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The Influence of Police Profanity on Public Perception of Excessive Force

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Abstract

Previous research has examined elements of police performance impacting community policing and police-citizen relationships, but no study has considered the impact of police use of profanity during arrest on public rating of force. Police profanity may negatively bias police-citizen interactions, and this bias could shape later interactions with community members, impact the quality of police-community relations, or even result in public outcry over excessive use of force. The aim of this study was to determine whether officer use of profanity during arrest led to public perception of excessive force and to examine whether gender of the officer or subject affected this relation. Force was evaluated as more excessive when profanity was used, when the subject was a female, and when the officer was a female. Participants who rated force as excessive had significantly more negative attitudes about police and police use of force. These findings have direct implications for police training and suggest that if police avoid the use of profanity, this could result in more positive relationships with the public and fewer allegations of excessive force. Future researchers should further evaluate the nature and impact of gender biases against female police, as they may contribute to reduced opportunities, less frequent promotion, and reduced self-efficacy in female officers.

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Notes

  1. For a comparison over time, the reader might review the following: Selnow (1985), de Klerk (1991), Scherer and Sagarin (2006), and Jacobi (2014)—all listed in the references section of this paper.

  2. The authors did not include any measures of effect size in their analyses.

  3. Harvard University’s Project Implicit© is an often-used resource for tests of this nature and can be accessed at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, P.O. Box 6040, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA

    Christina L. Patton & William J. Fremouw

  2. Pennsylvania State Police Academy, Hershey, PA, USA

    Michael Asken & Robert Bemis

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  1. Christina L. Patton
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  2. Michael Asken
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Correspondence to Christina L. Patton.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Patton, C.L., Asken, M., Fremouw, W.J. et al. The Influence of Police Profanity on Public Perception of Excessive Force. J Police Crim Psych 32, 340–357 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-017-9226-0

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