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2007-02-20 issue:

Force or violence

Editorial

by Everett J. Thomas

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force \n\: strength or energy exerted or brought to bear

violence \n\: exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse

I thought a lot about force and violence during a 12-week Citizens’ Academy course offered by our local police department. I was interested in knowing what our town’s policies were regarding the use of force—especially lethal force.

Use of force policies are not uniform from one city to another. In our city, the lowest levels on the continuum of force are “officer presence” and verbal commands. For nearly 90 percent of all cases, these low levels are sufficient. But when an officer’s presence and commands are not enough to control the situation, the officer can move quickly to strike with his or her hands, use pepper spray or strike with a metal baton. If those responses do not control the situation, then the police officer can use lethal force—either with the “nightstick” or firearm. The officer is free to jump to any level of force at any time required by the situation.

But how can shooting someone be called “force” instead of “violence”? Is it possible to fire a bullet into another person’s body while maintaining a kind of objectivity that does not wish to injure or abuse the recipient’s personhood?

This seems to be the expectation in law enforcement. It is also the reason police officers often need counseling after they shoot another person. Their “peace officer” training instills in them a calling to keep the peace in the community. But shooting another person—required by the action of the perpetrator—leaves them in a moral dilemma.

Fortunately, 90 percent of police officers never fire their weapons as a use of force during their entire careers. But in our town we added another option for police officers: Tasers®. Using an electric stun gun rarely injures the person “tased” and allows law enforcement to establish complete control over a troublemaker.

So what is the difference between force and violence? If there is a difference between the two, can we apply the distinction to our responsibilities as members of a peace church who are also U.S. citizens? Yes. We can advocate for the force of law while making our country less violent.

The difference is in two little words: “so as” (see definitions above). The reason we use force makes the difference; if our intentions are to injure or abuse, then it is violence.

In parenting, we can be forceful with our children without being abusive. Children need to go to bed at a certain time; good parenting requires forceful insistence at bedtime. The resistance of a strong-willed child can be overcome by the moral strength implicit in the parental role—without injuring the child physically or emotionally.

Good law enforcement carries the same assumption. We want police officers to use force without abusing or injuring the person out of control. When law enforcement forgets this distinction—as in the March 1991 Rodney King episode in Los Angeles—most of us see it as violence.

One calling as a peace church is to let law enforcement agencies in our communities know that we expect their use of force to injure as little as possible. We can also let our representatives in Congress know that we expect a foreign policy that does as little violence as possible to other nations. Doing so may mean supporting a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur to stop the massacre of Sudanese civilians by government-supported militias.

At the same time we can say U.S. foreign policy that took us into Iraq has done nothing but injure and abuse the Iraqi people and their culture. Diplomacy and economic sanctions—a kind of international “tasing”—worked in the standoff with North Korea last year. Why not do the same with Iran and Syria this year?

Whether or not we intend to injure and abuse another country distinguishes our country’s actions as either force or violence. As citizens of a country whose foreign policy has created long-term civil war in Iraq, now is the time for us to articulate what we believe. Careful use of words will demonstrate to those setting policy that peace church members understand the use of force but demand respect for those against whom force is required by the international community.

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