Police Use Of Force Analysis

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There has been a lot of media attention given to the United States police departments for their use of force against citizens recently. There were the Ferguson protests in 2014 after Michael Brown was shot by police, and a growing list of people that have been reportedly killed due to excessive force by law enforcement. While the same situation is not happening in Canada it makes one wonder what we have in place to keep the same reports from happening in this country. We will explore the reasons peace officers use force, the laws put in place to regulate its use, the different levels of force, and the issues that are attached to the subject. Definition Use of force is the amount of force used by officers of the law to gain compliance from…show more content…
Offenders can act out and risk the health and safety of others for various reasons, so officers need to use force to protect everyone at the scene of the conflict. In order for officers to use deadly force, a suspect must be a significant threat to officers and others, in that they should not be allowed to escape (Boggs, 2007, pg. 12). However they are not able to use deadly force to prohibit an escape if the suspect is not considered an endangerment to others. An officer’s ability to use force is important so that they can protect against others who become violent toward a person. In 2005 it was reported that 57,546 law enforcement officers were injured and 55 were killed in the United States (Boggs, 2007, pg. 5). So the ability to take actions of equal force is needed to be safe on the…show more content…
A person is not guilty of an offence if they are the owners of the property or acting under the authority of the person who they believe is the owner of the property. This can be if they see someone or believe that someone is going to enter the property unlawfully and they are preventing it, or removing said person from the property. A person can also be preventing someone who is or they believe will take, damage, or destroy property, so long as they do it under reasonable circumstances. However, these terms do not apply if the person being acted against has possession of the property by law or if that person is acting out of requirement by law in order to enforce the law (Martin’s, 2016, pg. 48). For example, while it would be okay to use force to prevent someone from breaking into your home, it is not okay to use force against the police if they are required to force their way into your

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