Training Police Departments in Section 1983 Liability

Training Police Departments in Section 1983 Liability
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Training Police Departments in Section 1983 Liability
The author of the article “suggested topics for training police departments in section 1983 liability” introduces the reader to the article with a fascinating quote about the importance of proper prevention. He states that one can fence a swimming pool, install alarms around the pool area, and lock the gates to prevent people from drowning in the pool. The author then adds that all these could be preventive measures; however the best and most efficient preventive measure could simply be to teach the people that have access to the pool how to swim. Police officers get themselves in trouble every day while carrying out their official and unofficial duties. Most of the cases that these officers get themselves entangled in can be avoided by giving the officers proper training on how to stay away from the cases explained in section 1983. This paper looks into the level of section 1983 training that is necessary for police officers and recommends policies that could be useful to police departments in preventing cases arising under this part in the future.
It is no doubt that police departments face liability problems almost every day. Most attorneys tend to focus in how to litigate the issues that arise once a violation has occurred because they are trained on how to handle the resulting lawsuits. However, it is important to help police departments know how to be on the safe side should any of these suits arise.

The attorneys can provide this assistance in the form of legal training. The author of the article says that he has been training police departments on legal subjects such as civil liability for 12 years and most of the police chiefs find what he does great (Spencer, 2007). One then wonders just how much training on these legal topics is sufficient for police departments.
From the paper, the reader can see that the costs related to managing the civil liability cases are quite immense. A report published in 2000 about the cases involving inadequate police training revealed that the average plaintiff award was approximately $492,000 and the attorney charges for the winning party amounted to approximately $60,000 (Spencer, 2007). Another 2001 research in Texas revealed that 25% of the cases of this nature are settled away from the courts and cost an average of $55,000 (Spencer, 2007). A look into some of the theories that the plaintiffs use in Federal Courts to earn such compensations showed that the most commonly used liability theories by the plaintiffs are illegal detention, false arrest, unlawful seizure, illegal search, inadequate training, and excessive force etcetera. The figures mentioned above show just how expensive a proposition the civil liability of the police is. However, police departments can minimize much of the exposure to this liability by training the officers as well as their supervisors on the legally correct procedures. This training, as Spencer (2007) mentions, requires a competent attorney who will help the trainees see the significance of supervisory oversight as well as keeping policy manuals that are up to date.
As it turns out, the plaintiffs of many civil liability cases do not sue officers as individuals; they prefer to sue the police as well as the policy makers and the municipality. The suits incriminating the employing entity might be motivated by the fact that they often result in bigger compensations to the prevailing party (Harmon, 2013). The plaintiffs often have to show that the policy makers and the chain of command in the police department were, or were supposed to be aware of the conduct that contravened a federal or constitutional protection to win this case. They must also prove that were intentionally indifferent to the possible outcomes of the behavior that necessitated the suit (Harmon, 2013). Officers often refer to this extended liability theory as vicarious liability. Therefore, pointing out to the officers that the liability in section 1983 is not vicarious in the actual sense might help save the states and the police departments the thousands of dollars they lose to liability cases annually (Kappeler, 2006). The theory in its real sense requires one to hold the other person responsible for the actions of another party. However, the liability in section 1983 only holds the policy makers accountable for providing an enabling environment to the turn of events that culminated in the lawsuit (Karlan, 2006). The enabling environment could be in terms of insufficient policies or allowing illegal practices to proceed unabated within the police departments, thereby demonstrating deliberate indifference to the plaintiff rights as protected by the Federal laws.
These realities mean that the police departments and the policy makers need to know how to go round these liability issues. For instance, a plaintiff can claim that the police used excessive force to arrest him, and argue that the policies governing the police actions are outdated, or that the training of the officers, as well as their supervision, is weak. Theoretically, these inactions or actions collectively place the employee behavior on the government entity or agency. To evade this, the agencies ought to know what line of defense they have against the admissibility of such a case (Schwartz, 2012). In the state level, police departments enjoy considerable immunity against such cases; therefore, plaintiffs choose to use Federal courts (Kappeler, 2006). The police and the policy makers need to be trained on the Federal statutes that regulate the liability of a governmental entity in cases of this nature. Once they know what the law says, they can then be trained on how to interpret the law within their practice so as to stay on the safe side of the law while making arrests or searching premises. Some of the defenses that an officer can use if accused at official and individual levels like the qualified immunity, absolute immunity, good faith, and probable cause must be emphasized in this training (Karlan, 2006). Other than that, the police departments and policy makers also need to ensure that they update their systems every time a new landmark ruling that could affect them is made (Schwartz, 2012).
In conclusion, section 1983 liability cases are indeed expensive to police departments and the state as a whole. Something has to be done to save all the money that is lost in these suits; this thing is proper training of police officers and policy makers. The people training the officers and the policy makers must ensure that they take them through the various sections of the law that could incriminate them, as well as those that could be used to take away the incriminating liability from them. Spencer’s article reveals the various instances where the police can evade any responsibility for a contentious act that might be seen as a violation of the plaintiff’s protected rights under the Federal laws. The policy makers should pick up on all of these immunities and tie them into the policies that govern the workings of the police. If this is done, the plaintiffs would have to dig very deep to find any reasonable grounds to successfully sue the cops and the policy makers under the section 1983 liability. The relevant stakeholders must also invest in training the police officers on how to act according to the law, not just how to arm-twist the law in their favor when they need to.
References
Harmon, R. (2013). Limited Leverage: Federal Remedies and Policing Reform. Rachel Harmon,
Limited Leverage: Federal Remedies and Policing Reform, 32.
Kappeler, V. E. (2006). Critical issues in police civil liability. Waveland Press.
Karlan, P. S. (2006). Paradoxical Structure of Constitutional Litigation, The. Fordham L.
Rev., 75, 1913.
Schwartz, M. A. (2012). Section 1983 litigation (Vol. 3). Aspen Publishers Online.
Spencer, W. (2007, June 5). Suggested Topics for Training Police Departments in Section 1983
Liability. Retrieved November 15, 2016.