Toward the Uniform Reporting of Police Use of Force: Results of a National Survey

Abstract

The legitimate use of force is a distinguislhing characteristic of policing. Nevertheless, relatively little research lhas been conducted conceming thle extent to which such force is used by law enforcement officers. Even less has been done to create uniform methods of reporting the use of force across jurisdictions. Thle status of the collection of data about the use of force is quite similar to that of the collection of crime data in the United States before 1930. In the first effort to detennine the extent to which police departments are systematically collecting data about the use of force by their officers, the authors of the present article collected information from law enforcement agencies regarding their policies pertaining to thie reporting of force by officers. More than 1,100 sheriffs departments, county police departments, municipal police departments, and state law enforcement agencies indicated whetlher officers were required to report incidents involving each of 18 types of force. This article reports these results and, in addition, provides comparisons across agency type and agency size for both sheriff's agencies and municipal police departments. These results are discussed in the context of the need for and feasibility of establishing a national use-of-force reporting system.