| Since the beginning of modern policing, it has been recognized that excessive use of force erodes public trust. This is particularly true in minority communities, where the negative perception of police greatly hinders the effectiveness of law enforcement. To help define factors leading to use of force, this study focused on relationships between educational level and other demographic characteristics of officers and their reported frequency, level, and acceptance of the use of force. An on-line survey was conducted with police officers from Newark, Orange, and Elizabeth, NJ, which have large minority populations. A total of 511 officers, nearly a third of these police forces, responded. Questions addressed frequency of use of various levels of force (ranging from submission holds to deadly force), which were used to derive measures of overall use of force and proportion of high-level force used. Other questions assessed approval of use of force in general. Demographic variables of education, age, experience, gender, ethnicity, city, and duty combined were highly significant (p < .001) predictors of the outcome measures (accounting for 17%-23% of variance in multiple regressions). It was hypothesized that greater education would be associated with lower levels on the three measures of force. However, most analyses fell short of significance. Despite a strong correlation between age and experience (r = .73), both younger and more experienced officers used force more frequently (beta weights for age and experience of -.42 and .23, respectively, p < .001) and higher in level (betas of -.38 and .31, p < .001). Surprisingly, acceptance of use of force showed the reverse pattern (betas of .19, p < .01, and -.16, p < .05). Gender was unrelated to the measures, although the very small number of females (n = 8) may have weakened this analysis. Thus, results did not confirm the expected relationship between education and use of force in police officers, although age and experience were strong predictors. The study helped define these as relevant to force use. Future research should address why different studies have presented conflicting conclusions on education and why use of force and approval of use of force are negatively related. |
