The current study explored the relationship between neighborhood violence and police use of force at two levels of aggregation based on the work of Black (1976), Smith (1986), and Klinger (1997). The impact of neighborhood violence on police force has been often tested; however, no study has simultaneously examined the role of neighborhood violent crimes at the micro level and at the meso level.
Regarding the individual and situational factors, the results of the current study showed no discrepancy with prior research. Blalock’s (1967) power-threat theory and Black’s (1976) sociological theory of law have often been used to test if minority individuals are dispropor- tionately subject to police use of force.
Modern research, however, has shown that citizen race or officer race does not significantly affect levels of police force when citizen resistance to the police is statistically controlled (Garner et al., 2002; Lawton, 2007; Lee et al., 2010; Terrill & Reisig, 2003). The current study also found that citizen race and officer race do not significantly alter the amount of police force used;
instead, citizen resistance during their encounter with the police was found to be the single most important factor in explaining elevated levels of police force.9 In addition, citizen age, citizen gender, officer age, officer education level, number of citizens involved, number of officers involved, and the nature of the offense were statistically significant, which is consistent with previous research (Alpert, Dunham, & Stroshine, 2006; Garner et al., 2002; Lawton, 2007; Lee et al., 2010
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