Organizational and Other Constraints on Controlling the Use of Deadly Force by Police

• NCJ Number: 79103
• Journal: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Volume: 455 Dated: (May 1981) Pages: 110-119
• Author(s): J Lindgren
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 10 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Available from NCJRS on microfiche as NCJ-79095.

Annotation

This article examines constraints on police use of deadly weapons, including organizational structure and the nature of the decision to fire a gun, and then outlines ways that current rules controlling the use of force can be made more effective.

Abstract

American police are more heavily armed and shoot more frequently than their counterparts in other Western democracies simply because gun ownership is high among the general and criminal populations in the United States. Data on homicides by police show that rates vary greatly among cities, suggesting that police policies may have some impact on the use of force. Other studies have found that aggressive actions by police aggravated the dangerousness of situations and that police often used excessive force. The broad scope of police duties, their organizational structure, and the diverse levels of supervision over law enforcement agencies tend to promote decentralized decisionmaking. Although theorists contend that even in a decentralized organization top management can control all important decisions by rules and procedures, this concept ignores the realities of police work. First, the decision to fire a gun is made at the lowest level of the hierarchy, the officer on the street, and is an unreflective decision which must be made quickly. Post hoc reviews of a decision to fire a gun are often distorted by police concern with their public image. In the few criminal and civil cases against wayward officers that have reached court, juries generally have been sympathetic to police officers. As long as gun ownership in a community is high, it is difficult to control police use of firearms when a criminal is fleeing or threatens to attack an officer. Legislatures and police departments can control the use of force in the fleeing felon situation by restricting the use of firearms to life threatening situations and researching the risk to police, felons, and bystanders in various settings. Improvements in the effectiveness of review systems for police use of deadly force also are discussed. A total of 38 footnotes are provided.