April 2017

Guest Editors: John Firman, Emily Kuhn, Kirk McLean, Rachel Nessim, Joycelyn Newell, and Darryl De Sousa

With the rise in tensions between the public and the officers in their communities, law enforcement agencies have recently been reexamining their policies surrounding use of force as part of their efforts to rebuild this fractured trust and improve public safety services. This issue looks at new research about use of force, data collection efforts, policies, and the different ways the law enforcement community is working not only to define use of force, but to determine how and when it should be used.

Articles

• Police Week 2017

  Each year during Police Week, communities across the United States hold memorial services in remembrance of police officers who have made the supreme sacrifice for their communities. Also during thi...

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• National Consensus Policy on Use of Force: How 11 Leading Law Enforcement Leadership and Labor Organizations Arrived at One Policy

  By Sara Dziejma, Project Manager, Law Enforcement Policy Center, IACP Darryl De Sousa, Deputy Commissioner, Baltimore, Maryland, Police Department, Fellow, IACP
  Law enforcement is currently under intense scrutiny, and no discussion of policing practices is complete without addressing use of force. The recent narrative surrounding law enforcement use of force ...

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• Evidence-Based Use-of-Force Policy: How Research Could Improve Development and Training

  By Robin S. Engel, PhD, Director, IACP/UC Center for Police Research and Policy, Vice President for Safety and Reform, University of Cincinnati, Ohio Ronal Serpas, PhD, Superintendent of Police (Ret.), New Orleans Police Department, Loyola University New Orleans, Louisiana
  The use of force by U.S. law enforcement officers during encounters with citizens is one of the most important moments in con...

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• Justification of Law Enforcement's Use of Force: Lessons Learned from the European Court of Human Rights

  By Salvador Ruiz Ortiz, PhD, Murcia Local Police;  Eduardo Osuna Carrillo de Albornoz, Professor, Legal and Forensic Medicine, University of Murcia;  Jose Martinez Marin, Murcia Local Police; and  Antonio Pedroche Gonzalo, Murcia Local Police Diego Huescar Sanchez, Murcia Local Police, Spain
  Use of force by law enforcement is a controversial issue in countries across the globe. There is no universal standard that d...

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• The National Use-of-Force Data Collection

  By Jeffrey Fisher, Crime Data Modernization Team, Federal Bureau of Investigation
  Events of recent years have brought attention to the issue of law enforcement use of force in the United States, especially in cases that result in a fatality. Law...

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• Community Relationships and Law Enforcement’s Use of Force: Learning from Stakeholders to Refine Policy and Training

  By Ngozi Ndulue, Senior Director, Criminal Justice Programs, NAACP  Sheree Briscoe, Major, Baltimore, Maryland, Police Department
  An unarmed civilian is fatally shot. A family grieves or anxiously awaits their loved one’s recovery. Long-simmering tensio...

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• When Less (Force) Is More: De-escalation Strategies to Achieve Officer Objectives and Simultaneously Reduce the Use of Force

  By David Kurz, Chief, Durham, New Hampshire, Police Department Bryan V. Gibb, Director of Public Education, National Council for Behavioral Health
  There is much talk among law enforcement officers about de-escalation and use of force—methods, appropriate use, and risk a...

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