Why do the police use force?

Most people, it seems, have condemned the use of pepper spray on the UC-Davis student protesters. On the more general question of when and where tools of this kind (for example, Tasers) should be used, there is some disagreement (two excellent summaries of the debate are in The New York Times and at Inside Higher Ed).

I had a fairly vigorous discussion with my students yesterday about this, and the tenor and contour of it reminded me of debates over water-boarding (still approved by many; see the recent endorsements of torture by supposed Christian-values candidate Michele Bachmann).

There are two important distinctions to draw in cases involving police force and the military use of torture:

1. Whether using force in a given circumstance is necessary or merely convenient. Using force is a favorite tool of the lazy and incompetent. It is harder to get people to 'do' things, like confess to a crime, reveal information, or move out of a public space, by talking to them. Being a good police officer requires a lot of restraint and patience, and it also requires good 'people' skills. Having pepper spray or a Taser (or water-boarding) at one's disposal is a temptation to skip the hard work of convincing people to cooperate. In the UC case, the police officer did not appear to consider any alternative (including a less painful use of force) before employing the spray.

2. Whether force is used because it is effective or because it is emotionally satisfying. There is little to no evidence that torture actually produces actionable information. Still, anyone who has watched Jack Bauer on 24 or Detective Sipowicz on NYPD Blue knows that torture can be very emotionally satisfying-- as long as the person being tortured is clearly seen by the audience as 'the bad guy.' Pepper spray and Tasers do produce compliance! I suspect, however, that police officers often use them to dole out punishment as pleasure or revenge. 

Limits on the government's use of violence is a core American political value and one of the things that supposedly makes us 'exceptional.' Asking the police and military to use force only when necessary and effective is itself necessary, and, in the long run, more effective.

The Occupy Movement and the Bathwater

At the Saturday "faith and values" forum for Republican candidates for president, Newt Gingrich took all of us back in a rhetorical time machine to the late 1960s, dismissing Occupy protesters with a wave as lazy, smelly hippies. What advice does he have for the protesters? "Go get a job right after you take a bath."

As I asserted in an earlier post, the Occupiers have largely failed to take advantage of their remarkable publicity. Others, of course, are happy to pick up their slack and use the Occupy Movement to advance their own goals. Conservative politicians and voters, for example, thrill with horror at examples of people driven mad by the welfare-state entitlement virus. See what happens when you have an out-of-control welfare state? The Occupy Movement.

Once the messenger has been co-opted, the empirical accuracy of its assertions can be safely ignored. Have we developed a country with vast inequalities in wealth and income? Could it have a corrosive effect on the stability of the economy and the political system? Answer: The protesters are aimless, lazy, and dirty!