Social Change, 2007, 48(3-5), 105-132.
• Police discretion in emergency apprehension of mentally ill persons. Social Problems, 1967, 14, 278-292.

External links

• Egon Bittner Award