A Term Paper - CJ1010

Abdulkarem Alrasheed

Use of force
Introduction
The nature of police work itself makes it necessary for law enforcement
officers to employ physical force at some point when they are executing their duties. It
requires physical force for police officers to restrain people and to ensure their safety and that
of others from possible danger in some situations. Law enforcement officers are charged with
the task of maintaining peace and safety in their areas of jurisdiction, implement search
warrants in unfriendly environments, and stop and seize violent suspects just to mention a
few of their duties (Thompson, 2015). Because of the nature of the job of officers are charged
with the power or authority to employ force in some circumstances in order to compel certain
responses from the public, even though that is arguable. Law enforcement officers are tasked
with a wide range of responsibilities some of which are not very specific, which makes
response in such situations doubly non-specific too. However, regardless of what police work
entails and what the officers are faced with, the use of physical force has its limits, and there
are certain well-drawn or sometimes blurred lines that cannot be crossed in any situation. In
light of that requirement, looking at the previous incidents of application of force by law
enforcement personnel, it becomes clear that some officers have used physical force unjustly
(Klahm and Tillyer, 2010). As such, in this paper, I seek to provide some clarification on the
issue of police brutality by providing an overview, statistics, situations when force is
applicable, and remedies and reforms in criminal justice law.
Overview

Like stated earlier, use of physical force is part of law enforcement work to some
extent. In fact, failure to use force can lead to injury or even death of an officer or a civilian.
However, the application of that force is governed by certain rules that need to be observed at
all times when an officer is on duty. The situation concerning police brutality in the US is
horrible today, but it cannot be said to have been like that since time immemorial. Although
police brutality has always been an issue, but there was an increase in instances at the turn of
the 1990s decade. For instance, a paper by Adams (1999) indicates that a very small
percentage of police-public encounter involved the application of force in the years before
1990. Only one percent of individuals who had an encounter with law enforcement officers
stated that the officers employed or threatened to employ force. According to the Bureau of
Justice Statistics in Adams (1999), in 7, 512 adult custody arrests less than one in five arrests
entailed the use of physical force by the officers. The employment of force here was defined
as the employment of any weapon, weaponless tactics, or excessive restraints. Even though
police use of force was at one percent, it was at the lower extreme of force spectrum,
entailing shoving, pushing, or grabbing. However, it is clear that the situation has changed,
and things are not the same anymore. Police officers are getting more violent by the day
today. The use of force by an officer is governed by several factors that come into play at the
moment use of force occurs. According to Wittie (2011), there are three major factors that
come up in an officers decision to use force. The three factors are, is the use of force
justified, is improper use of force make the department to be held liable, and finally does the
officer have the training to use force? If all these questions are answered correctly, then
police brutality would not be an issue of discussion in the mainstream media today. However,
because the application of force has sometimes led to the violation of the law itself, a public
outcry and a need to maintain statistics on police brutality arose. There are several instances
of reported and unreported police brutality in the US today, that the public is questioning the

very meaning or purpose of the police force itself. Failure by police officers to distinguish
between hostile and friendly parties during work is an issue that needs answering (Wittie,
2011). The deaths of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, Rodney King, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice,
Eric Garner, and more recently Michael Brown have brought the issue of police brutality to
the forefront in the media, public, and Congress (Police Executive Research Forum, 2015).
People want answers. The death of Rodney King in the early 1990s was the first to highlight
police brutality in the media and across law enforcement agencies country-wide, but the death
of Michael Brown in the summer of 2014 acted as a flashpoint for the debate in Congress
(Thompson, 2015).
Police encounter and brutality statistics
Encounters with police are usually initiated by citizens or police. In a study by the
Census Bureau in1996 involving some 6421 people, 33% of encounters with police were
citizen-initiated and involved the citizen asking for or providing the office with some kind of
assistance. Of Thirty-two percent of those who had encounters with the police reported a
crime as victims or witnesses. Receiving traffic tickets or witnessing or being involved in an
accident were also major reasons for encounters. For slightly less than a third of the
population, the encounters were initiated by the police and more than half of all encounters
were initiated by citizens. It is unclear who initiated the encounter in the remaining
percentage (Greenfeld et al., 1997).
Another study conducted in 1996 by the Census Bureau on some 6, 421 aged above
12 years revealed slightly different results from the study of 1990 done by the Bureau of
Justice Statistics (BJS). The Census Bureaus study determined that of all the interviewees, 1,
308 had face-to-face encounter with police officers, a number which when extrapolated to a
national population at the time would represent 44.6 million Americans. Out of the 6, 421
people, 14 said that they had been hit, choked, pushed, restrained by a police canine,

threatened with a gun, threatened with or actually had pepper or chemical spray sprayed on
them, threatened with a flashlight, or experienced some form of brutality from officers. Final
analysis from the study revealed that 1.2 people experienced some form of excessive force
from police (Greenfeld et al., 1997).
In another survey conducted in 2003 by Law Enforcement Management and
Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) under the sponsorship of the Office of Community
Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and the BJS on large states and local law enforcement
agencies, the statistics had changed widely from those of 1990 and 1996. Law enforcement
agencies that had over 100 sworn officers had over 26, 556 complaints from citizens on the
employment of force by officers in the year 2002. These statistics revealed that those
agencies had an average of 33 complaints in each of them. When viewed in terms of the
percentage of complaints per sworn officer, it indicates that every agency had 6.6 complaints
for every 100 sworn officers employed on full-time basis. The rates were even greater among
bigger municipal police departments, which had on average 9.5 complaints for every 100
sworn officers employed on full-time basis. Among complaints that had a final disposition at
the time of data collection of the study, around 8% of officers were sustained, implying that
enough evidence was available in support of the allegation of use of force and that
disciplinary action was necessary against the officer. Of all the 26, 556 complaints per year,
34% were not sustained, 23% ended with the officers involved being exonerated, and 8%
were sustained (Hickman, 2006).
Remedies and Reforms
The use of force has its roots in the American criminal law system. Before the 1985
incidence that involved the shooting of Erick Garner in Tennessee after failing to stop upon
being notified by an officer to stop, the law allowed officers to use lethal force on individuals
who after being of the intention to be arrested by an officer flees or resists arrest. In the case

of the state of Tennessee v Garner, the circuit courts and federal district court maintained that
the officer was acting in good faith according to that states use of force statute. The decision
was however reversed later by the Supreme Court, which maintained that the employment of
force in that incident was unconstitutional. After all the incidents of use of lethal force,
policies have been enacted to rectify the situation. Law enforcement agencies have also
changed the way they train officers while police departments have enacted strict policies
against the use of force in carrying out police duty (Thompson, 2015). President Obama in
reaction to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri established a Task Force on
21st Century Policing in December 2014. The task force is supposed to develop best policing
practices and recommendations. Many researchers and other high-ranking officers in the
Criminal Justice System believe that training is one of the major ways through which use of
force can be countered. Officers should be trained how to assess threat before engaging
suspects. They should also stick to basic rules such as the 21-foot. Departments should also
enforce strict laws against the use of force by their officers. There are also calls for more
involvement by the federal government in police regulation. In the 114th Congress, many
reform bills have been introduced to restrain police from use of force. Examples of bills
include the Excessive Use of Force Prevention Act of 2015, which potentially criminalizes
application of chokeholds and Police Accountability Act of 2015 creates a new federal crime
for some homicides that are committed by officers. In addition, numerous bills have been
enacted which place mandatory requirements on states to report statistics to the federal
government regarding the employment of force (Thompson, 2015).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the use of force has peaked in the 21st Century law enforcement, and
there are measures in the form of policies to curb it.

References
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P. A., ... & Smith, S. K. (1999). Use of Force By Police: Overview of National and Local
Data Series: Research Report. NCJ.
Greenfeld, L. A., Langan, P. A., Smith, S. K., & Kaminski, R. (1997). Police use of
force: Collection of national data. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs,
Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Hickman, M. J. (2006). Citizen complaints about police use of force. US Department
of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Klahm, C. F., & Tillyer, R. (2010). Understanding police use of force: A review of the
evidence. Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, 7(2), 214-239.
Police Executive Research Forum. (2015). CRITICAL ISSUES IN POLICING
SERIES: Re-Engineering Training On Police Use of Force. Retrieved 8/12/2015 from
http://www.policeforum.org/assets/reengineeringtraining1.pdf
Thompson, R. (2015). Police Use of Force: Rules, Remedies, and Reforms. Retrieved
8/12/2015 from https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44256.pdf
Wittie, M. C. (2011). Police Use of Force. Politics, Bureaucracy & Justice, 2(2).