Accountability and Police Violence: a Research on Accounts to Cope with Excessive Use of Force in Italy

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano Zamperini ◽  
Valentina Siracusa ◽  
Marialuisa Menegatto
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Excessive Use Of Force

scholarly journals Police violence as punishment: Does excessive use of force serve to punish those who threaten status and power hierarchies in society?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica M Gerber ◽  
Ismael Puga ◽  
Cristóbal Moya ◽  
Francisca Gomez Baeza ◽  
Jonathan Jackson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Structural Equation Models ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Perceived Needs ◽  
Legal Punishment ◽  
Excessive Use Of Force

ObjectivesWhy do some people view excessive police violence as acceptable? We reason that excessive police violence not only seeks to control crime, but also to punish criminal offenders. We propose the concept of police violence for punishment and explore its associations with different forms of punishment and punishment motivations. We reason that some people support excessive police violence to reinforce status and power hierarchies with minority groups. MethodWe draw on data from a representative sample of adults living in Chile conducted in 2015 (n=1,302). We use structural equation models to predict support for police violence for punishment, legal and extra-legal violence.ResultsPolice violence for punishment was strongly related to support for extra-legal punishment. Punitive police violence and extra-legal punishment were both predicted by the motivation to restore status and power relationships, followed by deterrence. In contrast, norm restoration was the main predictor of legal punishment. Police violence for punishment was significantly less supported by ethnic minority members. ConclusionsWe conclude that police excessive use of force can usefully be understood as police violence as punishment. We discuss the extent to which police repression is perceived to restore status and power hierarchies threatened by crime. We conclude that reducing police violence requires a political and cultural process well beyond reforming police protocols and procedures. Working towards more horizontal relations between police officers, citizens and minority groups should reduce perceived needs to restore power and status relationships, hereby reducing support for police violence as punishment.

Race, Ambivalent Sexism, and Perceptions of Situations When Police Shoot Black Women

2021 ◽  
pp. 194855062098765
Author(s):  
Jazmin L. Brown-Iannuzzi ◽  
Erin Cooley ◽  
William Cipolli ◽  
Sarita Mehta
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Ambivalent Sexism ◽  
Benevolent Sexism ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Ambiguous Situation ◽  
People’S Attitudes

The current research investigates people’s attitudes toward an ambiguous situation of police violence against a woman suspect. We hypothesize that the suspect’s race and participants’ ambivalent sexism, particularly benevolent sexism, will jointly inform perceptions of the suspect’s femininity, and in turn, perceptions of the suspect’s pain, judgments of who is to blame, and perceptions the officer was justified in using force against the suspect. Across two studies, we found support for our hypotheses: participants who reported more benevolent sexism thought the suspect were more feminine, but this association was only present when the suspect was White, as opposed to Black. Perceived femininity, in turn, predicted perceptions the suspect felt more pain, was less blameworthy for the situation, and perceptions that the officer’s use of force was less justified (Study 2).

scholarly journals Evidentiary video and “Professional Vision” in the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 567-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney H. Jones ◽  
Neville Chi Hang Li
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Professional Vision ◽  
Law Enforcement Officials ◽  
Video Documentation ◽  
Excessive Use Of Force

Abstract The video documentation of police violence against citizens, and the circulation of these videos over mainstream and social media, has played an important part in many contemporary social movements, from the Black Lives Matter Movement in the U.S. to the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. Such videos serve as both evidence of police abuses and discursive artefacts around which viewers build bodies of shared knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about events through engaging in exercises of “collective seeing”. This article analyses the way a video of police officers beating a handcuffed protester, which became an important symbol of the excessive use of force by police during the Occupy Hong Kong protests, was interpreted by different communities, including journalists, protesters, anti-protest groups, and law enforcement officials, and how these collective acts of interpretation served as a means for members of these communities to display group membership and reinforce group norms and ideological values.

scholarly journals A Behavioral Analysis of Two Strategies to Eliminate Racial Bias in Police Use-of-Force

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mychal Machado ◽  
Ashley Lugo
Keyword(s):  
Racial Bias ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
Reform Strategies ◽  
Behavior Analysts ◽  
Excessive Use Of Force

Structural racism is rooted in American social systems that were supposedly designed to promote our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Social systems like policing, for example, are built on a foundation of discriminatory practices designed to disenfranchise Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). One of the most recent visible examples of racially-biased policing is the excessive use-of-force by officers toward BIPOC. In response, advocates, policy makers, and researchers have sought solutions. Police use-of-force reforms such as Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) and Implicit Bias Training (IBT) have become popular and are currently being applied in many police departments across the country. However, evidence supporting the effectiveness of these reform strategies to reduce use-of-force is mixed, and further evaluations are needed to understand why these strategies are purported to be an effective solution. The purpose of the current review is to ignite future empirical evaluations of use-of-force reform. Following a summary of the research conducted to date on BWCs and IBT, we will conclude with a brief discussion of how behavior analysts might improve and foster strategies that are efficacious. Our ultimate goal is to leave the reader with an understanding of where the data have taken us thus far, and how behavior analysts and others can contribute to the reduction and eradication of the discriminatory practices present in policing and other social systems.

scholarly journals A Case Study of Non-Violent Property Crime Victimisation in a South African Urban Residential Neighbourhood: Exploring the Excessive Use of Force and Destruction Caused by Burglars to Gain Entry to Victims' Properties

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 992-1005
Author(s):  
Johan van Graan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Property Crime ◽  
The Body ◽  
Residential Burglary ◽  
Property Crimes ◽  
Excessive Use Of Force ◽  
Gain Access ◽  
Residential Neighbourhood

Commentators frequently report on the high prevalence of violent crime in South Africa and often label the country as one of the most violent in the world, with a subculture of violence and criminality. This paper focuses on a different perspective, reporting on the excessive use of force and destruction caused by offenders in South Africa to gain entry to victims' properties in the execution of non-violent property crimes, in a particular residential burglary. Literature on property crimes has been considering the aggravating circumstances of violent property crimes. However, the use of excessive force and destruction caused by burglars to gain access to victims' properties in the execution of residential burglary remains relatively untested in the literature. In this light, the purpose of this study is to describe the unprecedented levels of force used and destruction caused by burglars to gain access to victims' properties during residential burglary victimisation in an urban residential neighbourhood in Johannesburg, South Africa. A qualitative research approach is followed. A case study design was used to select an urban residential neighbourhood in Johannesburg as a case study. A data set of (n = 1 431) crimes were purposively selected by means of non-probability sampling. Qualitative and quantitative content analysis was used to analyse the data. This paper offers valuable insight into the forceful and destructive conduct of burglars in the selected neighbourhood and contributes to the body of knowledge by providing an improved understanding of target hardening as a preventive measure against residential burglary victimisation as well as on methods of entry used by burglars in incidents of residential burglary. The results of reported non-violent property crime victimisation incidences by this community's neighbourhood watch scheme suggest that residential burglars in the selected neighbourhood are uncharacteristically forceful and ravage in their actions since they frequently revert to extreme use of force and destruction, disproportionate to the crime perpetrated. It is concluded that this radical degree of force used and destruction caused by residential burglars to gain entry to victims' properties in the execution of non-violent property crimes is not typically associated with residential burglary as compared to countries internationally.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document