Police Use of Force in the United States

• In Event: Police Action and Response to Crime

Abstract

I examine police use of force in the United States through an extensive secondary analysis of police-citizen contact data from two large national studies: The Multi-Method Evaluation of Police Use of Force Outcomes: Cities, Counties, and National, 1998-2007 [United States] (ICPSR 25781) (principal investigators: Alpert, Geoffrey P.; Smith, Michael R.; Fridell, Lorie) and the Police-Public Contact Survey (Ppcs) (2008). My Discussion will focus on 1) what constitutes use of force (conceptual) and the impact of use of force continuums in policing organizations; 2) the frequency of various forms of use of force practices in the United States (descriptive); and 3) the intersection of race, gender and social class on frequencies of use of force encounters between police and citizens (predictive; causal).

Author

• Craig Boylstein, Coastal Carolina University