This reminds me of Frank Furedi's work - his basic point is that as people become less empowered, they seek institutionalised solutions to their disagreements rather than sorting it out between themselves - another example might be getting the council involved if your neighbour is noisy rather than fronting up to him - of course all this does is increase the tension between the two parties.

As you say, if the particular institution you get involved is the police, then all you're doing is empowering them to escalate the situation into something more 'formal'.