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Police Attitudes about the Use of Unnecessary Force: An Ecological Examination

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Abstract

An unexplored explanation for police opinion about their use of unnecessary force can be framed within the research examining police behavior in the context of its geographic location. Using Klinger’s (1997) theory of social ecology as a guide, a vignette research design was employed to survey officers in four departments of varying size and structure. It was hypothesized that officers assigned to higher crime areas would more likely accept the use of unnecessary force by another officer as well as be unlikely to believe that the use of unnecessary force would be reported to a supervisor. Bivariate results and multivariate analyses show support for both hypotheses. Implications for future research and theoretical development are discussed.

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Notes

  1. It should also be noted that North Patrol district had 14 murders that represented approximately 19 percent of the total number of homicides in the city.

  2. This model assumes that higher values on the dependent variable imply “higher” outcomes. The odds in K categories have the same ratio for all independent variable combinations (Phillips and Sobol 2010). One constraint of the ordered logit model is that it implies that the coefficients are identical across all levels of the ordered dependent variable (Hosmer and Lemeshow 2000), when in fact they may differ. To test whether this parallel regression assumption was met, the suggestion of Long and Freese (2008, pp. 197–200) was followed. This test gave a p-value which was not statistically significant (p > .05) for both of our multivariate models and tells us that this assumption is not violated here.

  3. A potential problem in analyses that use multiple vignettes for the same officer is reference point bias. In other words, an officer’s response on vignette two may be based on how that officer responded to vignette one. Although this bias could not be directly assessed, we examined the impact of vignette one on the full model and then ran the model on only the first vignette so as to compare the parameters and check for differences. With little or no discernible differences observed, we can be confident that reference point bias is not an issue in this analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Criminal Justice Department, Buffalo State College, 1300 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo, NY, 14222, USA

    Scott W. Phillips & James J. Sobol

Authors
  1. Scott W. Phillips
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  2. James J. Sobol
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Correspondence to Scott W. Phillips.

Appendix

Appendix

The following paragraph is a description of police patrol activity. It seeks your opinion of the activity of other police officers. Please read the paragraph carefully and then mark on a scale of 1 to 5, your opinion of the officer’s behavior.

A police office that works in your district or beat is on routine patrol during the (day shift / afternoon shift / night shift). The officer sees a (white, black, Hispanic) male who appears to be (a teenager, late 20s in age, late 30s in age) and (is standing in front of a convenience store / fits the description of a possible drug-dealer / is attempting to break into an automobile). When the man sees the officer (he stands in place with his hands out / he flees on foot. The officer catches the man after a short foot chase). After the suspect is under control the officer (says to the suspect “what the fuck do you think you’re doing,” slaps the suspect once in the back of the head, punches the suspect a couple of times in the stomach).

Based on the information in the above case description, what is your opinion of the officer’s treatment of the suspect? (Please circle your answer)

[1] Completely Unacceptable

[2] Somewhat unacceptable

[3] Really can’t say

[4] Somewhat acceptable

[5] Completely acceptable

Based on the information in the above case description, would you expect any other police officer to report the behavior to a supervisor?

[1] Very doubtful

[2] Somewhat doubtful

[3] Really can’t say

[4] Somewhat likely

[5] Very likely

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Phillips, S.W., Sobol, J.J. Police Attitudes about the Use of Unnecessary Force: An Ecological Examination. J Police Crim Psych 26, 47–57 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-010-9067-6

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