An obstacle to an effective collection of data regarding use of force by the police is the lack of commonly accepted ranking for force by researchers and practitioners. (Terrill, 2005). This ranking issue makes it difficult for researchers to measure excessive force. Excessive force depends on the situation that the officer faces. (Alpert and Dunham, 1999). Another obstacle is the vagueness of the Supreme Court decisions in determining the reasonableness of force (Harmon, 2008, p. 1139). The way that researchers define excessive force is partly influenced by the Supreme Court's decisions so the collection of data is difficult. Collection of data can only be done after the researchers define the variables. Many researchers use varying standards
