Legal force is that coercion necessary to subdue, control, and restrain a suspect in order to take him into custody. After leaving the police academy, rookie officers learn by experience how much force is acceptable in certain situations. Excuses deny full responsibility for the force but acknowledge its inappropriateness.
Justifications accept responsibility for the act but deny that the act was wrongful or blameworthy.
She explores how police themselves classify and evaluate acts of force as legal, normal, or excessive. Legal force is that coercion necessary to subdue, control, and restrain a suspect in order to take him or her into custody. Normal force involves coercive acts that specific officers on specific occasions formulate as necessary, appropriate, reasonable, or understandable. Excessive force exceeds even working police notions of normal force. The study begins with an examination of how rookie officers learn to differentiate between what they learned in the academy regarding the use of force and what they learn on the street.