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Allegations of excessive force in policing have been cited as one of the most frequent claims filed against the police in arrest situations. The United States Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor (1989) determined that “objective reasonableness” is the Fourth Amendment standard to be used in evaluating claims of excessive force. This paper analyzes the patterns of lower federal court decisions in 1,200 published Section 1983 cases decided from 1989 to 1999. The assessment examines how these courts have applied and interpreted the standard in four categories involving force. Policy and training issues are discussed and future research concerns are presented.

The purpose of this study is to explore the ideological gaps on police use of force.

In a national-level survey distributed via Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (n = 979), the authors explore the role that respondents' political ideology plays in the approval of police use of force across a range of scenarios.

Across all scenarios, self-identified conservative respondents maintain strong approval of police use of force. In comparison, liberal respondents provide more variance in their views on approval of police use of force based on the scenario. The scenarios where there are small gaps in approval between the two ideologies are when reasonable force is used toward a violent threat.

There are specific circumstances where the messaging surrounding use of force can create agreement (reasonable) or disagreement (excessive) among conservatives and liberals.

Conservatives and liberals demonstrate gaps across an even larger set of use of force scenarios.

Examines the relationship between the observation of police use of force and the subsequent evaluation of police performance. The data in this study were obtained from a random sample of 992 Ohio citizens. Finds that the observation of police use of force that the respondents judged excessive had a significantly negative effect on their perception of police performance. The effect of this observation remained significant even after controlling for sociodemographic, experiential and neighborhood characteristics. Suggests that the police could substantially increase citizens’ satisfaction with their performance by reducing incidents and allegations of police misconduct.

Approximately 50 years ago, William Westley’s (1953) pioneering study of police officers brought to the forefront the special characteristics of police work. The present research raises the question: how far have thepolice come since Westley? Using focus group interviews and surveys collected from alarge Southwest police department, the study examines the situational role context of physical force. In doing so, it provides an explanation of physical force today, compared to explanations offered by Westley. The current research examines whether officer use of physical force and its severity are determined by the situation. The results confirm this hypothesis by suggesting that physical force is determined situationally, according to low‐order excessive force and high‐order violent force. As a way of understanding the lack of change in attitudes and practice of physical force, a possible explanation is the patrol culture.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if global and situational support for police use of force vary across first-generation immigrants, second-generation immigrants and native-born Americans.

Drawing on data from the 2012 General Social Survey, multivariate logistic regression models are performed to predict each of the three binary outcome variables (e.g. support for police use of reasonable force or excessive force) depending on immigrant generation status.

Results indicate that, compared with native-born individuals, first-generation immigrants express less global support for police use of force and less support for police use of reasonable force. In contrast, the first-generation group is more supportive of police use of excessive force compared to the second-generation group and native-born group.

Much research on immigrants’ perceptions of the police has yielded conflicting findings. Part of the reason has been attributed to failure to distinguish first-generation immigrants from successive generations of immigrants. The present study fills a gap in this line of research by assessing the extent to which there is a disparity in support for police use of force between different generations of immigrants and native-born individuals.

Applying Lundman’s organizational product thesis in explaining citizen complaints against police use of excessive physical force, the current study tests several hypotheses with a national data set. Tobit regression analyses of the data show that Lundman’s thesis is partially supported. Both organizational behavior and organizational characteristics are important covariates of the complaint rate against police use of excessive physical force. Although generalization is limited, police departments need to actively recruit more mature persons into the police force, reinforce field training officer programs, and continually provide more in‐service training programs for its members if they are serious in reducing citizens’ complaints.

In this study we set out to explain police support for the use of force, police response to a vignette about force, and police self-reported use of force.

The computer-assisted survey was conducted among 419 officers of the Metropolitana police department in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The regression analyses show that a substantial part of how officers view force, and the reported frequency of their own use of force, can be explained through demographic characteristics, organizational features, attitudes toward citizens, and personal experience.

This study was conducted in a region where excessive police use of force is unfortunately a continuing concern. Based on the results we advise police organizations to tackle this issue by investing in improving police attitudes toward both internal and external relations. We also recommend prohibiting officers to carry the regulatory gun while off duty, in order to reduce deaths of both civilians and officers.

The purpose of this paper is to help inform the ongoing policy and training debates over use of the Taser and its proper role in the use of force continuum.

This paper qualitatively analyzes all reported court decisions (n=53 as of January 31, 2007) in which a Taser was used by a law enforcement officer.

The majority of reported cases have resulted in the dismissal of claims against officers and municipalities for alleged Taser‐related excessive force violations. In most cases, plaintiffs were unable to show the existence of an unconstitutional policy or custom to support municipal liability. As for the liability of individual officers, most cases were decided in the officer's favor on summary judgment, particularly when the suspect was exhibiting physical resistance. In a few cases, summary judgment was denied to officers when the plaintiff alleged that he or she was fully compliant when the Tasering occurred.

This analysis was confined to reported court decisions, which do not necessarily represent a random sample of all Taser‐related lawsuits filed in the courts. Likewise, Taser‐related lawsuits appear to be increasing as the use of the Taser proliferates among law‐enforcement agencies. Thus, the trends and patterns in Taser liability identified in the analysis may change and evolve with newly decided cases.

The analysis suggests that agencies should review their policy and training guidelines on Taser usage to remain compliant with emerging legal standards. Officers should be trained to articulate a physical threat or potential threat before using a Taser against a verbally resistant subject.

Civil liability is always of concern to law enforcement officials, particularly when an emerging technology is involved. At the time of this writing, there were no published analyses of Taser‐related excessive force claims.

Analyzes policies from 96 law enforcement agencies on their use of less‐than‐lethal force. Includes a review of several topics: policy purpose, definitions of lethal and less‐than‐lethal force, provisions for authorized and unauthorized weapons, training requirements, avoiding excessive force, medical aid and report requirements. Concludes that most policies are deficient in one or more topic areas. Provides recommendations on how to improve these policies.

Qualified immunity is a defense available to law enforcement officials in Section 1983 lawsuits alleging constitutional violations. Whether qualified immunity is granted hinges on the objective reasonableness of the officer’s actions; that is, on what a reasonable officer would have done under the circumstances. However, when a plaintiff alleges a Fourth Amendment violation, another objective reasonableness test is used. The result can be a paradoxical finding of reasonably unreasonable conduct. The present study examines this quizzical feature of civil liability law and seeks to clarify the role that both objective reasonableness tests play. In doing so, it examines the varying definitions of objective reasonableness, reviews a number of court decisions where the Fourth Amendment and qualified immunity have collided, and makes recommendations for minimizing future confusion.