An Examination of Unintentional Use of Force by the Police

Abstract

Although many studies have been conducted on the police use of force, virtually none have been conducted on the unintentional use of force by police. This gap in knowledge is significant, in that any use of force by police carries with it the possibility of injury, up to and including death. The current study examines instances of unintentional use of weapons-based force by police to: (1) establish a framework for studying unintentional use of force; (2) provide descriptive analyses of the issue to better ascertain the frequency and severity of unintentional use of force by police; and (3) identify potential directions for future study of the issue. Results indicate that unintentional weapons-based force occurs most commonly as the unintentional deployment of a TASER during a routine, pre-shift safety check. While unintentional incidents are rare and injuries or death associated with unintentional weapons-based force are rarer still, human error is the most common cause of unintentional force, pointing to the need for better training, weapon-handling, and/or weapon-design to prevent most unintentional force incidents.