American police and subcultural support for the use of excessive force

Citation

(2006), "American police and subcultural support for the use of excessive force", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 29 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/pijpsm.2006.18129aaf.001

American police and subcultural support for the use of excessive force

American police and subcultural support for the use of excessive force

A.J. Micucci and I.M. GommeJournal of Criminal JusticeVol. 332005pp. 487-500

In a recent article in the Journal of Criminal Justice, Micucci and Gomme present a test of the influence of the police subculture on police officers' views of police use of excessive force. It has long been hypothesized that police officers have a distinct personality that shapes the way that they view the world around them.

The authors use data from a 1997 study of police corruption, sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, in which over 3,000 officers from 30 American police agencies were asked about their reaction to the following hypothetical scenario:

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  Two police officers on foot patrol surprise a man who is attempting to break into an automobile. The man flees. They chase him for about two blocks before apprehending him by tackling him and wrestling him to the ground. After he is under control both officers punch him a couple of times in the stomach as punishment for fleeing and resisting (Micucci and Gomme, 2005, p. 492).

After reading the above scenario, each officer was asked to indicate, using a Likert scale, the seriousness of the excessive use of force violation. Officers were then asked to indicate both the sanction that should be imposed on the officers involved and the sanction that the respondent thinks the officers would receive in hisher home department. Third, respondents were asked to indicate their willingness to report the incident to supervisors. Finally, the officers were asked about the appropriateness of varying levels of disciplinary action.

The analysis of the data reveals some interesting patterns, which tend to support the authors' hypotheses about the effects of the police subculture on officers' views of excessive use of force. First, "[a] small but significant proportion of police officers in this sample failed to see the sort of violence depicted in the scenario as highly serious" (Micucci and Gomme, 2005, p. 496). Approximately 15 percent of those surveyed, or approximately one officer in seven, ranked the seriousness of the violation depicted in the scenario as low on the seriousness scale (Micucci and Gomme, 2005). The percentage of those viewing the acts in the scenario as non-serious varied by assignment - a higher proportion of line officers than supervisors viewed the violations as non-serious (16.6 percent v. 9.4 percent, respectively) (Micucci and Gomme, 2005).

Second, while a majority of officers did see the actions in the scenario as serious and worthy of punishment, there was disagreement as to what the proper punishment should be for violations such as those posed in the scenario. Junior and intermediate level veterans were more likely to advocate relatively mild sanctions for the officers in the hypothetical scenario. The more serious sanction of suspension was favored by veteran officers. Novice officers were more likely to favor dismissal as a preferred punishment for the officers in the scenario. Overall, the trend supported the hypothesis that those least entrenched in the street officer subculture would be in favor of the strongest punishments.

Third, a large portion of the officers surveyed indicated a low probability that they would report the incident to their supervisors, despite the finding that a large proportion of officers saw the actions as serious and worthy of punishment (Micucci and Gomme, 2005). Line officers were much more likely to report a low probability of reporting the violations than were supervisors (34 percent v. 19 percent respectively. Of those stating that they would report the violation, the group with the greatest proportion being supervisors (66 percent v. 48 percent of line officers).

Finally, the degree of integration into the police subculture had significant effects on the responses given. The authors found that officers with very little experience and those with a great deal of experience were both more likely to view the use of force violations as serious violations, while those with intermediate levels of experience were more likely to view such violations as less serious. The authors had hypothesized that this would be the case if exposure to the police subculture had an effect on how officers viewed use of force violations (i.e. those officers with intermediate levels of experience would also be the officers that were the most entrenched in the police subculture, as inexperience officers have not been fully indoctrinated yet and veteran officers have aged out of the subculture).

Overall, the findings reported by Micucci and Gomme (2005) supports their assertions that the police subculture influences the views that officers have in regards to the seriousness of violations of excessive use of force policies and that the effect is conditional on the amount of experience and the degree to which the officer is entrenched in the street cop subculture.