Research Findings on the Use of Force
by Police
Michael R. Smith, J.D., Ph.D.
The Capacity to Use Force as the Core of the Police Role
“The role of the police is best understood as a mechanism for the
distribution of non-negotiably coercive force employed in accordance
with the dictates of an intuitive grasp of situational exigencies.” - Egon
Bittner
Two corollaries:
• The authority to arrest is best conceptualized as incidental to a broader
authority to use force that society voluntarily accedes to its police.
• Yet, “how can we arrive at a favorable or even accepting judgment about
an activity which is, in its very conception, opposed to the ethos of the
polity that authorizes it?”
The Prevalence of Force Used by Police
• First, there is no enforceable national reporting requirement or data
collection effort underway to capture information about the use of force by
police.
• The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 required
the Attorney General to acquire, “through appropriate means,” data
about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers and to
publish an annual summary of the those data. 42 U.S.C. § 14142.
• The task is complicated
• 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies in the U.S.
• More than 800,000 (est.) sworn law enforcement officers
• Research estimates of the frequency of force used by police
• Hickman et al. (2008) estimated that police used or threatened to use
force in 1.7% of all contacts with citizens and 20% of all arrests in 2002.
• The Police-Public Contact Survey, which surveys a nationallyrepresentative sample of residents age 16 or older, reported a
similar percentage in 2008 (1.4%)
• Of those involuntarily contacted by the police in 2011, 1.5% of drivers
and 25.4% of persons stopped on the street reported having force used
against them.
The Severity of Force Used by Police
• Most force used by police is low level
• Pushing, pulling, grabbing, or restraining are most common
• Garner et al.’s (2002) six site study in 1996-97 found that weaponless
control tactics alone were the most frequent type of force used when
making an arrest
• In their multi-site, multi-method study of the use of force and injury
outcomes, Smith et al. (2010) found that the use of empty hand control
tactics was the most severe level of force used by officers in reported
use of force events.
• But in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the Taser was used more often
than empty hand control tactics
• Where Tasers are issued, they tend to be the most frequently used force
tactic after empty hand control
• The pointing (but not actual use) of a handgun is also a fairly common use of
force tactic
• Pepper spray, batons, and/or strikes, punches, or kicks are used relatively
infrequently compared to other types of force
Police Use of Force Against Minority Citizens
• Findings from the 2008 Police-Public Contact Survey
• Percent of citizens having contact with police who reported that force
was used or threatened against them
• Whites
1.2%
• Blacks
3.4%
• Hispanics 1.6%
• Percent of citizens who perceived that force used or threatened against
them was excessive
• Whites
72.8%
• Blacks
70%
• Hispanics 78.9%
• Lawton’s (2007) research in Philadelphia
• Comparing force used by police against citizens to the U.S. census, Blacks
were overrepresented among those against whom force was used (by
17%) and Whites were underrepresented (by 15-19%)
• But after controlling for suspect resistance, citizen race was no longer a
statistically significant predictor of force being used
Police Use of Force and Neighborhood Context
• Terrill & Reisig (2003)
• Police observational data from Indianapolis, IN and St. Petersburg, FL
collected in 1996-97
• Use of force by police in neighborhoods was predicated upon
• The relative wealth or concentrated disadvantage of the
neighborhood
• The homicide rate of the neighborhood
• The percent minority population was not a statistically significant
predictor of force used by police at the neighborhood level once
other factors (above) were controlled
• Lersch et al. (2008)
• Use of force reports from “a large Southeastern city” with more than
1,000 police officers were examined in the context of neighborhood
characteristics
• Once relevant neighborhood characteristics were taken into account,
two variables predicted the frequency of force used by police:
• The number of cases of active resistance to police control
• Percentage of non-White residents
Citizen Perceptions of Force Used by Police
• In 2011, approximately 62.9 million U.S. residents age 16 and older had
contact with the police. About half of those contacts were police-initiated,
usually as the result of a traffic stop or “street stop.”
• Police have legal authority to stop a motor vehicle or a pedestrian based
on “reasonable suspicion” that a crime or traffic infraction has or will
occur.
• Among those subjected to a “street stop” in 2011:
• 25% reported that force was used against them
• 68% of those persons believed the force used was excessive
• Persons who reported that force used against them was excessive by race:
White
72.8%
Black
70.0%
Hispanic
78.9%
Based on national polling, Whites are much more supportive of police using
force than are Blacks or Hispanics, and minorities are more likely than Whites
to perceive that the use of force by police is excessive or illegitimate.
The Use of Excessive Force and its Control
It is very difficult to obtain reliable estimates of the extent to which
police use excessive force.
• Remember, there is no national reporting system in place for the use of
force by police. But even if there was,
• Police are legally authorized to use reasonable force to protect
themselves and others or to make an arrest.
• Judgments about what constitutes excessive force require
investigative fact-finding and a determination by some authoritative
body (e.g. law enforcement agency, court) before a final decision
can be rendered.
Factors that influence the use of excessive force:
• Weak screening and hiring practices
• Poor training
• Ambiguous or non-existent departmental policies governing the use of
force
• Lack of supervision and managerial oversight
• Lack of accountability and consequences, which breeds a culture of
cynicism and tolerance for excessive force
Sources
Bittner, E. (1970). The Functions of the Police in Modern Society. Washington, DC:
National Institute of Mental Health.
Eith, C. & Durose, M. (2011). Contacts between Police and the Public, 2008.
Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Garner, J.H., Maxwell, C.D., & Heraux, C.G. (2002). Characteristics associated with
the prevalence and severity of force used by the police. Justice Quarterly, 19,
705-746.
Hickman, M.J. (2006). Citizen Complaints about Police Use of Force. Washington,
DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Hickman, M J., Piquero, A.R., & Garner, J.H. (2008). Toward a national estimate of
police use of nonlethal force. Criminology & Public Policy, 7, 563-604.
Langton, L. & Durose, M. (2013). Police Behavior during Traffic and Street Stops,
2011. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
.
Sources Cont’d
Lawton, B.A. (2007). Levels of nonlethal force: An examination of individual,
situational, and contextual factors. Journal of Research in Crime and
Delinquency, 44, 163-184.
Lersch, K.M., Bazley, T., Mieczkowski, T, & Childs, K. (2008). Police use of force and
neighborhood characteristics: An examination of structural disadvantage,
crime, and resistance. Policing & Society, 18, 282-300.
Terrill, W. & Reisig, M.D. (2009). Neighborhood context and police use of force.
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 40, 291-321.