Police Brutality: From Polarized Thinking to Workable Solutions

Talk of police brutality evokes strong emotions. For some people it is difficult to understand while for others it needs no explanation because of its persistent presence in their everyday lives. This gap fuels “black or white”, “good or bad” thinking that seldom serves us well. We cannot agree in what the problem is and end up jumping to conclusions without knowing if they are accurate.

According to Statista, an internet provider of market and consumer data, in 2019 there were 1,004 people fatally shot by police in the United States. As of July 29 of this year, 558 civilians have been shot and killed by police. Consistent with these data, a 2018 analysis of official and unofficial sources of mortality found police violence to be a leading cause of death for young men in the United States. To the extent that these numbers are based in part on public reports made by unofficial sources such as viral social media movements, it is reasonable to assume that they underestimate the true occurrence of police shootings and associated deaths. In fact, evidence from the Department of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and private nonprofits suggests that police killings of unarmed citizens are widely underreported.

Why then rely on unofficial data to understand such an important issue? This is because to date, there are no official surveillance systems and comprehensive national databases for police involved shootings. Hence, we cannot talk with confidence about shootings involving police, where the events occurred, the conditions surrounding them, and the outcomes.

Public health surveillance systems involve the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of data related to events of interest. Surveillance serves as an early warning system to identify public health emergencies and guide public health policy and strategies. This can involve existing data from sources such as emergency departments and police departments or collecting data directly from individuals. These systems are used with the goal of reducing diseases and other events adversely affecting the population. Successful surveillance systems have been implemented for diseases like cancer and chickenpox, as well as for events ranging from fatal traffic accidents to sexual assault. To prevent foodborne illnesses, for example, food service workers have to keep record of burger temperatures through various stages of the storage and cooking process. Not only does this help to protect the consumer, it helps identify where in the process the problem occurred, so it can then be addressed.

The lack of a national database for police shootings prevents accurate quantification and definition of the issue. A comprehensive national database that includes every incident in which an officer discharges their firearm, whether it was fatal or nonfatal, will help immensely to learn the parameters of the problem. Jurisdictions would be required by law to report this information, much like many other public health surveillance systems that are already in place. Based on evidence-based practices, a good database would include: officer demographics and occupational characteristics such as rank and number of prior shootings, suspect demographics including if they possessed a weapon or resisted arrest, situational circumstances, incident outcome, and a list of injuries sustained by both officers and suspects involved.

At a minimum, surveillance systems and police shooting databases provide a solid foundation to understand the scope of the problem and generate data driven solutions. In an era of increased polarization of public discourse, surveillance systems and databases alone will not solve the issue of police brutality, but they will provide us with necessary information to help transform polarized thinking into workable solutions.

Stay tuned for our next blog in this series, where we discuss research-based solutions to police brutality.

Edwards, F., Lee, H., & Esposito, M. (2019). Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(34), 16793. doi:10.1073/pnas.1821204116

Eleanor Lumsden * (Winter, 2017). ARTICLE: How Much is Police Brutality Costing America?. University of Hawai'i Law Review, 40, 141. Retrieved from https://advance-lexis-com.access.library.miami.edu/api/document?collection=analytical-materials&id=urn:contentItem:5S2Y-YV10-00CV-P1HC-00000-00&context=1516831.

Washington Post. (August 30, 2020). Number of people shot to death by the police in the United States from 2017 to 2020, by race [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved September 16, 2020, from https://www-statista-com.access.library.miami.edu/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/