PSC 324 Police Use of Force Final Report.
This will be a two-part report. But it will all be contained in one document and submitted
to TURNITIN.COM
The first thing I would like to say is that many of you have worked very hard this
semester and I appreciate that hard work and effort. The second thing is equally
important. After 12 weeks of reading your ideas and analysis and your take on policing
and other social issues, I want to reiterate that you are entitled to voice and express any
opinion you like. There is never a penalty for pushing a narrative that I may even
vehemently disagree with. I hope that has been clear in the grading of the Discussion
Board posts as well as the first two reports. I repeat, there is no penalty for expressing
opinions with which I may disagree. I stand by that.
Your opinion and analysis matters to you, that is a given. But, to get your opinions and
views to matter to others, you must be able to support the ideas with empirical
evidence, statistical evidence, and perhaps, as a last resort, anecdotal evidence.
Unsupported opinions do not carry much value, if any at all. Evidence and statistics are
the methods by which we support and prove our point! Credible sources are the
essential ingredient in any good essay or report. The more credible your sources, the
more credible your thesis, theories, or analysis.
Throughout this semester we have discussed the myriad principles and themes that are
integral and essential to understanding the police use of force. This final report should
be a coda on the semester. After reading your discussion board comments as well as
the reports you have submitted, it is apparent that some of your analysis and reporting
may be influenced by contemporary themes and issues in the media today. That is only
natural, and not surprising. Often times the reality may be distorted through the prism of
personal opinion or the opinions of others, particularly the messages of the media,
whether they are based on reality or some version of it.
It is evident from this position that most situations involving the interactions of police and
the public are almost pre-ordained for controversy, even if sometimes the reality dictates
the opposite. For example, many of you have articulated the belief that American police
officers are predisposed to using force and use it quite often. Yet, we read in Alpert and
Dunham that police officers use force less than 2% of the time. And the authors proved
it through the use of statistical evidence. So where does this belief come from?
This final writing assignment will require you to develop your own theory on how often
and how much force American police use and whether or not this use of force is
justified. Are American police using force to an excessive degree and are they using
excessive force to an excessive degree? Is there a racial component to this use of force
and excessive force, and is this a racist component or merely a function of geographical
demographics?
Of course, all of your analysis and opinions must be supported by empirical evidence
and statistics. The sources of this evidence must be reputable, peer-reviewed works
such as scholarly journal articles, books, newspapers, magazines, or online sites that
feature an author whose credibility may be checked. Books such as Alpert and
Dunham’s Understanding Police Use of Force are the best example of these kind of
works. The authors conducted their own surveys and provided analysis and context for
the results.
If your source doesn’t have an author then its credibility is probably dubious.
For this assignment, at least seven NEW SOURCES should be used to formulate your
opinion and thesis. This would be in addition to the two sources that I am going to
provide to you right here. Our textbooks are excellent sources but will not count as part
of the seven NEW sources. You should use our textbooks, but find other sources. The
following sources must be used in your research, and included in your analysis.
The first source is the Michigan State University College of Social Science Study on
the racial disparity on Police Shootings which is provided in two links below. When you
click the first link there is a link in the article to the full report. I provided that link as well
(pnas.org).
https://socialscience.msu.edu/news-events/news/archives/2019/2019-07-22.html
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1903856116
The Michigan State survey and analysis used what appeared to be a well-designed and
rigorous data collection system. It was a very thorough analysis of policing in America.
The second article comes from The Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald, a
highly respected criminologist, social scientist, and author on police matters in the
United States.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-racism-11591119883
https://www.iwf.org/2021/05/26/heather-macdonald-on-uncomfortable-truths-about-polici
ng-and-crime/
Write an essay (minimum 1000 words) that explains the current state of American police
and the use of force.
Here is the second part:
Unfortunately, real life continues to provide us with visceral and horrible examples of
police encounters with citizens who decide that they will not be arrested. The second
part of this report will be a bit of a reprise of the second writing assignment. This time
you are assigned to write a report on the police shooting and death of Patrick Lyoya.
Please watch these videos or any other videos of this incident that you can find and
then analyze the incident. It is important that you use the book, Force Decisions by Rory
Miller as a guide to your analysis. It would also be helpful to also use the other books
we have read this semester, Above the Law and Understanding Police Use of Force.
The objective of this exercise and assignment is to show an understanding of the
concepts we have discussed this semester as you analyze what you see and how and
whether these actions are based on legal, procedural, and conceptual aspects of
policing. It certainly would be appropriate to make a determination as to whether the
police officer should be charged or indicted for the death of Patrick Lyoya. Or
exonerated.
Here are links to the videos of the incident
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4UiaJg7qS8
This is a link that shows the bodycam as well as the video from a passenger in Lyoya’s
vehicle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inuQELf75lo
This should be included in your essay on police use of force in America. All of it in one
report!
Not two reports, but one full report!