UNDERCOVER SOCIAL-DISTANCING TECHNIQUES

This article explores the excuses undercover narcotics officers in hig h schools make to maintain social distance (i.e., affective detachment ) from students. Social distance is necessary to prevent students from later claiming in court they were entrapped. Officers used four socia l-distancing techniques, each linked to particular conditions and circ umstances: (1) claims of existing interpersonal attachment, (2) parent al-recrimination excuses, (3) extracurricular-role-obligation excuses, and (4) feigned interest followed by unforeseen-circumstance excuses or appeals to defeasibility. Discussion focuses on the conceptual impo rtance of social-distancing excuses for the sociology of accounts. The data's larger microstructural implications are considered through the notion of attenuated ties. I interviewed 30 undercover officers opera ting out of a large U.S. city.