Award Date
12-1-2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Criminal Justice
First Committee Member
William Sousa
Second Committee Member
Tamara Herold
Third Committee Member
Terance Miethe
Fourth Committee Member
Robert Futrell
Number of Pages
201
Abstract
Police use of force incidents are highly complex events that can be characterized by factors pertaining to the officers, subjects, and immediate encounter. These factors and the dynamic interrelationships between them encompass the situational context of use of force and have been widely studied in the criminological literature (Bolger, 2015). However, extant research has almost exclusively focused on identifying the main effects of situational factors on use of force with little consideration of how effects may vary across specific situational contexts. This limits our understanding of police use of force and complicates efforts to develop policy or training that ensures police use of force is used safely, fairly, and effectively.
In response to this gap, this study investigates the situational contexts of police use of less-lethal force and injuries to officers and subjects during these incidents with specific attention given to comparing incidents that involve an electronic control weapon (ECW) to those involving hands-on physical tactics. This is accomplished through an incident-level analysis of use of force data from a large law enforcement agency in the United States. Twelve factors are examined based on their alignment with the focal concerns theory, which suggests that police decision-making is affected by officers’ perceptions of blameworthiness, dangerousness, practical constraints and consequences, and a perceptual shorthand. Following previous studies, logistic regression models are employed to identify the main effects of these factors on force outcomes. Next, contextual variability in the effects of these factors is explored with conjunctive analysis of case configurations (CACC).
Findings from the main effects analysis show that several situational factors affect police less-lethal force decisions as well as the likelihood that officers or subjects will be injured during a use of force encounter. The odds of ECW deployments were significantly higher when encounters involved more physical or weapon resistance, pursuits, subjects with a perceived mental illness, more experienced officers, and male subjects, and lower when encounters were officer-initiated. Officers had higher odds of injury when met with physical or weapon resistance, and subjects had higher odds of injury during proactive encounters or those involving pursuits.
The contextual analysis shows that the effects of many factors on use of force outcomes are highly context-specific. CACC revealed that risk of ECW use ranged from 0% to 88% across contexts, officer injury risk ranged from 0% to 33% and officer injury risk ranged from 0 to 100%. Further, situational factors were commonly present in both high and low-risk contexts for each outcome, regardless of their relationship identified in the main effects analysis. Finally, a case-comparative analysis revealed that the effects of factors can vary substantially across contexts (in some cases, effects can range up to 70 points), and these effects can be both negative or positive depending on the particular situational context under consideration. Some factors demonstrated contextually invariant effects. ECW deployment risk was always higher for more experienced officers and when incidents involved a subject with a perceived mental illness. Additionally, subject injury risk was always higher in incidents involving a pursuit.
This study offers a novel approach for analyzing use of force events that yields a more nuanced understanding of the how and why police use their coercive authority. It sets the stage for future applications of case-oriented research in this space that can inform future research efforts and improve practice.
Keywords
Conjunctive analysis; Electronic control weapon; Focal concerns; Force injury; Less-lethal; Police coercion
Disciplines
Criminology | Criminology and Criminal Justice
File Format
File Size
1215 KB
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Repository Citation
Barnum, Jeremy David, "Exploring The Interactive Effects of Officer, Subject, And Encounter Factors on Police Use of Force Outcomes" (2024). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 5161.
http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/38330370
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
