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Pepper spray
Pepper spray
A safe and reasonable response to
suspect verbal resistance
Michael R. Smith
233
Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA, and
Geoffrey P. Alpert
University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA
Keywords Police, Resistance
Abstract Explores the debate over the safety and efficacy of police use of force tactics in general,
and pepper spray in particular. Introduces the force continua, checklists employed by US police
forces to prescribe levels of force to be used in particular situations. Reviews the literature,
discusses two recent studies and the legal and ethical issues involved. Suggests further research in
less-than-lethal weapons.
Introduction
Research on police use of force has become a topic of considerable interest to
practitioners and researchers. Historically, investigations on the use of force by
police have been conducted only by Commissions and interested groups as a
response to a specific incident or series of publicized events. Well-known
incidents that created an uproar and led to civil disturbances and police reform
include the beating death of Arthur McDuffie in Miami (1979) and the beating
of Rodney King (1991) in Los Angeles, and the beating death of Malice Green in
Detroit (1996). As a consequence of these and other events, police
administrators and researchers have looked critically and comprehensively at
the use of force, its justifications, levels, and methods.
In recent years, use of force continua have become prevalent in police
policies and in police training. A recent survey conducted by the Police
Executive Research Forum of 832 American law enforcement agencies found
that 68 per cent had policies on the use of force that included use of force
continua (Alpert, 1999). These continua present officers with a series of
escalating steps in the use of force that they are required to follow whenever
possible (Connor, 1991). Illustrations 1 and 2 are examples of common use of
force continua extracted from police policies. Policies that incorporate continua
such as these, typically state that officers should escalate their use of force
along the continua as the suspect's resistance increases and should de-escalate
their use of force as the threat or risk posed by the suspect diminishes. These
policies also permit officers to skip steps within the continua if necessary, such
as when a cooperative suspect suddenly produces a gun and threatens the
Support for this research has been provided, in part, by the National Institute of Justice Grant
#95-IJ-CX-0104. Opinions stated in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily
represent the official position of the National Institute of Justice.
Policing: An International Journal of
Police Strategies & Management,
Vol. 23 No. 2, 2000, pp. 233-245.
# MCB University Press, 1363-951X
PIJPSM
23,2
234
officer with deadly force, or a violent suspect ends his resistance and
surrenders.
Illustration 1. Police use of force continuum
(1) No force;
(2) Officers' presence in uniform;
(3) Verbal communication;
(4) Chemical agents;
(5) Light subject control, escort techniques, pressure point control,
handcuffs;
(6) Physical tactics and use of weapons other than chemicals and firearms;
(7) Firearms/deadly force.
Illustration 2. Use of force continuum resistance and response levels
Suspect resistance level:
(1) Suspect presence;
(2) Verbal resistance;
(3) Passive resistance;
(4) Defensive resistance;
(5) Active physical resistance;
(6) Firearms/deadly force.
Officer level of control (force):
(1) Interview stance;
(2) Verbal commands;
(3) Passive techniques (handcuffs, subject control, pressure points);
(4) Chemical agents;
(5) Physical tactics/impact weapons;
(6) Firearms/deadly force.
Chemical agents play a prominent role in most modern use of force policies. In
recent years, the adoption of OC (oleoresin capsicum or pepper) spray has
become commonplace among local and state police agencies. In fact, between
1993 and 1997, there has been an increase in agencies with more than 100
officers which have incorporated it into their policies. The most recent survey
of these agencies indicate that more than 90 per cent of state and local agencies
allow the use of chemical agents (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999). As a result,
there is an on-going debate among law enforcement agencies over the proper
placement of OC spray on the use of force continuum. As in Illustration 1
above, some agencies place it immediately after voice commands and before
weaponless tactics or control holds. As depicted in Illustration 2, other agencies
place OC spray after hands-on weaponless tactics but before impact weapons.
The recent PERF survey of American law enforcement agencies revealed that
86 per cent of responding agencies place pepper spray before physical control
techniques on their use of force continua (Alpert, 1999).
The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the debate over the safety
and efficacy of police use of force tactics in general, and pepper spray in
particular. The article begins with a brief review of the literature on police use
of force effectiveness. Next, it discusses two recent studies on police use of force
and their implications for the use of pepper spray and its placement on the use
of force continuum. The article continues with a discussion of the legal and
ethical issues surrounding the use of pepper spray before concluding with
suggestions for future research and development in the area of less-than-lethal
weapons.
Prior research on the effectiveness and safety of non-lethal force
used by police
With the exception of one published study, the few empirical studies that have
attempted to measure the effectiveness of force used by police have focused
largely on the use of the pepper spray. The most recent of these pepper spray
studies, conducted by Kaminski, Edwards and Johnson (1999) in Baltimore
County, Maryland, is discussed in a separate section below.
An initial study in Baltimore that used a portion of the same data analyzed
by Kaminski et al. found that pepper spray successfully incapacitated 156 out
of 174 (90 per cent) persons against whom it was used in 1993 (Edwards et al.,
1997). Additionally, there were few injuries to officers and suspects during
encounters where pepper spray was used. A total of 21 (11 per cent) officers and
14 (8 per cent) suspects received minor injuries. None of the injuries required
significant medical treatment or hospitalization. Reliable data on injuries prior
to the adoption of pepper spray by the Baltimore County police department
were not available. Thus, the researchers could not determine if the use of
pepper spray reduced the number of officer and suspect injuries during use of
force encounters.
The effectiveness of pepper spray also has been examined in Portland,
Oregon (Gauvin, 1995), New Britain, Connecticut (Nowicki, 1993), and British
Columbia (Kingshott, 1992). Effectiveness ranged from 85 per cent in the
Portland study to 95 per cent in the Connecticut study. During the two year
period prior to the adoption of pepper spray by the Portland police, 69 per cent
of suspects and 31 per cent of officers involved in use of force incidents were
injured. After pepper spray became available, only 12 per cent of officers and
suspects were injured during use of force encounters (Gauvin, 1995). In the
Connecticut study, Nowicki (1993) reported that no officers or suspects were
injured in 360 uses of pepper spray.
In addition to examining the incapacitative and injury-causing effects of
pepper spray, Kaminski, Edwards, and Johnson (1998) have explored whether
Pepper spray
235
PIJPSM
23,2
236
the availability of pepper spray affects use of force decisions by police or
resistance by suspects. They used an interrupted time series design and
ARIMA modeling to determine that the introduction of pepper spray in
Baltimore County, Maryland reduced the number of assaults on police by a
statistically significant 15 per cent. Lumb and Friday (1997) found that the
introduction of pepper spray into a small department in North Carolina reduced
by 25 per cent the number of instances where officers responded to suspect
resistance (hands and feet) with physical force. In addition, no suspects or
officers were injured as the result of pepper during the time period when it was
in use.
In 1994, OC spray and hand-held stun devices were introduced into the
various detention facilities operated by the Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff's
Office. During a two year evaluation of their impact and effectiveness, deputies
reported high levels of satisfaction with both weapons. With respect to the stun
devices in particular, jail deputies reported that they were totally effective 52
per cent of the time when used and partially effective in another 25 per cent of
cases. Although both inmates and deputies were more likely to suffer injury
with the stun device than with pepper spray, stun devices produced slightly
lower injury rates in the jails (11.6 per cent for inmates) than weaponless,
hands-on tactics (14.2 per cent for inmates) (Hepburn et al., 1997).
In 1992, the Institute for Law and Justice (ILJ) surveyed US law enforcement
agencies regarding their use and experiences with a variety of less-than-lethal
weapons. A total of 378 police and sheriffs' departments responded to the
survey, which asked agencies, among other things, to comment on the
effectiveness of the weapons that they employed. Agencies reported that
telescoping batons and OC spray were the most effective of the commonly used
police weapons at subduing resistive suspects. Only stunning explosives (flashbang grenades) received a higher effectiveness rating. Telescoping batons and
OC spray also generated few citizen complaints and were judged to be
relatively safe to both officers and citizens. Overall, OC spray was judged to be
the safest and most effective of all of the weapons listed on the survey
(McEwen and Leahy, 1994).
The only study that was located that examined the effectiveness of physical
control tactics used by police was conducted by an LAPD sergeant as part of
his master's thesis (Meyer, 1992). Sergeant Meyer examined the effectiveness of
eight use of force tactics in 502 violent, police-citizen encounters that occurred
in 1991. Defining ``effectiveness'' as whether the force used ended the
altercation, Meyer found that the baton was effective in 85 per cent of the
encounters, a ``karate'' kick was effective in 87 per cent of the encounters, a
punch was effective in 75 per cent of the encounters, miscellaneous bodily force
(pushing, shoving, grabbing) was effective in 94 per cent of the encounters,
strikes with a flashlight were effective in 96 per cent of the encounters, use of a
swarm tactic (organized tackle) was effective in 92 per cent of the encounters,
use of a chemical agent (CN,CS gas, or pepper spray) was effective in 90 per
cent of the encounters, and the TASER was effective in 86 per cent of the
encounters. Major or moderate injury rates for suspects ranged from a high of
80 per cent when a flashlight was used to zero when a chemical agent or the
TASER was used. Major or moderate injury rates for officers ranged from a
high of 36 per cent when officers punched suspects to zero for the use of
chemical agents or TASERs.
Pepper spray
Police use of force and injuries in Miami, Florida
Some of the most comprehensive data on police use of force and resulting
injuries come from Alpert and Dunham's (1998) study of police use of force in
Miami-Dade, Florida. They analyzed 882 use of force reports involving MiamiDade police officers during the last quarter of 1993 and all of 1994 and 1995.
These data were reported in the agency required forms by the officers'
supervisors after talking with the officers, the suspects, and available
witnesses.
The Miami-Dade data indicate that officers were most likely to use relatively
low levels of force not involving a police weapon. As the information in Table I
shows, the most common level of force used by officers against suspects was to
forcibly subdue the suspect with hands (49 per cent). Another 24 per cent were
subdued by the officer with force other than hands, and 20 per cent of the
incidents involved just minimal force. The Miami-Dade Police Department
requires the completion of a use of force report when an injury occurs, even if
little or no force is used. Thus, Table I also reports the frequencies of these noforce incidents that resulted in injury. The frequencies are naturally quite low
and range from between 1 and 3 per cent.
As shown by the data in Table II, the most common type of force used by
officers was hands and arms (77 per cent). Eight per cent used handguns, and
another 7 per cent used police canines. In 3 per cent of the incidents, officers
used their fists. Only 4 per cent of incidents involved the use of a less-thanlethal weapon[1].
As the data in Table III indicate, officers most often used force to grab or
hold the suspect (64 per cent). The next most common use of force was to strike
or hit the suspect (10 per cent). In 8 per cent of the incidents, the officer
discharged his or her weapon, and in 7 per cent the officer used some type of
restraint. Police dogs bit suspects in 6 per cent of the cases, and officers pushed
237
No force used ± but officer injured
No force used ± subject complained of injury
Minimum physical contact ± officer injured
Minimum force to guide or control suspect
Forcibly subdued suspect with hands
Force other than hands was used to subdue
Total
Frequency
Percentage
8
28
25
167
415
208
851
1
3
3
20
49
24
100
Table I.
Level of force used by
the officer
PIJPSM
23,2
238
Table II.
Type of force used by
officer
Hands/arms
Fist
Foot/leg
Handgun
Shotgun
Radio
Flashlight
PR-24
K-9
Chemical agent
Special weapon
Lateral neck restraint
Total
Threaten
Grab/hold
Push/pull
Strike/hit
Bite (K-9)
Throw
Discharge of firearm
Table III.
How force was used by Restraint
Total
officer
Frequency
Percentage
621
21
9
60
5
3
6
11
53
4
9
1
803
77
3
1
8
http://www.emerald-library.com
Pepper spray
Pepper spray
A safe and reasonable response to
suspect verbal resistance
Michael R. Smith
233
Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA, and
Geoffrey P. Alpert
University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA
Keywords Police, Resistance
Abstract Explores the debate over the safety and efficacy of police use of force tactics in general,
and pepper spray in particular. Introduces the force continua, checklists employed by US police
forces to prescribe levels of force to be used in particular situations. Reviews the literature,
discusses two recent studies and the legal and ethical issues involved. Suggests further research in
less-than-lethal weapons.
Introduction
Research on police use of force has become a topic of considerable interest to
practitioners and researchers. Historically, investigations on the use of force by
police have been conducted only by Commissions and interested groups as a
response to a specific incident or series of publicized events. Well-known
incidents that created an uproar and led to civil disturbances and police reform
include the beating death of Arthur McDuffie in Miami (1979) and the beating
of Rodney King (1991) in Los Angeles, and the beating death of Malice Green in
Detroit (1996). As a consequence of these and other events, police
administrators and researchers have looked critically and comprehensively at
the use of force, its justifications, levels, and methods.
In recent years, use of force continua have become prevalent in police
policies and in police training. A recent survey conducted by the Police
Executive Research Forum of 832 American law enforcement agencies found
that 68 per cent had policies on the use of force that included use of force
continua (Alpert, 1999). These continua present officers with a series of
escalating steps in the use of force that they are required to follow whenever
possible (Connor, 1991). Illustrations 1 and 2 are examples of common use of
force continua extracted from police policies. Policies that incorporate continua
such as these, typically state that officers should escalate their use of force
along the continua as the suspect's resistance increases and should de-escalate
their use of force as the threat or risk posed by the suspect diminishes. These
policies also permit officers to skip steps within the continua if necessary, such
as when a cooperative suspect suddenly produces a gun and threatens the
Support for this research has been provided, in part, by the National Institute of Justice Grant
#95-IJ-CX-0104. Opinions stated in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily
represent the official position of the National Institute of Justice.
Policing: An International Journal of
Police Strategies & Management,
Vol. 23 No. 2, 2000, pp. 233-245.
# MCB University Press, 1363-951X
PIJPSM
23,2
234
officer with deadly force, or a violent suspect ends his resistance and
surrenders.
Illustration 1. Police use of force continuum
(1) No force;
(2) Officers' presence in uniform;
(3) Verbal communication;
(4) Chemical agents;
(5) Light subject control, escort techniques, pressure point control,
handcuffs;
(6) Physical tactics and use of weapons other than chemicals and firearms;
(7) Firearms/deadly force.
Illustration 2. Use of force continuum resistance and response levels
Suspect resistance level:
(1) Suspect presence;
(2) Verbal resistance;
(3) Passive resistance;
(4) Defensive resistance;
(5) Active physical resistance;
(6) Firearms/deadly force.
Officer level of control (force):
(1) Interview stance;
(2) Verbal commands;
(3) Passive techniques (handcuffs, subject control, pressure points);
(4) Chemical agents;
(5) Physical tactics/impact weapons;
(6) Firearms/deadly force.
Chemical agents play a prominent role in most modern use of force policies. In
recent years, the adoption of OC (oleoresin capsicum or pepper) spray has
become commonplace among local and state police agencies. In fact, between
1993 and 1997, there has been an increase in agencies with more than 100
officers which have incorporated it into their policies. The most recent survey
of these agencies indicate that more than 90 per cent of state and local agencies
allow the use of chemical agents (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999). As a result,
there is an on-going debate among law enforcement agencies over the proper
placement of OC spray on the use of force continuum. As in Illustration 1
above, some agencies place it immediately after voice commands and before
weaponless tactics or control holds. As depicted in Illustration 2, other agencies
place OC spray after hands-on weaponless tactics but before impact weapons.
The recent PERF survey of American law enforcement agencies revealed that
86 per cent of responding agencies place pepper spray before physical control
techniques on their use of force continua (Alpert, 1999).
The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the debate over the safety
and efficacy of police use of force tactics in general, and pepper spray in
particular. The article begins with a brief review of the literature on police use
of force effectiveness. Next, it discusses two recent studies on police use of force
and their implications for the use of pepper spray and its placement on the use
of force continuum. The article continues with a discussion of the legal and
ethical issues surrounding the use of pepper spray before concluding with
suggestions for future research and development in the area of less-than-lethal
weapons.
Prior research on the effectiveness and safety of non-lethal force
used by police
With the exception of one published study, the few empirical studies that have
attempted to measure the effectiveness of force used by police have focused
largely on the use of the pepper spray. The most recent of these pepper spray
studies, conducted by Kaminski, Edwards and Johnson (1999) in Baltimore
County, Maryland, is discussed in a separate section below.
An initial study in Baltimore that used a portion of the same data analyzed
by Kaminski et al. found that pepper spray successfully incapacitated 156 out
of 174 (90 per cent) persons against whom it was used in 1993 (Edwards et al.,
1997). Additionally, there were few injuries to officers and suspects during
encounters where pepper spray was used. A total of 21 (11 per cent) officers and
14 (8 per cent) suspects received minor injuries. None of the injuries required
significant medical treatment or hospitalization. Reliable data on injuries prior
to the adoption of pepper spray by the Baltimore County police department
were not available. Thus, the researchers could not determine if the use of
pepper spray reduced the number of officer and suspect injuries during use of
force encounters.
The effectiveness of pepper spray also has been examined in Portland,
Oregon (Gauvin, 1995), New Britain, Connecticut (Nowicki, 1993), and British
Columbia (Kingshott, 1992). Effectiveness ranged from 85 per cent in the
Portland study to 95 per cent in the Connecticut study. During the two year
period prior to the adoption of pepper spray by the Portland police, 69 per cent
of suspects and 31 per cent of officers involved in use of force incidents were
injured. After pepper spray became available, only 12 per cent of officers and
suspects were injured during use of force encounters (Gauvin, 1995). In the
Connecticut study, Nowicki (1993) reported that no officers or suspects were
injured in 360 uses of pepper spray.
In addition to examining the incapacitative and injury-causing effects of
pepper spray, Kaminski, Edwards, and Johnson (1998) have explored whether
Pepper spray
235
PIJPSM
23,2
236
the availability of pepper spray affects use of force decisions by police or
resistance by suspects. They used an interrupted time series design and
ARIMA modeling to determine that the introduction of pepper spray in
Baltimore County, Maryland reduced the number of assaults on police by a
statistically significant 15 per cent. Lumb and Friday (1997) found that the
introduction of pepper spray into a small department in North Carolina reduced
by 25 per cent the number of instances where officers responded to suspect
resistance (hands and feet) with physical force. In addition, no suspects or
officers were injured as the result of pepper during the time period when it was
in use.
In 1994, OC spray and hand-held stun devices were introduced into the
various detention facilities operated by the Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff's
Office. During a two year evaluation of their impact and effectiveness, deputies
reported high levels of satisfaction with both weapons. With respect to the stun
devices in particular, jail deputies reported that they were totally effective 52
per cent of the time when used and partially effective in another 25 per cent of
cases. Although both inmates and deputies were more likely to suffer injury
with the stun device than with pepper spray, stun devices produced slightly
lower injury rates in the jails (11.6 per cent for inmates) than weaponless,
hands-on tactics (14.2 per cent for inmates) (Hepburn et al., 1997).
In 1992, the Institute for Law and Justice (ILJ) surveyed US law enforcement
agencies regarding their use and experiences with a variety of less-than-lethal
weapons. A total of 378 police and sheriffs' departments responded to the
survey, which asked agencies, among other things, to comment on the
effectiveness of the weapons that they employed. Agencies reported that
telescoping batons and OC spray were the most effective of the commonly used
police weapons at subduing resistive suspects. Only stunning explosives (flashbang grenades) received a higher effectiveness rating. Telescoping batons and
OC spray also generated few citizen complaints and were judged to be
relatively safe to both officers and citizens. Overall, OC spray was judged to be
the safest and most effective of all of the weapons listed on the survey
(McEwen and Leahy, 1994).
The only study that was located that examined the effectiveness of physical
control tactics used by police was conducted by an LAPD sergeant as part of
his master's thesis (Meyer, 1992). Sergeant Meyer examined the effectiveness of
eight use of force tactics in 502 violent, police-citizen encounters that occurred
in 1991. Defining ``effectiveness'' as whether the force used ended the
altercation, Meyer found that the baton was effective in 85 per cent of the
encounters, a ``karate'' kick was effective in 87 per cent of the encounters, a
punch was effective in 75 per cent of the encounters, miscellaneous bodily force
(pushing, shoving, grabbing) was effective in 94 per cent of the encounters,
strikes with a flashlight were effective in 96 per cent of the encounters, use of a
swarm tactic (organized tackle) was effective in 92 per cent of the encounters,
use of a chemical agent (CN,CS gas, or pepper spray) was effective in 90 per
cent of the encounters, and the TASER was effective in 86 per cent of the
encounters. Major or moderate injury rates for suspects ranged from a high of
80 per cent when a flashlight was used to zero when a chemical agent or the
TASER was used. Major or moderate injury rates for officers ranged from a
high of 36 per cent when officers punched suspects to zero for the use of
chemical agents or TASERs.
Pepper spray
Police use of force and injuries in Miami, Florida
Some of the most comprehensive data on police use of force and resulting
injuries come from Alpert and Dunham's (1998) study of police use of force in
Miami-Dade, Florida. They analyzed 882 use of force reports involving MiamiDade police officers during the last quarter of 1993 and all of 1994 and 1995.
These data were reported in the agency required forms by the officers'
supervisors after talking with the officers, the suspects, and available
witnesses.
The Miami-Dade data indicate that officers were most likely to use relatively
low levels of force not involving a police weapon. As the information in Table I
shows, the most common level of force used by officers against suspects was to
forcibly subdue the suspect with hands (49 per cent). Another 24 per cent were
subdued by the officer with force other than hands, and 20 per cent of the
incidents involved just minimal force. The Miami-Dade Police Department
requires the completion of a use of force report when an injury occurs, even if
little or no force is used. Thus, Table I also reports the frequencies of these noforce incidents that resulted in injury. The frequencies are naturally quite low
and range from between 1 and 3 per cent.
As shown by the data in Table II, the most common type of force used by
officers was hands and arms (77 per cent). Eight per cent used handguns, and
another 7 per cent used police canines. In 3 per cent of the incidents, officers
used their fists. Only 4 per cent of incidents involved the use of a less-thanlethal weapon[1].
As the data in Table III indicate, officers most often used force to grab or
hold the suspect (64 per cent). The next most common use of force was to strike
or hit the suspect (10 per cent). In 8 per cent of the incidents, the officer
discharged his or her weapon, and in 7 per cent the officer used some type of
restraint. Police dogs bit suspects in 6 per cent of the cases, and officers pushed
237
No force used ± but officer injured
No force used ± subject complained of injury
Minimum physical contact ± officer injured
Minimum force to guide or control suspect
Forcibly subdued suspect with hands
Force other than hands was used to subdue
Total
Frequency
Percentage
8
28
25
167
415
208
851
1
3
3
20
49
24
100
Table I.
Level of force used by
the officer
PIJPSM
23,2
238
Table II.
Type of force used by
officer
Hands/arms
Fist
Foot/leg
Handgun
Shotgun
Radio
Flashlight
PR-24
K-9
Chemical agent
Special weapon
Lateral neck restraint
Total
Threaten
Grab/hold
Push/pull
Strike/hit
Bite (K-9)
Throw
Discharge of firearm
Table III.
How force was used by Restraint
Total
officer
Frequency
Percentage
621
21
9
60
5
3
6
11
53
4
9
1
803
77
3
1
8