The Police Service and Liability Insurance: Responsible Policing

Abstract

The United States Constitution, as well as national values, centre on individual (human) rights. Conservatives, liberals, and independents agree that police officers must at times resort to physical force if they are to carry out fully their official responsibilities. As well, there is no question the lawful use of force by police officers frequently escalates to unlawful behaviour (police brutality), and that this must be controlled. Despite this shared attitude, however, public opinion and government policy diverge in their approach to deterring police brutality. Most recent official and unofficial policies are based on the plausibility of prevention through creation of civilian review boards, recruitment tests, counselling, and training and retraining of officers. None of these measures seems to work well in reducing police brutality, although society is answerable to the kind of police it chooses to have, whether it be by deliberation, power struggle, or total neglect, the fact is police brutality is an issue of great concern to individual officers, police administrators, and more importantly, the victims (society). This paper focuses on the deterrence effect of requiring police officers to purchase individual occupational liability insurance, on a fundamental belief of deterrence philosophy and documented examples that a high rate of police brutality stems in large part from lack of monetary liability/accountability on the part of the individual police officer. Police brutality occurs in part because some (both normal and emotionally disturbed) officers have opportunities to commit this unlawful behaviour, and in part, because they are not deterred from committing it, and because the judiciary chose to ‘water down’ the doctrine of sovereign immunity. It's time to require all police officers to have personal liability insurance. This calls for Congressional action. Without solid reform, police brutality will have no incentive to do anything other than continue to worsen.