Robinson 37
Does the Use of Less-Than-Lethal Weaponry and Tactics Help in Decreasing Police Officer and Offender Injuries?
Edsel L. Robinson
3 December 2013
Senior Seminar CJ*4600*01
Introduction
Officers of the law are are given certain powers to maintain peace and stability within a society. There are many nations that provide their officers with essential tools that allow them to subdue certain offenders. In the United States (US) it has become normal for police officers to have a need for lethal force weaponry, such as firearms. As stated by Bulman (2010), the use of firearms came about due to better-equipped criminals during the late 1800’s. With arming police officers with lethal weaponry, it gives them the ability to take someone’s life at anytime, at his or her discretion. This has caused great concern in the U.S., being that police officers hold greater power over the citizens. As stated by Ross and Jones (1996), police officers are allowed to use a certain level of force that is deemed rational and equivalent to the situation at hand in order to make an arrest and to overcome any illegitimate opposition. The amount of force used by police officers when subduing a suspect has always garnered much attention. The use of deadly force can be very detrimental to a police department mainly by causing bad publicity and legal issues. In today’s society police departments have been implementing the use of non-lethal weaponry, such as conducted energy devices (CED) or Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) sprays, in order to incapacitate and subdue certain violent offenders without causing serious injury to the offender (Morabito & Doerner, 1997; Mesloh, Henych, & Wolf, 2008).
Having the police use less lethal weaponry however may not lower the chances of an offender being injured while being subdued. Studies have shown that less lethal weapons have been suspected of causing unintentional injuries to and deaths of citizens (MacDonald, Kaminski, & Smith, 2009). As stated by Bulman (2010), with the use of any force there is a probability that injury may occur. With this research, it will take a look at whether or not the use of less-than-lethal weaponry and tactics can decrease injuries among officers and offenders. With many police department implementing the use of non-lethal weapons, it is important for this research to examine what types of non-lethal weapons are being used and how effectively do they serve officers. The next part of the research that needs to be examined is how harmful are the use of less-than-lethal weapons on the offenders. Another variable that must be examined is whether or not race and gender plays a part in the deployment of a certain level of force. The last part of the research that needs to be examined is what type of training should police go through before being allowed to carry these weapons.
Literature Review
Non-lethal weapons and their effectiveness
As stated by Gau et al (2009), police agencies have been under public and legal pressure to efficiently apply the law without causing any undue injuries. By giving the police agencies the ability to use less lethal weapons it may allow them to decrease the possibility of injuring an assailant. CEDs, or better known as TASER’s, have lately become the primary weapon for over 7,000 law enforcement agencies in the US (Mesloh, Henych, & Wolf, 2008; White & Ready, 2008; MacDonald, Kaminski, & Smith, 2009). CEDs are electric conductive devices that send a certain amount of voltage through the human body and can cause someone to have the inability to move (Bulman, 2010). The reason for the rise in use of CEDs is due its effectiveness in subduing violent assailants. Another effective tool utilized by police agencies are OC sprays, better known as pepper sprays. Morabito et al (1997) had conducted a study on the use of OC sprays by the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD). The TPD had implemented a level system to determine what type of force is needed to subdue a suspect; it starts from level 1 and went up to level 6, which is the use of deadly force. OC sprays were placed into level 4 where they were used as a means to stop a suspect that was displaying an effective physical struggle. The TPD then moved the OC sprays down to level 3 which involved the use of minor physical force upon an offender. The reason for the downgrade was that they found them to be very effective in disabling an offender’s intention to resistance.
Harmfulness
With the use of less-than-lethal weaponry gaining much popularity among many police agencies, it is important to note that these tools can cause harm upon an individual. The main purpose of non-lethal weapons is to cause a certain degree of pain upon the offender (Downs, 2007). Non-lethal weapons are meant to cause a sensory imbalance on the person that it is applied upon. By doing this it gives police officers enough time to gain control of the assailant. Though the use of non-lethal devices can sometime even cause death, there has been medical research that has found deaths associated with non-lethal devices were the result of foregoing health illness (MacDonald, Kaminski, & Smith, 2009). MacDonald et al (2009) believes that the uses of non-lethal devices are best to be used on fit and healthy individuals.
Race and Gender
With policing in the US, there has always been a stigma surrounding how police execute their duties. That stigma surrounding the police is that racial profiling plays a factor in their decision-making. As stated by Gau et al (2009), there has always been tension amongst minorities and police. With the proliferation of non-lethal devices in today’s society it’s important to look at how they are deployed against whites and minorities. In a study conducted by MacDonald et al (2009), the authors examined what were the causal factors for the deployment of CEDs and OC sprays. To conduct the study, MacDonald et al (2009) took a total of 12 police departments’ records, which consisted of 24,380 police use of force occurrences. Within the data there were 8 departments that kept suspects’ information, such as their sex, age, race, and gender. There where another 3 department record that only kept race and gender. The result from this research found that 31% of the suspects from the 11 departments that had race information were white. This shows that whites are more likely to be on the receiving end of non-lethal force. Also within their findings 87.7% of the suspects in the data collection were males. This meant that white males were assaulted more than minorities from the use of non-lethal devices.
Training
Since the implementation of less-than-lethal devices, there has always been a need to train police officers on how to properly execute the use of them. By failing to train officers properly, the chance of misuse increases, which will cause a department to be liable for any misconduct (Ross & Jones, 1996). As stated by Bulman (2010), CEDs can be misused, but police departments can control that problem by implementing policies and training procedures, along with a good supervising and liability system that properly set guidelines on when and in what situation my CEDs be used. It is important that officers are capable noting what type of device to use in certain circumstance and if the assailant is healthy enough to withstand the pain from a non-lethal device. Within an officers trainer it is also necessary that they know when to release pressure off the assailant if they were to conduct less-than-lethal hand to hand combat.
Contribution
In summary, this research seeks to find weather or not the uses of less-than-lethal devices are a vital tool for police to have. As stated throughout the literature review, it is important to examine weather the devices are harmful against the offender and also if it is helpful for police officers. Many of the researchers within my literature review did face some limitations. One major limitation many faced was that data collection on the use of less-than-lethal weapons by police was very limited (Taylor et al 2011; Wolf et al, 2009). This limitation faced by the researchers will be addressed by my study, by asking respondents if they agree or disagree to whether the police should keep records of any use of less-than-lethal devices.
Research Design
The best design for this research was a survey. The survey was conducted in order to see where the public opinion on less-than-lethal weaponry stands. Along with the survey there were two articles attached on the topic of less-than-lethal force. Each person that took part in the survey wrote a letter to the editor of the articles on whether the use of less-than-lethal force was justifiable in each situation. With conducting the survey it provided a better understand of the public point-of-view on the topic. Since the public are the main people who are afflicted by the use of CEDs or OC spray it is necessary the findings show if they view the use of the weapons justifiable.
For this the survey a convenience sampling was conducted, along with a purposive sampling. With conducting this type of sampling it allowed for a better understanding for each variable. The convenience sampling will allow me to select people with ease. The sample size for the survey consisted of 80 Kean University students, with 40 being criminal justice (CJ) majors and 40 consisting of non-CJ majors. From the 40 CJ majors, I surveyed 20 females and 20 males at random when walking around the campus; the same consisted of the non-CJ majors. With the 20 females and 20 males, I looked for 10 minority respondents and 10 white respondents from each gender. Using the convenience sample enabled me to gain readily available respondents, along with the purposive sampling, this allows me to gain a better understanding of how each race and gender views the use of non-lethal force on the public. But before handing out the survey, the consent form was signed by whoever took part in the questionnaire. I informed all the respondents that their responses in the survey will remain confidential and that their names will not be needed on the survey itself.
With the survey the respondents answered ten questions regarding the use of less-than-lethal force. In the survey the question that are regarding my dependent variable tried to find a statistical amount of times the public feels an offender is injured by the use of CEDs and OC sprays. To find the independent variable for the research, the survey looked to see how public feels about how race, gender or better training of officers will lead to a decrease in officer and offender injuries.
Data Analysis
For analyzing the data from the survey I used the program SPSS and Microsoft Word on the Kean University campus and also on my personal computer. I took the coding grid that I created along with my survey and input each data into SPSS to find a statistic of the overall respondent’s answers to each question on the survey. I then ran crosstab frequencies to obtain my demographics. The reason I ran crosstab descriptive statistics is that I wanted to highlight my purposive demographic grouping. From there I also ran a frequencies pertaining to my dependent variable, along with my independent variables. Then I had to run frequencies and cross tabulations my dependent and independent variables again. It was necessary for me to run the Chi Square test. The reason is that I used it to test my hypothesis to my variables to see if they correlate in anyway. From there I then ran frequencies on my independent variable along with the covariates. Once that was completed I then ran my dependent in a cross tabulation Chi-Square test with “what is your major.” This was to examine what major responded to my dependent more often. Then I ran a Y-X1 test to assess the relationship. From there I also ran additional tests for my dependent and the covariates. Finally, I ran a few frequencies for wrinkle. I had two wrinkles that I cross-tabulated with “What is your gender?” and “What is your race/ethnicity?”
Results
Section 1: Demographics
Table 1: Age of Participants
StatisticsWhat is your age?
N / Valid / 80
Missing / 0
Mean / 22.08
Minimum / 18
Maximum / 40
What is your age?
Frequency / Percent / Valid Percent / Cumulative Percent
Valid / 18 / 4 / 5.0 / 5.0 / 5.0
19 / 7 / 8.8 / 8.8 / 13.8
20 / 13 / 16.3 / 16.3 / 30.0
21 / 18 / 22.5 / 22.5 / 52.5
22 / 20 / 25.0 / 25.0 / 77.5
23 / 4 / 5.0 / 5.0 / 82.5
24 / 5 / 6.3 / 6.3 / 88.8
25 / 2 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 91.3
26 / 2 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 93.8
27 / 1 / 1.3 / 1.3 / 95.0
30 / 1 / 1.3 / 1.3 / 96.3
33 / 1 / 1.3 / 1.3 / 97.5
39 / 1 / 1.3 / 1.3 / 98.8
40 / 1 / 1.3 / 1.3 / 100.0
Total / 80 / 100.0 / 100.0
Within table 1 it shows the frequency of all 80 respondents age within my survey. It is noticeable that 22 year olds make up 25% of my respondents, which is the largest group. 18 year olds are the second largest within my survey holding 22.5% of the respondents. The top table shows that 22 year olds are the mean and they youngest of the respondents are 18 while the oldest is 40.
Table 2: Cross tabulation of Race and Gender
What is your race/ethnicity? * What is your gender? CrosstabulationWhat is your gender? / Total
Male / Female
What is your race/ethnicity? / Caucasian / Count / 20 / 20 / 40
Expected Count / 20.0 / 20.0 / 40.0
% of Total / 25.0% / 25.0% / 50.0%
African American / Count / 8 / 9 / 17
Expected Count / 8.5 / 8.5 / 17.0
% of Total / 10.0% / 11.3% / 21.3%
Hispanic / Count / 7 / 9 / 16
Expected Count / 8.0 / 8.0 / 16.0
% of Total / 8.8% / 11.3% / 20.0%
Asian / Count / 3 / 1 / 4
Expected Count / 2.0 / 2.0 / 4.0
% of Total / 3.8% / 1.3% / 5.0%
Other / Count / 2 / 1 / 3
Expected Count / 1.5 / 1.5 / 3.0
% of Total / 2.5% / 1.3% / 3.8%
Total / Count / 40 / 40 / 80
Expected Count / 40.0 / 40.0 / 80.0
% of Total / 50.0% / 50.0% / 100.0%
Table 2 is a cross tabulation table of both the race and gender of the respondents within this survey. The above table displays the frequency of which race/ethnicity took part within my survey, along with the frequency of all the respondents’ gender. As stated within the research design, this is apart of the purposive sampling, which allows for a better out look on the public’s view of less lethal devices.