Abuse of power: causes, consequences, and institutional accountability

Criminal Justice - Abuse of Power

ABUSE of POWER ISSUES in POLICING

Law enforcement entities have legal authority to issue commands that must be obeyed by citizens, to exercise control over individuals, to take them into their custody, and to arrest them. Those authorities are implemented by individual police officers and agents pursuant to criteria established at law governing their use of physical force to gain compliance or to overcome resistance to effect their arrests. In principle, those criteria and the laws defining them originate in constitutional law, congressional action, and, especially, the long history of U.S. Supreme Court case law on matters of police authority and criminal procedure requirements.

Police officers are the primary agents of governmental authority at the point where criminal suspects and other persons subjected to the initial exercise of any state police authority to confine them by arrest. Like other human beings, police officer make honest mistakes in the field, and their personal characteristics and subjective beliefs sometimes affect their actions. They also share with other human beings certain natural biases, as well as automatic and involuntary psychological responses to emotional situations, to resistance to their lawful exercise of authority, and to threats to their personal safety (Geeting 2005).

Similarly, individual police agencies may differ substantially from others in their institutional philosophy and their quality of leadership and training. Consequently, police practice in the field represents constant opportunity for potential misuse of lawful police powers, and for abuse of persons physically, verbally, psychologically, and with respect to their constitutional civil rights. Physical Abuse:

Physical abuse in law enforcement arises most commonly in the context of police street patrol and in the process of subduing criminal suspects and executing arrests (Montgomery 2005). Police officers may lawfully detain subjects whom they reasonably suspect of criminal activity, but they may not implement physical force that is excessive or unreasonable under the circumstances (McCauley 2005). They are required, both at law and by agency policies, to apply different levels of physical control or physical force in a specific hierarchical order, often referred to as the "use-of-force continuum" (McCauley 2005).

Generally, the use-of-force continuum consists of five levels: (1) Verbal persuasion, such as to communicate a lawful request; (2) Light Physical Contact (or "soft hands") such as to guide individuals along an intended path or away from restricted areas; (3) Compliance and Control, such as employed to restrain a subject under investigation or arrest, and compression techniques to control combative individuals through joint locks and leverage maneuvers as necessary to achieve compliance; (4) Self-Defense Strikes, such as necessary to defend against non-deadly physical attacks on the officer; and (5) Deadly Force, such as necessary for the officer to protect against serious bodily injury or threats to life and limb against himself, other law enforcement personnel, or members of the general public (Montgomery 2005).

That continuum authorizes the escalation of force level according to a strict order dictated as the appropriate response to various situations. Likewise, police officers may not implement physical force in an abusive manner, such as by applying a higher level of force than reasonably necessary to achieve their lawful objectives; nor may they misuse the lawful authority to use physical force for the unlawful purpose of administering punishment or retribution for a subject's conduct (Montgomery 2005). Deviating from the order of use-of-force escalation authorized by law and agency policy, and administering "street justice" through the unlawful use of force constitute abuse of police power under color of lawful authority and, where the allegations thereof are substantiated, may support criminal charges against the individual officer as well as civil litigation against the municipality, the police agency, and the involved officer individually.

Verbal and Psychological Abuse:

Verbal and psychological abuse in law enforcement arises most commonly in the context of police contact with individuals subject to lawful police investigations on the street, and in the process of police response to situation requiring their presence to control crowds and to restore public order after disruption. Because exchanges between those subjected to police intervention sometimes become antagonistic, they present potential opportunities for police conduct that constitutes verbal or psychological abuse.

In principle, it is easy to understand this potential, because police officers are duly authorized to issue verbal commands under penalty of arrest for actions of non- compliance or verbal exchanges that constitute disorderly conduct, obstruction of governmental administration, or interference with police investigation (Scmalleger 1997).

Adverse circumstances and heated verbal attacks by angry citizens sometimes triggers a (natural) response on the part of police officers to respond in kind, or, at the extreme, with verbal abuse in the form of threats to use their lawful powers of arrest for intimidation purposes where, in fact, any such use of arrest powers is unlawful under the given circumstances.

Typical examples with potential to trigger verbal abuse by police would include responding to members of the public who are indeed complying with a lawful order to disperse, or to vacate a specific area, but who do so while expressing their verbal disagreement or displeasure with the officer's command. They may even choose to insult the officer personally, but provided their actions do not constitute a threat to the officer or a refusal to obey his lawful orders, and as long as their manner of expression does not constitute a violation of any specific statute, the officer may not respond in a manner that is abusive, or by purposely intimidating the subject. Verbal and psychological abuse by police of this kind may also arise in the context of their interactions with persons in their lawful custody.

Ordinarily, verbal and psychological abuse is among the more difficult types of police abuse allegations to substantiate in a way that gives rise to penalties outside of agency reprimands, because behavior that is strictly verbal is open to subjective interpretation and because, except in the most extreme situations, does not violate specific laws or constitutional principles in and of itself. The most significant exception, however, is where the verbal or psychological abuse takes places under circumstances where they also violate the subjects civil rights.

Civil Rights Violations:

Title 42 U.S.C.1983 ("Section 1983") prohibits anyone (including police officers) from depriving anyone subject to U.S. jurisdiction of "any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws of the Unites States (Scmalleger 1997).

Accordingly, where police conduct is influenced or motivated by racial animus or any other discriminatory policy, Section 1983 entitles the aggrieved party to civil damages from the officer involved.