@#%$!: The Impact of Officer Profanity on Civilians’ Perception of What Constitutes Reasonable Use of Force

Abstract

The current study was conducted to test how the presence of profane officer language during a use of force incident impacts how civilians perceive the reasonableness of the applied force. The study followed a 1 × 4 independent groups design with random assignment to one of four test conditions. Two dashcam use of force videos were stripped of audio and subsequently transcribed with a clean and profane-laden depiction of the officer’s language. Participants ( n = 234) answered a short questionnaire after watching their randomly assigned video. Measures include a 5-item reasonableness index, demographics, and test conditions. Two-way ANOVA and OLS regression were performed. Overall, participants considered videos with profane language to be less reasonable than the same video with clean language. While significant, most differences also correspond with medium and large effect sizes. This research found that profane officer language impacts how civilians perceive force reasonableness. Practical and policy implications are presented to move policing forward.