Excessive Force in the Police World

Abstract

It is hard to define what excessive force is. There’s no concrete definition of excessive force. Police have to subdue suspects every day. The military is governed by articles of the Geneva Convention as to what is considered excessive force. Under certain circumstances it may be necessary to use force.   The reasonable levels of force are presumed by law enforcement officers on the street, second-guessed by police review boards and sometimes tested in civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions on a case-by-case basis. This research explores articles and reports of cases involving excessive force and their differences between the military and civilian police.

There’s no concrete definition of excessive force. Police have to use force to subdue suspects every day. Reasonable levels of force are guessed by cops on the street, second-guessed by police review boards and sometimes tested in civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions on a case-by-case basis. There are specific instances in which force may be a natural and necessary response in order to protect one’s safety, rights, or property. In fact, there are several different situations in which force is an appropriate response, as described by Florida state statutes. Excessive force accusations are not simply limited to police brutality cases but also concern matters like using force to defend others or using force to prevent escape. (Johnson, 1998)

The word "brutality" has several meanings; it was first used in 1633. The first known use of the term "police brutality" was in the New York Times in 1893, describing a police officer's beating of a civilian. The origin of modern policing based on the authority of the nation state is commonly traced back to developments in seventeenth and eighteenth century France, with modern police departments being established in most nations by the nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. Cases of police brutality appear to have been frequent then, with the routine...