Measuring Police Use of Excessive Force: a Necessary Step - Essay Sample

Introduction

Measurement is the initial step that leads to control and at last improve police use of excessive force in exercising of law. This is true from the fact that if you cannot enumerate the extent of something, then you cannot understand its effects. In the effort of improving police-civilian interactions concerning force, it is preferential to have accurate timing and data on the circumstances. As of July 2018, there still lacks an excellent national understanding of police use of force due to lack of reasonable measures (Schmidt, 2015). The U.S. policing is formed in a decentralized and fragmented system with over 18,000 law enforcement agencies (Reaves, 2008) that report and operate independently. Most of the data known on the use of force are due to research funded by the National Institute of Justice, Blue-ribbon investigative commission, the bureau of justice statistics and scholar based research agendas in cities which does not grant full coverage of exercising control. In that case, inadequate data has led to poor perceptions of police use of excessive force among the public and as since then been a defining feature of police (Bittner, 1970).

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Most public discussions shaped on police use of force are on race and sex devoid of the extent and context. Specifically, the race has sparked mixed reactions on social. Since it is a stand-alone variable, it attracts another kind of vices such as racism, discrimination and disparate treatment. Still, it does not also reveal the extent of the full story. Consequently, arguments based on emotions drawing red herrings and hominem attacks fill the ground surrounding the fact. There are plenty of stories and isolated use of force that have since then not altered policy change. Although the stories might act to create a new problem where each anecdote is dealt with based on merits and the government-held accountable, they do not respond to show change.

It is paramount that before passing knowledge to others, the experience must be on us too International (Association of Chiefs of Police, 2012). Education, therefore, means collecting empirical data other than following up vacuous arguments based on stories and anecdotes. The interest behind the use of national data collection is to monitor the patterns, themes, how it occurs and initiate control measures.

Control and management may act to limit the extent to which use of force and prevent organizational accidents (Doyle, 2010) via collecting, analyzing and reporting themes of data to finally reflect data picture, patterns as they occur within the nation that can act to inform policy change and practice in the local. This piece of work approaches the issue of police uses of excessive force from a knowledge base, where the use of force police data and information has to be integrated into the management and be applied to check and examine the policies related to legal principles and community for performance effectiveness.

National Data Collection Framework

It is important to note that capturing force data at the place of occurrence may act to trigger micro criminology that has to do with small units of analysis and processes. The appearance and all its associated factors can reflect some opportunities for the use of force arise in terms of three crucial factors comprising of offenders, police officers and the environment. In that case, incident level use of force data may act to give framework understanding on how civilians interact with their environment to create an opportunity for excessive force (Clarke, 1997; Groff, Weisburd & Yang, 2010). Several theories explain why crimes occur, arguments that weaved through proximate causes other than distant purposes are good informers of crime prevention or in the underlying case to curb excessive force. The act of collecting and data are analyzing explore proximate causes, thereby focusing on immediate situational context by examining the changes that fuel the incident, then exploring measures to curb those chances.

From the environmental approach, the logistics of an occurrence on "How," is viewed as more critical considerable approach as compared to the motivation of "Why." From the environmental approach perspective, it is convenient to control the setting or environment via strategies and techniques that elevate efforts to attack the men in uniform, raise the risk of apprehension of an offender who in this case initiates the offence, or act to lower provocations for an attack via de-escalation strategies. As a way of accomplishing this strategy, U.S. law enforcement has to collect more complex and in-depth data systems such as the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) to act as an aggregate count of crime, and NIBRS to give a profound level of information on corruption and its circumstances. Also, micro-level data are available in many forms and can reflect the relationships between the offenders, victims and detailed incident level.

The data collected by NIBRS superintends UCR data for probable reasons and is used to uncover the existing relationships and patterns revealed in sexual assault of minorities (Snyder, 2010), juvenile prostitution, reflectors of homicide clearances and child pornography among many others. In the same way, a similar system can act to connect the exact incidence –level information to understand and control series of events that culminate police use of excessive force from the perspective of “Who,”, “What,”, “Why,” “When,” “Where,” and dig through the reasons leading to use of exchange of force. The impetus of the law enforcement department is based on tracking and reporting exchange of force. This is rations since it is for measurement of the departments business processes within input, output, the objectives work processes of which they act to improve performance. The theory of rational-technical of organization implies that the behaviour of an organization is structured in a manner which its efficiency and effectiveness are determined for the achievement of technical goals (Blau & Schoenherr, 1971).

This is, however, in contrast with the institutional theory where the institution responds to the cultural features on how the premises should structure its cultural roots, traditions, perceptions, and policy structure. Police agencies that are based on institutional environments are however not likely to observe resources for performance which in this case makes the officers use force as well as record-keeping resources resulting in police appearing as a poster child in line with the institutional theory. Also, Institutional environment for police agencies operates contrary to the rational-technical environment resulting in unfamiliar congruency of the two settings (Crank, 2003) and taking the use of force to be technical aspect in police performance. The use of force in the police department has been described as the technical aspect and the incident –level data serves to counterweight to institutionalism to aid the agency in standing up to rational management framework.

How the System Will Work

A steady flow of information reflecting performance has been termed as an indispensable tool for managing police agency (Shane, 2010). The primary mechanism is data analysis where law agencies can address internal as well as external concerns than are propelled by their policies and practices. Ramirez and colleagues (2000) the collection of information on nature, character and sociodemographic data act to enhance police enforcement policies. Also, the collected information helps in the assessment of relevant details of the authority and the discretion bestowed in authority. In that case, it is the ability to critically know the situations that call for the use of force and conditions that do not need excessive use of force. The nature of information involves the location, the offender, and the situation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the use of data can be used to inform policies in the police agency. The advantages of public, incident-level use of force data are that it identifies the opportunity for police use of force, the relationship between the offender, police and situational condition, identification of the nature and extent of the force applied, patterns and trends that have been put and comprehending to causal relationships via path analysis.

References

Bittner, E. (1970). The functions of police in modern society. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Blau, P., & Schoenherr, R. (1971). The structure of organizations. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Clark, W. A., & Avery, K. L. (1997). The effects of data aggregation in statistical analysis. Collection systems: Promising practices and lessons learned (NCJ# 184768). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. DIANE Publishing.

Doyle, J. M. (2010). Learning from error in American criminal justice. The Journal of Criminal Geographical Analysis, 8, 428-438.

Groff, E. R., Weisburd, D., & Yang, S. M. (2010). Is it essential to examine crime trends at an incident, and offender characteristics (A NIBRS Statistical Report). Collingsdale, PA: Law & Criminology, 100, 109-148.

National Sheriffs’ Association & Treatment Advocacy Center. (2013). Justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers: What is the role of mental illness? (NCJ# 248116).limited-data-on-shootings-involving-police.html local “micro” level? A longitudinal analysis of street to street variability in crime trajecto-

Police Executive Research Forum. (2012). An integrated approach to de-escalation and minimizing use of force (Critical Issues in Policing Series). Washington, DC: Author

Police Executive Research Forum. (2016). Guiding principles on use of force (Critical Issues in police. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/us-has-Policing Series). Washington, DC: Author

Ramirez, D. A., Farrell, A. S., & McDevitt, J. (2000). A resource guide on racial profiling data

Reaves, B. A. (2008). Census of state and local law enforcement agencies, 2008 (NCJ# 233982). Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Schmidt, M.S. (2015, April 8). Scant data frustrates efforts to assess number of shootings by police. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/us/us-has-limited-data-on-shootings-involving-police.html

Shane, J. M. (2010). Performance management in police agencies: A conceptual framework. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 33, 6-29.

Snyder, H. N. (2010). Sexual assault of young children as reported to law enforcement: Victim, Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.