Understanding Police Use of Force
Officers, Suspects, and Reciprocity

This book presents important data and findings about the police use of force.

Geoffrey P. Alpert (Author), Roger G. Dunham (Author)

9780521837736, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 August 2004

202 pages, 10 b/w illus. 24 tables
23 x 15.9 x 1.7 cm, 0.47 kg

'This book is a valuable resource. The contents could well be useful for officers, instructors and policy makers as well as academics …'. British Journal of Sociology

Whenever police officers come into contact with citizens there is a chance that the encounter will digress to one in which force is used on a suspect. Fortunately, most police activities do not involve the use of force. But those that do reflect important patterns of interaction between the officer and the citizen. This book examines those patterns. It begins with a brief survey of prior research, and then goes on to present data and findings. Among the data are the force factor applied - that is, the level of force used relative to suspect resistance - and data on the sequential order of incidents of force. The authors also examine police use of force from the suspect's perspective. In analyzing this data they put forward a conceptual framework, the Authority Maintenance Theory, for examining and assessing police use of force.

Introduction: the context of police use of force
1. Police use of force: the history of research
2. The crucial element: finding research sites
3. Findings from Miami-Dade Police Department study
4. The sequential steps in use of force incidents
5. MDPD: inconsistencies between officer and suspect accounts of the use of force
6. Findings from Prince George's County Police Department
7. Findings and summary
8. Explaining police use of force: the breakdown of an authority maintenance ritual.

Subject Areas: Crime & criminology [JKV]