Issues in policing: use of force and the media

USE OF FORCE AND THE MEDIA

Making a Problem of Brutality

Crime is a problem that preoccupies the news and the public . As the nation has engaged in wars ' on crime and drugs over the past several decades , crime has become an ever-more prevalent staple of news reporting . A variety of studies of media content have estimated that as much as 25 percent of the daily news is devoted to crime and that crime is the largest major category of stories in the print and electronic media . As with other kinds of

news , the most privileged perspectives in most crime stories are those offered by officials , particularly the police . In fact , media interest in crime waves ' can be the product at least in part , of official efforts to create , sustain , or exploit public concern about crime . Privileged access to the media offers police and other official 's abundant opportunities to shape public images of themselves , their work , and the nature of the crime problem

Police use of physical force is a particularly controversial issue in American crime fighting . Given the considerable ambiguity that surrounds the issue , whether police use of force is presented as police brutality and whether brutality is understood as a problem depend greatly upon which voices and views the media emphasize . Moreover , the kinds of problem definitions that arise in the news after a highly publicized incident of alleged brutality both draw upon and shape the various groups , demands , and social values engaged in the policy process

THE AMBIGUITY OF POLICE USE OF FORCE

Police use of force is often highly controversial because it raises questions about a government 's use of coercion against its citizens . In a democratic society that prides itself on ideals of civility and equality before the law , police use of force is often an inherently troubling phenomenon . As one scholar has observed , Justifying police and what they do has always been problematic in democracies , and this has been particularly true in the United States , where ambivalence about government authority is a persistent force . Yet whether police brutality constitutes a public problem is a question whose answer depends largely upon who is asked

Of course , the nature of policing requires police at times to use physical coercion against civilians indeed , police are sometimes morally obliged to employ force ' to accomplish legitimate ends of controlling crime and maintaining . Yet police use of force is often highly controversial precisely because it is nearly always ambiguous . As legal scholar Paul Chevigny observes , while the power to use force is a defining characteristic of the [police officer 's] job the line between excessive and justifiable force is difficult to draw Indeed , he suggests , Much of the problem in understanding the work of the police lies in the fact that what they do , and what they should do when they are 'doing their job ' is always contested

Police and criminologists draw conceptual distinctions among the terms use of force ' unnecessary force ' and brutality ' The use of force...