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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of police use of conducted energy devices (CEDs) on officer and suspect injuries while controlling for other types of force and resistance and other factors.Design/methodology/approachData on 1,645 use‐of‐force incidents occurring between January 1, 2002 and July 2006 were obtained from two different law enforcement agencies. Logistic and generalized ordered logistic regressions are used to model the odds of injury and severity of injury.FindingsThe use of CEDs was associated with reduced odds of officer and suspect injury and the severity of suspect injury in one agency. In the other agency CED use was unrelated to the odds of injury; however, the use of pepper spray was associated with reduced odds of suspect injury. Among other findings, in both agencies the use of hands‐on tactics by police was associated with increased odds of officer and suspect injury, while the use of canines was associated with increased odds of suspect injury.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this research was carried out in two distinctly different law enforcement agencies with different histories of CED adoption, the fact that CED use was associated with reductions in injuries in one agency but not the other indicates the need for additional research on the impact of CED use in other settingsPractical implicationsThe analysis suggests that relative to other forms of force, the use of CEDs and pepper spray can reduce the risk of injury to both suspects and law enforcement officers. This information should prove useful to law enforcement agencies considering adopting CEDs and suggests that agencies should consider the use of these less lethal alternatives in place of hands‐on tactics against actively resistant suspects.Originality/valueAt the time of this writing there was no published independent research on the risks of injury associated with CED use in field settings. The findings reported herein will help inform the public debate on the utility of CEDs for law enforcement.

This article examines the effects of perceived impaired judgment due to mental illness, drugs, or alcohol among a sample of arrestees on police use of force and other outcomes. Using a combined measure of impairment, bivariate analysis of more than 2,000 arrests made by officers from a large southeastern municipal police department suggests that persons with perceived impaired judgment were only mildly problematic for police in this study. Multiple regression analysis of the effects of perceived judgmental impairment on use of force indicates it significantly increased the odds that higher levels of force were used, but the influence of this factor was less than the influence of other factors commonly examined in use-of-force studies. Additional analysis using a disaggregated measure of perceived impaired judgment reveals that the significant effect of the combined measure is a function of suspected drug intoxication rather than suspected alcohol intoxication or mental illness.

Police officers are disproportionately affected by intentional injuries in the workplace.1 Although incidents of use of force by police officers account for less than 2% of the estimated total of police and civilian contacts (official interaction between any person and an officer), the prevalence of injury to civilians and officers in these situations is high. Few rigorous studies have examined the effect of policy decisions to adopt less-lethal weapons on the incidence of injuries to suspects and officers. Several studies have suggested that adoption of less-lethal weapons has led to substantial reductions in assaults on officers and injuries to suspects but have either failed to control for the level of resistance by the suspect or other important circumstances [39][40][41] or have relied on simple comparisons of injury rates before and after the introduction of less-lethal weapons. [42][43][44] These studies suffer from a number of potential methodological problems, including regression to the mean and a lack of sufficient control variables. Also, because research in this area has been sponsored by law enforcement agencies, lack of independence has been a point of contention. 15,17,45 Use of force by police involves multiple types of force, so it is critical to assess the independent contribution of less-lethal weapons on the prevalence and incidence of injury to the suspects and officers involved. Injury from police use-of-force incidents continues to be a public health problem affecting tens of thousands of people in the United States each year. We investigated whether use of less-lethal weapons was associated with the likelihood of injuries to suspects and officers during police-civilian use-of-force incidents after statistical control for other important aspects of the events.Relying on administrative data collected by 12 police departments across the United States (collected from 1998 through 2007), we investigated whether the use of CEDs or OC spray was associated with the odds of injury to officers and suspects in use-of-force cases. Because an association between use of these weapons and injury could result from selection effects, whereby events that require these weapons' application by police are more serious than those that do not, we tested for such an effect by examining whether these associations remained after control for important confounders including physical force used by the police; relative physical resistance from suspects; age, race, and gender of suspects; differences in departmental policies restricting use of force by the police; and average agency differences in the prevalence of use of force. Finally, to assess the effect that an agency's Objectives. We investigated the effect of the use of less-lethal weapons, conductive energy devices (CEDs), and oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray on the prevalence and incidence of injuries to police officers and civilians in encounters involving the use of force.Methods. We analyzed data from 12 police departments that documented injuries to officers...

A sizable literature exists showing that the general public is supportive of the police, but that substantial differences exist in levels of support among minorities and whites. Few studies, however, have examined the impact of violent police‐citizen encounters on perceptions of the police. Using survey data from a random sample of Cincinnati residents over an 11‐year period, we examine the effect of a violent televised arrest of an African‐American youth on minority and white opinions of the police. Furthermore, we interpret the results of the analysis in the context of Easton’s (1965) theory on diffuse and specific support for political institutions. The results suggest that although substantial differences exist among minorities and whites in their levels of support for the police, most indicators of diffuse support were unaffected by the controversial televised arrest.

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Uses data on 1,550 nonlethal assaults recorded by Baltimore County Police Department. Examines factors that are associated with the likelihood of officer injury after an assault. Notes that factors affecting the probability of assault do not necessarily correspond with the factors that affect the likelihood of injury. Analyzes a broader spectrum of contributory factors than those addressed by other research. Finds inter alia that greater officer proficiency in unarmed defensive tactics may reduce their assault‐related injuries, since most incidents do not involve arms; that in‐service training should be biased toward less experienced officers who are at greater risk; that officer height is a significant variable; that many officers suffer multiple attacks; that domestic disturbances do not rank higher than other dangers, but that this may reflect the possibility that officers anticipate potential violence and take better precautions before attending the scene.

Violence against police officers is a widely held concern for the law enforcement profession. Prior research into this problem has focused almost exclusively on individual, situational, or ecological correlates at the city or higher levels of aggregation rather than at the neighborhood level, potentially masking important local variation. This study examines block-group-level risk factors for serious assaults on police from a criminal opportunity perspective. Data for the study included 603 aggravated assaults on police in Boston, arrestee location data, violent crimes known to the police for the years 1993 to 1999, and 1990 census data. Findings indicate strong associations between serious assaults on police and block groups characterized by high arrestee density, criminogenic conditions, and propensity for violence.