Police Use Of Force Essay

There is no question that police brutality, when it occurs, is one of the most egregious violations of public trust that a public servant can commit. Police officers, those individuals taxed with protecting the public from danger, should never be in a situation where they pose a threat to the public. Furthermore, there is no question that police brutality occurs. Moreover, generally when there are allegations of police brutality, there has been some type of underlying violent incident. In addition, while issues of brutality may seem clear-cut to a disinterested observer, it is critical to keep in mind that law enforcement officers are not presented with textbook examples of the appropriate or inappropriate use of force, but real-life scenarios involving quick decisions. There are many arrest and non-arrest scenarios where officers need to use force to protect self or others; and the degree of force required may be greater than what a disinterested observer would assume. Another recurrent issue in debates about police brutality is that racial bias appears to be a motive behind police brutality. When one considers that minorities are disproportionately likely to be arrested and convicted of crimes, one would expect to find a disproportionate number of minorities among those alleging police brutality. Therefore, while acknowledging that police brutality, when it occurs, is a serious problem, the reality is that most

Force that police tend to use on subjects that pose a threat has become an escalating issue in society today as we know it. Sometimes the public gets the notion that the police abuse their authority and use dangerous

The use of force is without a doubt an important aspect in policing. The decision to utilize any type of force comes from a multitude of recourses; department policies, training, situational variables and ethical systems. There are three major categories in which an officers use of force is categorized under; justifiable, excessive and deadly; with a thin line between justifiable and excessive. Cases where excessive force has been used, has lead to injuries, deaths, civil damages, officers convicted and sentenced to jail and police chiefs and elected officials being removed from office (Fyfe, 1988). It is an officer`s discretion in determining when the use of force is justifiable.

Over the past three years there has been a conflict with the use of force not just by police but with citizens as well. Recent events such as the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in 2012 and the killing of Mike Brown by a Ferguson police officer just recently in August of 2014 has raised eyebrows about the use of force. Clearly there is a misunderstanding of the concept of when and when not to use force especially when it is the use of deadly force. The training that is given as well as the understanding of use of force is outdated. The federal government should implement excessive use of force training for all law enforcement agencies in the U.S.

Whenever a law enforcement officer places an individual under arrest or is involved in a deadly force scenario the officer has used some degree of force. The incidents where an office has to make a split second decision and use physical force to control a situation is known as “Use of Force.” The use of force varies as situations present themselves to the officer and they must decide what level of force is necessary to control the situation. Often the use of force is subject to much debate and not a year goes by without some media coverage of some law enforcement officer accused of using excessive force. In dozens of studies of police use of force there is no single,

Police officers and the use of force has been an issue for decades between citizens and law enforcement. There have been many high profile cases for the use of force such as the LAPD and Rodney King beating. Also, the more recent cases such as NYPD and Eric Gardener where the suspect Mr. Gardener was choked with a triangle choke hold by an NYPD officer. These cases seem to bring great attention due to them being video recorded and having different points of view. The definition for use of force can be found on The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) researched and defined use of force as "The amount of effort required by police to compel compliance by an unwilling subject."

In the year 2002, there were 26,556 complaints filed by citizens against the large police departments for their police officers use of force. This was a rate of 6.6 per 100 full-time sworn police officers and with 10.9 per 100 full-time sworn police officers responding to calls. The complaints filed showed that 22,238 or 84% of them being received by the larger municipal police departments. The Sheriffs’ offices had 2,815 uses of force complaints which were 11% and the rate of 3.4 per 100 sworn police officers. The county police departments had 763 of the use of force complaints which was about 3% which was a rate of 2.9 per 100. The State law police department had 749 file uses of force complaints which were about 3%. That was the lowest rates of 1.3 per 100 officers.

Training is the only option to teach and gives lectures of how any criminal enforcement officer should have because here in this training they will find the way how to handle dangerous situations and if they would need to use the force if they are the situation requires it. As J.C. Hall expressed in his book, “Police Use of Nondeadly Force to Arrest”, he describes that the training should describe the twofold of the offenses. One of this factors should describe how an officer should assess any threat that they encounter while conducting their duty. While on the other hand, the training as well should also describe how to encounter a threat. At first, this two factors might sound the same thing but its truth is that they are completely different from each other because one is mainly focusing how the criminal enforcement officer should think before they act.

When debating the issue of police use of force, the issue of what actions constitute too much force must also be addressed. Another concern is the possibility of corruption amount officers. When given such great power, the probability of corruption is high. Officers generally do not start out as corrupt, but years of work on the force can create animosity between officers and suspects and lead them to decide to use force more quickly (McEwen, 1996). Many times, officers patrol the streets alone which creates the opportunity for potential abuse of power (McEwen, 1996). Although police officers need to be permitted to exercise some discretion, they also need limits and guidelines to follow when using their powers of discretion (Manning, 1997). The decision to use force should not be taken lightly in that citizen’s lives are at stake. Police should be allowed discretion in decisions to use force; however, this discretion should be limited. In several cases in Arizona, officers have used deadly means of force. In all cases, the officers

It is a part of the job for the police to use force. Once the an arrest ensues, then it is the job of the police to use the force necessary to carry out the arrest. One thing that the public often say in criticism of the polices use of force is “well, he only stole some [something worth a small amount of money]” or “[the arrested individuals] didn't do anything that bad to deserve that much force”. However, it does not matter what the crime is; the only thing that matters is that the officer makes the arrest. We in East Valley would urge their citizens to always comply with our officers, if our citizens always comply with our officers then there will be no more use of force complaints. This is because the officer will only use the force necessary

Hickman’s findings are important because it gives a better understanding of the trends involving use-of-force situations. It gave a better understanding of single use of force incidents, as well as a better overall understanding of all the incidents. This study shows the reliability of the force factor and can potentially help to improve the way the public view police behavior. It can also help to better the relationship between law enforcement and

Police officers have a large amount of discretion, as discretion permeates all aspects of police work. However, with a great amount of discretion can lead to unjust and unnecessary use of force. Drawing on a few examples of police and deadly use of force, we look at ways where police are held accountable for their actions on poor judgements they’ve made with use of force. Additionally, limitations on police discretion are noted to combat unjustly use of force. We arguably discuss a different framework for police officers to adopt various techniques and practices on using deadly use of force. This partially includes adopting the use of tasers and body cameras within the agencies. In the end, however, we note that discretion is vital for police

An important question to answer is when has someone committed an action that is worth dying for? For instance, is it in the act of killing someone? Is it after they have made the preparations to kill someone? Is it when they say they will kill someone? Or is it when they have thought about killing someone?

Criminal justice is tied into everything in our government, Social programs, Economic, Environmental, and Education. Criminal justice is also biased while being fair on many facets. A very important topic these days are that of the amount of force applied by law enforcement officials. Communities are very displeased with the way police officers are using their abilities to arrest an individual, they believe that police officers are doing it in such a way to inflict pain and disregard the well-being of the individual. Recent studies have shown that police officers, now, are under much scrutiny. Many new statutes govern the activities of officers and hence, enables them to do their duties; The Exclusionary Rules for example. The exclusionary rules helps defendants in the court of law throw impertinent information or evidence out as it was illegally obtained during search. During an illegal search, all evidence if not turned in prior or during a warranted search will be turned away with no exceptions. Police officers have the same set of rules with uses of force. A recent article written by Steven Malanga, explains that in 1994, congress passed a law named, “The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act”. This law was put in place to keep track of all situations in which police had to interact with the public, it ranged from traffic stops to more serious offenses that needed force to be utilized.

Public perception plays a big role in the ethical issue in law enforcement and citizens are concerned about the use of force. Police officers should only reasonable force that is necessary. Use of force is to be used depending on the facts and circumstances acknowledged by the officer at the time of the incident to get it under control. Police officers must have the responsibility and must maintain a high regard for human life. Officers should also keep individual responsibility. Public perception of police officers is critical and it is important for officers to maintain professionalism at all times. Use of force by