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.

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.

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.

scholarly journals Police Use of Body-Worn Cameras: Challenges of Visibility, Procedural Justice, and Legitimacy

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 305-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ermus St. Louis ◽  
Alana Saulnier ◽  
Kevin Walby
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Democracy ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
Community Police ◽  
Accountability Mechanism

Recent controversies over police use of force in the United States of America have placed a spotlight on police in Western nations. Concerns that police conduct is racist and procedurally unjust have generated public sentiments that accountability must be externally imposed on police. One such accountability mechanism is body-worn cameras (BWCs). Optimistic accounts of BWCs suggest that the technology will contribute to the improvement of community–police relations. However, BWCs address consequences, not causes, of poor community–police relations. We argue that the evolving visibility of police associated with BWCs is double-edged, and suggest that the adoption of surveillance technologies such as BWCs in the quest to improve community–police relations will fail without a simultaneous commitment to inclusionary policing practices (such as community policing strategies, community and social development, and local democracy). We outline two initiatives that optimize BWCs by promoting these simultaneous commitments.

Beyond the final report

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Terrill ◽  
Eugene A. Paoline III ◽  
Jason Robert Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
College Education ◽  
Police Culture ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Administrative Policy ◽  
National Institute Of Justice ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
Additional Value

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of key findings from research published from the Assessing Police Use of Force Policy and Outcomes study, a project funded by the National Institute of Justice. Design/methodology/approach Key findings from a national survey of police agencies on use of force policy and from an in-depth look at police use of force outcomes across eight cities published over the last ten years are synthesized to provide a cumulative perspective regarding the outcomes of the project. Findings The majority of police departments had a written force policy and reporting requirements, however, there was no commonly accepted force policy. Patrol officers were conservative in their views of what is reasonable force, administrative policy does matter in influencing force usage, and the use of a TASER impacted the likelihood of injury for both officers and citizens. Additional findings were also reviewed in the areas of complaints, police culture, first-line supervision, college education, and promotional aspirations. Originality/value While federal funding for policing related research projects are commonplace, taking a look back ten years later and summarizing key findings is uncommon. Doing so provides concise feedback to practitioners in one readily digestible manuscript. Furthermore, the paper also demonstrates the additional value to the original investment made by the National Institute of Justice.

National Data on Citizen Complaints About Police Use of Force

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 455-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Hickman ◽  
Jane E. Poore
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
National Data ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
Citizen Complaints

scholarly journals Social Interaction Training to Reduce Police Use of Force

2020 ◽  
Vol 687 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Wolfe ◽  
Jeff Rojek ◽  
Kyle McLean ◽  
Geoffrey Alpert
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Randomized Trial ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Police Training ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
Police Agencies ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Practice Framework ◽  
Social Interaction Skills

Controversial incidents involving uses of force by police in recent years have led to calls for improving officers’ de-escalation skills. A more fruitful approach to police training reform may be a broader focus on improving officers’ social interaction skills. By viewing all police-citizen encounters as social interactions that can either escalate toward or de-escalate away from the use of force, police training can develop what other fields call a “deliberate, repetitive practice” framework. This article describes the implementation of a randomized trial that brought such training to two U.S. police agencies and yielded encouraging results. We conclude that the conceptual framework was generally well received but that results depended heavily on the selection and performance of each agency’s own trainers.

scholarly journals The Law on Police Use of Force in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 1526-1540
Author(s):  
Brandon Garrett ◽  
Christopher Slobogin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Fourth Amendment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Deadly Force ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Impact

AbstractRecent events in the United States have highlighted the fact that American police resort to force, including deadly force, much more often than in many other Western countries. This Article describes how the current regulatory regime may ignore or even facilitate these aggressive police actions. The law governing police use of force in the United States derives in large part from the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. As construed by the United States Supreme Court, the Fourth Amendment provides police wide leeway in using deadly force, making custodial arrests, and stopping and frisking individuals. While state and local police departments can develop more restrictive rules, they often do not. Additionally, the remedies for violations of these rules are weak. The predominant remedy is exclusion of evidence, the impact of which falls primarily on the prosecutor and in any event only has a deterrent effect when evidence is sought. Civil and criminal sanctions have been significantly limited by the Supreme Court, particularly through the doctrine of qualified immunity (applied to individual officers) and the policy or custom defense (applied to municipalities). This minimal regulatory regime is one reason police-citizen encounters in the United States so often result in death or serious bodily harm to citizens, in particular those who are Black. The Article ends with a number of reform proposals.

The Marriage Paradox

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Willoughby ◽  
Spencer L. James
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Emerging Adults ◽  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mixed Method Study ◽  
National Data ◽  
The Media ◽  
National Trends

This book explores one of the more puzzling findings in modern young adulthood. Most emerging adults report they value marriage highly, yet more and more of them are delaying and appear to be avoiding marriage. Using a mixture of national data and a mixed-method study of middle-class emerging adults from the Midwest, the book explores why this paradox might exist. Using interview data, the authors weave stories of real emerging adults into their narrative to provide illustrative examples of the concepts and themes being discussed. National data are provided to connect themes to national trends in the United States. Within the book, the authors explore how the context of emerging adulthood influences this paradox as well as the specific paradoxes being created around emerging adults’ beliefs regarding the timing of marriage, its importance, and how emerging adults seek potential spouses. Finally, the authors explore how factors such as parents, religion, and the media have all helped create many of these paradoxes before giving suggestions for how some of these paradoxes might be resolved.

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