The police are an institution that is responsible for law enforcement and maintaining peace and order in a place. The police benefit from certain advantages in the case of law enforcement where the condition might seem to get out of hand, and they need to use force against elements that cause unrest. There has always been a debate about the extent of police use of force and what circumstances allow them to use force against people. In many situations, the police are confronted with the predicament where there is little time to decide their response, and the danger has aggravated or crossed the line of bearing. When officers are trained and have ample experience, they would know exactly how to react to such situations, but at times the police use force to get their authority noted and to prevent the chaotic situation from worsening (NIJ).
The United States Commission on Civil Rights states that in situations where the criminals might be dangerous and wanted and the citizens need to be protected, and the police need protection themselves, then the legislation allows the police to use a certain amount of alleged force against them. There is no prevalent definition of police use of force against people however it is jut described as the amount of effort or force needed to be exerted by the police in order to compel a chaotic situation into submission. However, the use of police force is closely related to police behavior and the attitude adopted by policemen when they need to control an aggravated situation and bring peace. At times, the argument mostly resolves to the subjective viewpoint of the police that relates to their behavior against certain minorities, ethnicities, and racial profiling. People view the police use of force as a weapon against the marginalized members of society. This has been documented in various case studies, lawsuits and articles about the police shooting against unarmed African American men and women only on the basis of suspicion of attack. There are, at times, open declarations about the incorrect form of police use of force and at other times, it is said that the legislation allows the police to use force against the citizens if the need arises. The police should use force, of course, against dangerous and life-threatening criminals because otherwise the criminals would have a great advantage over them. On the other hand, people argue that the police are biased in treating ethnicities and minorities, whereby they favor the white community against the rest of the citizens. (NIJ).
An article related to this argument, titled ‘Police use of force: A transactional approach,” By William Terrill. This paper is based on the theory of coercive actions that guide the conceptual approaches that help to explain the reaction of the police in a police-suspect encounter. The results were aimed to find out the reaction of the police in different suspect cases and to determine the kind of force that was elicited by the police force in such cases. The results showed that before the police can be judged on their use of force against the citizens, the entire situation that they face needs to be analyzed and measured in order to justify the encounter.
The paper writes how the use of force by the police has been a question under discussion by researchers because there have been varied views about the use of police force and the need to determine the factors that make the police attack. The research has been carried out by involving certain factors such as the number of policemen in an encounter, the number of suspects/criminals and the extent of force that has been exerted by the policemen in such cases. (Terrill 117).
The use of a ‘force continuum’ has been employed in the research that shows the resistance of the suspect and police use of force. This concept helps to draw guidelines that determine how the suspect could have offered resistance to the police submission and what in turn made the police to exert a certain level of force upon them. The continuum is also useful in determining the situation which triggered a certain level of force and what sequences follow in an encounter. If the behavior of an officer deviates from the prescribed continuum, then it means that he had intended some other ulterior purpose for using force. Tedeschi’s and Felson’s theory of coercive actions helps to explain the given behavior of individuals in social exchange and encounter. This theory explains that the decision of the police officers to use force against criminals might be in pursuit of finding justice and maintaining peace. (Terrill 120). It is also a common practice amongst the police to find out the blame and to bring justice to a grieved person. Officers might also use force in order to maintain their identity. There are different kinds of forces that officers use like verbal, baton use, handcuffing, commands or threats or by having a firm grip. The transactional process looks at the micro processes involved in the use of force. The results showed that officers deviated from the continuum about 20 times. There are situations where the police deviate because of the kind of suspect they are acquainted with and the need to use force because the threat is too high. However, the most effective police work is carried out when officers are least coercive and applying force questions the legislation itself because penalizing is a duty of the court and jury, not the police. (Terrill 137).
Conclusively, it can be said that the use of police force is only effective if the criminals threaten a lot of lives and the police must attack according to the legislation this way. It also means that the police use force to exert their identity and at times provide justice on the spot however if they do so against certain races or ethnicities, then it questions their legitimacy and the overall authority of the law enforcement system.
Work Cited
NIJ. Police use of force. 2016. Web. 14 March 2016.
Terrill, William. Police use of force: A transactional approach. Justice Quarterly. 117-138. 2005.
Web. 14 March 2016.
