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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
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Results for use of force
11 results foundAuthor: Mesloh, Charlie Title: Less Lethal Weapon Effectiveness, Use of Force, and Suspect & Officer Injuries: A Five-Year Analysis Summary: Law enforcement officers are legally justified to utilize force in many situations to bring suspects to justice, protect others, and for personal defense. However, police training on the use of force has no single consistent method in the United States to demonstrate the best response to subject resistance levels, even though many states and individual agencies have adopted very creative use-of-force matrices and continuums. For researchers, additional problems abound in the compilation and interpretation of the data available on police use of force. Criminal justice research has persistently demonstrated that a small percentage of police encounters with the public involve use of force. While extreme uses of force often garners media attention, lesser levels of force are used regularly by police without public notice. Research in the areas of use of force, and subsequent suspect injuries, has focused on the level of force used by the police officer and the suspect, excessive force, and officer misconduct. The literature on suspect injuries, police officer injuries, and the environmental and situational factors leading to police uses of force, is limited. This study examines use of force levels by the police and subject resistance levels in two agencies in Central Florida; the Orange County Sheriff's Office (OCSO), and the Orlando Police Department (OPD). Both agencies provided copies of force documentation pursuant to public records requests as stipulated in Florida law. While previous research on police force has focused on the rate of police force, this study examined situations that required force and the actions taken by the police and citizens during the encounter. Details: Fort Meyers, FL: Florida Gulf Coast University, Weapons & Equipment Research Institute, 2008. 104p. Source: Accesssed September 26, 2018 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/224081.pdf Year: 2008 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/224081.pdf Shelf Number: 113387 Keywords: Less than Lethal WeaponsPolice BehaviorPolice InjuriesTasersUse of Force |
Author: Amnesty International Title: Public Outrage: Police Officers Above the Law in France Summary: French police officers have been accused of racist abuse, excessive use of force, beatings, unlawful killings, and other human rights violations. This report examines the French justice system, and argues that it fosters impunity for those police officers accused of such acts. Internal police investigations, judges, prosecutors and victims experiences are all examined in relation to alleged human rights violations by French police officers. Details: London: Amnesty International Publications, 2009 Source: Year: 2009 Country: United Kingdom URL: Shelf Number: 115346 Keywords: FranceHuman RightsPolice BehaviorUse of Force |
Author: U.S. Department of Homeland Security Title: Interim Report of the CBP Integrity Advisory Panel Summary: Created as part of the homeland security eorganization of 2003, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the single, unified agency to protect and secure our nation's borders. CBP is by far the largest law enforcement agency of our country. In terms of its more than 44,000 arms carrying, sworn law enforcement officers, CBP is more than double the size of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and substantially larger than New York Police Department (NYPD), the largest local police force in the U.S. Unquestionably, CBP is far more effective in performing its border protection mission than was the case pre-2003 when border enforcement authority and personnel were fragmented into four separate agencies aligned within three different departments of government. Yet as a border agency with a national security and law enforcement mission, CBP is vulnerable to the potential for corruption within its workforce which, if not detected and effectively investigated, could severely undermine its mission. Moreover, it is imperative, as with all law enforcement, that CBP officers and agents avoid using excessive and unnecessary force in carrying out their duties. To this end, it is essential that CBP be capable of effectively investigating and deterring the potential unlawful and out-of-policy use of force by its personnel . It is within this context that in December 2014, the Secretary of Homeland Security requested the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) to create the CBP Integrity Advisory Panel ("Panel"), a subcommittee of the HSAC, in order to take stock of and evaluate the progress of CBP regarding its efforts to deter and prevent corruption and the use of excessive force and its efforts to restore public confidence through more transparency with key stakeholders and the public. As part of the Secretary's tasking, he requested recommendations based upon law enforcement best practices regarding further steps needed to assure the highest level of integrity, compliance with use of force policy, incident response transparency, and stakeholder engagement. The Secretary's six specific tasking's are set forth in his letter to the HSAC dated December 9, 2014. (See Appendix B) This interim report discusses integrity and use of force/transparency issues separately, yet some of our recommendations apply to both. A prime example is our recommendation that the number of criminal investigators in CBP's Office of Internal Affairs (IA) be substantially increased. An adequately staffed IA is essential to giving CBP the capacity to timely and thoroughly investigate all allegations of corruption as well as all use of force violations of CBP policy. Since its inception less than four months ago, in March 2015, the Panel has met and reviewed numerous prior reports, gathered a prodigious amount of data and met with and interviewed dozens of representatives of CBP, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), various stakeholders and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). This is our first interim report and recommendations with more to follow in the future. Given the extraordinary importance of maintaining integrity and assuring compliance with use of force policy, the Panel believes that consideration of our recommendations, and action upon them, should not await our final report. Details: Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Homeland Security, 2015. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 14, 2015 at: http://soboco.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/HSAC-CBP-IAP-Interim-Report_FINAL_062915.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://soboco.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/HSAC-CBP-IAP-Interim-Report_FINAL_062915.pdf Shelf Number: 136026 Keywords: Border ControlBorder SecurityHomeland SecurityNational SecurityUse of Force |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: "Such a Brutal Crackdown": Killings and Arrests in response to Ethiopia's Oromo Protests Summary: Since mid-November 2015, Ethiopia's Oromia region has been rocked by largely peaceful protests triggered by Ethiopian government plans to expand the capital, Addis Ababa, and displace ethnic Oromo farmers. State security forces have used excessive and lethal force to respond to the protests, killing an estimated 400 people and injuring thousands. Security forces have also arrested tens of thousands of people and hundreds of others have been forcibly disappeared. Based on more than 125 interviews conducted inside Ethiopia and abroad, "Such a Brutal Crackdown" describes and analyses a grossly underreported crisis that poses a massive political challenge for Ethiopia's government. Although the demonstrations initially concerned the government's expansion plans, the killings and arrests, coupled with longstanding grievances from the Oromo community, have further fueled the protests. Many of those killed or detained were students under 18. The authorities have also arrested opposition politicians, musicians, teachers and other influential Oromos. Some have been prosecuted under Ethiopia's draconian counterterrorism law. The government has also sought to restrict information about the protests by detaining journalists covering the events and blocking social media and other means of communication. Although the protests have largely subsided since mid-April, thousands of students and others have fled their homes or are in detention, education has been disrupted in many locations, and tensions remain high. This underscores the need for the Ethiopian government to support a credible investigation into the events, release those who have been wrongfully detained, and take other urgent measures to redress the serious abuses that have been committed. Details: New York: HRW, 2016. 86p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 25, 2016 at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/ethiopia0616web.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Ethiopia URL: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/ethiopia0616web.pdf Shelf Number: 139838 Keywords: Deadly ForceDisappearancesHuman Rights AbusesProtest MovementsUse of Force |
Author: Australia. Auditor General Title: The Australian Border Force's Use of Statutory Powers Summary: Background 1. On 9 May 2014, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection announced the government's decision to bring together the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (Immigration) and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (Customs) in a single department from 1 July 2015. Within the integrated department, the government established the Australian Border Force (Border Force) as a 'single frontline operational border agency to enforce our customs and immigration laws and protect our border'. 2. Both the Customs Act 1901 (Customs Act) and Migration Act 1958 (Migration Act) contain a wide range of powers. While many of these are essentially administrative in nature, there are a wide range of coercive powers - such as powers to question, search, detain or arrest people, or enter and search vehicles or premises - which departmental officers, such as Border Force officers, can now exercise. Other Acts (such as the Maritime Powers Act 2013) also confer powers on officers. In total, officers can exercise coercive powers under 35 Acts and more than 500 empowering provisions. Audit objective and criteria 3. The objective of the audit was to assess the establishment and administration of the Australian Border Force's framework to ensure the lawful exercise of powers in accordance with applicable legislation. 4. To form a conclusion against the audit objective, the ANAO adopted the following high-level audit criteria: Is there an effective accountability and reporting framework for the lawful exercise of powers? Do Border Force officers have adequate knowledge of their powers and how to use them? Conclusion 5. As part of the integration of Immigration and Customs, the department has made progress towards establishing a framework to ensure Border Force officers exercise coercive powers lawfully and appropriately. However, significantly more work needs to be done to gain assurance that controls are effective. 6. The department's enterprise risk management framework does not adequately address the risk of officers exercising coercive powers unlawfully or inappropriately. Several internal assurance reviews have uncovered problems relating to the exercise of statutory powers. The Border Force has established an integrated operational quality assurance team, which has not yet finalised any reports. Delegations and authorisations for coercive powers are complete and in place but not all instruments are accessible to officers. 7. The ANAO found instances of potentially unlawful searches and failure to comply with instructions under both the Customs Act and Migration Act, which indicate current internal controls for mitigating the risk of unlawful or inappropriate use of coercive powers are inadequate. 8. The department has not provided adequate instructions and guidance for officers exercising coercive powers. There is currently no single source of instructions and guidance material for Border Force officers, and much of the guidance material available is out of date and inaccurate. While positive foundational work has commenced on integrating the former Customs and Immigration training regimes, officers have been exercising significant coercive powers without having undertaken pre-requisite training. Supporting findings 9. The department's approach to risk management at the enterprise level has been developing over the past two years. It has established an enterprise risk framework and is finalising profiles for each of its enterprise risks. The current profile relating to unlawful or inappropriate use of coercive powers conflates this risk with integrity and corruption risks, which require different internal controls. This has the potential to divert attention from controls relating to the risk of unlawful or inappropriate use of coercive powers. 10. The department has undertaken several internal assurance reviews that have uncovered problems relating to the exercise of statutory powers. The Border Force has recently established an integrated team responsible for operational quality assurance testing. The team has not yet completed any reviews. Prior to this, the department did not have satisfactory mechanisms for gaining assurance that officers understand their powers and are exercising them lawfully. 11. Instruments of authorisation and delegation for coercive Migration and Customs Act powers are complete and up-to-date. While Migration Act instruments of authorisation and delegation are available on the intranet, instruments relating to the Customs Act (and other Acts) are not accessible to officers. 12. Some personal searches of passengers at international airports examined by the ANAO were unlawful or inappropriate, indicating weaknesses in the control framework. A number of searches of premises under the Migration Act potentially exceeded the authority of the warrant which authorised them, and officers routinely questioned people without documenting their legal authority to do so. Officers also frequently failed to comply with departmental policy instructions, including compliance with certification and recordkeeping requirements. 13. The department has commenced a project to identify the statutory powers of officers of the integrated department, with a longer term view to possibly amending some powers. As part of the project, in July 2016, the department completed a consolidated inventory of all powers available to departmental officers under Commonwealth legislation. Such an inventory will enable the department to identify overlap, duplication, redundancy and inconsistency within and between Acts. It will also assist with identifying any gaps or deficiencies in powers in order to be able to submit a proposal for potential legislative change for government consideration. 14. The Border Force is developing a coordinated systematic framework for reporting on its use of coercive powers. It presently does not have such a framework. 15. Many of the instructions that are provided to Border Force officers on the department's intranet are out of date, incomplete, inaccurate and are not accessible to all officers. A project to remedy this situation was endorsed by the department's executive in December 2015 and has to date delivered only a very small number of operational instructions for Border Force officers. 16. The department has made progress in integrating the former Customs and Immigration training regimes and addressing deficiencies identified through pre-integration training audits conducted in 2014. The establishment of an integrated Learning and Development Branch and the Border Force College has been managed as a priority project, under the Reform and Integration Taskforce. While this project has delivered solid foundations for enhancing the learning maturity of the department, at the time of examination the results of these foundational efforts had yet to be realised. 17. Not all officers exercising coercive powers under the Migration Act and Customs Act have received pre-requisite training. The department has established an integrated Learning Management System but issues remain in relation to the completeness of training records. 18. The department has been undertaking a project to transition to a new workforce model, which has involved establishing 'vocations', profiling job roles under each vocation, mapping required competencies, and developing high level curricula. Training needs analysis for the Border Force vocational stream commenced in October 2016. Details: Barton, ACT: Australian National Audit Office, 2017. 60p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 7, 2017 at: https://www.anao.gov.au/sites/g/files/net2766/f/ANAO_Report_2016-2017_39.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Australia URL: https://www.anao.gov.au/sites/g/files/net2766/f/ANAO_Report_2016-2017_39.pdf Shelf Number: 146415 Keywords: Border PatrolBorder SecurityCustoms EnforcementIllegal ImmigrationImmigrantsImmigration EnforcementUse of Force |
Author: Peters, Mark G. Title: An Investigation of NYPD's New Force Reporting System Summary: The ability to accurately track and report on officer‐involved force incidents is critical to effectively managing a police department and maintaining the public's trust in law enforcement. In October 2015, however, the New York City Department of Investigation's (DOI) Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD (OIG‐NYPD) determined that the New York City Police Department (NYPD or the Department) was unable to identify and track such incidents. Among DOI's 15 recommendations to NYPD was the need for a separate, uniform use‐of‐force reporting form that allows NYPD to capture and track all officer uses of force and injuries that occur in the course of a police encounter. NYPD agreed in its response to the 2015 Report that such a tracking system was necessary and stated its plan to build one. In June 2016, the Department replaced its existing use‐of‐force policies, Patrol Guide Series 212, with a new set of use‐of‐force procedures, Patrol Guide Series 221. A new form - the Threat, Resistance, and Injury Worksheet (T.R.I.)—was introduced to NYPD system‐wide as the foundation of the new force‐reporting protocols. NYPD designed the new form to record certain uses of force by and against police officers as well as any injuries occurring during the course of a police action or while an individual is in police custody. Considering the importance of the new T.R.I. use‐of‐force reporting system, DOI investigated NYPD's compliance with the new policy, focusing on whether officers were completing T.R.I. forms when they used reportable force during an arrest. Following the examination of over 30,000 pages of NYPD documents and interviews with both the NYPD bureau overseeing the T.R.I. program and precinct supervisors responsible for executing the program in the field, DOI arrived at the following findings: - Despite a Weak Start in 2016, NYPD was Largely in Compliance in 2017 with Respect to Certain T.R.I. Metrics. NYPD arrest reports contain drop-down boxes in which officers can select "Yes/No" on whether they used force; a "Yes" would require the officer to also complete a T.R.I. During September - November 2016, officers failed to complete a T.R.I. in 36.2% of cases in which they had reported "Force Used: Yes" on an arrest report. A sample of nine precincts between May – July 2017, however, showed notable improvement; officers failed to complete T.R.I.s in only 10% of such cases. - Continuing Problems with T.R.I. Compliance: T.R.I.s Not Always Completed When Documents Signal That Reportable Force Was Used. DOI identified arrest reports with a resisting arrest charge in which the arresting officer selected "Force Used: No" on the arrest report drop-down box but the narrative suggests that the officer may have used force. DOI also identified Medical Treatment of Prisoner forms in which the officer's narrative description strongly suggests or clearly indicates that the officer used force on a member of the public, yet no T.R.I. was completed. NYPD does not have sufficient controls in place to identify these other uses of force - which are indeed harder to detect – and to ensure that T.R.I.s are completed when required. Such cases would not be captured in an audit that focuses solely on arrest reports where officers say "Force Used: Yes" in a drop-down box. However, because force used is not formally documented in these instances, the completion of T.R.I. forms is even more important. - Continuing Problems with Force Reporting on Arrest Reports. In at least 30% of the arrest reports with resisting arrest charges in the 2016 study period (and 55.9% in a 2017 sample), officers stated that "No" force was used but still filed a T.R.I. affirming that the officer indeed used reportable force during the incident. This means that officers are underreporting force on arrest reports and, as a result, certain statistics in NYPD's recent Annual Use‐of‐Force Report do not accurately reflect the universe of force incidents. - Supervisory Failures in the T.R.I. Program. In addition to broader, technological solutions that are helping NYPD achieve better force reporting, supervisors play a vital role in ensuring T.R.I. compliance. DOI identified several supervisory failures in the T.R.I. program that NYPD must address. These include the failure to record T.R.I. information in command logs, to complete required steps when investigating a force incident, and to submit quarterly T.R.I. reports to the NYPD First Deputy Commissioner, as indicated in Patrol Guide Series 221. - Continued Concerns in the Field. Candid interviews with NYPD precinct commanders revealed the growing need for deadlines on T.R.I. forms (currently there are none), additional training for officers, a narrative section on the T.R.I. forms where officers can further document the incident (currently there is none), and a more effective hotline for supervisors to call when T.R.I. questions emerge. - Opportunities for More Detailed and More Transparent Reporting. Enhancing accountability and public trust requires that NYPD publish accurate and useful data on officer use of force. While NYPD's recent Annual Use‐of‐Force report provides useful base‐line data on general uses of force, the report does not satisfy all legal reporting requirements. NYPD can do more to ensure that the public has a fuller understanding of force incidents involving police officers. Comprehensive force reporting will ultimately bolster NYPD's efforts at community engagement by providing reliable and relevant data that will better inform the public discussion about officer use of force. Details: New York City, NY: Department of Investigation, 2018. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 16, 2019 at: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doi/press-releases/2018/feb/08Use_of_Force_Report_020618.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doi/oignypd/reports.page Shelf Number: 154213 Keywords: Law EnforcementOfficer-Involved ForcePolice AccountabilityPolice DepartmentsPolice OfficerPolice ReportsTransparencyUse of Force |
Author: Braga, Anthony Title: The Benefits of Body-Worn Cameras: New Findings from a Randomized Controlled Trial at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Summary: Many community stakeholders and criminal justice leaders have suggested placing body-worn cameras (BWCs) on police officers improves the civility of police-citizen encounters and enhances citizen perceptions of police transparency and legitimacy. In response, many police departments have adopted this technology to improve the quality of policing in their communities. However, the existing evaluation evidence on the intended and unintended consequences of outfitting police officers with BWCs is still developing. This study reports the findings of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving more than 400 police officers in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD). We find that BWC-wearing officers generated significantly fewer complaints and use of force reports relative to control officers without cameras. BWCwearing officers also made more arrests and issued more citations than their nonBWC-wearing controls. In addition, our cost-benefit analysis revealed that savings from reduced complaints against officers, and the reduced time required to resolve such complaints, resulted in substantial cost savings for the police department. Considering that LVMPD had already introduced reforms regarding use of force through a Collaborative Reform Initiative prior to implementing body worn cameras, these findings suggest that body worn cameras can have compelling effects without increasing costs. Details: Arlington, VA: CNA Analysis and Solutions, 2017. 79p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 23, 2019 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/251416.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/251416.pdf Shelf Number: 154350 Keywords: Body-Worn Cameras Cost-Benefit Analysis Las Vegas Police Department Law Enforcement Police Departments Police Officers Police-Citizen Encounters Randomized Controlled Trial Technology Use of Force |
Author: California. Office of the Attorney General Title: URSUS: Use of Force Incident Reporting Summary: URSUS 2017 presents a summary overview of use of force and discharge of firearm incidents as defined in Government Code (GC) section 12525.2. This report focuses on data reported by California law enforcement agencies in 2017. Due to the narrow definition of this statute, the data contained in this report only represent incidents where use of force resulted in serious bodily injury or death or the discharge of a firearm. Caution should be used in making comparisons or generalizations with this data set as it does not contain the full spectrum of use of force incidents that occurred in California. Details: California Department of Justice, Office of Attorney General, 2017. 71p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 28, 2019 at: https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ursus17-1.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ursus17-1.pdf Shelf Number: 156053 Keywords: Firearm Incidents Law Enforcement Police Behavior Police Brutality Police Misconduct Police Officers Use of Force |
Author: Amnesty International Title: Hunger for Justice: Crimes Against Humanity in Venezuela Summary: Venezuela has been experiencing a profound human rights crisis for several years. Massive violations of civil, political, economic and social rights have been reflected in shortages of and lack of access to food and medicines, a deterioration in health services, as well as violence and political repression by the state. As a result at least 3.4 million people have been forced to flee the country since 2015. In this context, social protest became the main and most visible way in which people could respond and channel their discontent. Since 2014, there have been several cycles of mass demonstrations, interspersed with spontaneous protests to demand a range of rights. In February 2014, the first mass protests took place both against and in support of the government of Nicolas Maduro, who had come to power a year earlier. During the first months of demonstrations, Amnesty International documented the excessive use of force, torture and politically motivated arbitrary detentions and highlighted the use of derogatory language to stigmatize anti-government protesters. By the end of these protests, 43 people had been killed, including 10 public officials. A year later, the organization expressed concern at the high level of impunity in relation to possible human rights violations committed during those months. Between April and July 2017, there was a new wave of social conflict in which more than 120 people were killed, mostly at the hands of the state and groups of armed pro-government civilians ("collectives"). At least 1,958 people were injured as a result of the systematic and widespread use of excessive, and often intentionally lethal, force against protesters. In addition, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), more than 5,000 people were reported to have been detained. One year after the protests, to Amnesty International's knowledge, in only one case had judicial proceedings in relation to these deaths been opened against a member of the Bolivarian National Guard (Guardia Nacional Bolivariana, GNB). While 2018 was not characterized by mass protests, it nevertheless saw the largest number of spontaneous protests throughout the country (more than 12,000 during the year) around demands for economic and social rights, due to the serious deterioration in living standards. It was in this context that, at the beginning of 2019, thousands of people took to the streets to demand a change of government. During January, numerous demonstrations were reported, many of them in low-income areas where the demand for political change had not been so pronounced up to that point. From 21 to 25 January 2019, in a total of 12 of the country's 23 states, at least 47 people died in the context of the protests, all of them as a result of gunshot wounds. Reports indicated that, of these 47 people, at least 39 were killed by members of state forces or of third parties acting with their acquiescence during demonstrations (33 and six respectively). Eleven were reportedly victims of targeted extrajudicial executions, 24 reportedly died in the context of demonstrations and 11 reportedly during looting. According to press reports, one member of the security forces also died during these protests. During these five days, more than 900 people were arbitrarily detained in practically every state in the country. It is estimated that 770 of these arbitrary detentions took place in just one day, 23 January, the date on which demonstrations were held throughout the country. Children and teenagers were among those detained. Amnesty International has documented the policy of politically motivated repression implemented by the government of Nicolas Maduro since 2014. As part of this, between 31 January and 17 February 2019, an Amnesty International team visited Venezuela to carry out research into crimes under international law and serious human rights violations committed in the context of the protests. During this visit, a total of six extrajudicial executions were documented, three cases of excessive use of force and six arbitrary detentions, as well as cover-ups and a failure to investigate several of these violations. The 15 cases detailed in this report are representative of a broader pattern of possible human rights violations that took place in January 2019. The extrajudicial executions documented in different parts of the country illustrate a recurring pattern. In all cases, the victims were young men who were critical of the government, or perceived as such by the authorities, from low-income areas and whose participation in the protests had been visible or whose criticisms had gone viral on social media. That is, they were targeted executions based on the profile of the victims. All died as a result of gunshot wounds to the chest and were executed while in the custody of the authorities. Some were tortured before they were killed. After executing them, the authorities publicly depicted them as criminals who had died in confrontations and initiated criminal investigations for "resisting authority" ("resistencia a la autoridad"). In all six cases, the crime scene was tampered with in order to cover up the facts, as were the bodies of the victims. The police force that carried out these executions was the Bolivarian National Police (Policia Nacional Bolivariana, PNB), mainly through its Special Actions Force (Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales, FAES). Regarding the use of force, Amnesty International's research confirmed the disproportionate and unnecessary use of lethal force against demonstrators. In the documented cases, the GNB and the Bolivarian National Guard of Venezuela (Guardia Nacional Bolivariana, GNB) were identified as the bodies responsible for the deaths. For example, Alixon Pisani was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest sustained when a PNB official riding on the back of a motorcycle fired indiscriminately on a protest in Catia (Caracas). According to witnesses, the demonstrators had blocked the street with burning objects and were not armed. Only in a few cases had Molotov cocktails and stones been thrown at the security forces. The cases of detention illustrate a pattern of arbitrary mass arrests followed by ill-treatment of detainees by government forces in order to punish people for taking part in the protests. Researchers also found that judicial guarantees were flouted and that there was interference with principle of judicial independence. For example, in the cases of four teenagers (all under 18) detained in the state of Yaracuy, none was brought before a judge within the legal time limit and they were held for several days despite the absence of sufficient evidence to justify their detention. Days later, the supervising judge (juez de control) dealing with their case complained on social media that her decision regarding the minors had been the result of pressure and the death threats from the Executive branch. Finally, according to the information received from relatives and lawyers, in all the documented cases of violation of the right to life and physical integrity, the official investigations have been neither impartial or thorough and the families have received only minimal information about them. In addition, several relatives were harassed by public officials because of the victims' involvement in the protests. Analysis of these violations shows that in January 2019, multiple acts of violence were committed consistently in all states and with a high degree of coordination between the security forces at the national and state levels. The authorities right up to the highest level, including Nicolas Maduro, have at the very least tolerated such attacks. Amnesty International's research shows that these human rights violations were not random, but were part of a previously planned attack directed against a distinct part of the civilian population: government opponents, or those perceived as such by the government, who were at times specifically identified as targets by the attackers. In addition, these incidents were public and widely known; in other words, the authorities at the highest level knew what was happening. Details: London: Author, 2019. 56p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 6, 2019 at: https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/AMR5302222019ENGLISH.PDF Year: 2019 Country: Venezuela URL: https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/AMR5302222019ENGLISH.PDF Shelf Number: 156236 Keywords: Arbitrary DetentionsExecutionsExtrajudicial ExecutionsHuman Rights AbusesProtests and DemonstrationsTortureUse of Force |
Author: Garner, Joel H. Title: Progress Towards National Estimates of Police Use of Force Summary: Abstract: This research builds on three decades of effort to produce national estimates of the amount and rate of force used by law enforcement officers in the United States. Prior efforts to produce national estimates have suffered from poor and inconsistent measurements of force, small and unrepresentative samples, low survey and/or item response rates, and disparate reporting of rates of force. The present study employs data from a nationally representative survey of state and local law enforcement agencies that has a high survey response rate as well as a relatively high rate of reporting uses of force. Using data on arrests for violent offenses and the number of sworn officers to impute missing data on uses of force, we estimate a total of 337,590 use of physical force incidents among State and local law enforcement agencies during 2012 with a 95 percent confidence interval of +/- 10,470 incidents or +/- 3.1 percent. This article reports the extent to which the number and rate of force incidents vary by the type and size of law enforcement agencies. Our findings demonstrate the willingness of a large proportion of law enforcement agencies to voluntarily report the amount of force used by their officers and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) program to produce nationally representative information about police behavior. Details: San Francisco, California: Plos One, 2018. 23p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 27, 2019 at: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0192932&type=printable Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0192932 Shelf Number: 156931 Keywords: Law Enforcement Agencies Police Accountability Police Behavior Police Misconduct Police Officers Use of Force |
Author: Bejan, Vladimir Title: Primed for Death: Law Enforcement-Citizen Homicides, Social Media, and Retaliatory Violence Summary: Abstract: We examine whether retaliatory violence exists between law enforcement and citizens while controlling for any social media contagion effect related to prior fatal encounters. Analyzed using a trivariate dynamic structural vector-autoregressive model, daily time-series data over a 21-month period captured the frequencies of police killed in the line of duty, police deadly use of force incidents, and social media coverage. The results support a significant retaliatory violence effect against minorities by police, yet there is no evidence of retaliatory violence against law enforcement officers by minorities. Also, social media coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement increases the risk of fatal victimization to both law enforcement officers and minorities. Possible explanations for these results are based in rational choice and terror management theories. Details: San Francisco, California: Plos One, 2018. 23p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 27, 2019 at: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0190571&type=printable Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5761867/ Shelf Number: 156934 Keywords: Black Lives Matter Deadly Force Fatal Encounters Law Enforcement Officers Police Deaths Police Officers Retaliatory Violence Social Media Use of Force |