Читать книгу Evaluating Police Uses of Force - Seth W. Stoughton - Страница 8

Arif Alikhan1

With controversial police shootings capturing the attention of the nation, it has never been more important to understand when and how a police officer may use force. As a senior police executive, however, I experienced firsthand the difficulty of explaining the law and different policies regarding when an officer may use physical force against a suspect.

There are 18,000 different police agencies in the United States, each following different administrative policies, operating within different judicial districts, and serving different communities with varying expectations. This has resulted in a patchwork of legal interpretations, policies, and community standards that often conflict and can cause significant confusion among police professionals and the public.

Law enforcement experts Seth Stoughton, Geoffrey Alpert, and Jeff Noble provide a comprehensive explanation of the many factors that surround a police officer’s decision to use physical force and provide useful guidance on how to navigate the complexities of the law and policy in police uses of force. In these pages, they use their diverse experiences as leading police researchers, accomplished authors, and former police officers to simplify the complex concepts into understandable and useful explanations of when and how an officer may use force to apprehend a suspect, to defend themselves, or to defend others.

I have had many spirited debates with these learned gentlemen and greatly value their important insights about the gaps and contradictions in the law. Unlike most books on uses of force, they go beyond the typical constitutional analysis and discuss the impact of dozens of state laws and thousands of administrative policies that influence the subject. Most importantly, they address how community expectations often differ, and even conflict, with what the law allows and policies define as permissible.

{~?~PG:Arif Alikhan is a Senior Fellow at the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the former Director of Constitutional Policing and Policy at the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). He previously served as the Deputy Executive Director for Homeland Security, Law Enforcement, and Fire/EMS at Los Angeles World Airports, as a Distinguished Professor of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the National Defense University, as the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, as a senior advisor to Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez, and as an Assistant United States Attorney. The opinions expressed above are his personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the University of Chicago and its affiliates.

Deciding whether to use physical force is among the most serious and consequential decisions a police officer can make. The decisions are often made during intense and uncertain circumstances. They are also captured on video for the world to see and pass judgment on, often with little or no understanding of the law governing these interactions or the policies that guide officers’ decisions. This important book, long overdue, will help police executives, legal professionals, researchers, and the public understand, assess, and have the ability to explain when and how a police officer may use force to protect the communities they serve.