The Social Influence of Use of Force in a Network of Police Officers

• In Event: Network Criminology and Policing

Abstract

Examining how an officer’s use of force influences their fellow officers’ behavior is key to formulating effective law enforcement policies. We evaluate whether an officer’s prior involvement in use of force, whether justified or not, is associated with the use of force behavior of colleagues with whom they had direct and indirect exposure. Therefore, we study 655,961 “911” unique calls for police service across 2013 and 2014 and 8,022 Response to Resistance reports from 2014-2016 by 3,313 officers in the Dallas Police Department in Texas. To construct a network of front-line interaction in which officers, who typically patrol in their vehicles alone, we connect officers to one another when they respond to the same call for service. We identify 911 calls during which use of force occurred to measure direct and indirect exposure to use of force. Our initial findings suggest a positive relationship between exposure and future use of force, showing the importance of different types of ties between officers outside of the closer relationships associated with partnerships or within units. Therefore, aiming reforms to reduce the frequency of use of force at even short interactions between officers may offer broader impact in its regulation in a police department.

Authors

• Alexandra Ciomek, University of Oxford

• David Kirk, University of Pennsylvania