Evaluating Police Uses of Force

Abstract

The use of force by police has proven to be a challenging and divisive issue in the United States, and for good reason. Philosophically, the government’s use of violence against community members is in tension with basic democratic norms of individual liberty, personal security, and bodily autonomy. In practice, officers use force on hundreds of thousands of individuals every year. Police violence plays an important role in shaping public attitudes toward government generally and toward policing specifically. Community trust and confidence in policing has been undermined by the perception that officers are using force, including deadly force, unnecessarily, too frequently, or in problematically disparate ways. The use of force can also serve as a flashpoint, a spark that ignites long-simmering community hostility. There are, in short, compelling reasons to think critically about police uses of force. This book explores an essential, but largely overlooked, facet of the difficult and controversial issues of police violence and accountability: the question of how society evaluates police uses of force. The authors—a prominent legal scholar and former officer, a long-time police commander, and a distinguished criminologist—draw on their experience and decades of research to offer five different answers to that question, discussing in depth the rules established by constitutional law, state laws, agency policies, international law, and community expectations, and providing critical information about police tactics and force options to allow for the accurate application of those analytical frameworks.

Elevated police turnover following the summer of George Floyd protests: A synthetic control study

“…For example, officers are trained to a legal and professional standard regarding their use of force. There is often, however, a significant gap between the legal and professional standards officers operate under and how some members of the public, media, and political leaders evaluate their actions (Mourtgos & Adams, 2020; Stoughton et al., 2020). Individuals who become police officers tend to do so out of a desire to help others (Moon & Hwang, 2004; White et al., 2010).…”

Keeping the Women Out: A Gendered Organizational Approach to Understanding Early Career-Ending Police Misconduct

“…This supports the contention that the NYPD, like most other police agencies during the study period (1975–1996), resisted the societal push for greater integration and representation by using the tools at their disposal. With renewed interest in increased representation in policing (Roman, 2020; Stoughton et al, 2020), advocates must ensure that agencies do not simply make cursory attempts to increase diversity through selection and hiring only to undercut those changes during the probationary period.…”

Body-worn cameras and transparency: Experimental Evidence of Inconsistency in Police Executive Decision-Making

“…In this media environment, the public-relations challenge police executives face is that legal use-offorce standards, which focus on o cers' threat perceptions, are di cult to explain to the public and are unlikely to be persuasive, because of their complexity and ambiguity. In addition to community expectations, police use of force is regulated by a complex intersection of Constitutional standards, state laws, and agency policies (Stoughton et al, 2020). Further complicating matters, encounters involving police use of force are dramatized by the media and the frequency with which they occur is exaggerated (Marenin, 2016).…”