경찰관 물리력 사용의 한계에 관한 연구- 객관적인 경찰 물리력 행사 기준 마련을 중심으로-

Abstract

There are three points I want to make on the use of police force in Korea. First, relevant legislations have failed so far to provide practical guidelines to police officers regarding how individual field officers can apply physical forces in proper manner especially when they confront resisting suspects. In a sense, these laws and regulations are useless in reality since they are simply too abstract and general. Second, since 1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court has established a principle on the use of police force, that is, objective reasonableness standard in Graham v. Conner (1989). Similarly, the Supreme Court in Korea has ruled that police officers must take six legal requirements into account in order for their use of physical force to be legitimate. However, two among the six elements of lawfulness, i.e. the urgency of current harm and the level of a suspect’'s resistance, are highly subjective and can be varying substantially depending on personal characteristics such as years of experience, gender, and the likes. Moreover, Supreme Court in Korea does not consider the difficulty of officers to make a good decision on the level of police force as quickly as possible in a hostile situation. Therefore, it seems to be almost impossible for an individual officer to prove appropriateness of his or her use of force in a court of law. Third, in an effort to protect law and order as well as lives of innocent citizens, I assert that Korean National Police Agency should adopt an objective and practical guideline on the use of police force immediately.