George Floyd was killed on May 25. The very next day saw the release of Evaluating Police Uses of Force, a book from the law professor Seth W. Stoughton, the police consultant Jeffrey J. Noble, and the criminologist Geoffrey P. Alpert.
The book is incredibly topical, clearly written, and at 352 pages relatively brief. But it does not make for gripping reading. It catalogues, often tediously, countless statutes, policies, training practices, tactics, and court rulings from across the country. Cops’ use of force is subject to numerous standards at once — the federal Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court, state laws governing homicide and other crimes of violence, departmental policies on proper tactics, and even the community reactions to viral videos that shape the broader debate — and Stoughton et al. discuss the matter in depth from all of these angles. They even include an appendix with the texts of states’ use-of-force and justifiable-homicide laws.
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