Criminal Justice

Use of Force in the Law Enforcement Community

By

Introduction to Criminal Justice

CRJS 2233

East Central University

October 30, 2006

Use of force is one of the most pivotal decisions that a police officer can make in his career. The decision to arrest and use of force are two decisions that are made by the officer at the scene and acted upon by his/her judgment, and his/her judgment alone. The use of force and the judgments made by a police officer to use them have fallen under much scrutiny in the public and political eye over the last decade or so. This has largely come from widespread media publication of instances of "excessive force" such as the Rodney King incident during the Los Angeles Riots back in the early nineties. Since this time the law enforcement community has made large grounds to offer police officers more protection and more options to take down threatening opposition without the use of lethal force.

Lethal force has been a necessary part of the law enforcement community as far back as the Texas Rangers. It is a necessity for the officer to have the right to protect his life. Lethal force should only be used when officers have no other options, but as of late political eyes wanting to determine what meets the requirements for "no more options." Surveys and studies by the Criminal Justice Review and the American Journal of Sociology are beginning to show certain ethnic trends to the use of lethal force of police officers against minorities. In larger metropolitan areas statistics are beginning to illustrate that large African-American populations or rapidly growing African-American populations show a direct correlation with the instances of the use of lethal force by police officers. However, African-Americans are more likely to reside in low-income housing or ghettos, where violent crimes such as robbery, murder, and rape occur. These violent crimes are the same time of crimes that put an officer in a situation to make that choice to use lethal force. However, African-Americans are also shown to commit more violent crimes than Caucasians or Asians who are more likely to commit "white collar crimes," such as computer fraud or insider trading, things that don't necessarily require a use of force at all. Ethnicity of the city mayor also has a huge influence on the use of lethal force rates in a city. An African-American Mayor is statistically direct with a lower use of lethal force by the police department. But race isn't the only thing to have an affect on the use of force by an officer. Inter-departmental stress, problems at the home, and psychiatric breakdowns have also been the cause for some officers to be quick on the draw instead of using reason or less than lethal force. But government policies can have a huge affect on the instances of the use of lethal force. During America's "War on Drugs" law enforcement began to more actively pursue the drug trafficking community, as a result of strain and competition from there was a rise in violent crime in America and with that came an increased use of lethal force by the law enforcement community. The same can be said for large cities with no tolerance crime policies.

Over the last fifteen years or so great leaps have been made in the efforts to help give officers more options and more efficient technology to allow them to use less lethal or non-lethal force. Mace, beanbag rounds, batons, and tazers continue to be developed and improved upon to help meet these needs. They are essentially designed and engineered to help officers incapacitate, confuse, delay or restrain an offensive adversary in a variety of situations. As a result law enforcement, corrections, and military personnel have had greater success in safely and efficiently taking down threatening targets. Now prison riots are handled with things like tear gas and pepper spray instead of rounds of ammunition from high-powered rifles. Hostage takers can now be brought down with a beanbag round or a rubber bullet instead of a sharp shooter's bullet. However, the requirements to become a police officer are becoming more and more stringent, college degrees and more state required training are becoming necessary, which is good. We are continually getting a more and more highly educated law enforcement community who can make a more conscious choice to use these tools when lethal force is not appropriate, lethal force is justified, but lesser force may be used to subdue the aggressor, or lethal force is justified, but may cause collateral damage to bystanders or life threatening damage to property or the environment. The law enforcement community is making a tremendous effort to more safely protect the communities, in which they work, the criminals that commit the acts, and themselves