Police Use Of Excessive Force

In the United States, there are city, county, state, and national police forces. They have very difficult and dangerous responsibilities. These public servants are required to perform many different jobs. They enforce laws and maintain order. They teach people how to help prevent crime and to protect themselves ( Mittleman, 2000). They offer assistance and take charge of many different situations such as car accidents, flooding, and hurricanes. Police

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

Police have the uncontested right to use force when necessary to apprehend a suspect. If the force exceeds that which is necessary it is defined as excessive force and is illegal. An officer’s discretion on use of force is a based on judgment. They do not know if a judge will later rule an instance of use of force as excessive or not. There is a fine line between what is considered acceptable force and what is considered excessive force. All an

Law enforcement officers are given much power and authority over one’s civil liberties. Not only do they have a duty but also a responsibility to enforce laws and ordinances in their jurisdiction, maintain order and protect its people. In some cases, the only way to accomplish this is through legitimized use of force. Use of force can best be described as "the amount of effort required by a law enforcement officer to induce compliance of an unwilling subject" (nij.gov, 2012). With that said, law enforcement officers have been given the right to apply only enough force necessary to control a situation, while defending others, preventing escape, during self-defense and while a subject is resisting arrest (Pollock, pp. 234). It is not until that force becomes excessive that it becomes say an issue.

However excessive force is the use of aggressive capability above expectation if it is deemed unreasonable or unwarranted. Excessive force can come in the form of physical, chemical, firearms, or electronic. Physical force is subduing someone through physical contact. This includes choke holds, or your knee in someone back holding them down until you cuff them. Chemical force is the use of chemicals such as tear gas, pepper spray, or mustard gas in order to subdue large crowds of individuals. Firearm force is using guns to gain access to someone. This could involve shootouts or the police raiding a house and electronic force is using things such as the web, or cellphones, or social media sites to catch a suspect or predator. Though these tools were given to the police departments to be more helpful, they may have the opposite effect.

The use of unreasonable force is constitutionally excessive and violates the Fourth Amendment. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 394-96 (1989). There is no per se rule in determining whether an officer’s actions are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Scott, 550 U.S. at 383. The courts typically balance “the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against countervailing governmental interests at stake.” Bryan v. MacPherson, 630 F.3d 805, 823 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8 (1985)). However, courts, considering the totality of circumstances, balance the following factors to determine if an officer used force is unreasonable: (1) the severity of the crime at issue, (2) whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and (3) whether the suspect was actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight. Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. Because force can be unreasonable even without physical blows or injuries, the analysis under Graham allows the court to determine objectively the amount of force necessary in a particular situation. MacPherson, 630 F.3d at 826.

Have you ever thought about what happens if a person breaks a law? What if this individual breaks a minor law and creates a larger problem? A strong topic is upon our society when it comes to law enforcement and the tough physical and verbal oppression that they have the potential to put on people when it comes to breaking the law. Police officers are supposed to be society 's saviors, guardians, and our friends. However, when things do not go quite right, and when someone breaks the law, there will always be that chance that things could escalate. These officers are supposed to deescalate situations and solve problems. That is what society relies on them at any given moment. Sometimes it takes an escalation of force to deescalate a criminal situation. This is why society sees the men and women in uniform with weapons capable of hindering life to the fullest. However, when this force is used and abused, it creates problems. The public eye becomes weary of the police in many different ways for using excessive force to deescalate a situation. Excessive force and police brutality are often caused by depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, as well as other mental disorders; due to the way they are portrayed by the media, excessive force and police brutality have a direct effect on the American society as well as fellow officers in all branches of law enforcement.

The above reasons police have also been known to use excessive force is because they think that they are above the law. Due to the power vested in the police to deal with all types of crimes and to carry weapons, they soon develop the notion that they are above the law and end up misusing their powers instead of protecting the public.

A claim that prison officials used excessive force on an inmate and thereby inflicted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment involves both objective and subjective elements. Stanley v. Hejirika, 134 F.2d 629, 634 (4th Cir. 1998). The objective element of the analysis requires a determination of whether the defendants’ actions offend contemporary standards of decency. Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 8 (1992). To answer this question, the Court weighs the need for the application of the force, the relationship between the need for the use of force and the amount of force used, the extent of the injury inflicted, the extent of the threat to the safety of staff and inmates as reasonably perceived by the defendants and any efforts made to temper the severity of the use of force. Whitley

What is police brutality? Police brutality is an act of misconduct done by a member law enforcement through the use of an extreme amount of force to physically, mentally, or emotionally attack a member of society. Many law enforcement officers, those sworn to protect and serve, have abused their rights and authority to ferociously assault and manipulate citizens, even if they were innocent. Citizens who have been attacked have been left with physical and emotional scars that can never go away; in some cases, it has even caused death. In a report by David Packman, prepared for the Cato Institute in 2011, states that 247 deaths were linked to police misconduct cases.(Packman 2011)

the use of excessive force. Many people have witnessed or have become victims of police brutality. In their line of duty, police officers are sometimes faced with threatening circumstances that enable them to make haste decisions when expecting the worst at the same time hope for the best outcome. A police officer is given the power to maintain law and order as well as to take away any right of a citizen when a situation permits (Heydon, 2005). Thus, they have the responsibility to apply the forces in a recommended way. Therefore, police are trained to use the least amount of force necessary to make an arrest by using escalations of force. However, sometimes police exceed the minimum amount required to diffuse an incident or protect them, which leads to misconduct or undue violence when not warranted.

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,

Most people in the United States understand that there are occurrences of police brutality, although the episodes of such brutality is minute in comparison to what is perceived to be the case by the general population. Police brutality is a perception of excessive force, though depending on the situation, that very force may in fact be the use of proper force. When it comes to Americans receiving their knowledge of current event, they usually refer to the media, in which a major topic today is police brutality.

The use of excessive force by police officers is a topic that continues to make headlines and a study that needs to be done. Although much research has gone into this topic there still is no consensus on why the use of excessive force occurs. Some studies suggest lack of training and/or problems with organization policy/procedures. Law enforcement officers are authorized to use force when necessary, but when the level of force is excessive, however, the actions of the police come under scrutiny. The resulting effects can include; public outrage, scandal, negative reputation for not only the officer but the law enforcement community, and criminal considerations. Although there’s is no concrete definition of excessive force, police

Police officers are given a significant amount of discretion simply due to the nature of the job. Officers are faced with many threatening situations forcing them to react quickly, yet appropriately. They have the power to infringe upon any citizen’s rights to freedom and therefore they must use this power effectively. One major concern with the amount of discretion officers have is their power to decide when to use force or when to use lethal force. Manning (1997) argues that it is generally accepted that police should be allowed to use force. He also explains that there are an uncertain amount people who agree on as to what constitutes excessive force. The line