Police Education, Experience, and the Use of Force

Citation

Donovan, K. (2007), "Police Education, Experience, and the Use of Force", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 30 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/pijpsm.2007.18130dae.002

Police Education, Experience, and the Use of Force

Eugene Paoline and William TerrillCriminal Justice and BehaviorVol. 34 No. 22007pp. 179-196

A policeman’s ability to use situationally justified force is the defining characteristic that separates policing from all other occupations (Bittner, 1980). Thus, gaining a clear understanding of what factors influence police officer decision-making in regard to the use of force is paramount for criminal justice researchers and practitioners alike. The mere fact that police are entrusted with this special ability does not afford them unbridled discretion when carrying out their civil duties. Therefore, it is imperative to identify officer characteristics that may differentially influence the propensity to use force. Paoline and Terrill’s analysis focuses on how an officer’s level of education and years of experience influence their use of force tendencies – an often-neglected area in use of force research.

The professional era of policing sought to change the image of police officers and this was to be partially achieved by seeking out better-educated officers. It was believed that officers with a college education have more refined communication and reasoning skills and thus would be better suited for the policing profession (Paoline and Terrill). Despite the push for a more professionalized police force, the importance placed on emphasizing college-educated officers was not embraced throughout the policing community. Those resisting the notion that college educated officers would make better police emphasized the importance of job experience. Accordingly, it was believed that “good police” were made up of experiences they encountered in the field and these experiences could not be learned from secondhand accounts in classrooms (Paoline and Terrill).

While prior studies have shown college educated officers are less likely to resort to force, these studies do not differentiate between types of force. Paoline and Terrill expand the knowledge base gleaned from previous studies examining the relationship between officer education, years of experience and use of force by including measures of verbal and physical coercion. The authors used systematic social observation data and officer interview data collected at two different sites to test these relationships. Their sample included 3,356 police-citizen encounters, which occurred during the summers of 1996 and 1997. In addition to officer education and years of experience, Paoline and Terrill’s models also included several controls that have consistently predicted use of force in prior studies.

Simple bivariate analyses indicated that the frequency and type of force used by officers in their sample varied by education and experience. Additional multivariate models were estimated to sequester the independent effects of education and experience on force. Multinomial logit models indicated that encounters involving officers with more years of experience were less likely to result in verbal and physical force (Paoline and Terrill). An officer’s level of education did not uniformly influence both types of force. That is, officers with some college education (but no degree) were less likely to resort to verbal force but were no more or less likely than their peers with no college experience to resort to physical force (Paoline and Terrill). Moreover, encounters involving officers with a bachelor’s degree were less likely to result in both types of force compared to their counterparts (Paoline and Terrill).

When an interaction term representing experience and education was introduced, the original relationships between education, experience and force were retained. However, the data showed there was no additional influence above and beyond the original relationships when an officer had both a college degree and more years of experience than his or her counterpart. That is, encounters involving an officer with a college degree or more years of experience were just as unlikely to lead to force as encounters involving officers with a college degree and more years of experience. These findings are important for police administrators as they provide information on officer level characteristics that may influence the likelihood of police-citizen encounters resulting in the use of force.

Kathleen Donovan and Charles F. Klahm IV