Assessing legal liabilities in law enforcement: Police chiefs' views

Texas mandates 40 hours of law enforcement management and leadership training biannually for police chiefs. To implement this requirement, from October 1997 to August 1999, the Law Enforcement Management Institute of Teras held 22 statewide training classes. During the training, we administered a survey on legal liabilities in law enforcement, in which 808 usable surveys were completed. Amassing the largest data seton legal liabilities in law enforcement, this article reports results from that survey and documents the chiefs' perceptions of the prevalence of civil litigation, fear of litigation, type of suits filed by members of the public as well as by their own officers, and issues surrounding settlements, policy and procedure changes, training, indemnification, and lawsuit prevention. The article concludes that nationwide systematic data collection should be undertaken on legal liabilities in law enforcement so the public becomes better informed about this important aspect of police work.