Week 12; Theorizing Police Violence

Question 1

What are the principles for police use of force?

Answer 1

• The legal authority for the police to use force is found in the Criminal Code, which sets out the following principles:
  
  1. Officers exercising force must be performing a duty they are required or authorized to do.
  2. They must act on reasonable grounds.
  3. They may use only so much force as is necessary under the circumstances.
  4. They are responsible for any excessive use of force

Question 2

What is the Racial Animus Model?

Answer 2

• Model proposes that blatantly racist police officers (often referred to as “bad apples”) sometimes deliberately abuse their legal authority and illegitimately use coercive force against racial minority civilians – often as an act of racial hatred or animus.
  In other words, the overtly racist attitudes and beliefs of a relatively small number of police officers may directly contribute to the over-representation of racial minority civilians in police use of force incidents. Removing these officers from policing will dramatically reduce observed racial disparities

Question 3

What is the Devaluation Model?

Answer 3

• Model maintains that, in general, racial minority citizens are devalued by mainstream society – especially if they reside in socially disadvantaged communities. The roots of such devaluation are deeply rooted in our shared history of colonialism and slavery. As a result, police use of force against racial minorities is less likely to be questioned or come under state scrutiny. This devaluation ultimately puts racial minorities at greater risk of becoming a victim of police violence.
  ○ In other words, the police may be more reluctant to use physical force against White people because they feel that the legitimacy of such actions is more likely to be questioned by the White power structure. Furthermore, White victims, or their family members, may have the power and resources needed to successfully challenge the legal authority of the police

Question 4

What is the Racial Stereotype Model?

Answer 4

• Model proposes that racial stereotypes may lead to a belief among some police officers that racial minorities, particularly racial minority males, are more dangerous or violent than other members of society.
  ○ Such racial stereotypes could develop as a result of exposure to negative media images of racial minorities or through negative contact with racial minority criminals in the course of a policing career (especially if such negative contacts are not balanced with more positive interactions with non-criminals).
  
  • Negative racial stereotypes, in turn, may cause some police officers to become more fearful, apprehensive or vigilant when they encounter racial minority males on the street. This fear or apprehension, in turn, may increase the probability that the police will use physical force against racial minority males compared to other groups.
    ○ The stereotyping of other groups as “dangerous,” including people with mental health disabilities, may similarly increase their vulnerability to police use of force

Question 5

What is the Statistical Discrimination Model?

Answer 5

• Model is quite similar to the Racial Stereotype Model. However, rather than rely on informal processes, the Statistical Discrimination Model develops race-specific risk profiles using statistical information. Much like the actuarial practices employed by insurance companies, statistics may reveal that Black people and other racial minority groups are more involved in violent crime – including firearm-related homicides – than others. These statistics, in turn, can be used to flag all individuals in this group as “potentially more dangerous” than others. This empirically supported “dangerous” label may impact officer fear and vigilance and how they interact with Black males in the community

Question 6

What is The Minority Crime Model?

Answer 6

• Model proposes that Black males are over-represented in police use of force statistics because they are actually more involved in crime and violence than other racial groups, and thus are more likely to have violent confrontations with police.
  ○ In other words, racial minorities are more involved in the types of violent or aggressive behaviors (carrying firearms, threatening police, shooting at police, threatening or shooting at other civilians, etc.) that ultimately result in the legitimate use of force by police.
  
  • In sum, this model maintains that the over-representation of racial minorities in police use of force incidents has nothing to do with police racism or bias. The blame must be placed on the actions or behaviours of individual Black citizens at the time of their encounters with the police

Question 7

What is the Neighbourhood Model?

Answer 7

• Model proposes that people who live in poor, socially disorganized, high-crime neighbourhoods are at greater risk of police violence than people who live in more affluent, low-crime communities.
  ○ The idea is that some police officers may be more wary, vigilant or fearful when working in such neighbourhoods, and are thus quicker to resort to the use of physical force.
  ○ To the extent that racial minorities are over-represented in such socially disadvantaged communities, they will be at significantly greater risk of becoming over-represented in police use of force statistics
• Revealed that Black people are more likely to be subjected to proactive police surveillance practices than their White or other racial minority counterparts.
• These findings are consistent with allegations of racial profiling. It should be stressed that frequency of police contact alone may increase the likelihood or probability of experiencing police use of force. The greater a group’s involuntary contact with the police, the greater the likelihood some of these encounters will escalate into a dispute that results in police force being used. In other words, there may be a strong correlation between racially biased police surveillance practices and racial disparities in police use of force

Question 8

What is the demeanour Model?

Answer 8

• Model proposes that people who are aggressive, belligerent or demonstrate blatant disrespect to police authority are more vulnerable to police use of force than people who are polite and compliant.
  ○ This model is completely consistent with the results of a recent American study, sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, which found that, holding other legally-relevant factors constant, the police are much more likely to use physical force when arresting verbally abusive suspects than compliant, non-abusive suspects (see Garner and Maxwell 2003).
  
  • This model therefore anticipates that the over-representation of racial minorities in police use of force statistics may – at least partially – be explained by the fact that some racial minority citizens may be less likely to show respect to police than White civilians. In sum, this model assumes that police violence is sometimes used to punish civilians who do not demonstrate appropriate deference (the Contempt of Cop phenomena)

Question 9

What is The Police Subculture Model?

Answer 9

• Model argues that the police subculture may increase the likelihood of police violence because it:
  
  1. reinforces racial stereotypes through the telling of “war stories” that depict minorities as dangerous;
  2. increases the likelihood that young officers will want to prove their courage and toughness on the street; this may reduce the probability that officers will try to diffuse confrontations with citizens through non-violent methods;
  3. reinforces the belief that the police should respond to citizen hostility, disrespect or disobedience with violence; and
  4. creates a code of silence among police officers that makes investigations into the illegitimate use of force difficult, if not impossible

Question 10

What is The Integrated Fear Model?

Answer 10

• Model combines elements of the Stereotype, Statistical Discrimination, Neighbourhood, Minority Crime and Demeanor Models. This perspective maintains that the police are most likely to use force when they fear for their own safety, the safety of fellow officers or the safety of civilians. The greater the level of fear, the higher the probability that physical force will be used.
  ○ For example, a civilian carrying a gun may legitimately create “fear” among responding police officers. However, if racial stereotypes exist, this fear may be greater if it is a Black man carrying a gun rather than a White man. Similarly, fear may be even greater if it is a Black man, carrying a gun in a poor, high-crime neighbourhood and yelling insults at the police. Fear may be higher still if it is a Black man, displaying signs of mental illness, yelling insults at the police and carrying a gun in a high-crime area.
• The idea is that police use of force is most likely to occur when a high number of fear-generating factors – some of them legitimate (violent behaviour, weapons possession, etc.), some of them illegitimate (racial stereotypes, disrespectful civilian demeanor, etc.) – converge at the same place and time

Question 11

Main points of the Insider Quote

Answer 11

• Blair and Mike McCormack, the police association president
• They believed there was a generational factor
• new generation of police officers - young ones don’t know when to back off
• this generation of officers must have the last word
• Rather than disengaging and walking away, they tend to escalate confrontation