Police use of force and suspect behavior: An inmate perspective

Abstract

PurposeResearch regarding police use of force is primarily based on official or administrative data provided by criminal justice agencies. However, less is known about these incidents from the personal accounts of the suspects with whom the responding officer(s) interact. MethodsWe employ a focal concerns perspective and draw on distinct data—self-report inmate surveys—to examine the extent to which the use of force is influenced by several legal and extralegal variables pertaining to the situation and the suspect at the point of arrest. Multiple imputation generated a sample of 17,897 cases and generalized ordered logistic regression models evaluated outcomes across three types of force. ResultsFindings indicate that suspect resistance exerts the strongest effects on the odds of force being used. Specifically, suspects who engaged in aggressive resistance were nearly ten times more likely to receive any force and six times more likely to receive potentially lethal force. We also observed statistically significant differences in the application of force by suspect age, sex, race, and mental illness—above and beyond the effects of resistance. ConclusionsOur findings comport with the extant literature and demonstrate the utility of offender self-report data as a means to further examine officer-suspect interactions.