PART III.  INSTRUMENTS OF FORCE When not to use force It is good practice to specify in the regulations on the use of force the circumstances or cases when the use of force is not lawful and therefore is prohibited. In addition, law enforcement officials must never use force to obtain any information or admission of fact or confession of guilt (see chapter 8). In some countries, the SOPs explicitly list what kind of force is prohibited by the police, providing detailed examples such as the prohibition to hit someone’s head against a wall. This can be a good practice in particular as a tool to address patterns of unlawful, arbitrary or excessive use of force within a law enforcement agency. 5.5.  Use-of-force models and matrices Some States have developed policies aimed at giving more guidance as to the type of force that is most appropriate to deal with varying types of resistance. DIFFERENT MODELS TO PROVIDE GUIDANCE Use-of-force matrix, Nigeria The “situation or type of threat posed by the offender/suspect” which ranges from cooperative, resistant (passive, semi-active or active), to assaultive (possible bodily harm, bodily harm, serious bodily harm or death) is put in the first column. The second column identifies the type of response the police officer can give (physical presence, soft hand, hard hand, baton, lethal). The model also indicates the language and defensive postures that should go along with the response. Use-of-force model,a used by many agencies The model is a graphic representation of the guidelines for the appropriate use of force in relation to the actions of a subject. Incident management/intervention model, Canadab This model is more dynamic, looking at incidents as “constantly evolving events”, which require continual risk assessment and evaluation by the officer(s) involved. The process of continuous risk assessment also helps to explain how behaviour (and intervention options) can change from cooperative to assaultive (from communication to lethal force) in a split second without passing through any other behaviour or intervention options. The decision on what force to use depends on situational factors, the environment, number of subjects, perceived subjects’ abilities, knowledge of the subject, time and distance, threat cues and subject behaviour, perception and tactical considerations. a John C. Desmedt, The Use of Force Model, 1982: http://www.pss.cc/uofm.htm See Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Incident Management/Intervention Model: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ccapsspcca/cew-ai/imim-migi-eng.htm#lethal b 71