1、CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i Police Use of Force: Overview and Considerations for Congress July 10, 2020 Recent events have focused congressional attention on the policing practices of federal, state, and local law enforcement office
2、rs. One area of particular focus has been police use of force against criminal suspects. Currently, the federal government collects some data on state and local police use of force, but substantive standards on law enforcement use of force in general do not exist in federal statute. Rather, the appl
3、icable legal standards for permissible use of force are a function of the Fourth Amendments prohibition on “unreasonable seizures.” Violations of constitutional excessive force standards can be enforced through various federal criminal and civil provisions and are often incorporated into (and in som
4、e cases elaborated on by) jurisdiction- or agency-specific use-of-force policies and state statutes. Scholars and commentators have debated for years how meaningful current standards are in cabining law enforcement use of force. Amid recent reform efforts, a legislative proposal passed by the Houset
