Higher education and police use of deadly force

The evidence on the impact of higher education on police use of force is mixed, perhaps because of the characteristics of different indicators or samples. This study compares the educational levels of officers who did and did not shoot their weapons, who shot following different types of citizen behavior, and who shot with and without justification over a seven-year period in the Kansas City, Missouri police department. Virtually no significant differences emerge, but the absence of differences even when controlling for assignment, age, and length of service may be due to the lack of older college graduates in the sample. Until more and older college graduates are available for study it is probably not possible to conclude what impact college, and different kinds of college education, have upon police use of deadly force.     

Organizational factors that contribute to police deadly force liability

Police use of deadly force is a significant concern for municipal policymakers and law enforcement agencies. Following U.S. Supreme Court case law, police agencies and municipal entities may be held civilly liable under Section 1983 for force that is not objectively reasonable; for failure to train; and for policies, customs, and practices that cause constitutional injury. This article analyzes eighty-six cases from the U.S. District Courts and the U.S. Courts of Appeals on Section 1983 liability regarding police use of deadly force. The article focuses specifically on police firearm use in deadly force situations, highlighting how managerial disorganization and administrative breakdown impacts departmental decision making. Principles of management, such as division of labor, hierarchy of authority, span of control, unity of command, and communication are used to explain bad shootings that lead to potential police liability.     

Police use of deadly force: Research and reform

Police use of deadly force first became a major public issue in the 1960s, when many urban riots were precipitated immediately by police killings of citizens. Since that time scholars have studied deadly force extensively, police practitioners have made significant reforms in their policies and practices regarding deadly force, and the United States Supreme Court has voided a centuries-old legal principle that authorized police in about one-half the states to use deadly force to apprehend unarmed, nonviolent, fleeing felony suspects. This essay reviews and interprets these developments.     

Ensuring the validity of police use of force training

This research examined the skills and abilities required of officers to effectively manage situations where the use of force may be required. The research also considered the nature of training required to facilitate the development of these skills/abilities. Seventy Western Australia Police officers participated in focus groups. Identified skills/abilities fell into seven categories: Aware, Assess, Approach, Act, Automatic, Appraise and Adapt. With regard to developing proficiency in these skills, officers emphasised the importance of relevant, applied and dynamic training, debriefing and the use of scenarios/role plays. The research highlights the need to change the scope of annual refresher training from the appropriate and effective application of force to the effective management of situations in which the use of force may be required, in their entirety. Findings also highlight the need to change the focus of training from performance and assessment to continued skill development (i.e. practice and learning).     

SWAT and non-SWAT police officers and the use of force

Although many police departments use Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams, surprisingly there is very little research on them. This study examined the use of force by SWAT and non-SWAT police officers. SWAT officers may be socialized to use force as a result of the dangerous situations they frequently encounter, and thus more likely to use force in non-SWAT situations. The results of this research note, however, indicated there was a statistical nonsignificant relationship between SWAT status and the use of force. Implications of the findings of this study are discussed.     

Uncertainty and the use of force among Venezuelan police officers

Literature often emphasizes the use of force as a distinctive feature of police work, while risky encounters and uncertainty are conditions under which such work is carried out daily. Conditions leading to the use of force by the police have been associated with the presence of menacing minorities, losing verbal control, the youth and lack of experience of officers, and critical physical proximity between officers and suspects. Additionally, defiance towards the police has often been linked to increased force used by the police. It is here proposed that uncertainty also fosters police officers’ dispositions to use force. In this study, four focus groups were conducted with officers from two Venezuelan municipal police departments in October 2003, presenting a hypothetical scenario progressing from contact with suspects towards an open confrontation involving a shooting. Officers perceived, through different phases of the scenario, an encounter of no easily predictable outcome with suspects, involving potential harm to the police and bystanders. A pattern seemed to appear among officers in which overcoming real or assumed resistance became the central issue. When physical confrontation with suspects became evident, self defence was the clearest justification for the use of force, though the use of force was also defended by officers without further elaboration on the requirements and conditions for effectively thwarting aggression. It appears that uncertainty about the outcome of a situation fosters both the disposition and the justification for using force.

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Individual and situational determinants of the use of deadly force: A simulation

The study of police use of deadly force is a complicated issue because of the scarcity of observed high-risk encounters in the field. The present research explores police shooting behavior in both life-threatening and non-life-threatening situations in a simulated environment. The results suggest that officers’ characteristics, such as race and gender, are not associated with officer shooting behavior. The one exception is that officers with less police experience show more restraint than veteran officers in responding to non-life threatening situations. Suspect demographics, such as race, gender, and age, show inconsistent relationships with officer shooting behavior. One consistent finding is that officers who show poor judgment, slow response, or poor marksmanship suffer a high casualty rate in reacting to life-threatening situations involving multiple suspects.     

American police and subcultural support for the use of excessive force

This article examines police officers' perceptions and tolerance of abuse of force. Data were collected from 3,230 sworn personnel in thirty American departments. Officers rated the seriousness of an excessive force violation, their support for discipline, and their willingness to report such misconduct. Novice officers, highly experienced veterans, and supervisory personnel were more likely than officers with moderate levels of experience to view excessive force as serious and worthy of more severe discipline. Officers in these groups also indicated greater willingness to report such incidents.     

Constraints in the police use of force: Implications of the just war tradition

The “just war” philosophy of Cicero, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas has had momentous and provocative implications for modern political theory. The use of force by police is one theme through which the just war tradition can be utilized to demonstrate the extent of infusion for the concept in the Western political archetype. As police become constrained in their use of force, they are bound by the concepts inherent in the philosophy of the just war doctrine. The Supreme Court, likewise, has been influenced by the philosophy of the just war tradition in many of its decisions regarding the proper use of force by police.     

Use of force by female police officers

Do female police officers use force at the same rate as male police officers? This research examined the use of force by officers in a large, suburban police department during a seven-year period (1993-1999). Use of force reports completed by departmental policy for each use-of-force incident (n = 1,863) and data on arrests (n = 31,778) were examined. A rate of force, defined as the number of use-of-force incidents per one hundred arrests, was computed for male and female officers for each type of force used. A suspect-injury rate, defined as the number of suspects injured per one hundred arrests, also was computed.Force was used in only a small percentage (5.9 percent) of the arrests made. Injury to the suspect (not including the effects of OC spray) occurred in an even smaller percentage (1.6 percent) of arrests, and injury to the suspect resulting in treatment at a hospital (generally, emergency room treatment) occurred in a still smaller percentage (0.7 percent) of arrests.No statistically significant difference between female and male officers was found in the overall rate of force or in the rate of unarmed physical force. Female officers had a lower rate of weapon use when all types of weapons were considered together (p. < 0.05), but not when the different types of weapons were considered individually. Female officers also had a lower rate of any suspect injury (p. < 0.05), but there was no statistically significant difference in the rate of suspect injury resulting in treatment at a hospital. The differences found, even when statistically significant, were small in absolute terms.     

Tribalism in the Nigeria police force

A questionnaire survey of 100 police officers in the Nigeria Police Force was conducted. Almost three‐fourths (72%) of the officers indicated that they felt they had been discriminated against based upon their tribal membership. Tribal influence was thus considered by these officers to be pervasive within the Nigeria Police Force. More specifically, tribal influence was thought to play an especially important role in hiring practices, post assignments, disciplinary actions, transfers, and promotions.     

The malleability of attitudes toward the police: immediate effects of the viewing of police use of force videos

Purpose: To examine whether videos of controversial police interventions shape individual opinion and, consequently, if attitudes towards use of force are malleable in the short-term. Methodology: A self-administered survey was conducted among 248 undergraduate students as part of a larger project on attitudes towards police use of force. Two groups of respondents were asked general questions about the police: one group was shown fictional videos of controversial police interventions just prior to completing the questionnaire; the other was not. Findings: Results strongly suggest that videos of police interventions have significant effects on reported opinions about use of force: the group that watched the videos was more likely to report that the police frequently use force. Implications: The wide distribution of images by police organizations might have unexpected adverse effects on public attitudes.     

Racial prejudice and support by whites for police use of force: A research note

The use of force by police in a democratic society continues to be controversial. Despite the theoretical and practical importance of police use of force, little is known about the sources of public attitudes toward it. Recent research suggests that whites' approval of police use of force may derive partly from racial prejudice against African Americans. In this paper we test this possibility with data from the 1990 General Social Survey and find that negative stereotypes of African Americans contribute to whites' support for police use of excessive force. We also address the theoretical and pragmatic significance of our findings.     

The effects of supervisor education and training on police use of force

Police supervisors play a critical role in preventing unreasonable use of force. Despite their importance, only a few studies have examined the influences of supervisors on their subordinates’ daily practices, especially on their uses of police force. To bridge this gap, the current study explored the relationship between supervisors’ education level and use of force training and subordinate officers’ use of force practices. Using police use of force reports from 2004 to 2007 in a single urban police department, the current study examined how supervisor education and training impact on police use-of-force and found both highly educated and trained supervisors moderate their subordinate officers’ uses of higher levels of force.     

Torn between two targets: German police officers talk about the use of force

Considering earlier research into police use of force as well as the judicial and practical frame of police work in Germany, the article presents the results of an empirical study on the individual and collective legitimization of the use of force by German police officers. There are numerous justifications for the use of force expressed by focus group participants in eight German Federal States who were responding to a hypothesized scenario. In the discussions observed within the groups, reference is first made to the state’s duty to prosecute alleged offences and the measures or formal actions to do this—hence, the legal authority to use force. In the course of the discussions, however, it became obvious that illegal violence may occur, although it was not perceived as such by the officers. Overall, and after an intensive analysis of the focus group discussions, it can be stated that use of force (whether legal or not) depends on the police officer’s perception of the resistance of the person being engaged with. In this regard, different social–cultural or physical–material factors can be identified. They have different influences on the individual legitimization of police actions, intertwined with the perception of the situation as constructed by the officer. Three ways of perceiving the situation can be deduced, resulting in different patterns of justification for the use of force.

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Measuring the efficiency of local police force

This study proposed a methodology of analysis for estimating the efficiency with which the competences in matters of public and road safety are carried out. This proposal seeks to mitigate (i) the subjectivity in the selection of variables; (ii) the partiality inherent to the productivity indicators; and (iii) the generality of the analysis in previous studies. Applying the methodology proposed to the areas of public and road safety, individually and jointly, obtaining the main conclusions: the mean pure technical efficiency of the police force as a whole is 69.42, with eight towns (27.59%) showing efficient behaviour and, in the evaluation of the disparity between behaviour by activity and the overall result, the comparative shows a high degree of similarity between the ordering of the towns in the overall analysis and in public safety. This is not extendable to the road safety service, since they differ notably in the results obtained both with the area of public safety and with the overall action of the force.      

Advancing police use of force research and practice: urgent issues and prospects

Leading police scholars and practitioners were asked to reflect on the most urgent issues that need to be addressed on the topic of use of force. Four themes emerged from their contributions: use of force and de-escalation training needs to improve and be evaluated; new ways of conceptualizing use of force encounters and better use of force response models need to be developed; the inequitable application of force, and how to remediate biases, needs to be more fully understood; and misconceptions about police use of force need to be identified and corrected. The highlighted topics serve as an agenda for future research. Such research should provide greater insight into when, where, and why force is used by police officers, and how it can be applied appropriately. If implemented, the practical recommendations included in the contributions should have a positive impact on police performance, public trust and confidence in the police, and citizen and officer safety.