Avoiding complaints: Venezuelan police officers’ situational criteria for the use of force against citizens∗

Abstract

Situational justifications for the use of force by the police are constructed in several domains. One type of justification are the tactical rules that officers formulate in order to do their work. Our assumption is that these rules play an important role in guiding police behavior and in shaping officers’ retrospective accounts of how they behaved. The present study examines the content of tactical rules for the use of force among a group of Venezuelan supervisory police officers. We find that the tactical rules differ significantly from the legal‐administrative rules governing the use of force. Tactical rules are oriented by the attempt to avoid external inquiries that represent a continual threat to police occupational stability and prestige. We hypothesize that the use of force is more likely under the following conditions: (a) citizens behave in such a way that force is perceived as necessary to control the encounter; (b) citizens are perceived to be morally disreputable; (c) citizens are perceived t...