Elizabeth Arias

December 16, 2020

Sociology 300: The Sociological Imagination

Professor Davila Chevalier

Crime and Criminalization: Police use of excess Force

Using force to apprehend is usually likely to result in indefensible serious injuries. Force

that is resisted is usually in defense and should be taken into consideration when it is being used

against a police officer. We have seen so many unjustifiable cases where an officer has used

brutal force while detaining someone, which has led to serious injuries and even death, such as in

the case of Eric Garner. Police overstepped their boundaries and used excessive force to

apprehend him for selling loose cigarettes, even after he repeatedly said he could not breathe.

The officers involved were not prosecuted and suffered no consequences for their behavior. We

have seen so many unjustifiable cases where an officer has used brutal force while detaining

someone, which has led to serious injuries and even death, such as in the case of many

minorities. Police use of force in a contemporary setting is not only harmful to those who are

under this oppression, but the city itself is impacted by the results. Just as Nirej Sekhon writes,

police “are ‘street sovereigns’ whose power derives from the law but cannot be contained by it.”

Police are protected by the law and because of this they are usually not restrained by the law.

There are ways that excess force can be prevented, but police officers should also be held

accountable for using excessive force. This paper proposes a theoretical account to argue patterns

of excessive force on minorities and how it can generally be prevented.

According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police use of force is the “amount

of effort required by police to compel compliance by an unwilling subject” (NJI,2012). The

approach being, that police officers use of force should not be used in excess or more than is

necessary to keep control off an incident. Such as conducting an arrest or protecting the public or

themselves from any danger. “The severity and intensity of the force used — from verbal

commands, to handcuffing, to baton, pepper spray, TASER, or firearm — should be based solely

on the dangerousness of the suspect’s present actions and should have nothing to do with the

suspect’s attitude or the presumed moral “blameworthiness” of the crime in question. Necessary

force is for protection, not punishment.” (Ramsey, 2015). Police brutality and excessive force

has always been a serious form of crime performed by police under the guise of averting crime

itself. As seen throughout media, minorities, especially African Americans, have been the lead

targets of police brutality and their dubious use of force (Smith, Holmes 2014). In the journal by

Smith and Holmes we read about an empirical research they conduct on the effects on police

brutality and minorities. They concluded in their data” The minority threat hypothesis states that

the greater the percent minority in a city, the greater the employment of coercive control

strategies by the police” (Smith and Holmes page 97). That “Empirical research using data

aggregated to the city level provides considerable support for the argument that the use of

violence by the police is closely linked to the racial and ethnic makeup of communities” (Liska

and Yu 1992). Excessive force by police is particularly disturbing given its unequal impact on

people of color. Minorities are targeted more because they are usually part of the lower class, a

segment, as Sekhon says, that cannot be controlled without the police interfering. Those of

higher class feel the need to control minorities because they might feel threatened. They want to

also keep minorities where they are, staying poor or getting poorer. They believe that minority

groups threaten social order and control.

 Police have also been able to run around “solving crimes” in plain clothes. Blending in

with civilians, but also increasing the crime rates within police officers higher. According to

Sekhon, they can walk around committing crimes against minorities in plain clothes and get

away with it.” ’Plainclothes officers’ function more as spies than as uniformed police, gathering

intelligence and using trickery to induce crime. It is rife with opportunities for ‘zealous officers’

to get carried away by perpetrating crimes themselves, creating a risk of injury to civilians and

police, and unfairly targeting minority groups” (Sekhon, 7-8). Police officers can get away with

more when in plain clothes, they have no badge or are not on duty to get in any repercussions.

Which can lead to many more crimes withing the police community.

Excessive force is more widely discussed and publicized than it was previously because

of the impact social media. These stories of police brutality were not as memorable and were

easily forgotten because they were not a video being played at every second. Calimlim says,

“Social media is being used as a beacon in providing awareness of excessive force police use in

certain situations” (Calimlim, 2015). What we also see now, is that because social media, such as

Facebook, twitter especially and Instagram is so loud against police officers, they have become

more violent. They feel the need to protect themselves and show how much the law is really with

them and never against them. Just as Sekhon explains, police become more violent when they are

exposed to the public.

In the “Journal Sworn to Protect: Police Brutality – A Dilemma for America’s Police”,

Perry Lyle and Ashraf M. Esmail talk about the misconduct of police officers and “the

unwarranted coercion.” The authors talk explain how police officers commit not only physical

assaults but also in the forms of verbal abuse and psychological intimidation. They also mention

how Black males represent six percent of the population and 40 percent are victims to police
shootings. The authors get into a detail research as to how police brutality has changed with

social media being involved. As well as add psychological data as to why police officers use

aggression towards minorities. Lyle and Esmail use a more qualitative method to find data to

support their theory. They also use psychological references to explain why police officers rely

on abusing and using aggression towards minorities. For example, they state that

““physiological, emotional, and cognitive responses are intricately and inextricably interwoven

into the production of aggression (p.102). Social psychologists have agreed that, at a minimum,

“aggression [is] any form of behavior that is intended to injure someone physically or

psychologically” (Berkowitz, 1993) that would satisfy the essence of police brutality with the

application directed at another person” (Lyle and Esmail, p164). This explains that police

officers are driven to aggression because of their psychological and cognitive state. They state in

the article that because of the psychological stress alongside cynicism, bring together traits that

are “characterized as aggression”. In their statistical data, the authors found that in the LA Police

Department there 44 police officers with six or more civilian allegations of excessive force (Lyle

and Esmail, p171). The authors found that police brutality and abuse is an ongoing problem that

separates minorities from law enforcement. The authors also include ways to deal with police

aggression such as, racial diversification (Lyle and Esmail, p179). Which in terms helps to

address the racial tensions between police officers and minorities.

In the journal “Police use of Excessive Force in Minority Communities: A Test of the

Minority Threat, Place, and Community Accountability Hypothesis” by Brad W. Smith and

Malcolm D. Holmes, we review the threat against minority groups by police officers. Their

hypothesis being that “the greater proportion of minority residents in cities, the greater the use of

coercive crime control mechanisms” (Smith and Holmes, p1). Stating that because cities are built
of a greater proportion of minorities, there is likely less methods of controlling and coercing

crime. In this journal they combined data from many different sources with cities with more than

100,000 residents. In the findings of this report, they will state the threat of the hypothesis but

also “indicate that place effects are contingent on the existence of a very high degree of

racial/ethnic segregation” (Smith and Holmes, pg1). Smith and Holmes use a quantitative

research method to find the answer to their hypothesis.

In the study, Smith and Holmes included four types of categories towards their

independent variables in a statistical model. “These tables encapsulate the minority threat, place,

and community accountability, as well as certain other city characteristics that were used as

controls” (Smith and Holmes, p90). These tables basically represent the number of complaints

placed by citizens against police officers involving the use of excess force. In their findings, they

conclude that their hypothesis was unaltered. Smith and Holmes concluded that police officers

have a certain psychological response when handling minorities. “Their responses to minority

citizens are likely a manifestation of their unique interests and of normal social psychological

processes triggered in interactions with minorities in the milieu of street-level policing,

particularly in disadvantaged areas” (Smith and Holmes, p98). They believe that this can be an

effect of the black segregation variable. They believe that police officers learn to associate

minority neighborhoods with “crimes, danger and challenges to authority.” (Smith and Holmes

p98)

Smith and Holmes did rigorous research to come up with their findings. They also used

various methods, as well as resources to help them reach their hypothesis. The data they

collected and used were from five different sources, “2000 and 2003 Law Enforcement

Management and Administrative Statistics survey (LEMAS) by the Bureau of Justice Statistics
(2006, 2008); the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) for 2003 (U.S. FBI 2005); the CensusScope

website created by the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN) at the University of

Michigan (n.d.); and the 2000 U.S. Census (U.S. Census Bureau 2004). There were a total of 245

Census designated places with 100,000 or more residents in 2000.” (p89) In these analyses they

included 218 which is 94 percent of the 232 cities of over 100,000 residents as their study. These

are all government sources and are reliable in terms of statistical research.

These article’s and studies contributed to my topic of Police officer’s and Excessive use

of Force because they both it goes into detail about why police officers are aggressive. In the

article by Lyle and Esmail they use psychological explanations and understandings are done to

explain why police officers are abusive towards minorities. This data was strongly supported

with the research both authors did. In support to their aggression theory, they also included data

and sited many sources. The research done by Smith and Holmes has help with concluding my

hypothesis and research. In my paper I write about the excessive use of force against minorities

and what could be done about it. Their research has helped me find a statistical number to how

many minorities are targeted in cities all around us.

In conclusion, there should be ways in which the police officers are controlled and

stopped from using excessive force. Excessive force can lead to various injuries not only for the

person being apprehended but for the police officer as well. There have been so many tragedies

because of police brutality and excessive force, the US department of Justice should be watchful

in enforcing the law and administration of justice for these victims. There are ways to prevent

excessive force by police officers and it should be taken more seriously. Usually, the amount of

force used in defense is equivalent to the amount of excessive force used by the officer. If the

police officer stops using excessive force, then the person being apprehended will or should be
resisting. Police officers should be held accountable for all use of excessive force. Police officers

needs more training and should be encouraged to go to classes or seminars. Where they are

constantly talked to or taught ways in how to arrest someone without causing injuries.

Condoning excessive force should also be stopped, police officers are not prosecuted often

enough, leading towards animosity from the public. They were not persecuted and suffered no

consequences for their behavior. Unwarranted force can be prevented in several different ways.

Lastly, Police officers should be trained in communication, teaching them ways in how to

respond and talk to minorities or anyone being arrested can lead to uncalled for force. Police

shooting, brutality, and excessive force have been the root cause of the deaths of many

minorities.
 References:

 Sekhon, Nirej. “POLICE AND THE LIMIT OF LAW.” Columbia Law Review, vol. 119,

no. 6, 2019, pp. 1711–1772. JSTOR,.

 Liska, Allen E. and Jiang Yu. 1992. “Specifying and Testing the Threat Hypothesis:

Police Use of Deadly Force.” Pp. 53–68 in Social Threat and Social Control, edited by A.

E. Liska. Albany: State University of New York Press.

 Calimlim, Melanie. “Social Media Helps Bring Light on Police Brutality.” The Inquirer,

18 Nov. 2015, www.dvcinquirer.com/opinion/2015/11/18/social-media-helps-bring-light-

on-police-brutality/.

 Brad W. Smith, and Malcolm D. Holmes. “Police Use of Excessive Force in Minority

Communities: A Test of the Minority Threat, Place, and Community Accountability

Hypotheses.” Social Problems, vol. 61, no. 1, 2014, pp. 83–104. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/sp.2013.12056. Accessed 11 Nov. 2020.

 Lyle, P., & Esmail, A. (2016). Sworn to Protect: Police Brutality – A Dilemma for America’s

Police. Race, Gender & Class, 23(3-4), 155-185. doi:10.2307/26529213

 Department of Justice. (2012). Police Use of Force. National Institute of Justice.

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/law-enforcement/use-of-force

 Ramsey, D. X. (2015, June 8). Inside the mind of an angry cop. GQ.

http://www.gq.com/story/police-psychologist-qa-texas-pool-party