Talk:Use of force

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2021 and 13 March 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Vak5757.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:11, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Additions
History, case examples, effectiveness/statistics, something relating to the education of officers. Pictures, quotes? Slarrab (talk) 17:41, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Additions
More examples of how force is used in other places (other than England and Wales) would be useful information. More information on the history would be good as well. Slarrab (talk) 17:58, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

More defined definition
We have a definition of the Use of force doctrine, but what exactly is it?Dionnecoe (talk) 18:01, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Definition
Yes, but what is the literal definition of "use of force"? Viewer 05:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The Effect of Higher Education on Police's Use of Force
"One study found that officers with four-year college degrees are significantly less likely to use force than officers with less education."

"College education does, however, significantly reduce the likelihood of force occurring."

24.97.201.230 (talk) 15:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

a. Not quite at 350 words yet. -

b. Focuses on the topic and does not go into unnecessary detail. +

c. No bias included. + d. Reliable references included. +

e. NO original research was included. +

f. Few mechanical errors, properly included the photo added onto the page. +

g. Organized sections and has a flow. +

h. I saw you added a section that fits great in the article. Nice work on that. +++++

i. No Wikilink included. OK, It's super easy to do this. Just find something common on your page that can attach to another Wikipedia article. Even the Use of Force Continuum would be just fine. -

j. Image included. +

Looks good. Please just add a little more that applies and is on topic like you have been doing to meet the 350 word requirement. Add the Wiki-link, it's really not that hard. Email me on canvas if you need help with it. Good job finding a picture. Our group couldn't find one, that complied. So hands down. nice work. You can do this guys!

Allymac08

Suggestions for revisions and expansions
The case law section provides much-needed information about courts' perceptions and definitions of use of force. It would help to add a sentence or two to each one that describes how the Supreme Court defined use of excessive force in those situations. Also in that section, the link to Tennessee v. Garner is broken. The Statistics section needs sources. Also in this section, the second paragraph may violate Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. I'm not sure it's necessary; if it is, then it should be rewritten to take a more neutral standpoint. Overall, the article might make more sense if reorganized in the following way: History, Use of Force Continuum, U.S. Case Law, Officer Attributes (with subsections for Education and other relevant aspects), Suspect Attributes (with subsections for Gender and other relevant attributes), and England and Wales. This would set up the article by discussing the history and the idea of excessive use of force (which is basically jumping up the continuum unnecessarily) and then showing how U.S. courts have defined excessive use of force. Then, it would narrow into other categories. Adding more information to the history section would help, as well as adding research on other officer and suspect attributes that contribute to using varying levels of use of force. Profmwilliams (talk) 18:21, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

First, the history and education sections are found to be lacking in my opinion. I suggest that the topic material for history consist of who what where and why. Who created/pioneered use of force/the use of force doctrines, what did that doctrine look like, where did this occur and why did he/she do this. For education I suggest talking about how use of force/its doctrines are taught. Case law, I want more. It should be easy to look up as the court records can be found online and I can easily see this section taking up a sizable chunk of this article. The statistics and use of force continuum look solid to me, I would focus more on the other sections TheTurf (talk) 19:37, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestions! I'm still working on the history and education sections, so there will definitely be more added to those. Those are good material suggestions. Dionne will be working on finding more case laws. Slarrab (talk) 18:34, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I know you're still editing, but please don't forget to include references for your statistics, otherwise they hold no weight. With the use of force continuum (if you're working on that at all), it may help to discuss how the continuum can be further broken down. Also, it may be useful to add a sentence or two on what tensions occurred in Graham v. Connor just so the reader has an idea of what happened in that situation before they read the case itself.Bryan Wicker (talk) 18:40, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Statistics section
Section is poorly written, poor syntax, no citations of statistics. Some statistics seem made up (99 out of 100 cases that reach court there's no excessive force) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adgj461 (talk • contribs) 14:56, 22 November 2014

Causes and factors suggestions
It would be beneficial to look at how specific community crime levels affect when police use force. Also, how police education, age, ethnicity, and experience factor into the use of force would be useful for this article. Johnwandrey (talk) 17:19, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

It would be beneficial to the page to expand on the definition and the history of the "use of force". There seems to be only examples of misuse of that force in the cases cited. It may be good to have cases that justify use of force so as to compare the two.Bkheil (talk) 02:32, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Potential sources
Lee, H., Vaughn, M. S., & Lim, H. (2014). The impact of neighborhood crime levels on police use of force: An examination at micro and meso levels. Journal Of Criminal Justice, 42(6), 491-499.

Chapman, C. (2012). Use of force in minority communities is related to police education, age, experience, and ethnicity. Police Practice & Research, 13(5), 421-436. Johnwandrey (talk) 17:11, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Worden, R. E. (1996). The causes of police brutality: Theory and evidence on police use of force. In W.A. Geller and H. Toch (Eds.), Police violence: Understanding and controlling police abuse of force(pp. 23-51).New Haven: Yale University Press.Bkheil (talk) 17:12, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Crime levels
I will be working on this section and adding information and sources Johnwandrey (talk) 17:24, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Restraint?
"The use of force involves the use of physical restraint, – usually by a member of a law enforcement agency – to gain control of an unruly person or situation."

That's not what the source says or what the article says. Most of the discussion concerns the lethal or non-lethal 'force', not restraint. Felsic2 (talk) 17:10, 20 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Agree that that appears to be a poor summary/topic sentence for the article. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:09, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Image choice
The choice of image for this article seems slanted and calculated to paint police officers and the whole concept of use of force into disrepute. This is an article about the use of force to make citizens comply when all other methods have failed, and the legal justifications for giving law enforcement officers the option of using force on other people when the sitiuation calls for it. Part of this subject is that some people disagree with the use of force at all, and that others believe many (or all) police use force unecessarily. A political image depicting a police officer bludgeoning a helpless, pleading civilian is not well-selected to represent the subject, it is representative of the views of a minority of people. What is wrong with a picture of police restraining a drunken, belligerent footbal fan who has been running around punching people and spitting on fans of the other team? What about a man who believes he is for some reason immune to arrest and absolutely refused to enter the police car, and then won't bend his legs so the police can close the door, until a pain-compliance pressure point is used to make him bend his legs? That picture is not only a biased suggestion of "evil, violent cops", but it also starts off the tone of the article with "police use of force = bludgeoning people who stand up to them into unconciousness". 95% of "force" used by police is nothing like this, and is merely a way to get unwilling prisoners to comply. The other 5% of the time is where people start getting worried about whether it's excessive force or not, and only a percentage of the timem are they right even then. Anyway, if the article was about "police brutality" then you could find reason to justify using that picture. It's not, it's about official use of force, and that image implies to everyone that reads the article that "police force = brutality". Just because it's not text doesn't mean it doesn't have to be NPOV. And what does that caption even mean: "Police brutality warning"? This is a street sign you'll find hanging it cities where the police are allowed to brutally beat civilians who they catch jaywalking? That's what I might assume if I was a person from a foriegn nation; I'd assume that this was an actual sign, and wow, they weren't kidding when they said American police are brutal! Look at this warning they posted to the people showing them what will happen if they break the law! No, this is some organization's nasty charicature of an officer beating someone. It's not "warning" anyone, it's a political statement made to look like a "Warning" street sign. It has no offical endorsement, and doesn't represent the average person's view on the subject. A better caption might be "this is what some people seem to view 'police use of force as', but that notion is incorrect to a large degree". It is certainly not an unbiased, objective, accurate image depicting the concept of "use of force" as a law enforcement tool.

Idumea47b (talk) 09:17, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Senior Seminar
— Assignment last updated by Acsieling (talk) 18:28, 1 March 2023 (UTC)