NCJ Number
158245
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Dated: (August 1995) Pages: 187-195
Date Published
1995
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This study examined the extent to which police officers in Tennessee have resorted to the deadly use of force since the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Tennessee v. Garner, which held that the Fourth Amendment reasonableness standard had become a more appropriate basis for judgment than the common law fleeing felon standard.
Abstract
In response to this decision, the Tennessee legislature passed a law incorporating the standard later the same year. Data collected from 95 Tennessee police departments located in towns with a population of over 5,000 showed that 95 percent of the department had a written policy concerning the use of deadly force by its officers. Sizeable majorities of respondents regulated the type of firearms which officers could carry, and restricted the number of firearms and amount of ammunition officers could carry. The number of reported discharges of a police firearm decreased from .0448 per 100,000 population in 1982 to 0.268 per 100,000 in 1988. 1 table and 52 references