I’m not sure I get where you’re coming from here. Maybe you think that the title is meant to imply that other explanations for why police commit domestic violence (ready access to firearms, the power and impunity they have as officers) are irrelevant.

I didn’t mean to dismiss those explanations. I cited them. I just wanted to highlight something else in the academic literature that’s often overlooked, which is how police personality is shaped and conditioned by the work that they do.

I wrote this because I think there needed to be an article about the subject rooted in an abolitionist framework. Most pieces on domestic violence in policing focus on “fixing” the police so they can go on doing their jobs, i.e. coercion and oppression of the poor on behalf of the propertied class.

As I pointed out, the thesis presented in most discussions of the issue is “job stress + lack of accountability + power imbalances.” These explanations in media tend to highlight police sources and reform think tanks. My argument is that the actual explanation is “authoritarian and violent working personality+ lack of accountability + power imbalances.”