Accountable use of state force

When the state wields coercive power — through police, corrections, federal law enforcement, immigration enforcement, or the National Guard — that wielding is itself subject to law, oversight, and consequence. Officers act lawfully or they are held accountable; uses of force are proportional and necessary or they are not justified. The state's monopoly on legitimate violence is legitimate precisely because it is constrained. A democracy without accountable force is not a democracy; it is whatever the people with guns say it is.

The patterns tracked under this ideal include excessive force by law enforcement, deaths in custody, misuse of no-knock warrants, the militarization of routine policing, prosecutorial or legislative actions that shield officers from accountability for misconduct, departmental refusal to discipline established misconduct, corrections abuse, abusive conditions and force in immigration enforcement, and the deployment of federal armed forces in coercive roles against US civilians. As with every other ideal, the action is what matters; the politics of the officer or the politics of the target do not change whether the event is recorded.

Further reading: National Constitution Center Interactive Constitution — Fourth Amendment (search, seizure, force), Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment).