Police Use Of Force Essay

Words: 1931
Pages: 8

Police officers come into contact with many different environments and people on a daily basis. They also cannot avoid the use of force in their jobs since it is required when necessary. The use of force is expected in the policing field. Situations arise that are unpredictable and sometimes even shocking. With any situation, there are always different choices that can be made. The results of these choices could end positively or negatively and the full extent of the use of force is always in question. The extent of the force and how it is used is a well-known debate in society.
Police officers have certain duties that they are accountable for. Police are responsible for protecting life and property, maintaining peace and order within the public, and having complete control of crime and use of prevention. (More 1998). The American Bar Association has eleven standards for police function. Some of them are to identify criminals and criminal activity and control the offenders. They are also responsible for aiding individuals who are in danger and assisting
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A study was done with the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the US Department of Justice that contained 295 law enforcement officers. They completed a training session about deadly force and were asked to complete a confidential survey. Some of the questions that were on the survey were; the number of years they have been in law enforcement, average number of times their weapons were drawn, the number of critical incidents that their fired weapon was involved in, the number of times they could have used their firearm but did not, the number of times they have been assaulted, and the number of times they have been injured due to accidents and assaults. Only numerical responses were used, which limited some of the research due to the fact that some officers do not know exact numbers (Pinizzotto et al.