Editorial Introduction

• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Author: Michael R. Smith
• DOI: 10.1177/10986111211049368
• Date: 01 June 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Police Quarterly

2022, Vol. 25(2) 151–154

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/10986111211049368

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Editorial Introduction

Michael R. Smith

1



Abstract

This article serves as the editorial introduction to the special issue on Police Use of

Force.

Keywords

police, use of force, use of force coding, de-escalation training, use of force policy

This special issue of Police Quarterly focuses on the use of force by police. In the wake

of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police off‌icers, the nationwide

protests that ensued, and legislative police reform efforts underway in Congress and a

majority of states (Buchholz, 2021;Foster, 2020), there is no more salient issue in

policing today than how often force is used by the police, whether it is used dis-

proportionately to need or threat, and especially, whether it is used in a discriminatory

fashion against persons of color. The four articles in this volume all address the use of

force, but they approach the issue in different ways and from different perspectives.

Two of the papers (Terrill and Tillyer) take on the measurement issue, which continues

to plague a f‌ield with no reliable national use of force database or agreed-upon def-

initions or standards to guide researchers (Jackman, 2021). With the current focus on

de-escalation requirements and training, Engel and colleagues examine supervisor

receptivity to de-escalation training and the inf‌luence it may have on supervisors’

conf‌idence and frequency for engagement in activities supportive of de-escalation.

Finally, Smith offers an essay that seeks to reimagine the use of force in a post-Floyd

nation where public conf‌idence in the police is at an all-time low (Ortiz, 2020).

1

Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Michael R. Smith, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, University of Texas at San Antonio, 501W.

Cesar E. Chavez Blvd, San Antonio, TX 78207, USA.

Email: m.r.smith@utsa.edu