Is "JUSTIFIED" an effective word?

I was recently considering some officer involved shootings and the discussions that occurred immediately after the incident and years later. The discussions usually revolve around a single word, justified. It seems that justified has become the go to word for both sides on the debate about police involved shootings. A quick internet search shows various definitions of the word justified: having or shown to have a just, right, or reasonable basis; good or legitimate reason; made righteous in the sight of God. 

The discussions get hung up on the word justified instead of the totality of the circumstances related to the shooting. Think of it this way, when a prosecutor has a press conference and says the shooting was justified and starts explaining why it was justified, many people stop listening after they hear the word justified. Effective discussions end there, but the case law definitions include more than just the “righteous” definition for justified. Consider this question, is a police shooting of a child playing with a toy gun justified? Now consider the same question this way, is a police shooting of a child playing with a toy gun righteous? There are some very big differences in the perceptions of each of those questions. Depending on who the message receiver is, those two questions can be interchangeable or completely different. 

While these discussions usually revolve around police involved shootings, they also apply to any police uses of force. With that in mind, let’s look at the standard for police uses of force. The case law for police uses for force is based on the Graham v. Connor case. The objectively reasonable standard was created by Graham v. Connor. In other words, would the force use by the officer be considered objectively reasonable in the eyes of a reasonable officer that encountered the same circumstances. Additionally, 20/20 hindsight cannot be considered.

If the official standard is objectively reasonable, then why does justified dominate the discussions? Without detailed research, it sems justified is just a quick and easy word to describe if a use of force was appropriate or not. If we examine the definitions of justified, it does not fully encompass the objectively reasonable standard. In our information flush society, why do we allow people to get away with using less accurate words to describe very important and potentially life changing decisions? Maybe it has to do with our social media, click bait based, society?

The use of justified or not justified is equivalent to using objectively reasonable or not objectively reasonable. Breaking a use of force down into two meta categories, no matter what they are, is counterproductive to effective communication and understanding. Within the two meta categories can be numerous other relevant descriptors. There is much information that goes into the decision that a single word or phrase does not account for. Other factors can include criminal actions by the officer, training effectiveness, policy compliance, ineffective policy, supervision, hiring standards, and combinations or variations of them all. Maybe it is time we stop using the single word or phrase concept when describing a police use of force.

There will always be those that believe most police uses of force are not justified or that the police should have acted in a different way. I am not proposing this change for them or to change their minds. On the other side are those that almost always believe the force use was justified and this change is not for them either. This language and perceptions change is for those in the middle that are willing to have the deep and hard discussions that can lead to understanding. The goal is to alleviate or minimize any impediments to having the tough conversations and deep evaluations. The use of justified, or other words or phrases, as a meta term for all good police shootings is one such an impediment.

For the purposes of this article, I am not going to consider the circumstances around hiring or supervision as it relates to an officer’s use of force. While they should be considered, including them here will just make my point too complicated for how short I want to keep this writing. All I will consider is the actions of the officer, during the use of force. Those considerations are, was the officer acting in a criminal manner, was the officer operating within policy, and does the policy effectively address this type of situation.

For this quick example, I will define the three issues to be considered. Was the officer acting in a criminal manner does not mean was the use of force illegal. It means, was the officer acting in a criminal manner and that led to the use of force. An example would be an officer that is engaging in the drug trade themselves. Was the officer operating within policy means exactly what it sounds like. Did the officer follow policy before, during, and after the use of force. Does the policy effectively address this type of situation can be tricky because we do not know what we do not know. The question becomes, is there a better way for the police to handle this situation and if so, can that better way be implemented in policy or does the better way just address this isolated situation. Policy cannot be expected to precisely address every possible use of force situation. 

Maybe creating a scale that has justified at top, some points in the middle, and criminal at the bottom. An example of possible scale terms could be justified (non-criminal, within policy, and policy is good), policy failure (non-criminal, with-in policy, and policy needs correction/improvement), policy violation (non-criminal, outside policy, and policy is good), and inappropriate intention (criminal, within policy, and policy is good), and criminal (criminal and outside of policy). When hiring, training, and supervision are added to the scale you can see the scale increasing exponentially and becoming more complex.

Once this process has been used to more effectively describe the appropriateness of a use of force, it can be used for other police actions or inaction as well. This type of evaluation can be used for pursuits, disciplinary actions, arrest decisions, officer injuries, and many other police activities as well. If this change does occur, a core tenant must be the consideration of the reasonable officer (not the reasonable citizen, politician, or activist), in the same circumstances, without the use of 20/20 hindsight.