Police Use of Deadly Force

The purpose of this research is to examine the issue of whether and when police use of deadly force is justified. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which the issue has emerged, and then to discuss the saliency of these arguments in respect of competing arguments as well as in respect of implications that Reiman's article raises.

It would seem that deadly force is a matter of practical determination, a judgment made by a cop in the field in a life-or-death situation. But as Felkenes points out, among trainers of policemen in particular and in the academic discipline of criminal justice in particular, awareness of the need to impart ethical content to criminal justice students at all levels has grown. The focus on moral aspects of policing means that the concept of abuse of force would be taught hand in hand with that of deadly force use.

Some commentators develop the moral and philosophical arguments surrounding deadly force in a way that emphasizes the method, process, and context in which one set of citizen-agents is empowered to act against or on behalf of other sets of citizens. Reiman discusses the philosophical definitions of the social contract and the phenomenon of deadly force before moving to the more discretionary discussion of criteria for the use by police of deadly force and the factors that enter into the judgment exercised based on those criteria. It is only after he has discussed these theoretical factors that he imposes what could

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be treated in the same way as the direct-threat felon. The distinction is important because it goes to the moral content of the society that has made a contract with law enforcement authorities. Similar distinctions have been made by others in discussing categories of deadly force. However, not everybody reaches conclusions similar to Reiman's. Mays and Taggart consider deadly force from two angles. First, their statistical study found no significant connection between police-department policies regarding deadly force and its actual use, which calls into question the strength of the social contract theory in framing the debate on deadly force. Second, their study also found a positive connection between lighter, "traditional," police firearms and less use of deadly force. Heavier, more powerful arms tend to encourage such force, they say. Consider also Brady's advocacy of police use of hollow-point bullets, which are more deadly than soft-point bullets. He concludes that on a legal basis, hollow-point bullets can achieve the objectives of law enforcement most efficiently by increasing the likelihood of injuries to felons of any kind who are shot. But the political difficulty of the decision is acknowledged when Brady recommends p

Category: Government - P