Listen to me! Police officers’ views of appropriate use of force

Abstract

Police use of force research has concentrated heavily on officer behavior. Much of what is known from the attitudinal side has tended to focus on officers’ views of excessive force. We currently lack a clear understanding of officers’ beliefs regarding the everyday application of less lethal force. Utilizing survey data collected as part of a national multi-agency use of force project, the current study addresses this empirical void by allowing patrol officers to choose, irrespective of their departmental guidelines, what they believe to be appropriate forms of force in dealing with different levels of non-compliance. Somewhat surprisingly, the findings reveal a natural progression in terms of a use of force continuum, whereby patrol officers are rather conservative in their force options relative to citizen resistance. Based on the survey responses, a model is constructed that depicts an officer-based use of force continuum.

Keywords:

• police
• officer attitudes
• use of force
• chemical sprays
• conducted energy devices

Notes

1. As McEwen (1997, p. 42) appropriately points out, administrators are not totally autonomous in constructing their use of force policy, as national organizations (e.g., the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies and the International Association of Chiefs of Police) have developed rough guidelines for agencies to consider. Moreover, state laws and local police philosophies might also play a part in a given agency's use of force policy. Finally, administrators must consider, in developing policies and determining appropriateness, boundaries set forth by the US Supreme Court for deadly force [i.e., the standard of imminent death or serious injury to the officer or citizens from a fleeing suspect of Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985)], as well as the use of force in general [i.e., the standard of objective reasonableness of Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989)].

2. Fort Wayne Police Department did not use a roll call system, thus we coordinated with the department's annual in-service training and administered the survey during these training sessions.

3. The exact survey period varied per agency, with a range of September 2007 to June 2008.

4. Unfortunately, we were only able to officially document whether the officer was present or not at a given roll call. This decision was largely a manpower issue, as a project staff member was responsible for administering surveys to the entire shift of officers. This meant that the staff member had to efficiently introduce the survey to personnel, read off all ‘expected’ officer names, and pass out (and collect) the 116 question survey. In terms of potential patterns of ‘missing’ officers, anecdotally there was no indication that officers were absent for any one reason over another (e.g., military leave versus court). We did find that departmental size and the numbers of precincts/divisions (i.e., spatial differentiation) were related to officer absences, as smaller, more centralized agencies, where it was tougher to absorb the loss of street personnel, were less inclined to have officers with unscheduled days off.

5. Cuffing, flashlight, and deadly force were also listed as options. Cuffing and deadly force are not included in the present study, while flashlight was included and treated the same as baton use.

6. In another attitude–behavior study, utilizing the same POPN data, Paoline and Terrill (2005) found that officers that endorsed the mandates of the traditional police culture were also more likely to engage in traffic stop searches than those officers who did not.