Article Review - Police Use of Force by Mark Curtis Wittie

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Another topic that Wittie failed to talk about was the use of excessive force. He only talks about how police departments should have good policies and procedures that are clear and concise so that it makes it hard for officers to break any rules. He never touched on excessive force other than presenting a small amount of information on the Rodney king case in 1991. Wiite never gave a clear solution for the problem of excessive force. He just makes a point saying that police need to be better trained and policy needs to be changed. Wittie never gave specific examples of what policy’s need to be changed and what kind of training needs to happen for the issue of excessive for to be stopped.

This article closely relates to the textbook we read for class. The text book talks about the force continuum method. On page 74 in Criminal Justice the Essentials it says that “Physical resistance is required for an officer to be able to use higher levels of force” (Lab 74). It says that “deadly force is the final step reserved for defined set of circumstances”. I was also surprised that the book talks about the “fleeing felon” rule, this rule allows an officer to use lethal force to apprehend an accused felon. The article fails to mention this, I think that if the author mentioned a law like this it would make his argument on policy change very strong. Overall I enjoyed reading this article and learned a lot more on the use of lethal force in law enforcement. There were so many factors that justifies an officer having to use his gun. I gained a better understanding of how force is used by the police.

Works Cited

Lab, Steven P. "Policing and Law Enforcement." Criminal Justice: The Essentials. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2013. 74-75. Print.

Wittie, Mark Curtis. Police Use of Force. Vol. 2. Rockville, MD: National Institute of Justice/NCJRS, 1990. Web.