Police Use of Force

Police Use of Force L. Song Richardson * L. Song Richardson, Police Use of Force, in Academy for Justice, A Report on Scholarship and Criminal Justice Reform (Erik Luna ed., forthcoming 2017). Racial disparities in police uses of force persist. Two competing explanations are often given for these disparities. One is that these disparities are justified because police are simply responding to objectively threatening conduct. The other is that these disparities are the result of police racism. While both accounts are accurate some of the time, this chapter illuminates how “racial anxiety” can also enable racial disparities in police uses of force even in the absence of racial animus and even when people of color are acting identically to their white counterparts. The term racial anxiety references how concerns about police racism can influence the behaviors and perceptions of officers and people of color in ways that increase the potential for violence. Consideration of racial anxiety highlights the necessity of transforming policing in order to build community-police trust. Policymakers can aid in this endeavor by supporting programs, initiatives and legislation that will facilitate this transformation. INTRODUCTION This chapter addresses police uses of force. Given the breadth of the topic, it will focus only on uses of force against people of color since the past few years have once again brought national attention to this issue. 1 While the lack of uniform policies for data collection makes it impossible to know the full extent of the problem, 2 there is significant evidence that people of color bear the brunt of police uses of force. 3 Data reported to the FBI indicate that officers killed * * Interim Dean and Professor of Law, University of California Irvine School of Law. A.B. Harvard College, J.D. The Yale Law School. I wish to thank Erik Luna for inviting me to participate in this important project. Additionally, I appreciate the insightful comments and suggestions from Susan Bandes, Paul Butler, Devon Carbado, Barry Friedman, Brandon Garrett, Rachel Harmon, Richard McAdams, Stephen Smith, and Frank Zimring. I am grateful to Zackory Burns for research assistance. Much of Part I of this Chapter comes directly from Rachel Godsil & L. Song Richardson, Racial Anxiety, __ Iowa L. Rev. __ (forthcoming Spring 2017). 1 For a description of recent cases involving people of color, see L. Song Richardson, Police Racial Violence: Lessons from Social Psychology, 83 F ORDHAM L. R EV . 2961 (2015) and Nancy C. Marcus, From Edward to Eric Garner and Beyond: The Importance of Constitutional Limitations on Lethal Use of Force in Police Reform, 12 D UKE J. C ONST . L. & P UB . P OL ' Y 53 (2016). 2 Kevin Johnson, Meghan Hoyer & Brad Heath, Local Police Involved in 400 Killings Per Year, USA T ODAY (Aug. 15, 2014), http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/police-killings-data/14060357/. Only 750 of the approximately 18,0000 law enforcement agencies in the United States participate. Id. This is the only national database that collects data on police uses of deadly force. Id. 3 See, e.g., U.S. D EP ' T OF J USTICE C IVIL R IGHTS D IV ., I NVESTIGATION OF THE F ERGUSON P OLICE D EPARTMENT 28 (2015) (noting that nearly 90% of uses of excessive force are against African-Americans); U.S. D EP ’ T OF J USTICE C IVIL R IGHTS D IV ., I NVESTIGATION OF THE C HICAGO P OLICE D EPARTMENT 15 (2017), https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/925846/download (noting that officers use “almost ten times more often against blacks than against whites.”); see also Contacts Between Police And The Public, U.S. D EPARTMENT OF J USTICE , B UREAU OF J USTICE S TATISTICS at 12 (2008), http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2229 (noting that