Deadly force in law enforcement and criminal justice

Criminology Theory: Why Deadly Force Can Be a Crime

The use of deadly force on the part of police officers has been highlighted in recent news reports. Given less attention are the police officers who could have used deadly force but managed the situation without doing so. Specifically reported in the work of Pinzzotto, Davis, Bohrer, and Infanti (2012) is that "a large number of officers have been in multiple situations in which they could have used deadly force, but resolved the incident without doing so and while avoiding serious injury." (p.1)

Examination of the Use of Deadly Force

Alpert and Smith (1994) report that the United States Civil Rights Commission in the 1980s reviewed police use of force and stated as follows:

"Police officers possess awesome powers. They perform their duties under hazardous conditions and with the vigilant public eye upon them. Police officers are permitted only a margin of error in judgment under conditions that impose high degrees of physical and mental stress. Their general responsibility to preserve peace and enforce the law carries with it the power to arrest and to use force-even deadly force." (U.S. Civil Rights Commission in: Alpert and Smith, 1994)

McCauley et al. (2008) reports that examples of non-deadly police force include "physical contact, holding, hitting: use of pepper spray or mace- chemical weapons; the use of a baton-impact weapon; the use of a Taser or stun gun -- electronic weapon; and the use of 'bean bag impact projectile' -- kinetic energy weapon." (p.2) Other non-deadly weapons include "flashlights, police cars, and barking police canines." (McCauley, et al., 2008 p.2) However, "the moment a police officer hits a person with a flashlight, rams a person or another vehicle with a police car, or causes a police dog to bite someone; these tools instantly become instrumentalities of force, even if one chooses not to use the term weapon." (McCauley, 2008, p.3)

II. Policing Theory

The work of Klinger (2005) reports that social theory "can serve many functions in the public policy arena: Two of the most important in the realm of crime and justice are: (1) guiding the actions of criminal justice agencies and personnel; and (2) explaining to members of the public how and why agencies and personnel act the way they do. (p.1) Klinger goes on to state the fact "One place where social theory has been lacking, however, is in the critical area of deadly force. No decision that an officer can make is more important than the one to pull the trigger, for doing so is an exercise of the state's supreme power -- the ability to end the lives of its citizens. Moreover, the social consequences of exercising this ultimate power can be quite profound, as time and again in our nation's recent history police shootings have led to political upheaval, community outrage, and even full-blown riot." (2005, p.2)

III. The Principle of Tactical Knowledge

It is reported by Klinger (2005) that the principle of tactical knowledge "holds that officers should develop as much information as they can about each potentially violent situation they are called upon to handle before committing themselves to a particular course of action. One critical component of this notion is that officers should keep their distance from potential adversaries, whenever it is possible, so they can limit the threat they face as they seek to understand better what is happening." (p.3) According to Klinger "the sociology of risk and mistake is rooted largely in organizational sociology; a sub-discipline that analyzes the structure and operation of formal organizations such as police departments." (2005, p.5)

III. Rarity of Officer-Involved Shootings