DR.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL LAW

UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW (U.P.)

Session- 2015-16

psychology
SYNOPSIS
ON
reasonable v. exccess force use by police

UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF:

SUBMITTED BY:

Dr. ISHA YADAV

GAURAV KRISHNA

Assistant Professor
Department of psychology

Section A , Roll No. 61

Semester-3rd

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost, we would like to thank to our teacher of this project,
for the valuable guidance and advice. She inspired us greatly to work in
this project. Her willingness to motivate us contributed tremendously to
our project. We also would like to thank her for showing us some
example that related to the topic of our project. Besides, we would like
to thank the authority of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law
University for providing us with a good environment and facilities to
complete this project. Also, we would like to take this opportunity to
thank to our university for offering this subject ,Psychology.). Finally, an
honorable mention goes to our families and friends for their
understandings and supports on us in completing this project. Without
helps of the particular that mentioned above, I would face many
difficulties while doing this.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Study of national institute of justice
3. Scrivner study
(a)lack of empathy
(b)conduct of individual
(c) conduct and intraction with peer
(d) experience in police servie
(e)personal life
Officers with personality disorders that place them at chronic
risk
Officers who develop inappropriate patrol styles
Officers with personal problems
4.early warning system(EWS)
(a)selection
(b) inteervention
(c) post intervention monitoring
5.nature of the crime
6. Pointing weapons in the absence of a threat can be unreasonable
7. References

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INTRODUCTION
Use

of

excessive

force

is

an

unacceptable

When the level of force exceeds the level

considered justifiable under the circumstances, it is called excessive force.As long as some
members of society do not comply with law and resist the police, force will remain an inevitable
part of policing. Cops, especially, understand that. Indeed, anybody who fails to understand the
centrality of force to police work has no business in a police uniform. While most police
administrators and social scientists would agree with that statement, they would undoubtedly
differ on exactly what constitutes force. Skolnick and Fyfe start with the mere presence of
uniformed officers and marked patrol cars as expressions of force because they affect citizens
conduct. Force escalates from there to polite verbalization (for instance, persuasively asking
someone to do something), strong verbal commands (direct orders in a commanding voice), firm
grips on parts of the body (for example, moving someone along by gripping the elbow or
shoulder), pain compliance techniques (hammerlocks or finger grips, for instance), impact
techniques (for example, with kicks or batons), use of less-than lethal weapons (chemical sprays
or electronic stun guns, for example), and use of deadly weapons
In determining whether an officers use of force was objectively reasonable, a court looks at
factors including the seriousness of the crime allegedly being committed, whether the officer
reasonably believes the suspect poses an immediate threat to anyone (including the officers
present), and whether a person is attempting to escape or actively resisting arrest.

Study of National institute of justice

National institute of justice a series of studies done by adams . NIJ (national institute of justice )
pointed out some features of adams study :(1) Use of excessive force use by police was rarity
(2) It is usually on lower spectrum of intensity:- they may gradually told citizen to do certain
things .
(3) Most often they occur in case where the individual was told to comply by police and he
denies .
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Scrivner study
he studied psychology of police and classified them into 5 profile and the individual who fits in
these categories use excessive force
(a)lack of empathy officer who were more self observe and narcistc are more likely to use more
force .
(b) conduct of individual patrolling style of individual hard headed and impulsive patrolling style
shows that the officer is more likely to use excessive force .
(c) conduct and intraction with peer individual who demanded supervison later on use excessive
force .
(d)experience in police service early on carrier if individual is exposed to general encounter then
he is most likely to use excessive force . (exposed to general agression).
(e) personal life separtio , divorce , family problem is more likely to cause the use of excessive
force

Officers with personality disorders that place them at chronic risk :These officers have pervasive and enduring personality traits (in contrast to characteristics
acquired on the

job) that are manifested in antisocial, narcissistic, paranoid, or abusive

tendencies.
These conditions interfere with judgment and interactions with others, particularly when officers
perceive challenges or threats to their authority. Such officers generally
lack empathy for others. The number who fit this profile is the smallest of all the high-risk
groups. These characteristics, which tend to persist through life but may be intensified by police
work, may not be apparent at pre employment screening. Individuals who exhibit these
personality patterns generally do not learn from experience or accept responsibility for their
behavior, so they are at greater risk for repeated citizen complaints. As a consequence, they may
appear to be the sole source of problems in police departments.

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 Officers who develop inappropriate patrol styles:Individuals who fit this profile combine a dominant command presence with a heavyhanded policing style; they are particularly sensitive to challenge and provocation.
They use force to show they are
charge as their beliefs about how police work is conducted become
more rigid, this behaviour becomes the norm. In contrast to the
chronic risk group, the behaviour of officers in this group is acquired
on the job and can be changed. The longer the patterns continue, how- ever, the
more difficult they are to change. As the officers become invested in police power and control,
they see little reason to change. Officers in this group are often labeled "dinosaurs" in a
changing police world marked by greater accountability to citizens and by adoption of the
community policing model.

Officers with personal problems

The final risk profile was made up of officers who have experienced serious personal problems,
such as separation, divorce, or even perceived loss of status, that destabilized their job
functioning. In general, officers with personal problems do not use excessive force, but those
who do may have elected police work for all the wrong reasons. In contrast to their p'.;ers, they
seem to have a more tenuous sense of self-worth and higher levels of anxiety that are well
masked. Some may have functioned reasonably well until changes occurred in their personal
situation. These changes undermine confidence and make it more difficult to deal with fear,
animosity, and emotionally charged patrol situations.

Early warning system

It has become a truism among police chiefs that 10 percent of their officers cause 90 percent of
the problems. Investigative journalists have documented departments in which as few as 2
percent of all officers are responsible for 50 percent of all citizen complaints. The phenomenon
of the problem officer was identified in the 1970s: Herman Goldstein noted that problem
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officers are well known to their supervisors, to the top administrators, to their peers, and to the
residents of the areas in which they work, but that little is done to alter their conduct. In 1981,
the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommended that all police departments create an early
warning system to identify problem officers, those who are frequently the subject of complaints
or who demonstrate identifiable patterns of inappropriate behaviour.
An early warning system is a data-based police management tool designed to identify officers
whose behaviour is problematic and provide a form of intervention to correct that performance.
As an early response, a department intervenes before such an officer is in a situation that
warrants formal disciplinary action. The system alerts the department to these individuals and
warns the officers while providing counselling or training to help them change their problematic
behaviour.
These are internet based date management . where conduct of every conduct of officer is feed the
feedback where the everybody with whom individual interact with enters his feedback (360
degree feedback ) and based on this information we can screen out officers and practice
intervention . it works in three stages:(1) Selection
(2) Intervention
(3) Post intervention monitoring

(a)Selection
EW systems use a variety of criteria for identifying potential problem officers and selecting them
for intervention . Some systems rely solely on use-of-force reports and/or citizen complaints as
selection criteria, while others rely on a broad range of performance indicators, including use-offorce reports, involvement in civil litigation, and violations of administrative rules (e.g., neglect
of duty), among others. The use of multiple indicators provides a broader base of information
than the sole reliance on citizen complaints, which are highly underreported (Walker &
Graham,1998). Similarly, relying on one type of event may mask behavioural issues that need to
be addressed. Multiple indicators are more likely to identify officers whose performance is
genuinely problematic and who may be in need of some official intervention. These indicators
should be determined by an analysis of agency history, culture, and potential problems. For
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example, the same criteria used in the process of officer selection could be used to monitor
officer performance. Indicators including financial problems or driving records could be used in
an EW system if those are issues of concern to the department ( Kappler , Sluder , & Alpert,
1998). If an agency is considering the creation or modification of an EW system, groups of
officers and members of the community could be brought together to discuss alternative criteria.
Each potential criterion should be considered for its utility and for related data collection and
record keeping issues .Some EW systems involve mandatory referral to intervention if an
officers
performance meets certain criteria (e.g., three citizen complaints within 12 months). Other
systems are discretionary in the sense that the selection process involves a command review to
determine whether the indicators of unsatisfactory performance are justified by assignment,
special duties, or other peculiar situations. In these systems, some officers who are identified by
the system will not be referred for intervention.

(b)Intervention
EW systems use a variety of different interventions for officers who have been selected by the
system. Most EW systems include interventions that consist initially of an informal counselling
session between the officer and his or her immediate supervisor. Because the session is informal
and part of a data gathering technique, there may not be documentation of what occurred in the
session .While it may be appropriate to keep the process informal and undocumented, it is
possible that a supervisor would not critically evaluate an officers behaviour and could tell him
or her not to worry about being included on the EW system. Therefore, an agency will have to
determine whether to institute an informal or a formalized system of communication. Each
choice has implications. The informal system would keep the information at the first-line
supervisors level, whereas the formalized system would cause the information to go through the
chain of command, where it could be reviewed at several levels. The informal system would give
more flexibility to the supervisor who could handle the officer with a great deal of discretion.
The formal system would likely heighten the visibility of the counselling session and ensure that
the supervisors attention to the officer is serious and appropriate. There are certain variations in
an agencys way of conducting a counselling session. For example, an officer and his or her

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supervisor could meet individually, or the two could meet with a member of the Command staff
or Internal Affairs. Another model would include a group session or class, directed by an
official whose primary identification is with the program and who has no personal ties to
individual officers. Here, the counsellor may be more detached from the officer but may not
know him or her as well. There is always the danger that a group approach could serve
inadvertently to strengthen a sense of group solidarity among the officers in the class and
reinforce undesirable performance or a sense of resentment against management.Once the
officers have participated in the counselling session, they can be classified into a group that
needs no further monitoring or a group that needs follow-up. The agency can determine whether
monitoring is mandatory or at a supervisors discretion. If it is decided that an officers behaviour
was reasonable and there were justifications for the actions, it may be decided that the officer
needs no further attention or only limited attention. For example, it could be that an officer
qualified for the EW list because of a number of use-of-force reports. Upon examination, it
becomes clear that the officer was involved in several narcotics arrests where the suspects were
resisting, but there were no complaints of excessive force. In this type of situation, the officer
could be informed that the force used was justified by the assignment but that his or her numbers
were being scrutinized. However, it also could be that an officer qualified for the list by having
several complaints over a specified period, and a review of his or her record indicates more than
40 complaints over a period of 25 years. Here a supervisor could go through the complaints and
look at the similarities or trends and discuss them with the officer.

(c)Post-Intervention monitoring
The final system element involves the follow-up monitoring of officers after the intervention.
The national survey data indicate that many programs claim to engage in follow-up monitoring.
Unfortunately, the data from the national survey do not indicate the level of monitoring, which
may involve only the expectation that a supervisor will keep an eye on the officers performance.
This is an element of EW systems about which very little is known and more research is needed.
Post-intervention follow-up ranges from a mere hope for supervision to lengthy and formal
monitoring, complete with specific reports and performance evaluations. An agency involved in
an EW system will have to determine how much of the supervisors behaviour it wants to

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monitor. That is, a system that requires weekly or biweekly reports from supervisors will be
putting them on notice that the officers behaviour should have been noticed before he or she was
added to the EW list. As noted above, this approach requires a considerable depart- mental
investment in administrative attention, paperwork, and data collection. Different approaches to
monitoring place the burden of responsibility on the officer, the supervisor, or the agency. Each
department must select its own method of monitoring that fits the agencys culture and style.
Certainly, different officers or officers who are on the list for different reasons could have a
monitoring scheme designed to achieve a specific level of supervision or a specific purpose. In
other words, an officer could help design his or her specific monitoring system, including
benchmarks and objective goals. One excellent example of an EW system comes from the City
of Miami.

Nature of the crime

If the crime in both the Supreme Court cases discussed were serious enough to be a factor
tending to justify the officers display and pointing of weapons, Robinson v. Solano County (9th
Cir. 2002), illustrates the principle that less serious crimes have just the opposite impact, as well
as the principle that the kind of threat that justifies the officers display and pointing of a weapon
must be an immediate threat.
This case involved the police seizure at gunpoint of an apparently unarmed 64-year-old man, a
retired police officer, who was suspected of having earlier used a shotgun to shoot two dogs.
The former officer lived in a farmhouse on five acres of land, and owned various livestock. The
dogs he shot belonged to his neighbour, and he allegedly observed them attacking and killing his
livestock on his property, which he had fenced in. He killed one dog and wounded the other, and
then went off his land with his shotgun, looking for the wounded dog. When police came to his
home later, he went out to talk with them, and was unarmed. He claimed he was calm but the
officers claimed he was agitated.
He complied with orders to put his hands up as an officer pointed his gun at him. Then an officer
thrust his pointed gun within three or four feet of his head. The ex-officer was then handcuffed,
and placed in a police vehicle for a few minutes while officers talked to neighbors. He was
released when they determined that he had broken no law.

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The federal appeals court found that none of the factors justifying the use of force were present.
The crime being investigated was at most a misdemeanour , and the suspect was apparently
unarmed and approaching the officers peacefully. Additionally, the officers outnumbered the
plaintiff.
While it was true that he had earlier been armed with a shotgun, the court believed that, under the
circumstances, his earlier use of a weapon, which he no longer carried, was insufficient to justify
the intrusion into his personal security.
The court did find, however, that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity, as the law on
the subject at the time was not clearly established .The least serious crime, of course, is no crime
at all. An officer may arguably have some justification for the display of force at one point, only
to lose it when it becomes clear to all that the suspect is exonerated or simply the wrong person.
In Binay v. Bettendorf, an officer received an anonymous call indicating that drug sales were
taking place at an apartment. On two occasions, the officer then went to the building, and a drug
sniffing dog alerted to the presence of narcotics on the outside of the apartment door. Based on
this, he obtained a search warrant. No drugs were found during the ensuing search.
During the search the officers drew their weapons and forced the married couple who lived there
to get on the floor. The couple's son was also present and was detained.
A federal appeals court found that the plaintiffs adequately stated claims for excessive use of
force in the execution of the search warrant, as well as continuing the residents interrogation and
the use of force against them after it had become plain that no drugs were present. The officers
allegedly kept the plaintiffs at gunpoint and handcuffed for over an hour, even though they
prepared a confidential operation plan for the raid stating that no firearms were anticipated to be
found in the apartment.
Also of interest is Brown v. Miami-Dade County , holding that a county and officer could be
sued under Florida law for injuries that a bystander suffered when he slipped and fell when
officer startled him by pointed a gun at him and yelling at him to freeze while conducting a
prostitution sting operation.
The officers actions created a foreseeable zone of risk to the bystander and the county was not
immune from suit because his injuries were allegedly caused by the manner in which the police

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implemented their operation, utilizing a display of deadly force in the context of an investigation
of a relatively minor crime.
A very serious crime was involved in Curiel v. County of Contra Costa, In this case, a murder
suspect lived in a house with other individuals. Police received information from a friend of his
that the suspect had tried to destroy evidence in a related crime, and feared that he might destroy
evidence of the murder or flee. They therefore carried out an unannounced warrantless entry into
the house.
During the ensuing search, officers allegedly pointed guns at residents,
including children, and detained them for 13 hours. Detention of the residents
was justified by the dangerousness of the suspect, the need to carry out an
orderly search, and the fear that evidence could be destroyed. Despite the
investigation of a serious crime, summary judgment was overturned on
excessive force claims, since a reasonable jury could find that the officers used
excessive force by entering with guns drawn, pointing guns at the residents,
and putting handcuffs on one of them in a manner that caused pain.

Pointing weapons in the absence of a threat can be unreasonable

In an important case directly on this point, a federal appeals court ruled that a reasonable jury
could possibly find that an officers action in pointing a submachine gun at people present during
the execution of a search warrant, including both the suspect and others present, was
unreasonable and violative of the Fourth Amendment in the absence of any indication of a threat
to the officers or others. Baird v. Renbarger.
In this case, the defendant officer was one of a number of officers involved in the execution of a
search warrant at an auto body shop and resale business located at an industrial park. The search
sought evidence for the crime of altering a vehicle identification number (VIN).The court noted
that the crime itself did not involve violence, and there was no indication of even a suspicion that
anyone at the location of the search was dangerous or armed. Further, no one offered any
resistance whatsoever. Despite this, the officer came to the search with a 9-millimeter
submachine gun slung around his neck. He pointed the submachine gun at all those present in the

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auto body shop, who were then peacefully complying with police instructions to gather in the
centre of the building and sit down on the concrete floor.
He then made the rounds of the surrounding shops and warehouse to round up everyone present
at gunpoint and take them to the auto body shop. Those gathered in this manner included a group
of Amish men working in the area, a group well known for their non-violent beliefs and
practices. Everyone was detained for approximately two hours while the search was completed.
When the car sought was found, it turned out that its VIN had not be modified or removed.
A number of those present filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the officer, contending,
among other things, that his actions in pointing the submachine gun at them had been
unreasonable.
Upholding the denial of qualified immunity to the defendant officer, a federal appeals court
noted that courts attempt to give considerable leeway to officers assessments about the
appropriate use of force in dangerous situations. This is an acknowledgment of the fact that law
enforcement is a difficult job, and that officers are often forced to make split-second
judgments-in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.
Moving from general principles to specifics, the court stated: -This latitude ends, however, when
police officers employ force that is clearly excessive or unreasonable under the circumstances.
That is the case here .There clearly was a Fourth Amendment seizure of the plaintiffs. The court
found that the three major factors spelled out in Graham all tended in this case to show that the
force used was objectively unreasonable. The crime was not a violent one. There was no
indication that those being detained posed an immediate threat to anyone. And none of them
attempted to resist or flee, instead they were all compliant.

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REFERENCES
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/150063NCJRS.pdf
http://www.aele.org/law/2010all10/2010-10MLJ101.pdf
http://www.zeepedia.com/read.php?
police_psychology_use_of_excessive_force_corruption_person
nel_selection_forensic_psychology&b=87&c=4
http://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/officer-safety/use-offorce/pages/welcome.aspx
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/150063NCJRS.pdf

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