Improving Police Use of Force: A Policy Essay on National Data Collection

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon M. Shane
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Data ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
Rational Thought ◽  
History Of

Documenting police use of force has been an issue in the United States since at least 1931. As of July 2016, there is still no standardized national data collection effort, despite a call from several presidential and civil rights commissions to do so. Without accurate and timely national data, a moral panic of sorts unfolds that replaces rational thought and debate necessary to enact public policy. Moreover, without such data, it is virtually impossible to estimate the incidence and prevalence of police use of force, which leaves U.S. law enforcement agencies at a tremendous disadvantage for improving practices. This essay briefly examines the history of calls to improve police practices through collecting national use of force data and then offers a practical solution based on rational-technical theory of organizations with a brief analysis of a new promising, but limited, data set. The essay concludes with a proposed research agenda should national data become available through pending legislation H.R. 306, National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act of 2015.

Too Many Missing Cases: Holes in Our Knowledge about Police Use of Force

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 87-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Fyfe
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Order ◽  
National Data ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Existing Data

This paper argues that one of the primary responsibilities of a democracy is to report accurately on how often its own agents kill or injure its citizens. The United States fails this responsibility: there are available to citizens no systematic or meaningful national data describing the frequency and consequences of police use of force in this country. Instead there exist only some local data provided by unrepresentative police agencies or obtained by the media under court order, and some aggregate data and estimates that cannot be linked with specific agencies. The paper reviews existing data and offers suggestions that would provide both citizens and public officials with a clearer picture of the efforts of their police to minimize use of force.

On the Use of Force

PMLA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 132 (2) ◽  
pp. 471-477
Author(s):  
Chester Himes ◽  
Diego A. Millan
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chester Himes ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Race

In the mid-1960s, the United States witnessed increasing social unrest: students led protests against the Vietnam war, and many black Americans expressed disillusionment over piecemeal gains of the civil rights movement. Whereas history remembers the antiwar rallies mostly as protests, official records often code black demonstrations in Boston, Cleveland, Buffalo, and the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles as riots. In response to two so-called riots in Newark, New Jersey, in July 1967, Chester Himes wrote “On the Use of Force” for the 24 July 1967 issue of the weekly Gaullist magazine Le nouveau Candide, where it was published in French translation (French version). The essay, never before published in English, offers timely thoughts concerning police brutality and is sure to be valuable for Himes scholarship, the story of black Americans in Europe, and the history of race and violence.

Challenging the Ordinality of Police Use-of-Force Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 088740342110383
Author(s):  
Scott M. Mourtgos ◽  
Ian T. Adams ◽  
Samuel R. Baty
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Police Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
Physical Force ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Municipal Police ◽  
Force Data

Most use-of-force policies utilized by U.S. police agencies make fundamental ordinal assumptions about officers’ force responses to subject resistance. These policies consist of varying levels of force and resistance along an ordinally ranked continuum of severity. We empirically tested the ordinal assumptions that are ubiquitous to police use-of-force continua within the United States using 1 year’s use-of-force data from a municipal police department. Applying a quantitative technique known as categorical regression with optimal scaling, we found the assumptions of ordinality within the studied department’s use-of-force continuum (which is similar to many police use-of-force continua within the United States) are not met. Specifying physical force as a “lower” force option than less-lethal tools is associated with increased officer injury and decreased subject injury. Our findings call into question use-of-force continua featuring ordinal rankings for varying categories of less-lethal force.

The National Data Center and the Rise of the Data Double

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 627-636
Author(s):  
Dan Bouk
Keyword(s):  
Life Insurance ◽  
Data Center ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
National Data ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Economy

A mid-1960s proposal to create a National Data Center has long been recognized as a turning point in the history of privacy and surveillance. This article shows that the story of the center also demonstrates how bureaucrats and researchers interested in managing the American economy came to value personal data stored as “data doubles,” especially the cards and files generated to represent individuals within the Social Security bureaucracy. The article argues that the United States welfare state, modeled after corporate life insurance, created vast databanks of data doubles that later became attractive to economic researchers and government planners. This story can be understood as helping to usher in our present age of personal data, one in which data doubles have become not only commodities, but the basis for a new capitalism. This essay is part of a special issue entitled Histories of Data and the Database edited by Soraya de Chadarevian and Theodore M. Porter.

Translating Rights into Access: Language Access and the Affordable Care Act

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 348-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Teitelbaum ◽  
Lara Cartwright-Smith ◽  
Sara Rosenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Healthcare Quality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Language Access ◽  
Consent To Treatment ◽  
Diverse Patient Population ◽  
History Of ◽  
Crucial Information ◽  
Nuremberg Trials

More than twenty-four million people in the United States are considered limited English proficient (LEP), and numerous studies have documented the consequences of communication barriers in healthcare. These consequences include: patients’ inability to become engaged and involved in their care; the absence of crucial information—including cultural information—essential to healthcare quality; risks to patient safety arising from the misunderstanding of physician instructions; and ethical and legal lapses stemming from the absence of informed consent. Addressing healthcare rights necessarily entails coming to grips with how to facilitate communication and the exchange of information between the healthcare system and an increasingly diverse patient population.The history of language access services in healthcare is grounded in two distinct bodies of law: the law of informed consent and civil rights law. Modern notions of informed consent law—which have their roots in the Nuremberg trials of the late 1940s—would recognize a cause of action in tort where a lack of adequate communication creates a barrier to an LEP patient's ability to consent to care. In modern healthcare law, the ability of patients to affirmatively give informed consent to treatment is considered a fundamental element of healthcare quality.

Introduction

Troublemakers ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Kathryn Schumaker
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Chicano Movement ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The introductionexplains how and why student protest became common in the United States in the late 1960s and places these protests in the context of shifts in the history of education and in broader social movements, including the civil rights movement, the Chicano Movement, and black power activism. The introduction also situates students’ rights within the context of children’s rights more broadly, explaining the legal principles that justified age discrimination and excluded children and students from the basic protections of American constitutional law. The introduction identifies the two decades between the 1960s and 1980s as a constitutional moment that revolutionized the relationship of students to the state. It also connects students’ rights litigation to the issue of school desegregation and the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-10
Author(s):  
Elaine Allen Lechtreck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Gospel ◽  
Southern States ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Martin Luther King

The introduction includes Bible verses cited by ministers to defend segregation and verses to oppose segregation. There are slices of the history of the United States, the Civil Rights Movement, and African American history. The southern states, where white ministers confronted segregation, are identified. The term “minister” is explained as well as the variety of labels given these ministers ranging from “Liberal,” Progressive,” “Neo-Orthodox,” “Evangelical Liberal,” “open conservative,” ‘Last Hurrah of the Social Gospel Movement” to “Trouble Maker,” “Traitor, “ “Atheist,” “Communist,” “N_____ Lover.” Rachel Henderlite, the only woman minister mentioned in the book, is identified. Synopses of the book’s seven chapters are included. Comments by historians David Chappell, Charles Reagan Wilson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ernest Campbell, and Thomas Pettigrew are cited.

Racial Disproportionalities in Discipline

2016 ◽  
pp. 149-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Chris Curran
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
School Safety ◽  
Zero Tolerance ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Student Safety ◽  
History Of

Student safety represents an important goal for schools; however, policies designed to facilitate school safety may have unintended negative consequences. Zero tolerance policies, those that mandate severe punitive measures, have been widely implemented by school leaders over the last several decades; however, recent research suggests that such policies may contribute to racial disparities in the use of discipline. This chapter reviews the history of zero tolerance policies in schools and, through descriptive analysis of data from the Civil Rights Data Collection of 2011-2012, documents racial disparities in the use of expulsions. Findings suggest that while zero tolerance policies may contribute to such disparities, the racial disparities are more pronounced for non-zero tolerance expulsions. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

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