Officer Use Of Force Research Articles

When Avoidance Backfires: Interracial Officer-Citizen Dyads and the Consequences for Fleeing Suspects

Research suggests that Black citizens who experience an elevated fear of law enforcement frequently engage in avoidance strategies, such as fleeing, when confronted by police. There is also strong reason to speculate that this avoidance behavior commonly transpires when the police officer is White. Problematically, this avoidance strategy may place these citizens at an increased risk for officer use of force as the police seek to subdue fleeing suspects. The current study uses data drawn from the Evaluation of Less-Lethal Technologies on Police Use-of-Force project and a series of logistic regression equations and mediation analysis to determine whether Black suspects are more apt to flee from White police officers than other officer-suspect racial dyads and, because of this fleeing behavior, have a greater likelihood of experiencing force. After controlling for a variety of salient factors, results indicate support for this scenario. Policy implications are discussed. Plain language title When Avoidance Backfires: Mixed-Race Officer-Citizen Contacts and What Happens When Suspects Run From Police

Finding the path of least resistance: An examination of officer communication tactics and their impact on suspect compliance

AbstractResearch SummaryThis study investigated the impact of patrol officer communication tactics on suspect compliance by using Systematic Social Observation (SSO) to code 438 body‐worn camera and dashcam video recordings from two police agencies. Specifically, we examined officer tenor/demeanor, use of noncoercive directives, use of verbal coercion, and accusations, while controlling for a host of suspect and situational factors. Results showed that when officers presented a positive tenor/demeanor or employed noncoercive verbal tactics, suspects were significantly more likely to comply. Conversely, use of coercive verbal tactics and accusatory language did not have a significant impact on suspect compliance. In addition, negative suspect demeanor, suspect impairment, and suspect elevated emotional state negatively affected compliance.Policy ImplicationsRecent calls for police reform have focused on producing less coercive outcomes by explicitly recognizing the role that officers have in managing encounters rather than simply reacting to suspect behaviors. An increased focus on officer communication strategies in both police training and practice is likely to promote suspect compliance while reducing the need for officer use of force. Similarly, it is likely that more coercive verbal strategies have little impact on suspect compliance and may lead to negative perceptions of police interactions and law enforcement in general.

Is corrections officers' use of illegal force networked? Network structure, brokerage, and key players in the New York City Department of Correction

PurposeRecent research on police misconduct has adopted a network perspective, while recent work on correctional officer (CO) use of force has similarly framed it as an organizational behavior, learned through socialization and deployed with considerable discretion. This paper leverages the network paradigm in police misconduct research to study the use of force by COs. MethodsUsing data on lawsuits involving the New York City Department of Correction from 2013 to 2022, this paper forms a co-offending network of those COs who have been sued for excessive force. This paper then uses descriptive social network analysis and key player selection and community detection methods. ResultsAfter describing the basic network structure of COs who use force together, this paper identifies brokers who connect disparate parts of the CO network; it also uses a community detection algorithm to identify clusters of COs involved in force incidents. Finally, the paper compares this network to an analogous network of police use of force, finding structural similarities. ConclusionsThis analysis bridges disparate work on correctional officer use of force and police misconduct; for policymakers who seek to curtail COs' excessive use of force, this paper might provide a blueprint for identifying key players and clusters.

The Use of Force in Higher Education Policing: Implications for Policy and Practice

AbstractThe public call for transparency around police use-of-force incidents and incident data must be answered. Campus police departments are no exception. Yet while the fundamentals of policing are universal, campus policing poses unique challenges for officers, and there is little empirical research informing campus policing policy and practice. In this article, we analyse use-of-force incident records and police officer focus group data involving the Indiana University Police Department over a 3-year period. The data reveal that use-of-force incidents most commonly occurred off-campus; most subjects were males not affiliated with the university; and alcohol was usually a factor. Subject resistance actions and officer use of force are discussed. The article concludes with examples of real-world policy applications, presenting an opportunity for urban police departments to look to campus policing as a model of transparency around use-of-force incidents.

Young People Who Use Drugs Views Toward the Power and Authority of Police Officers.

Many young people who use drugs are structurally vulnerable to policing powers given the ongoing criminalization of drug possession. Police authority limits and the expression of that authority may play a significant role in police encounters among young people who use drugs. This qualitative study explores the views of young people who use drugs toward police power and authority in their recent encounters with police officers. Interviews were conducted with 38 young people who recently used illegal drugs in British Columbia, Canada. We found five interrelated themes related to perceptions of police authority: (1) skepticism and distrust toward authority; (2) paternalism and authority over drug use; (3) officer use of force; (4) police as power-hungry; and (5) officers above the law. Participants described police authority as limitless, unpredictable, untethered, easily abused, and lacking accountability. Participants feared holding police officers accountable to power abuses in a criminal justice system that they saw as stacked against them. Moving forward, institutional reforms may consider and account for the expression, limits, and use of police authority among young people who use drugs and other structurally vulnerable communities.

Examining the Risk of Recurring Use of Force Incidents Among Newly Hired Police Officers

Police force, though rare, has profound implications for citizens and officers involved and the community-at-large. It is vital for police agencies to review officer use of force, identify potential misconduct, and reduce repeated officer misconduct. Yet, little is known about what predicts subsequent uses of force and temporal distance between uses of force. The current study employs use of force data from a large, metropolitan police agency in the southwestern United States to examine the likelihood and timing between repeated uses of force. Results indicate officers may be affected by police-citizen encounters, as the likelihood of a subsequent use of force was reduced when their initial use of force occurred in neighborhoods with higher minority composition and the time to a subsequent use of force increased when their initial use of force resulted in citizen injury. For officers with a subsequent use of force, more than half had their next use of force within 3 months of their initial use of force, and 93% did so within a year of their initial use of force. Policy implications include enhanced supervision for new officers and accountability tools such as internal affairs and early intervention (EI) systems.

Police Officer Assignment and Neighborhood Crime

We develop an empirical model of the mechanism used to assign police officers to Chicago districts and examine the efficiency and equity of alternative allocations. We document that the current bidding process, which grants priority based on seniority, results in the assignment of more experienced officers to less violent and high-income neighborhoods. Our empirical model combines estimates of heterogeneous officer preferences underlying the bidding process with causal estimates of the effects of officer experience on neighborhood crime. Equalizing officer seniority across districts would reduce violent crime rate by 4.6 percent and significantly decrease inequality in crime, discretionary arrests, and officer use of force across neighborhoods. Moreover, this assignment can be achieved in a revenue-neutral way while resulting in small welfare gains for police officers, implying that it is more equitable and efficient.

Body-worn cameras' effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review.

Body-worn cameras' effects on police officers and citizen behavior: A systematic review.

Life Years Lost to Police Encounters in the United States.

How much life in the United States is lost to encounters with the police? I build on a demographic life table model by Edwards, Lee, and Esposito to estimate, for race- and gender-specific populations, how many years of life are lost in two categories of police encounter: (1) encounters involving officer use of force, and (2) all deaths involving police encounters. Average life years lost by individuals who are killed ranges from 39 years (white men) to 52 years (Native women). The loss of years per 100,000 people over their collective lifetimes is largest for Black men, with 5,696 years of life lost to all encounters with police, of which 3,772 years are lost to police use of force. This implies a loss of roughly 16,000 years of life for recent cohorts of Black men. These results provide context for current debates surrounding the cost and necessity of protests.

Understanding police officer resistance to body-worn cameras

Purpose Body-worn cameras (BWCs) have been adopted in police agencies across the USA in efforts to increase police transparency and accountability. This widespread implementation has occurred despite some notable resistance to BWCs from police officers in some jurisdictions. This resistance poses a threat to the appropriate implementation of this technology and adherence to BWC policies. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that could explain variation in officer receptivity to BWCs. Design/methodology/approach The authors assess differences between officers who volunteered to wear a BWC and officers who resisted wearing a BWC as part of a larger randomized controlled trial of BWCs in the Phoenix Police Department. The authors specifically examine whether officer educational attainment, prior use of a BWC, attitudes toward BWCs, perceptions of organizational justice, support for procedural justice, noble cause beliefs, and official measures of officer activity predict receptivity to BWCs among 125 officers using binary logistic regression. Findings The findings indicate limited differences between BWC volunteers and resistors. Volunteers did have higher levels of educational attainment and were more likely to agree that BWCs improve citizen behaviors, relative to their resistant counterparts. Interestingly, there were no differences in perceptions of organizational justice, self-initiated activities, use of force, or citizen complaints between these groups. Originality/value Though a growing body of research has examined the impact of BWCs on officer use of force and citizen complaints, less research has examined officer attitudes toward the adoption of this technology. Extant research in this area largely focusses on general perceptions of BWCs, as opposed to officer characteristics that could predict receptivity to BWCs. This paper addresses this limitation in the research.

CCTV in jail housing: An evaluation of technology-enhanced supervision

Surveillance cameras are widely used in correctional settings, but there has been little research on their effectiveness, especially in jail settings. Employing a mixed methods approach, this article examines how implementing closed-circuit television in jail housing units in a large Eastern city influences inmate perceptions of safety and incidents of violence and misconduct. Data collected through surveys with 101 inmates and 68 months (56 months from before and 12 from after camera implementation) of administrative records of inmate infractions, incidents of self-harm and officer use of force were analyzed through χ2 tests, independent sample t-tests, and structural break (time series) analyses. Semi-structured interviews with 14 correctional staff were analyzed qualitatively to provide contextual information. Findings indicate that while inmate perceptions of safety changed after implementing cameras, analyses of reported incidents did not yield any effect. These mixed results may be because of a combination of deterrence and detection effects or to cameras not being paired with more effective monitoring.

Research on Body Worn Cameras

As police departments across the United States equip officers with body worn cameras (BWCs), research has focused on the technology’s impact on police interactions with citizens, officer misconduct, officer use of force, and false allegations against police. Given the large number of police agencies implementing BWCs across the country (numbering in the thousands), there will be a growing number of opportunities for BWC evaluations and expectations that these programs will be evaluated. Studying the implementation of BWCs presents a number of challenges to both researchers and police agencies, particularly when large police organizations are involved. Drawing on our experiences involving a BWC experiment with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, this article discusses the programmatic challenges of implementing a BWC program in a large agency (technical, political, and administrative) while simultaneously evaluating the program using a randomized controlled trial design.

Procedural justice in policing: the first phase of an Australian longitudinal study of officer attitudes and intentions

Despite the prominent role that procedural justice has taken in policing research, we know surprisingly little about police perceptions of procedural justice as an effective tool in their encounters with members of the public. In this study, we start with a focus on the perceptions of police recruits in a major police service, exploring their perceptions of procedural justice and its role in policing. Using data from a questionnaire of 450 police recruits in the early stages of their initial training, we find that orientations supportive of procedural justice significantly predict reported intentions to use procedural justice approaches in interacting with others, as well as the prioritization of procedural justice responses to a typical policing encounter (traffic violation). We also find that belief in an obligation to obey the law is significantly associated with perceived procedural justice outcomes. We argue that early supportive orientations towards procedural justice may be important in understanding police officers’ future interactions with members of the public, promoting positive evaluations of justice among citizens, and minimizing the risk of coercive encounters involving officer use of force.

Police use of force: tales from another city

Over the past 50 years the study of officer use of force has moved from qualitative assessments of officer behaviors to complex quantitative studies using advanced statistical techniques to parcel out the influence of a host of explanatory variables. Further, these studies have moved beyond examining simple force dichotomies (i.e., such as force, no force) to assessments of officer decisions to use both physical and non-physical forms of force and coercion. Most recent studies use data collected as part of the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN). We report findings using observational data collected as part of the Cincinnati Observation Study. This study makes two important contributions to the literature. First, whether certain variables were significant depends partially on the statistical technique used to estimate models. Second, a substantial number of explanatory variables were significant irrespective of the technique used and were consistent with the findings from POPN studies on the use of force. Confidence in the importance of these variables for explaining police use of force is discussed.

Changes in officer use of force over time: a descriptive analysis of a national survey

PurposeFew studies track non‐lethal weapon use by law enforcement agencies (LEAs), the number/level of force used by these agencies, complaints for excessive force, and injuries to officers and suspects, both over time (especially recently) and with a national probability‐based sample. This study aims to address these gaps by developing longitudinal estimates to examine these use‐of‐force issues.Design/methodology/approachTwo surveys of LEAs were conducted (n=518 and n=357 LEAs), covering 2003 to 2008, and statistical weights were used to align the data to be representative of all state and local LEAs in the USA, including adjustments for survey non‐response.FindingsConducted energy devices (CED) deployment has risen significantly (to about 70 percent of LEAs). However, standard baton use is down to 25 percent in 2008 and when available to the officer, batons are more likely to be left in their vehicles compared to CEDs. Baton use and empty‐hand tactics are becoming less commonly used by officers, but CED use was ranked among the most used tactics from 2005 to 2008. Excessive force complaints against LEAs, internally generated, have more than doubled from 2003 to 2008. Officer injuries varied little from 2003 to 2008, but they are still only about half as common as suspect injuries. Also, only 20 percent of LEAs collect injury data in a database, complicating future research.Originality/valueThis is one of the few studies to track, nationally, the types of non‐lethal weapons in use by LEAs, and force level used, providing aid to LEA executives and policymakers who need to follow new trends in non‐lethal weapons.

Early Intervention Program Criteria: Evaluating Officer Use of Force

While the use of force reports is a common performance indicator in police early intervention programs, simply tracking the number these reports fails to appropriately identify problematic officers. We explore this concern by determining whether frequency and intensity of force use relative to resistance (as indicated by number of use‐of‐force reports submitted) and officer force factor values are good predictors of an officer's identification by such a system. Results from logistic regression analysis found both frequency and intensity to be significant predictors, although interestingly the force factor value results were opposite the expected direction. Officers who used lower levels of force to handle higher levels of resistance were more likely to qualify under the early intervention program. Conversely, none of the officers whose force factor values reflected a tendency to use higher force levels than called for by resistance encountered were identified by the department's system. These results provide empirical support for the position that monitoring officer misconduct by the number of use of force reports filed can fail to identify problematic officers, and falsely identify non‐problematic officers.

Officer force versus suspect resistance: A gendered analysis of patrol officers in an urban police department

This study examined patrol officer use of force and exposure to resistance on a gendered basis in an urban police department. Using data from use of force reports for the year 2000, a weighted force factor value was calculated for each officer. These values were then compared by officer gender. The mean value for both females and males was positive, indicating a tendency to employ lower force levels in response to higher levels of resistance. The male officer weighted force factor value, however, was significantly larger than that for the females. Placed within the context of the use of force continuum, this result suggested that male officer use of force vis-à-vis subject resistance spanned a wider range. Alternatively, female officers could be viewed as operating within a narrower range of the force continuum. One interpretation of this finding was that female and male officers responded differentially to subject resistance levels.

Police Use Of Force And Suspect Resistance: The Micro Process Of The Police-Suspect Encounter

Using data collected as part of an observational study of the police in Indianapolis, Indiana, and St. Petersburg, Florida, this research examines 3,544 police-suspect encounters in an attempt to better understand the application of nonlethal force and the relationship between officer use of force and suspect resistance. More specifically, it examines the extent of and variation in force and resistance and the interplay between the two. Results show that when both verbal and physical forms of coercion are considered, force occurs quite frequently—in more than half of all encounters. Conversely, suspects displayed some form of resistance in 12% of all encounters. When multiple uses of force and resistance within individual encounters are considered, the frequency of both behaviors increases substantially. In addition, a majority of both forceful and resistant behaviors fall on the lower end of continuum (e.g., verbal commands as opposed to striking with a baton). Encounters that began with some form of force resulted in a greater frequency of subsequent suspect resistance and an increased use of additional force at some later point in the encounters—calling into question the utility of a “take charge” approach to maintaining control within police-suspect encounters.