Journal Article Review: Crisis and the Use of Force Assignme…

JOURNAL ARTICLE REVIEW: CRISIS AND THE USE OF FORCE ASSIGNMENT

INSTRUCTIONS

OVERVIEW

Police use of force has always been subjected to scrutiny. Since the infamous video of the police

beating of Rodney King in 1991, police use of force has attracted a great deal of attention from

the media as well as a number of social justice advocacy groups. While law enforcement

academies include substantial use of force training, officers still must make split second

decisions, often in poor light or under great duress. In more recent years, practically every cell

phone is equipped with a camera, video recording is present in many public places, and police

vehicles and individual officers are equipped with cameras that capture all or parts of an

encounter. Police officers have more than 45 million interactions with citizens in any given year;

studies have shown that force is used in less than two percent of those encounters. Despite this

reality, uses of force will always be heavily scrutinized, particularly considering recent highly

publicized and racially charged events. You must be able to address police use of force from a

multifaceted approach, considering the totality of circumstances that led to its use. What defines

you as a graduate student is the ability to consume and understand the peer reviewed empirical

research in their particular area of interest. A regular review of such literature refines your acuity

and challenges their assumptions on a daily basis. It is for this reason then that you, at Liberty

University Online, become discriminant and well versed in the understanding of how objective

methodologies pave the way to more informed policymaking. The following assignment

challenges you to move beyond anecdote and learn more about how other scholars succeed at

failing to disprove their theories.

INSTRUCTIONS

For this assignment, you will select a peer reviewed journal article from one of the databases

located in the Universitys online library. The article will relate in some way to the reading

material (use of force) you have reviewed for this particular module. After you read the article,

you should download the Journal Article Review Template. You will then complete a Journal

Article Review for the article you read. You are not reviewing the article in the sense that you

are assessing it, but rather you are reviewing it so you can provide analysis and relate to your

reader the main point and how they relate to the area of crisis intervention. The assignment is not

to be too much shorter or longer than the example in the template. Ensure that you focus on the

critical thinking piece of discussing the implications the article has on criminal justice as this is

the most important aspect of this process. How does the articles content relate to the field of law

enforcement? How does it influence policy and practice? This can be accomplished in the

comments, recommendations, and conclusion sections of the assignment. Use an APA citation

for the article you choose; you may provide additional reference support if you choose to, but it

is not required.

Note: Your assignment will be checked for originality via the Turnitin plagiarism tool.