Personality and Use of Force

Introduction

Introduction

This data, from the National Institute of Justice, contains data gathered from 64 law enforcement officers and 101 civilians. Data gathered from this study include a battery of survey responses and observations of participants’ tactics while completing an officer training simulation. See (citation) for a full account of survey responses not included here.

Data Preparation

Data Preparation:

  1. A data frame was created and includes the following variables.

    Data included: 

    -Participant ID Number

    -Sample: officer or civilian 

    -MPQ-BF survey results :155 questions with three primary factors:

    1.Positive Emotionality: constructed from, wellbeing, social potency, and achievement 

    2.Negative Emotinality: which consists of stress reaction, alienation, and aggression

    3.Constraint: composed of control, harm avoidance, and traditionalism. 

    -SCENARIO:Firearms Training Scenario 

    -N_DEESCALATE_TOTAL:Total number of verbal de-escalation statements/actions a subject uses within the scenario

    -N_FIREARM_TOTAL: Total number of times a subject uses a firearm within the scenario

    -N_SPRAY_TOTAL:  Total number of times a subject uses pepper spray within scenario

    -N_TASER_TOTAL: Total number of times a subject uses a taser within scenario

    -MAX_TACTIC_USED: Categorical variable for most severe use of force used by the subject during the scenario
    -N_FORCE_BY_YOU: (officer only) response to question: Over the course of your career as a law enforcement officer (across all departments), how many times -if any- have you used lethal force against another person in the line of duty?

Recodes:

Recoding of Sample, Max Tactic, and officer force into numeric variables.

Creation of new column calculating the total count of all weapons (firearm, taser, pepper spray) used in simulation

creation of seperate civilian and officer data frames to allow for easier descriptive analysis

Civilian Descriptives

Civilian MPQ by max weapon used

Civilians MPQ by weapon used
MAX_TACTIC_USED Mean Positive Emotionality Mean Negative Emotionality Mean Contstraint
Firearm 56.48 47.02 49.20
No Tactic Used 56.46 46.15 48.72
Pepper spray 54.37 45.75 46.74
Taser 55.96 46.14 47.11
Verbal descalaiton 56.86 47.12 48.23

Civilians MPQ score by how many weapons they used

Civilians MPQ grouped by ammount of time a weapon was used
total_weapon_used Mean Positive Emotionality Mean Negative Emotionality Mean Contstraint
0 56.56 46.39 48.60
1 56.12 46.95 48.34
2 56.23 43.79 45.45
3 46.89 40.51 51.52

Officer Descriptives

Officer Mean MPQ Grouped by Weapon Used in Simulation.

Officers in the simulation
MAX_TACTIC_USED Mean Positive Emotionality Mean Negative Emotionality Mean Contstraint
Firearm 57.56 47.10 50.31
No Tactic Used 56.96 46.06 52.58
Pepper spray 52.70 47.18 45.05
Taser 56.27 46.74 50.61
Verbal descalaiton 57.90 45.83 52.41
Officer MPQ grouped by ammount of time a weapon was used
total_weapon_used Mean Positive Emotionality Mean Negative Emotionality Mean Contstraint
0 57.59 45.90 52.47
1 56.97 46.77 50.34
2 55.43 50.43 46.49
3 63.29 42.55 56.03

Officer MPQ grouped by the amount of times officer has used deadly force on the job

Officer instances of deadly force on the job
Numeric_Force Mean Positive Emotionality Mean Negative Emotionality Mean Constraint
more than once 55.09 50.55 54.22
once 58.74 50.31 48.09
zero 57.14 45.45 51.35

A new variable is created combining real and simulated uses of violence. With one instance catergorized as low, two as medium, and three or more as high

Officers by high and low instances of deadly force
High_LOW_sim_real Mean Positive Emotionality Mean Negative Emotionality Mean Constraint
high 57.72 49.44 50.92
low 58.33 44.88 52.92
medium 56.08 46.41 49.82

The above table and plot showing average MPQ scores by instances of simulated and real violence shows a higher mean in negative emotion. Therefore, the sub factors of negative emotionality (aggression, stress, and alienation) are examined further.

Subfactors of MPQ negative emotionality
High_LOW_sim_real Mean Aggression Mean Stress Reaction Mean Alienation
high 49.32 44.80 53.18
low 43.78 41.52 50.94
medium 46.47 42.23 51.92

Plot demonstrating this relationship