Discuss Issues Related with the Police and Use Force Policies Essay

Discuss Issues Related with the Police and Use Force Policies - Essay Example As per the City of Edmonds Police Policy Manual section 1.3.1 use of force should be reasonable and needed to either arrest a person or control a situation. Officers should follow the rules and regulations of the department while using force. The manual differentiates between the words â€Å"force†, and â€Å"deadly force†. Force is â€Å"Physical action taken by an officer to assist that officer in controlling a situation or the behavior of others†, while deadly force is â€Å"The intentional application of force through the use of firearms or any other means reasonably likely to cause death or serious bodily injury† (MRSC). According to the Seattle Police Department Directives (2005) the use of force is applied as per the provisions of the RCW 9A. 16.010 and 9A16.020, depending on the overall situation emerging out of the circumstances. Types of situations demanding the use of force can be identified but upcoming scenarios cannot be guessed prior to their happening compelling the police officers to use force (Seattle Police Department). Police use of force, according to Engel (2008) has been an issue of research by different methods and statistical techniques that include not only official data sources but data from keen social observations, ethnographic research, officer surveys, citizen surveys and their analysis. Yet the scholarly research has not produced a comprehensive picture of the use force policies, leave alone the regular monitoring of the police use of force. Scholars like Garner, Maxwell, and Heraux, 2002; Hickman et al., 2008; Terrill and Mastrofski, 2002, have acknowledged the different parameters of monitoring the use of force. As a result it becomes difficult to explain the differences in results on the studies made on these subjects. The issue of monitoring the use of force is related to use force policies. Although these differences in the concept and monitoring of use of force have been identified by the