Police & Society Exam #3 Study Guide

What is "reasonable" force within the context of the continuum of force?

The minimum amount of force necessary to overcome the resistance offered by the subject.

Does the Department of Justice require police agencies to use the continuum of force? Does the Continuum of force eliminate officers' discretion?

The DOJ does not mandate it for all agencies because Supreme Court does not require it. All agencies at least have some sort of continuum of force with different variations depending on department.

General guideline; does not specify or dictate appropriate officer action in every use-of-force situation.

It does not eliminate officers' discretion.

When did the Supreme Court allow the lethal force to be used (to defend what)?

1985: Tennessee v. Garner - officers are only authorized to shoot fleeing suspects who are demonstrably dangerous, such as a suspect with a gun. (DEFENSE OF LIFE)

Based on the lecture, what percentage of police-citizen contacts (initiated by police) involved threat of force or actual force?

2.8%

What is the most common type of actual force used by police?

Handcuffing - 82% of all incidents

What is brutality? What is unnecessary force? What distinguished the two?

Brutality is the use of force that is consciously and purposefully cruel and harsh. Unnecessary force is force that violates the principles of the continuum of force due to training errors or good-faith mistakes.

Brutality is INTENTIONAL, unnecessary force is UNINTENTIONAL.

What should be done first when encountering an angry individual?

Talk/exchange - active listening skills and effective verbal communication - goal is to transfer the sense of calm and respect to the subject.

What are the examples of efforts to control the police use of force?

De-escalation techniques, early intervention systems, and Police body-worn cameras.

What circumstances/officer characteristics add to the likelihood of force being used?

Younger and/or less experienced officers, location/type of patrol assignment, police culture

Based on "Learning from Lawsuits", what do officers know about lawsuits filed against them (p. 214)?

Next to nothing - they aren't given information about the allegations, resolution, or the amount paid to settle the case.

Based on "Learning from Lawsuits", what role do lawsuits play in officers' evaluations, and what does internal affairs do in response to lawsuits (216)?

No role in officers' performance evaluations, and allegations in lawsuits were not investigated by internal affairs.

Based on "learning from lawsuits", why did a handful of jurisdictions start to analyze information from lawsuits (p. 216)?

Because they were forced to do so, due to consent decree policies and due to outside auditors.

Based on "Learning from Lawsuits." What happened after the NYPD adopted many OIG (Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD) recommendations (p. 222)?

The NYPD-related lawsuits alleging police misconduct had declined by 49% between 2014 and 2018.

Based on "A Better Way," how does the Supreme Court define what is "reasonable" (p. 226)?

4th Amendment: searches and seizures as actions that are objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances confronting the officers, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation.

What do plaintiffs need to do to overcome the qualified immunity (p. 226)?

They need to find prior court decisions with nearly identical facts; without such cases, they cannot defeat qualified immunity, even if the officers abuse their authority.

Based on "A Better Way," why is the Colorado 2020 bill the golden standard (p. 235)?

Advances compensation and deterrence, and people whose constitutional rights were violated are more likely to win in court because they will not have to overcome the challenges of qualified immunity.

What are the 2 core components of COMPSTAT? What is the key critique? Can COMPSTAT incentivize crime data manipulation?

Data and Accountability.

- Critiques: does not specify tactics to solve crime problems, nor a method or strategy to control crime, but an approach to policing.

Relentless focus on responsibility for addressing difficult crime problems may create an incentive for the police to manipulate crime data to make it appear that crime has been reduced when it has not

What is GIS and what kind of predictions can it offer?

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) allow for the automated recording and plotting of criminal incidents on detailed computerized maps.

It offers general predictions about WHEN and WHERE crime will occur.

What kinds of predictions can intelligence-led policing offer?

Makes predictions about which PEOPLE are likely to offend in the future.

In predictive policing, what is the relationship between specificity and accuracy?

The more specific the prediction, the more likely to be wrong.

What is it about crime that allows predictive policing to make predictions?

The fact that the majority of crime is not random. Certain times, places, and people are more likely to experience crime than others.

What is it that the crime analyst should be able to provide to officers?

Information and analysis of crime patterns and trends to assist in preventing, suppressing and resolving criminal activity. Such as with Geospatial crime analytics or criminal intelligence analysis.

Can crime analysis reduce crime when not combined with effective police strategies?

No

What is the biggest hurdle to crime analysis reaching its full potential?

The biggest hurdle is that officers are not sure how to use the information collected.

Based on "Coding Inequality," in what context are the new analytic platforms deployed, and whose purposes do they embody (p.100)?

They are deployed in preexisting organizational contexts and embody the purpose of their creators.

Based on "Coding Inequality," how are the data-intensive police surveillance practices implicated in the reproduction of inequality (p.101)?

Deepening the surveillance of individuals already under suspicion, codifying a secondary surveillance network, widening the criminal justice dragnet inequality, and leading people to avoid "surveilling" institutions that are fundamental to social integration.

Based on "Coding Inequality." Does the Department of Justice run a nationwide database on police-citizen interaction and race (i.e., a racial profiling incident database) (p.102)?

No

Based on "Coding Inequality," does the Department of Justice fund the Center for Policing Equity (p.102)?

Yes

Based on "Coding Inequality," how does LAPD use big data to track officers (p.103)?

Early intervention system - flag problem officers and compare to the rest.

GPS tracker in police vehicles to monitor officers - LAPD police union bargained to be allowed to turn it off

Database of immutable (audio?) logs, logs everyone who accesses it and why they're accessing it

Based on "Coding Inequality," can big data analysis reduce inequalities - i.e., what did the analysis of stop and frisks in NY show about race and hit rates (p.104)? What kind of quantified suspicion model based on objective indicators was proposed?

Race is not a predictor of who does what, white people had a higher rate of contraband

Based on "Coding Inequality," how does the LAPD predictive algorithm work, and what can it lead to (p.107)?

The system gives police officers 1 point each time they make contact with a particular person, thus increasing their "value" and becoming a feedback loop of how "high risk" a suspect is

(a high value target basically, think of it like a final boss in a video game)