Citation

McCarthy M, Porter L, Townsley M, Alpert G. Policing Soc. 2019; 29(9): 1091-1108.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10439463.2018.1493109

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Extant research on police use of force has established that force is not distributed evenly across communities, with minority threat, ecological contamination, and social disorganisation some of the most common theories used to understand the distribution of police use of force in the US. The current study aimed to test the relevance of these theories for explaining the distribution of serious police use of force events in Australia. We tested a use of force frequency model using negative binomial regression, and a use of force severity model using ordered logistic multilevel modelling.

RESULTS demonstrated support for ecological contamination theory, social disorganisation and partial support for socio-economic disadvantage in predicting the frequency of serious police use of force events across communities, while minority threat theory was not supported. In contrast, results suggested that individual and situational factors are more influential in predicting force severity than community characteristics.

Language: en

Keywords

community characteristics; minority threat; Police use of force; social disorganisation; violent crime