Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.
Editorial |
Use of Force
* Professor of Social Policy, University of Wolverhampton. E-mail: P.A.J.Waddington{at}wlv.ac.uk
This issue of Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, is devoted principally to the use of force, a topic that has dominated academic debate and preoccupied practitioners. For academics, the question is: what distinguishes police officers and the organisations in which they operate from others, particularly those growing legions of private security operatives, un-sworn police auxiliaries, and sundry officials with law enforcement powers? The orthodox answer is that the police enjoy a ‘monopoly of legitimate force’ over their fellow citizens (a view that has its origins in the pioneering work of Bittner, 1970). That orthodoxy has increasingly been criticised in the face of the obvious fact that bouncers, store detectives, security guards of all kinds, and many others also exercise ‘legitimate force’ in ejecting drunken customers from pubs and clubs, apprehending shoplifters, and defending cash in transit, to name only a few. So, if police ever did have an exclusive ‘monopoly’ over the use of force, they no longer appear to do so.
Yet, the use of force remains a practical preoccupation for police in all jurisdictions. In research that my colleagues and I recently conducted (Waddington et al., 2006), police interviewees were asked, at random, to describe either a recent violent encounter, or an encounter that threatened violence that did not erupt, or their most recent arrest. One of the more surprising results of the research was the lack of clear distinction between these three conditions in the detailed accounts that interviewees provided. ‘Violence’ and its corollary, the use of force, is a ubiquitous prospect in the daily lives of police officers. An officer called to attend a school for pupils otherwise excluded from mainstream education to deal with a 14-year-old girl who was causing a disturbance, thought it was mere ‘kids' stuff’, but found himself struggling with a hefty young woman determined to create havoc. It was not just the physical struggle that he found difficult, but the prospect that the girl would complain about his conduct, especially given the sexual connotations of such a physical encounter. As this example demonstrates, using force can lead to trouble for police officers and the police organisation.
Whatever the police share in common with bouncers and other security guards, they remain distinguished by being agents of the state. This sets them apart because the police can corporately marshal enough force to subdue any opposition. If they cannot, then statehood itself comes under question, for warlords would carve out their own ‘turf’ from within the territory only notionally governed by the state—an increasingly common reality throughout swathes across the globe now presided over by ‘failed’ and ‘failing’ states. Ultimately, the force wielded by a lone patrolling police officer is not restricted to the weaponry hanging from his or her belt, but because he or she knows that ‘my gang is bigger than your gang’. As Charles Tilly once perceptively remarked (Tilly, 1985), the state is like a ‘protection racket’: the state offers protection, which if refused leads to it ‘sending the boys round’ and ‘the boys’ in this context are police officers of both sexes who cart the reluctant ‘customer’ off to gaol.
Yet, this view of the state is not one that is widespread amongst the citizenry of liberal democracies. By comparison with private security personnel, the state and its servants, the police, are dignified by their association with higher values, such as ‘justice’ and ‘democracy’. Police enjoy a legitimacy that endows them with the authority that private security personnel often lack. A lightly armed police officer can command compliance from others, however grudgingly, not because of fear (‘his/her gang is bigger than my gang), but because of un-reflexive respect for the office they hold. Where this is absent, policing is rendered virtually impotent. However, legitimacy comes at a cost: police officers are expected to behave better than their fellow citizens. If bouncers severely beat an erstwhile customer whose behaviour has offended them, it would be for the courts to inflict punishment. If captured by a video camera and broadcast on the news media, viewers might be appalled at the behaviour of those involved, but disgust will mainly be focused upon those individuals. By stark contrast, George Halliday's video of Sgt. Koon and his Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) colleagues repeatedly beating Rodney King in Los Angeles as other officers looked on became an iconic image of the 1990s. When broadcast, that video created a furore and the officers’ acquittal resulted in a bloody riot. It not only reflected adversely upon Sgt. Koon and his colleagues, but also upon the LAPD, whose Chief, Daryle Gates, came under intense pressure to resign. This is not just a remote and unusual reality, but one that commonly intrudes into the daily working lives of police officers. When the police officer described above, was struggling with the hefty girl intent on smashing up the classroom, it was how this struggle would appear to others that worried him most—a grown man struggling to subdue a young girl!
Appearances are vitally important: police forces around the world agonise about the uniform that officers wear. No issue ignites the passions of British police officers as much as that concerning the traditional police helmet: traditionalists line up behind the fictional image of ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ (a character not seen on British television screens for 30 years, but whose iconic power remains undiminished); whilst modernisers point to the uselessness of a helmet that falls off the head at the first signs of trouble! On the shelves of my study is a growing phalanx of teddy bears and other ornaments adorned in the uniforms of police forces from across the world. It is not only the fabled Canadian ‘Mountie’ that is a symbol of nationhood!
Yet, herein, the fundamental problem lurks: on the one hand, police routinely use force in the course of their duties, but, on the other hand, force lays bare the reality that legitimation seeks to obscure. When police mistakenly shoot an unarmed suspect or someone ‘armed’ with a replica or unloaded weapon there is predictably a loud chorus of protest. This issue of how police perceive and evaluate risk is the one to which Itiel Dror's article is addressed. Even when it is clear that police were justified in killing an adversary, corpses are rarely a pretty sight and police use of lethal force is addressed by several of our contributors: Mike Waldren spent most of his career in the Metropolitan Police firearms unit, retiring as its Chief Superintendent. Here he reflects upon how firearms are used and comes to conclusions that many will find surprising. Colin Burrows also spent a career at the forefront of police firearms usage in the most challenging environment of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (now the Police Service of Northern Ireland) during the Provisional IRA terrorist campaign. He draws upon that experience and his own research to examine the effects that armed confrontations have upon police officers. In the first of a two-part article, Maurice Punch considers command and control of such critical incidents as police firearms operations. Deborah Glass (a Commissioner in the Independent Police Complaints Commission) discusses issues of civilian oversight of such operations. The unpalatable reality of lethal forces fuels the search for the magical wizard's wand that instantly incapacitates without lasting injury (Rappert, 2003). There is, in truth, no simple solution: and Oliver Sprague of Amnesty and John Kleinig consider the implications of using non-lethal weaponry.
This edition of the Journal is notable also for being the first in which contributors continue debates that were initiated in the first two issues. We hope that this will establish a trend in which police officers and academics will conduct a conversation about fundamental issues. Policing is intrinsically controversial—as police use of force so vividly illustrates—and yet the voice of professional police officers remains largely unheard. We aspire to create in this Journal a space in which deeply controversial issues can be considered and discussed, thereby enhancing the professionalism with which policing is conducted worldwide. If you wish to join that debate then I can be contacted at policing@oup.com and we can discuss, informally, any contribution you wish to make.
References
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Bittner E. The Functions of the Police in a Modern Society (1970) Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Rappert B. Non-Lethal Weapons as Legitimating Forces? Technology, Politics and the Management of Conflict (2003) London: Frank Cass.
Tilly C. War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. In: Bringing the State Back—Evans P., Rueschemeyer D., Skocpol T., eds. (1985) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 169–186.
Waddington P.A.J., Badger D., Bull R. The Violent Workplace (2006) Collumpton: Willan.
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