A persistent “reasonableness divide” exists between the legal standards governing police use of force and the public’s expectations, producing “lawful but awful” uses of force. This study empirically tests the “Community Expectations Standard” (CES), a model that identifies five criteria the public uses to evaluate force: underlying governmental interest, avoidability, officer motivation, subject resistance, and the presence of a “highly dangerous” environment. Using a factorial survey experiment with a national sample of nearly 2,000 U.S. adults, we analyzed responses to a hypothetical vignette depicting non-lethal force using t-tests and Bayesian linear regression models. The results show that underlying governmental interest and subject resistance—those factors with analogs in constitutional law—are the most powerful predictors of reasonableness judgments. In contrast, other CES factors were weaker, with their effects potentially filtered through the observer’s personal characteristics. Notably, political partisanship emerged as a more potent predictor of reasonableness appraisals than race or ethnicity, suggesting partisanship acts as a primary lens for interpreting police use of force. We conclude that the CES framework is a valuable tool but should be refined to distinguish between objective, event-based criteria and subjective, observer-based criteria. Bridging the reasonableness divide requires adjusting both law enforcement practices and public expectations.
