It is illegitimate for a State to use disproportionate force when enforcing the law; it infringes international law and people resist it.
There are three all-too-common law-enforcement scenarios which can be classified as abusive:
· Although physical coercion may be required to make an arrest, it is unacceptable to assault or injure a suspect. American police violence against black people triggered worldwide protests in what became known as the Black Lives Matter movement.
· Sometimes a very unpleasant relationship can develop between prisoners and their guards, in what Philip Zimbardo referred to as “The Lucifer Effect”. This can include torture, as described in the previous section (7.2.4.1).
· The use of lethal force in crowd control, particularly against peaceful protests, is an abuse of power. China's suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 for example, when “hundreds if not thousands of unarmed peaceful pro-democracy protesters were killed”, will never be forgotten.
Government use of disproportionate force often strengthens people's determination to resist, as described in the next sub-section (7.2.4.3).
If a State uses violence against the person “as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population”, it is committing one of the “crimes against humanity” which are listed in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The named individuals who are deemed to be responsible can be prosecuted at the ICC in some cases (5.3.6.2).
(This is an archive of a page intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. The latest versions are at book contents).