a research paper on police brutality

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• NEWS FEATURE
• 19 June 2020
• Update 26 May 2021

What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work

• Lynne Peeples 0

Lynne Peeples is a science journalist in Seattle, Washington.

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For 9 minutes and 29 seconds, Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the neck of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man. This deadly use of force by the now-former Minneapolis police officer has reinvigorated a very public debate about police brutality and racism.

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Nature 583 , 22-24 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01846-z

Updates & Corrections

Update 26 May 2021 : On 20 April 2021, Derek Chauvin was convicted of causing the death of George Floyd. The text has been modified to include updated information on how long Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck.

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• Research & Reports

Protecting Against Police Brutality and Official Misconduct

Amendments to the criminal civil rights law could provide the federal government with a powerful tool to pursue law enforcement accountability.

• Eric H. Holder Jr.
• Download Report
• Download Annotated Proposal

The protest movement sparked by George Floyd’s killing last year has forced a nationwide reckoning with a wide range of deep-rooted racial inequities — in our economy, in health care, in education, and even in our democracy — that undermine the American promise of freedom and justice for all. That tragic incident provoked widespread demonstrations and stirred strong emotions from people across our nation.

While our state and local governments wrestle with how to reimagine relationships between police and the communities they serve, the Justice Department has long been hamstrung in its ability to mete out justice when people’s civil rights are violated.

The Civil Rights Acts passed during Reconstruction made it a federal crime to deprive someone of their constitutional rights while acting in an official capacity, a provision now known as Section 242. Today, when state or local law enforcement are accused of misconduct, the federal government is often seen as the best avenue for justice — to conduct a neutral investigation and to serve as a backstop when state or local investigations falter. I’m proud that the Justice Department pursued more Section 242 cases under my leadership than under any other attorney general before or since.

But due to Section 242’s vague wording and a series of Supreme Court decisions that raised the standard of proof needed for a civil rights violation, it’s often difficult for federal prosecutors to hold law enforcement accountable using this statute.

This timely report outlines changes to Section 242 that would clarify its scope, making it easier to bring cases and win convictions for civil rights violations of these kinds. Changing the law would allow for charges in cases where prosecutors might currently conclude that the standard of proof cannot be met. Perhaps more important, it attempts to deter potential future misconduct by acting as a nationwide reminder to law enforcement and other public officials of the constitutional limits on their authority.

The statutory changes recommended in this proposal are carefully designed to better protect civil rights that are already recognized. And because Black, Latino, and Native Americans are disproportionately victimized by the kinds of official misconduct the proposal addresses, these changes would advance racial justice.

This proposal would also help ensure that law enforcement officers in every part of the United States live up to the same high standards of professionalism. I have immense regard for the vital role that police play in all of America’s communities and for the sacrifices that they and their families are too often called to make on behalf of their country. It is in great part for their sake — and for their safety — that we must seek to build trust in all communities.

We need to send a clear message that the Constitution and laws of the United States prohibit public officials from engaging in excessive force, sexual misconduct, and deprivation of needed medical care. This proposal will better allow the Justice Department to pursue justice in every appropriate case, across the country.

Eric H. Holder Jr. Eighty-Second Attorney General of the United States

Introduction

Excessive use of force by law enforcement, sexual abuse by public officials and others in positions of authority, and the denial of needed medical care to people in police or correctional custody undermine the rule of law, our government, and our systems of justice.

When public officials engage in misconduct, people expect justice, often in the form of a federal investigation and criminal prosecution. In 2020 alone, instances of police violence, including the killings of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and Breonna Taylor and the shooting of Jacob Blake, led to demands for increased police accountability and federal civil rights investigations. footnote1_71ye405 1 See Rashawn Ray, “How Can We Enhance Police Accountability in the United States?,” in Policy 2020 , Brookings Institution, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/how-can-we-enhance-police-accountability-in-the-united-states/ [ https://perma.cc/8Z9S-GRCU ]; and Elliot C. McLaughlin, “Breonna Taylor Investigations Are Far from Over as Demands for Transparency Mount,” CNN, September 24, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/24/us/breonna-taylor-investigations-remaining/index.html [ https://perma.cc/4SR6-FG85 ]. See also, e.g., U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, “Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement Statement on the Death of George Floyd and Riots,” press release, May 31, 2020, https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/federal-state-and-local-law-enforcement-statement-death-george-floyd-and-riots [ https://perma.cc/V69J-49JR ]; and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, “Statement Regarding Federal Civil Rights Investigation into Shooting of Mr. Jacob Blake,” press release, January 5, 2021, https://www.justice.gov/usao-edwi/pr/statement-regarding-federal-civil-rights-investigation-shooting-mr-jacob-blake [ https://perma.cc/5GCM-WJ7H ].

For almost all incidents involving violence by law enforcement, there is one federal criminal law that applies: 18 U.S.C. § 242. Unlike nearly all other criminal laws, the statute does not clearly define what conduct is a criminal act. It describes the circumstances under which a person, acting with the authority of government, can be held criminally responsible for violating someone’s constitutional rights, but it does not make clear to officials what particular actions they cannot take. footnote2_6qz502y 2 Throughout this report, people who could be charged under § 242 are most often referred to as “public officials” or “law enforcement.” The Supreme Court has held, however, that § 242 may also be used to prosecute private actors whose authority to act in a given situation is derived from the state, such as a guard at a privately run prison. United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 794 (1966), https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/383/787.html [ https://perma.cc/V6FU-ZQR6 ] (“To act ‘under color’ of law does not require that the accused be an officer of the State. It is enough that he is a willful participant in joint activity with the State or its agents.”).

It need not be this way. The federal government must renew our national commitment to civil rights by enacting a criminal statutory framework that protects the fundamental constitutional rights of people who come into contact with public officials, including those who are being arrested or are in custody. footnote3_irs2ieu 3 This report proposes changes to federal criminal civil rights laws that would apply to any public official who is acting with governmental authority, including police, prosecutors, judges, correctional officials, and more. Even though the law would apply to any public official who violated it, this report frequently uses the term “law enforcement” or “police” instead of “public officials” in discussions of violence and use of force since law enforcement officers — including police, correctional officials, sheriffs and their deputies, and federal agents — are the public officials most frequently involved in these incidents.

Recent instances of racialized police violence have made this matter all the more urgent. In 2020 alone, police killed more than 1,100 people. footnote4_8yu9h6j 4 Mapping Police Violence, last accessed February 5, 2021, https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ . Black Americans are three times more likely to be killed by a police officer than white Americans and nearly twice as likely to be killed as Latino Americans. footnote5_3znnre7 5 Mapping Police Violence. See also Timothy Williams, “Study Supports Suspicion That Police Are More Likely to Use Force on Blacks,” New York Times , July 7, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/us/study-supports-suspicion-that-police-use-of-force-is-more-likely-for-blacks.html (“African-Americans are far more likely than whites and other groups to be the victims of use of force by the police, even when racial disparities in crime are taken into account.”). Police killing is a leading cause of death for Black men in the United States — one in every 1,000 Black men will die at the hands of police. footnote6_eudyqyh 6 Frank Edwards, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito, “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 of the United States of America 116, no.34 (2019): 16793, 16794, https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/34/16793.full.pdf [ https://perma.cc/8W88-XWR9 ]. In 2019, Black people represented 24 percent of those killed, despite making up only 13 percent of the population, and although Black people are 3 times more likely to be killed by the police than white people, they are 1.3 times more likely than whites to be unarmed in such incidents. footnote7_hmfnz69 7 Mapping Police Violence. These disparities have led unprecedented numbers of Americans to demand justice for victims of police violence and changes to our criminal justice system. footnote8_edukeym 8 Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, “Widespread Desire for Policing and Criminal Justice Reform,” June 15, 2020, https://apnorc.org/projects/widespread-desire-for-policing-and-criminal-justice-reform/ [ https://perma.cc/HYU2–8J9R ].

In addition to law enforcement brutality, other types of official misconduct shock the conscience. These include sexual misconduct by public officials; officials’ failure to provide medical treatment to people who are under arrest or in jail or prison; and pervasive violence by correctional officers in jails and prisons, where excessive force against incarcerated people is often shielded from public view. footnote9_499sryx 9 Lauren Brooke-Eisen, “The Violence Against People Behind Bars That We Don’t See,” Time , September 1, 2020, https://time.com/5884104/prison-violence-dont-see/ [ https://perma.cc/GLP4-Y9XP ]. The “shocks the conscience” standard is the long-established test for a Fourteenth Amendment violation under Rochin v. California , 342 U.S. 165 (1952), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/342/165 [ https://perma.cc/ZJ6S-UEDZ ]. Yet cases are rarely prosecuted under § 242. footnote10_28mnbuu 10 TRAC Reports, “Police Officers Rarely Charged for Excessive Use of Force in Federal Court,” June 17, 2020, https://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/615/ [ https://perma.cc/9LTD-VN9N ] (reporting that “between 1990 and 2019, federal prosecutors filed § 242 charges about 41 times per year on average, with as few as 19 times (2005) and as many as 67 times in one year”). See also U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division Highlights: 2009–2017 , January 2017, 32–34, https://www.justice.gov/crt/page/file/923096/download [ https://perma.cc/Q3Y3-FQCB ] (reporting that the Civil Rights Division prosecuted 580 law enforcement officials for committing willful violations of civil rights and related crimes between 2009 and 2016); Brian R. Johnson and Phillip B. Bridgmon, “Depriving Civil Rights: An Exploration of 18 U.S.C. 242 Criminal Prosecutions 2001–2006,” Criminal Justice Law Review 34, no. 2 (2009), 196, 204 (observing that prosecutions under § 242 are a relatively rare event, and identifying a very small number of sexual misconduct cases); and Paul J. Watford, “ Screws v. United States and the Birth of Federal Civil Rights Enforcement,” Marquette Law Review 98, no. 1 (2014), 465, 483, https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5229&context=mulr [ https://perma.cc/737F-XGW4 ].

Congress should make structural changes to our laws to help protect the civil rights of all people. If passed, the legislation recommended in this report would impact how law enforcement, corrections, and other public officials operate nationwide. By more specifically defining what actions violate civil rights, the law would put officials on clearer notice of what is forbidden. In addition, the proposed statute would specifically codify the authority to prosecute fellow officers or supervisors who know a civil rights violation is occurring but fail to intervene something the law already allows. footnote11_5ojf5lp 11 See U.S. Department of Justice, “Law Enforcement Misconduct,” updated July 6, 2020, https://www.justice.gov/crt/law-enforcement-misconduct [ https://perma.cc/LW5V-HZ8G ] (“An officer who purposefully allows a fellow officer to violate a victim’s Constitutional rights may be prosecuted for failure to intervene to stop the Constitutional violation. To prosecute such an officer, the government must show that the defendant officer was aware of the Constitutional violation, had an opportunity to intervene, and chose not to do so. This charge is often appropriate for supervisory officers who observe uses of excessive force without stopping them, or who actively encourage uses of excessive force but do not directly participate in them.”). These changes to § 242 should result in modifications to police and law enforcement training across the country and also deter civil rights violations. footnote12_q9j05px 12 Local law enforcement policies often provide vague, imprecise direction on use of force. These policies may focus on the extent of what is legally permitted rather than on best practices. Police Executive Research Forum, Guiding Principles on Use of Force , 2016, 15–16, https://www.policeforum.org/assets/30%20guiding%20principles.pdf [ https://perma.cc/AQ5S-3Q5F ]. For those public officials and law enforcement officers who do deprive someone of his or her civil rights, these changes would lower some of the barriers to federal prosecutions and civil lawsuits. footnote13_gld1ihb 13 The amendments proposed herein could also be made to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, although the specifics of § 1983 are beyond the scope of this report. In either event, a clarification of the civil rights protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States would make more plain which rights are “clearly established” in the context of civil lawsuits. See discussion of qualified immunity below at notes 47–49 and in accompanying text.

What It’s Going to Take to Fix Policing

The former director of President Obama’s community oriented policing strategies office warns that incremental reforms will not be enough.

Biden’s Budget Steps up Spending for Criminal Justice Reform

The administration is leveraging Justice Department grants to state and local governments to try to improve outcomes.

What the Federal Government Can Do to Help Fix Policing in America

Policing is local, but the need for change is so vast that it is a national project.

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• v.22; 2021 Jun

Police brutality, medical mistrust and unmet need for medical care

Sirry alang.

a Department of Sociology and Program in Health, Medicine and Society, Health Justice Collaborative, Lehigh University Bethlehem Pennsylvania, United States

Donna McAlpine

b Division of Health Policy and Management, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis, MN, United States

Malcolm McClain

c Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA, United States

Rachel Hardeman

• • Police brutality can shape health by limiting access to health care.
• • Police brutality is associated with greater odds of unmet need for medical care.
• • This association is partly explained by medical mistrust.

Police brutality is a social determinant of health that can directly impact health status. Social determinants of health can also impact health indirectly by shaping how people access health care. In this study, we describe the relationship between perceived police brutality and an indicator of access to care, unmet need. We also examine medical mistrust as a potential mechanism through which perceived police brutality affects unmet need. Using data from the 2018 Survey of the Health of Urban Residents (N = 4,345), direct effects of perceived police brutality on unmet need and indirect effects through medical mistrust were obtained using the Karlson-Holm-Breen method of effect decomposition. Experiencing police brutality was associated with greater odds of unmet need. Controlling for covariates, 18 percent of the total effect of perceived police brutality on unmet need was explained by medical mistrust. Experiences outside of the health care system matter for access to care. Given the association between police brutality and unmet need for medical care, addressing unmet need among marginalized populations requires public health leaders to engage in conversations about reform of police departments. The coronavirus pandemic makes this even more critical as both COVID-19 and police brutality disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other communities of color.

1. Introduction

Police brutality refers to police (in)action that dehumanizes, regardless of conscious intent, and it encompasses psychological intimidation verbal abuse and physical assault. ( Alang et al., 2017 ) There is a growing body of research connecting police brutality to a range of health outcomes, including mental disorders, ( DeVylder et al., 2018 , Jackson et al., 2017 ) illness and injury, ( Sewell, 2017 , Feldman et al., 2016 ) and mortality. ( Bui et al., 2018 ) This research supports the framing of police brutality as a social determinant of health. ( Alang et al., 2017 ) The social determinants of health—the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age—can impact health directly but also can indirectly impact health by shaping how people access health care. As a social determinant of health, police brutality does not only affect health status, but it affects the relationships that people have with health care institutions. For example, people who have experienced police brutality are more likely to mistrust medical institutions compared to their peers who have not experienced police brutality given that people bring the social context of their lives with them to the medical encounter. ( Alang et al., 2020 ) Here, we examine how medical mistrust that is connected to police brutality might then be associated with increased odds of unmet need.

Mistrust in one institution such as the police carries over to another institution such as health care. ( Alang et al., 2020 , Williamson et al., 2019 ) Therefore, one possible mechanism through which police brutality might increase unmet need for medical care is by decreasing trust in medical institutions. Medical mistrust indicates overall suspicion of the health care system and beliefs that health care providers and organizations may act contrary to patients’ best interests. ( Shoff and Yang, 2012 , Williamson and Bigman, 2018 ) Prior research indicates that factors outside of the patient-provider relationship such as neighborhood disadvantage can impact medical mistrust. ( Shoff and Yang, 2012 ) The only research to specifically address whether police brutality is related to trust in the medical system found that policy brutality was associated with increased mistrust among all racialized groups, but that Latinx, Black/African American and Indigenous people were more likely to have experienced such brutality. ( Alang et al., 2020 ) We build on this work to examine how police brutality might impact access to care through its association with medical mistrust and by ultimately increasing unmet need.

One indicator of access to health care is perceived unmet need for medical care. It reflects gaps between the services that people believe that they need and the services that they receive. ( Allin et al., 2010 ) As a subjective measure, it encompasses utilization of health services as well as individuals’ preferences, and their perceptions about the acceptability and effectiveness of care. ( Allin et al., 2010 ) Taking into account health status, persons who report unmet need also report lower utilization of health service, ( Bataineh et al., 2019 ) and do worse, overtime, than their counterparts who do not report unmet need. ( Gibson et al., 2019 ) The goal of this paper is to further accentuate police brutality as a social determinant of health by examining its association with unmet need for medical care.

There has been considerable research attention focused on the sociodemographic characteristics, resources and individual circumstances of persons who are likely to report unmet need. ( Gibson et al., 2019 , Baggett et al., 2010 , Yamada et al., 2015 , Mollborn et al., 2005 ) Broader contextual and health care system characteristics such as provider availability and accessibility, geographic location of services, and community poverty rates are also associated with unmet need for medical care. ( Long et al., 2002 , Peterson and Litaker, 2010 ) Furthermore, researchers have examined how relationships between patients and providers shape unmet need. For example, individuals who report that they mistrust their doctors or medical institutions are also more likely to report that they delayed care, did not get the care they needed, follow medical advice, or fill a prescription. ( Yamada et al., 2015 , Mollborn et al., 2005 , LaVeist et al., 2009 )

While health system factors and relationships between clinicians and patients shape unmet need, the experiences that patients have in other systems and in the places in which they live, work, grow and age might also impact their likelihood of having unmet need. Consider unmet need for mental health care as an example. Findings from a mixed-methods study suggest that persons who are treated unfairly by institutions outside of the health care delivery system such as education, child welfare services, and the criminal justice system, are likely to forgo mental health care. ( Alang, 2019 ) Further investigation is needed to examine whether negative experiences with institutions outside of the health care system might also be associated with unmet need for medical care. In this paper, we explore whether perceived negative experiences with the police — perceived police brutality — might have implications for unmet need.

In the current study, we evaluate two hypotheses: First, that people with experiences of perceived police brutality are more likely to report unmet need for medical care and more likely to report medical mistrust. Second, that some of the effects of perceived police brutality on unmet need can be explained by medical mistrust. If supported, our findings would inform interventions that address both medical mistrust and police brutality, and ultimately eliminate unmet need.

Data : Data came from the Survey of the Health of Urban Residents (SHUR) ( Alang et al., 2020 ) that was administered online in 2018 by Qualtrics LLC. ( Qualtrics, 2013 ) Respondents were recruited by leveraging multiple databases of individuals who have opted into participating in surveys. SHUR is a non-probability sample survey of adults who live in urban areas in the contiguous United States. People of color and those whose usual source of care was not a doctor’s office were oversampled. Qualtrics monitored the quotas for usual source of care and for race/ ethnicity using screening questions that asked respondents’ race and their usual source of care. For example, when the quota for persons whose usual source of care was a doctor’s office was met, the screening questions prevented additional respondents who would belong in this category from completing the survey. Our analytic sample (N = 4,345) is limited to respondents with no missing data on unmet need.

Measures: Our main outcome variable is perceived unmet need . Respondents were asked: “Was there a time in the past 12 months when you needed medical care but did not get it?” Medical care includes doctor’s visits, tests, procedures, prescription medication and hospitalizations. Unmet need was analyzed as a binary variable, 0 for no and 1 for yes. Perceived police brutality was created based on respondents’ answers to whether they experienced at least one of ten negative interactions with the police in their lifetime. Examples of these interactions, adapted from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Police Public Contact Survey (PPCS), include police cursing at the respondent, kicking, hitting or shoving the respondent, using an electroshock weapon such as a stun gun, or pointing a gun at the respondent. Respondents who reported at least one negative encounter with the police were asked if they believed that the action of the police officer during their most recent negative encounter was necessary. The variable perceived police brutality was then created with three mutually exclusive categories: no negative encounter, necessary negative encounter, and unnecessary negative encounter. We relied on self-reports of the necessity of police actions to highlight the importance of subjective assessments of experiences with police and it is consistent with other studies that have investigated the impact of police actions on health. ( Cooper et al., 2004 , English et al., 2017 )

The 12 item group-based medical mistrust index ( Thompson et al., 2004 ) was used to assess medical mistrust.. Respondents were asked how much they agreed with statements like: doctors and health care workers don’t have the best interests of people who belong to my racial or ethnic group and people in my racial or ethnic group should be suspicious of doctors. Responses ranged from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The mean score across all 12 items was computed to create a mistrust scale ranging from 1 to 5 with a Cronbach’s alpha 0.80. We analyze medical mistrust as a continuous variable with higher scores indicating greater medical mistrust. Covariates in the data such as race/ ethnicity, age, gender, employment status, level of education, health status indicators (such as activity limitations and self-rated physical health), and usual source of health care, that are empirically and conceptually associated with police brutality, ( Sewell, 2017 , Alang et al., 2020 ) medical mistrust ( Alang et al., 2020 , LaVeist et al., 2009 ) or unmet need ( Mollborn et al., 2005 , Long et al., 2002 , Peterson and Litaker, 2010 ) were included the analyses.

Analyses: First, we describe the sample characteristics by perceived unmet need. Then, we ran a binary logistic regression of unmet need on perceived police brutality. Next, we included medical mistrust in the model, followed by running the full model with all covariates. Finally, we computed the direct effects of different experiences of perceived police brutality and indirect effects of experiences of perceived police brutality (through medical mistrust) on unmet need using the Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) ( Karlson and Holm, 2011 ) method of effect decomposition, controlling for all covariates. The KHB method ensures that decomposition of total effects in non-linear models such as logistic regressions are not affected by scale identification bias. Instead of estimating the effects in terms of logit coefficients, we requested STATA to present coefficients from effect decomposition as average partial effects to ease interpretation. ( Karlson and Holm, 2011 ) We also obtained the relative magnitude of direct and indirect effects (confounding ratio) and the percentage of total effect that is due to the mediator (confounding percentage), that are unaffected by the scale parameter.

Characteristics of the sample by perceived unmet need are presented on Table 1 . As shown, slightly over a third of the sample reported unmet need (37.7 percent). The mean medical mistrust score was 2.4, falling between “neither agree nor disagree” and “agree” that clinicians do not have their bests interests. Only four in ten persons had not experienced any negative encounters with police, and about a quarter of the sample reported having negative and unnecessary encounters with the police. Almost 64 percent of the sample was White, 14 percent Black, and almost 12 percent Hispanic/Latinx. The sample was disproportionately female (72 percent) and only about 5 percent of the respondents were 65 or older. One in four persons had at least a bachelor’s degree, 12 percent were unemployed, and three in four reported very good, good or excellent overall health. Most of the respondents had health insurance with about half insured publicly through Medicaid (or a similar state-sponsored program), Medicare, or military/veterans’ health care. But only 42 percent reported that their usual source of care was a doctor’s office.

Characteristics of Sample by Perceived Unmet Need.

Results of logistic regressions are shown on Table 2 . In the unadjusted model (model 1), odds of unmet need were greater among persons who had perceived necessary negative encounters with the police compared to those with no negative encounters (O.R. = 2.75, C.I. = 2.37–3.19). Respondents with perceived unnecessary negative police encounters also had greater odds of unmet need compared to their counterparts who did not report negative encounters with the police (O.R. = 2.04, C.I. = 1.74–2.38). When we included medical mistrust in model 2, the effects of perceived police brutality on unmet need were attenuated. Each unit increase in medical mistrust was associated with two times greater odds of unmet need (O.R. = 2.01, C.I. = 1.82–2.21). In model 3, we included all covariates. Negative encounters with the police that were perceived as unnecessary, and negative encounters with the police that were perceived as necessary were both associated with increased odds of reporting unmet need. Likewise, greater mean medical mistrust scores were still significantly associated with perceived unmet need, but the effects were less strong as compared to model 2. Demographic characteristics associated with unmet need include race (Black people are less likely than their White counterparts to report unmet need), and age (persons 55 and older had lower odds of unmet need compared to respondents between the ages of 18–24). Being employed as compared to being out of the labor force is also associated with higher odds of unmet need. Persons whose usual source of medical care was the emergency room, a hospital outpatient/urgent care department, and those with no usual source of care had greater odds of unmet need compared to their counterparts who had a regular primary care doctor. Having an activity limitation or poor self-rated health was also associated with unmet need. Finally, having either public or private insurance was associated with lower odds of unmet need compared to being uninsured.

Association between unmet need, police brutality and medical mistrust.

We assess the total and decomposed effects of perceived police brutality on unmet need, controlling for covariates. There were no significant differences in decomposed effects of perceived necessary encounters compared to perceived unnecessary encounters. But when we dichotomized police brutality (no negative encounters versus any negative encounter whether perceived as necessary or unnecessary), direct effects of perceived police brutality on unmet need, and indirect effects through medical mistrust were both significant as shown on Table 3 . As hypothesized, medical mistrust mediates the relationship between perceived police brutality and unmet need. On average, the probability of reporting an unmet need for medical care increases by 12 percentage points among persons who reported any negative encounter with the police, whether necessary or unnecessary compared to those who did not. After controlling for medical mistrust, this average is reduced to 10 percentage points. Having negative encounters with the police is associated to higher medical mistrust, which is then translated into a 2 percent greater probability of reporting unmet need. The confounding ratio is 1.23 and the confounding percentage is 18.44. These mean that the total effect of perceived police brutality is about 1.2 times larger than its direct effect, and that 18 percent of the total effect of perceived police brutality on unmet need is due to medical mistrust.

Direct and Indirect Average Partial Effects of Perceived Police Brutality on Unmet Need.

*p ≤ 0.05; **p ≤ 0.01; ***p ≤ 0.001.

~~ 95% CIs of difference not known for average partial effects methods of the KHB method of effect decomposition.

4. Discussion

The results support our hypotheses. First, perceived police brutality is associated with greater likelihood of not getting needed medical care such as doctor’s visits, tests, prescription medication and hospitalizations. Second, one of the ways by which perceived police brutality affects unmet need is by increasing medical mistrust. Specifically, when we account for race, age, gender, education, employment status, whether a person has a usual source of care, the type of place they go to for their health care, their health insurance status, whether they are limited in any activities because of their health, and their subjective overall health, there is a strong association between negative encounters with the police and elevated odds of reporting unmet need for medical care. This association can be explained, in part, by high levels of medical mistrust among persons who report negative encounters with the police. It is well understood that exposure to police brutality affects health status directly. ( DeVylder et al., 2018 , Sewell, 2017 , Feldman et al., 2016 , Bui et al., 2018 ) While our outcome is not health status, our results suggest two additional pathways through which perceived police brutality might impact health status.

The first pathway is medical mistrust – a distal mechanism through which perceived police brutality affects health. Experiencing police brutality can cause people not to trust that police have their best interest in mind. ( Sharp and Johnson, 2009 ) What we experience in one system shapes our experiences in another system. For example, experiencing discrimination at work or at educational institutions is connected to the anticipation of discrimination within health care settings. ( Alang, 2019 ) Therefore mistrust in police that might result from negative encounters can be transferred to other institutions, including medical institutions, ( Alang et al., 2020 ) thus affecting health by causing delays in care and failure to follow medical advice, ultimately increasing unmet need. One explanation for this might be that when people perceive discrimination by the police, they will expect to experience discrimination in medical institutions and seek to avoid contact with health care systems. Medical mistrust — the perceptions that heath care organizations do not have one’s best interest and might cause harm is exacerbated even with vicarious exposures to discrimination, such as in news stories. ( Williamson et al., 2019 ) Therefore, personal experiences of police brutality — a form of state-sanctioned discrimination and violence, ( Alang, 2020 ) is likely to lead to greater medical mistrust, ultimately limiting engagement with the health care system.

The second more proximal mechanism linking perceived police brutality to health outcomes may be unmet need. Unmet need is conditional on health status. Not receiving the medical care that is needed might worsen health. Our finding that individual negative encounters with the police are associated with unmet need for medical care is consistent with a recent study that found that sick people who live in disproportionately policed neighborhoods, regardless of their personal experiences with the police, are hesitant to use hospital emergency departments when such use is needed. ( Kerrison and Sewell, 2020 ) In addition to medical mistrust, a possible but speculative explanation is that exposure to police violence, like any trauma, might lead to distressing and upsetting emotions including hypervigilance, and feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. People who experience these emotions might avoid potential exposure to additional trauma such as discrimination within health care settings by not seeking the care that they may need. This needs further investigation.

The rest of our findings with respect to the associations between unmet need and socio-demographics, health status and access are consistent with those of other studies. ( Alang, 2015 , Shi and Stevens, 2005 ) For example, in the National Health Interview Survey and the Community Tracking Study household survey, Blacks/African Americans are less likely than Whites to report unmet need, controlling for socio-economic factors and other indicators of access to care such as health insurance. ( Mollborn et al., 2005 , Shi and Stevens, 2005 ) Findings from several studies suggest that older adults and persons who are insured are less likely to report unmet need. ( Baggett et al., 2010 , Yamada et al., 2015 , Shi and Stevens, 2005 , Chen and Hou, 2002 , Fjær et al., 2014 ) For both older adults and persons with health insurance, this might be a result of relatively better access to and utilization of services, and better health financing. ( Yamada et al., 2015 , Shi and Stevens, 2005 , Chen and Hou, 2002 ) Older adults might have also used health services enough in their lives to have developed more trust and familiarity. We found that employed respondents were more likely than those not in the labor force to have unmet need. A speculative explanation is that given the lack of universal health care in the U.S., employed persons might be less likely to benefit from more comprehensive health coverage available to those out of the labor force enrolled in safety-net programs. Employer-sponsored health insurance plans that provide a limited range of benefits or that have high cost-sharing requirements might increase cost-related barriers to care among employed persons.

Our finding that respondents who use the emergency department as their primary source of care and that those who did not have a usual source tend to report greater unmet need were also not new. ( Cooper et al., 2004 , Cunningham et al., 2017 ) It is possible that the relationship that develops from going to the same primary provider who oversees your care might lower unmet need. We also found that respondents with poor self-rated health and who reported limitations had greater unmet need. These findings are consistent with several others. ( Yamada et al., 2015 , Shi and Stevens, 2005 , Chen and Hou, 2002 ) Perhaps, they reflect some of the struggles associated with persistent unresolved symptoms.

Our findings should be considered along with some limitations. First, the SHUR is a non-probability online survey that lacks the representativeness of a probability sample. Survey respondents might differ from the general population in ways that matter for our estimates. For example, persons who might be more exposed to police brutality, or who might have greater unmet need (e.g. people experiencing homelessness), are less likely to be included in online samples. Second, the analyses are cross-sectional not longitudinal, and do not measure unmet need and medical mistrust before and after negative encounters with the police. We only measure direct associations of perceived police brutality with unmet need and those mediated by medical mistrust. It is also possible that persons who experience unmet need might be more likely to be have negative encounters with the police, such as people with mental illnesses. Third, information regarding the reasons for perceived unmet need would have further strengthened our analyses.

5. Conclusion and implications

Groups that have negative experiences with the police are more likely to mistrust the medical system and to report unmet need. Our findings demonstrate that simply focusing on traditional barriers to care such as lack of insurance or health literacy is limited. This is particularly relevant as we address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 among Black, Indigenous and other communities of color who are also disproportionately victims of police brutality. The promise of public health is that it directs us upstream for solutions. In this context, that means addressing police brutality. One way to do so is routinely tracking, reporting, and analyzing instances of police brutality and their outcomes in our surveillance systems, including national surveys. ( Krieger et al., 2015 ) However, to date, there has been little resolve to fund this effort.

Our findings also demonstrate the critical role of structural inequity in medical encounters and in unmet need. We join others to call for structural competency training in clinical education, ( Metzl et al., 2018 ) teaching clinicians and other health care professionals to understand, assess, and analyze how larger structural inequities, such as structural racism and exposure to police brutality, shape health status and access to care ( Hardeman et al., 2016 ).

Finally, the knowledge that conditions outside the medical system impact perceptions of medical encounters and unmet need matters for population health. It is not solely the encounters between clinicians and patients that result in mistrust or shape a potentially trusting relationship, but also the patients’ experiences with the police — something that happens out of the health care system. To address the issue of unmet need for medical care among under-resourced populations who are more likely to experience police brutality, reform of police departments across the country is necessary. The murder of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis police officers amplified a movement across the U.S. demanding police reform. It is important that public health leaders are part of these conversations, raising issues such as those explored in this study.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Sirry Alang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft. Donna McAlpine: Writing - review & editing, Validation. Malcolm McClain: Visualization, Writing - review & editing. Rachel Hardeman: Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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More Than Half of Police Killings Are Mislabeled, New Study Says

Researchers comparing information from death certificates with data from organizations that track police killings in the United States identified a startling discrepancy.

By Tim Arango and Shaila Dewan

Police killings in America have been undercounted by more than half over the past four decades, according to a new study that raises pointed questions about racial bias among medical examiners and highlights the lack of reliable national record keeping on what has become a major public health and civil rights issue.

The study , conducted by researchers at the University of Washington and published on Thursday in The Lancet, a major British medical journal, amounts to one of the most comprehensive looks at the scope of police violence in America, and the disproportionate impact on Black people.

Researchers compared information from a federal database known as the National Vital Statistics System, which collects death certificates, with recent data from three organizations that track police killings through news reports and public records requests. When extrapolating and modeling that data back decades, they identified a startling discrepancy: About 55 percent of fatal encounters with the police between 1980 and 2018 were listed as another cause of death.

The findings reflect both the contentious role of medical examiners and coroners in obscuring the real extent of police violence, and the lack of centralized national data on an issue that has caused enormous upheaval. Private nonprofits and journalists have filled the gap by mining news reports and social media.

“I think the big takeaway is that most people in public health tend to take vital statistics for the U.S. and other countries as the absolute truth, and it turns out, as we show, the vital statistics are missing more than half of the police violence deaths,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which conducted the study.

He continued: “You have to look for why those deaths that are being picked up by the open-source investigations, looking in the media and elsewhere, aren’t showing up in the official statistics. That does point to the system of medical examiners and the incentives that may exist for them to want to not classify a death as related to police violence.”

Researchers estimated that over the time period they studied, which roughly tracks the era of the war on drugs and the rise of mass incarceration, nearly 31,000 Americans were killed by the police, with more than 17,000 of them going unaccounted for in the official statistics. The study also documented a stark racial gap: Black Americans were 3.5 times as likely to be killed by the police as white Americans were. Data on Asian Americans was not included in the study, but Latinos and Native Americans also suffered higher rates of fatal police violence than white people.

The annual number of deaths in police custody has generally gone upward since 1980, even as crime — notwithstanding a rise in homicides last year amid the dislocations of the coronavirus pandemic — has declined from its peak in the early 1990s.

The states with the highest rates of police killings were Oklahoma, Arizona and Alaska, as well as the District of Columbia, while the states with the lowest rates were Massachusetts, Connecticut and Minnesota, according to the study.

Researchers estimated that about 20 times as many men as women were killed by the police over the past several decades; more American men died in 2019 during police encounters than from Hodgkin lymphoma or testicular cancer.

Unexplained or violent deaths in the United States are investigated by coroners or medical examiners, who use autopsies, toxicology tests and evidence like body camera footage to determine the cause and manner of death. The death certificate does not specifically ask whether the police were involved — which may contribute to the undercount identified by the study — but many medical examiners are trained to include that information.

The system has long been criticized for fostering a cozy relationship with law enforcement — forensic pathologists regularly consult with detectives and prosecutors and in some jurisdictions they are directly employed by police agencies.

Yet pathologists have also complained on occasion that law enforcement does not provide them with all relevant information, that they have been pressured to change their opinions, or that coroners, who are usually elected and are not always required to have a medical degree, can and do overrule their findings.

The researchers found that some of the misclassified deaths occurred because medical examiners failed to mention law enforcement’s involvement on the death certificate, while others were improperly coded in the national database.

While The Lancet study did not mention specific cases, there have been recent examples where the initial findings of coroners or medical examiners downplayed or omitted the role of the police when a Black man was killed: Ronald Greene’s death in Louisiana, for instance, was attributed by the coroner to cardiac arrest and classified as accidental before video emerged of him being stunned, beaten and dragged by state troopers.

In Aurora, Colo., the manner of Elijah McClain’s death was ruled undetermined after the police put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine, a powerful sedative. Almost two years later, three officers and two paramedics were indicted .

Even in the case of George Floyd , whose agonizing last breaths under a Minneapolis police officer’s knee were captured on bystander video, the police and the county medical examiner first pointed to drug use and underlying health conditions.

The National Association of Medical Examiners encourages the classification of deaths caused by law enforcement as homicides , in part to reduce the appearance of a cover-up (a homicide may still be deemed justified). But classification guidelines differ from office to office, and there are no national standards.

Roger Mitchell Jr., a former chief medical examiner of Washington, D.C., and an expert on investigating deaths in custody , has long said that death certificates should include a checkbox indicating whether a death occurred in custody, including arrest-related deaths as well as those in jails and prisons.

As long as medical examiners are not specifically asked to include that information, he said, he would not jump to conclusions about why they do not do so: “If it’s a function of training, a function of bias, a function of institutional and structural racism — all the things we can assume — we can identify that once we have a uniform system.”

A federal law passed in 2014 requiring law enforcement agencies to report deaths in custody has yet to produce any public data.

The paper’s top-line findings are similar to the results of a more narrow study conducted at Harvard in 2017 that examined one year — 2015 — and compared official death statistics in the United States with data on police killings compiled by The Guardian.

“It’s highlighting the persistent problem of undercounting of killings by police in official data sources, one of those being mortality data,” said Justin Feldman, a research fellow at Harvard who conducted the 2017 study and was a peer reviewer on the paper published on Thursday in The Lancet.

“This is an ongoing issue that we are still, after all these years, not doing a very good job of keeping track of people killed by police,” he added.

The study lands at a time when America has grappled with one high-profile police killing of a Black man after another. But, as the study showed, there are tens of thousands of other deaths that remain in the shadows.

Rulings on the cause and manner of death strongly influence whether criminal charges are brought or whether families receive a civil settlement. The death of Mr. Floyd was classified as a homicide and the death certificate cited law enforcement restraint, but the medical examiner still faced criticism after prosecutors made public his preliminary findings that underlying health conditions and drug use had contributed.

The former chief medical examiner of Maryland, Dr. David Fowler, was also criticized after he testified on behalf of the Minneapolis police officer, saying Mr. Floyd’s death was caused by several factors and was not a homicide.

After an open letter by Dr. Mitchell said that Dr. Fowler’s testimony revealed “ obvious bias ,” Maryland’s attorney general began a review of in-custody deaths that were handled under Dr. Fowler’s tenure.

Dr. Murray of the University of Washington said that one of the starkest findings was that racial disparities in police shootings have widened since 2000.

The trend contrasts, he said, with other health outcomes, such as heart disease, in which the racial gap has narrowed in recent years.

The study, he and other researchers said, points to the need for a centralized clearinghouse for data on police violence, as well as more scrutiny of coroners and medical examiners.

“There’s been an attempt to limit the reality of what is,” said Edwin G. Lindo, a scholar of critical race theory and professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who examined the findings of the study but was not involved in putting it together. “And what I would suggest is, when we don’t have good data we can’t actually make good policy decisions, and I don’t know if that’s an accident for it to be so greatly underreported.”

Tim Arango is a Los Angeles correspondent. Before moving to California, he spent seven years as Baghdad bureau chief and also reported on Turkey. He joined The Times in 2007 as a media reporter. More about Tim Arango

Shaila Dewan is a national reporter and editor covering criminal justice issues including prosecution, policing and incarceration. More about Shaila Dewan

A better path forward for criminal justice: Police reform

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Rashawn ray and rashawn ray senior fellow - governance studies @sociologistray clark neily clark neily senior vice president - cato institute @conlawwarrior.

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Below is the first chapter from “A Better Path Forward for Criminal Justice,” a report by the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform. You can access other chapters from the report here .

Recent incidents centering on the deaths of unarmed Black Americans including George Floyd, Daunte Wright, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, William Green, and countless others have continued to apply pressure for wide sweeping police reform. To some, these incidents are the result of a few “bad apples.” 1

To others, they are examples of a system imbued with institutional and cultural failures that expose civilians and police officers to harm. Our article aims to combine perspectives from across the political spectrum on sensible police reform. We focus on short-, medium-, and long-term solutions for reducing officer-involved shootings, racial disparities in use of force, mental health issues among officers, and problematic officers who rotten the tree of law enforcement.

Level Setting

Violent crime has significantly decreased since the early 1990s. However, the number of mass shootings have increased and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security report being worried about domestic terrorism, even within law enforcement. Nonetheless, despite recent increases that some scholars associate with COVID-19 spillovers related to high unemployment and underemployment, violent crime is still much lower than it was three decades ago.

Some scholars attribute crime reductions to increased police presence, while others highlight increases in overall levels of education and employment. In the policy space, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 are often noted. We believe there is some validity to all of these perspectives. For example, SWAT deployment has increased roughly 1,400 percent since 1980. Coinciding with the 1986 Drug Bill, SWAT is often deployed for drug raids and no-knock warrants. 2 The death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman killed in her home in Louisville, Kentucky, is most recently highlighted as an example that demonstrates some of the problems with these tactics. 3

The 1994 Crime Bill ushered the COPS program and an increase in prisons around the country. 4 This legislation also coincided with stop-and-frisk policies and a rise in stand-your-ground laws that disproportionately disadvantaged Black Americans and led to overpolicing. It is an indisputable fact that Black people are more likely to have force used on them. In fact, Black people relative to white people are significantly less likely to be armed or be attacking at the time they are killed by police. This is a historical pattern, including during the 1960s when civil rights leaders were being beaten and killed. However, officer-involved killings, overall, have increased significantly over the past two decades. 5 And, we also know that if drugs were the only culprit, there would be drastically different outcomes for whites. Research shows that while Blacks and whites have similar rates of using drugs, and often times distributing drugs, there are huge disparities in who is arrested, incarcerated, and convicted for drug crimes. However, it is also an indisputable fact that predominately Black communities have higher levels of violent crime. Though some try to attribute higher crime in predominately Black neighborhoods to biology or culture, most scholars agree that inequitable resources related to housing, education, and employment contribute to these statistics. 6   7 8 Research documents that after controlling for segregation and disadvantage, predominately Black and white neighborhoods differ little in violent crime rates. 9

These are complex patterns, and Democrats and Republicans often differ on how America reached these outcomes and what we do about them. As a result, bipartisan police reform has largely stalled. Now, we know that in March 2021 the House of Representatives once again passed The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. States and localities are also presenting and passing a slew of police reforms, such as in Maryland where the state legislature passed the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021. We are not here to debate the merits of these legislations, though we support much of the components, nor are we here to simply highlight low-hanging fruit such as banning no-knock warrants, creating national databases, or requiring body-worn cameras. People across the political aisle largely agree on these reforms. Instead, we aim to provide policy recommendations on larger-scale reforms, which scholars and practitioners across the political aisle agree needs to occur, in order to transform law enforcement in America and take us well into the twenty-first century. Our main themes include accountability, training, and culture.

Accordingly, our recommendations include:

Short-Term Reforms

Reform Qualified Immunity

• Create National Standards for Training and De-escalation

Medium-Term Reforms

Restructure Civilian Payouts for Police Misconduct

Address officer wellness.

Long-Term Reforms

Restructure Regulations for Fraternal Order of Police Contracts

Change police culture to protect civilians and police, short-term reforms.

Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that courts invented to make it more difficult to sue police and other government officials who have been plausibly alleged to have violated somebody’s rights. 10 11 We believe this doctrine needs to be removed. 12 13 States also have a role to play here. The Law Enforcement Bill of Rights further doubles down on a lack of accountable for bad apples.

We are not out on a limb here. A recent YouGov and Cato poll found that over 60 percent of Americans support eliminating qualified immunity. 14 Over 80 percent of Americans oppose erasing historical records of officer misconduct. In this regard, most citizens have no interest making it more difficult to sue police officers, but police seem to have a very strong interest in maintaining the policy. However, not only do everyday citizens want it gone, but think tanks including The Brookings Institution and The Cato Institute have asserted the same. It is a highly problematic policy.

Though police chiefs might not say it publicly or directly, we have evidence that a significant number of them are quite frustrated by their inability to get rid of the bad apples, run their departments in ways that align with best practices they learn at Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers and National Association of Chiefs of Police, and discipline and terminate officers who deserve to be held accountable and jeopardize not only the public perception of their own department but drag down the social standing of the entire law enforcement profession. As noted above, The Law Enforcement Bill of Rights at the state level needs to be addressed. It further doubles down on qualified immunity and removes accountability for law enforcement.

National Standards for Training and De-escalation

In 2016, Daniel Shaver was fatally shot and killed by officer Philip Brailsford. Brailsford was charged but found not guilty. At the time of the killing, Shaver was unarmed as he lay dead in a hotel hallway. Police experts critiqued Brailsford’s tactics to de-escalate the situation. As he entered the scene, he had both hands on his M4 rifle and eliminated all other tools or de-escalation tactics. Brailsford was fired, tried for murder, and then rehired. He ultimately retired due to PTSD. Highlighting the roles of militarization, mental health, qualified immunity, and other policy-related topics, this incident shows why there is a need for national standards for training and de-escalation. Many officers would have approached this situation differently, suggesting there are a myriad of tactics and strategies being taught.

Nationally, officers receive about 50 hours of firearm training during the police academy. They receive less than 10 hours of de-escalation training. So, when they show up at a scene and pull their weapon, whether it be on teenagers walking down the street after playing a basketball game or someone in a hotel or even a car (like in the killing of Daunte Wright in a Minneapolis suburb), poor decisions and bad outcomes should not be surprising.

Police officers regardless of whether they live in Kentucky or Arizona need to have similar training. Among the roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, there is wide variation in the amount of training that officers have to complete as well as what type of training they complete. With the amount of travel that Americans engage in domestically, law enforcement has not kept up to speed with ensuring that officers receive the same training. Consequently, police officers may be put in positions to make bad decisions because of a lack of the implementation of federal standards. Funding can be provided to have federally certified trainers who work with localities within states, counties, and cities.

MEDIUM-TERM REFORMS

From 2015–2019, the 20 largest U.S. municipalities spent over $2 billion in civilian payouts for police misconduct. Rather than the police department budget, these funds mostly come from general funds. 15 So, not only is the officer absolved from civil or financial culpability, but the police department often faces little financial liability. Instead, the financial burden falls onto the municipality; thus, taxpayers. This money could be going toward education, work, and infrastructure.

Not only are the financial settlement often expensive, like the $20 million awarded to William Green’s family in Prince George’s County, Maryland, but the associated legal fees and deteriorated community trust are costly. In a place like Chicago, over the past 20 years, it has spent about $700 million on civilian payouts for police misconduct. New York City spent about $300 million in the span of a few years.

We assert that civilian payouts for police misconduct must be restructured. Indemnification will be eliminated, making the officer responsible, and requiring them to purchase professional liability insurance the exact same way that other occupations such as doctors and lawyers do. This would give insurance companies a strong incentive to identify the problem officers early, to raise their rates just the way that insurance companies raise the rates on a bad driver or a doctor who engages in malpractice. In this regard, the cost of the insurance policy would increase the more misconduct an officer engaged in. Eventually, the worst officers would become uninsurable, and therefore unemployable. This would help to increase accountability. Instead of police chiefs having difficulties removing bad officers through pushback from the Fraternal Order of Police Union, bad officers would simply be unemployable by virtue of the fact that they cannot secure professional liability insurance.

Bottom line, police almost never suffer any financial consequences for their own misconduct.

Shifting civilian payouts away from tax money and to police department insurance policies would instantly change the accountability structure.

Shifting civilian payouts away from tax money and to police department insurance policies would instantly change the accountability structure. Police are almost always indemnified for that misconduct when there is a payout. And, what that means is simply that their department or the city, which is to say us, the taxpayers, end up paying those damages claims. That is absolutely the wrong way to do it.

Most proposals for restructuring civilian payouts for police misconduct have included some form of liability insurance for police departments and/or individual officers. This means shifting the burden from taxpayer dollars to police department insurance policies. If a departmental policy, the municipality should pay for that policy, but the money should come from the police department budget. Police department budget increases should take settlement costs into account and now simply allow for increased budgets to cover premium increases. This is a similar approach to healthcare providers working in a hospital. If individual officers have liability insurance, they fall right in line with other occupations that have professional liability insurance.

Congress could approve a pilot program for municipalities to explore the potential impacts of police department insurance policies versus individual officer liability insurance, and even some areas that use both policies simultaneously. Regardless, it is clear that the structure of civilian payouts for police misconduct needs to change. We believe not only will the change provide more funding for education, work, and infrastructure, but it will increase accountability and give police chiefs and municipalities the ability to rid departments of bad apples that dampen an equitable and transparent cultural environment.

Mental Health Counseling

In this broader discussion of policing, missing is not only the voices of law enforcement themselves, but also what is happening in their own minds and in their own bodies. Recent research has highlighted that about 80 percent of officers suffer from chronic stress. They suffer from depression, anxiety. They have relationship problems, and they get angered easily. One out of six report being suicidal. Another one out of six report substance abuse problems. Most sobering, 90 percent of them never seek help. 16  We propose that officers should have mandatory mental health counseling on a quarterly basis. Normalizing mental health counseling will reduce the stigma associated with it.

It is also important for law enforcement to take a serious look into the role of far-right extremism on officer attitudes and behaviors. There is ample evidence from The Department of Homeland Security showing the pervasive ways that far-right extremists target law enforcement. 17 Academic research examining social dominance ideation among police officers may be a key way to root out extremism during background checks and psychological evaluations. Social dominance can be assessed through survey items and decision-making simulations, such as the virtual reality simulations conducted at the Lab for Applied Social Science Research at the University of Maryland.

Community Policing

Community police is defined in a multitude of ways. One simple way we think about community policing is whether officers experience the community in everyday life, often when they are not on duty. Do they live in the community, send their children to local schools, exercise at the neighborhood gym, and shop at the main grocery store? Often times, police officers engage in this type of community policing in predominately white and affluent neighborhoods but less in predominately Black or Latino neighborhoods, even when they have higher household income levels. Police officers also live farther away from the areas where they work. While this may be a choice for some, others simply cannot afford to live there, particularly in major cities and more expensive areas of the country. Many police officers are also working massive amounts of over time to make ends meet, provide for their families, and send children to college.

Altogether, community policing requires a set of incentives. We propose increasing the required level of education, which can justify wage increases. This can help to reduce the likelihood of police officers working a lot of hours and making poor decisions because of lack of sleep or stress. We also propose requiring that officers live within or near the municipalities where they work. Living locally can increase police-community relations and improve trust. Officers should receive rent subsidies or down payment assistance to enhance this process.

LONG-TERM REFORMS

Unions are important. However, the Fraternity Order of Police Union has become so deeply embedded in law enforcement that it obstructs the ability for equitable and transparent policing, even when interacting with police chiefs. Police union contracts need to be evaluated to ensure they do not obstruct the ability for officers who engage in misconduct to be held accountable. Making changes to the Law Enforcement Bill of Rights at the state helps with this, but the Congress should provide more regulations to help local municipalities with this process.

Police have to be of the people and for the people. Often times, police officers talk about themselves as if they are detached from the community. Officers often view themselves as warriors at war with the people in the communities they serve. Police officers embody an “us versus them” perspective, rather than viewing themselves to be part of the community. 18

It must be a change to police culture regarding how police officers view themselves and view others. Part of changing culture deals with transforming how productivity and awards are allocated. Police officers overwhelmingly need to make forfeitures in the form of arrests, citations, and tickets to demonstrate leadership and productivity. Police officers rarely get credit for the everyday, mundane things they do to make their communities safe and protect and serve. We believe there must be a fundamental reconceptualization of both the mission of police and the culture in which that mission is carried out. Policing can be about respecting individuals and not using force. It is an ethical approach to policing that requires incentives positive outcomes rather than deficits that rewards citations and force.

T here must be a fundamental reconceptualization of both the mission of police and the culture in which that mission is carried out.

Recommendations for Future Research

First, research needs to examine how community policing and officer wellness programs can simultaneously improve outcomes for the community and law enforcement. The either/or model simply does not work any longer. Instead, research should determine what is best for local communities and improves the health and well-being of law enforcement. Second, future research on policing needs to examine the role that protests against police brutality, particularly related to Black Lives Matter protests, are having on reform at the local, state, and federal levels. It is important for policymakers to readily understand the demands of their constituents and ways to create peace and civility.

Finally, research needs to fully examine legislation to reallocate and shift funding away from and within police department budgets. 19  By taking a market-driven, evidence-based approach to police funding, the same methodology can be used that will lead to different results depending on the municipality. Police department budgets should be fiscally responsible and shift funding to focusing on solving violent crime, while simultaneously reducing use of force on low-income and racial/ethnic minority communities. It is a tall order, but federal funding could be allocated to examine all of these important research endeavors. It is a must if the United States is to stay as a world leader in this space. It is clear our country is falling short at this time.

We have aimed to take a deep dive into large policy changes needed for police reform that centers around accountability, finances, culture, and communities. Though there is much discussion about reallocating police funding, we believe there should be an evidence-based, market-driven approach. While some areas may need to reallocate funding, others may need to shift funding within the department, or even take both approaches. Again, with roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies, there is wide variation in funds provided for policing and how those funds are spent. This is why it is imperative that standards be set at the federal level to help municipalities grapple with this important issue and the others we highlight in this report.

RECOMMENDED READING

Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness . The New Press.

Brooks, Rosa. 2021. Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City : Penguin.

Horace, Matthew. 2019. The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America’s Law Enforcement . Hatchette Books.

Ray, Rashawn. “ How Should We Enhance Police Accountability in the United States? ” The Brookings Institution, August 25, 2020.

• Ray, Rashawn. “Bad Apples come from Rotten Trees in Policing.” The Brookings Institution. May 30, 2020. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/05/30/bad-apples-come-from-rotten-trees-in-policing/
• Neily, Clark. “Get a Warrant.” Cato Institute. October 27, 2020. Available at: https://www.cato.org/blog/get-warrant
• Brown, Melissa and Rashawn Ray. “Breonna Taylor, Police Brutality, and the Importance of #SayHerName.” The Brookings Institution. September 25, 2020. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/09/25/breonna-taylor-police-brutality-and-the-importance-of-sayhername/
• Galston, William and Rashawn Ray. “Did the 1994 Crime Bill Cause Mass Incarceration?” The Brookings Institution. August 28, 2020. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/08/28/did-the-1994-crime-bill-cause-mass-incarceration/
• Edwards, Frank, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito. “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 , 2019. 116(34):16793 LP – 16798.
• Peterson, Ruth D. and Lauren J. Krivo.  Divergent Social Worlds: Neighborhood Crime and the Racial-Spatial Divide , 2010. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Friedson, Michael and Patrick Sharkey. “Violence and Neighborhood Disadvantage after the Crime Decline,”  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2015. 660:1, 341–58.
• Jeffrey D. Morenoff and Robert J. Sampson. 1997. “Violent Crime and The Spatial Dynamics of Neighborhood Transition: Chicago, 1970–1990,”  Social Forces  76:1, 31–64.
• Peterson, Ruth D. and Lauren J. Krivo. 2010.  Divergent Social Worlds: Neighborhood Crime and the Racial-Spatial Divide , New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Sobel, Nathaniel. “What Is Qualified Immunity, and What Does It Have to Do With Police Reform?” Lawfare. June 6, 2020. Available at: https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-qualified-immunity-and-what-does-it-have-do-police-reform
• Schweikert, Jay. “Qualified Immunity: A Legal, Practical, and Moral Failure.” Cato Institute. September 14, 2020. Available at: https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/qualified-immunity-legal-practical-moral-failure
• Neily, Clark. “To Make Police Accountable, End Qualified Immunity. Cato Institute. May 31, 2020. Available at: https://www.cato.org/commentary/make-police-accountable-end-qualified-immunity
• Ray, Rashawn. “How to Fix the Financial Gymnastics of Police Misconduct Settlements.” Lawfare. April 1, 2021. Available at: https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-fix-financial-gymnastics-police-misconduct-settlements
• Ekins, Emily. “Poll: 63% of Americans Favor Eliminating Qualified Immunity for Police.” Cato Institute. July 16, 2020. Available at: https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-63-americans-favor-eliminating-qualified-immunity-police#introduction
• Ray, Rashawn. “Restructuring Civilian Payouts for Police Misconduct.” Sociological Forum, 2020. 35(3): 806–812.
• Ray, Rashawn. “What does the shooting of Leonard Shand tell us about the mental health of civilians and police?” The Brookings Institution. October 16, 2019. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2019/10/16/what-does-the-shooting-of-leonard-shand-tell-us-about-the-mental-health-of-civilians-and-police/
• Allen, John et al. “Preventing Targeted Violence Against Faith-Based Communities.” Homeland Security Advisory Council, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. December 17, 2019. Available at: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/preventing_targeted_violence_against_faith-based_communities_subcommittee_0.pdf >.
• Ray, Rashawn, Clark Neily, and Arthur Rizer. “What Would Meaningful Police Reform Look Like?” Video, Project Sphere, Cato Institute, 2020. Available at: https://www.projectsphere.org/episode/what-would-meaningful-police-reform-look-like/
• Ray, Rashawn. “What does ‘Defund the Police’ Mean and does it have Merit?” The Brookings Institution, June 19, 2020. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/19/what-does-defund-the-police-mean-and-does-it-have-merit/

Governance Studies

Hanna Love, Manann Donoghoe

September 21, 2023

Brookings Institution, Washington DC

12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT

Rashawn Ray

March 16, 2023

87 Police Brutality Topics and Essay Examples

🏆 best police brutality topics for essays, 📌 most interesting police brutality essay topics, 👍 good research topics about police brutality, ❓ research questions about police brutality.

• Police Deviance For the sake of this paper, the scope of this paper will only examine the code of conduct in reference to the relationship between the police force and the society.
• Police Brutality: Internal and External Stakeholders To begin with, internal stakeholders such as police officers and judges have been observed to enforce the law discriminatively. Policymakers can be encouraged to propose and support powerful laws that have the potential to deal […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Police Misconduct Actually, prosecutors are always reluctant to try these victims in the court of law for the following reasons; police officers, in most cases, are protected by the prosecutors.
• Police Brutality in the USA This paper aims to discuss the types of police brutality, the particularities of psychological harm inflicted by the police, and its consequences for the population affected by these forms of violence.
• Police Brutality: Dissoi Logoi Argumentation Under the influence of societal views, the majority of the representatives of the general public tend to perceive police officers as a safeguarding force that gathers individuals who perform their duties to ensure that the […]
• Excessive Force by the Police On the other hand, the media reported on the severity of misconduct by police officers and cited the Blue code of silence as the key setback against the fight against police torture.
• Police Misconduct: What Can Be Done? Police officers are the individuals charged with the task of maintaining law and order and ensuring the security of the population.
• Police Brutality: Graham vs. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 In this essay, a summary of the Graham and Connor case and the decision of the court will be introduced. In case this suggestion is correct, Connor appears as a police officer who failed to […]
• Police Brutality: Causes and Solutions If the criminal is armed and firing at the police, the use of force is acceptable. However, when the actions of the police are disproportionate to the committed crimes, the necessity of such measures is […]
• Impact of Police Brutality on the Society in the United States The issue of racism is one that has led to police brutality that has been witnessed in the American society for a long time.
• Excessive Force and Deviance, Police Brutality The events highlighting racial injustice could positively influence our society, maintaining an appropriate level of awareness regarding the issues encountered by African-Americans and prompting a change in police behaviors.
• History of Police Brutality: The Murder of George Floyd Police officers strive to maintain order and ensure adherence to the laws of the state. The standards observed the right to democracy and addressed the need for representation.
• Body-Worn Cameras Against Police Brutality in New York There is often a legal foundation to such a privileged position; the laws control the oppressed class and mitigate threats to the power of the ruling class.
• Police Brutality: Social Issue This paper explores the issue of police brutality and seeks to shed light on the perceptions of the public, especially the black minority.
• Police Brutality as a Law Enforcement Challenge The problem has persisted due to the ineffectiveness of different leaders. The number of unexplainable shootings, severe beatings, and mistreatments continues to be reported in the country.
• Social Psychology: Police Brutality The first group of solutions to the problem of police brutality includes technical measures, such as the use of body cameras and dashboard cameras. Finally, another potential solution to police brutality is the diversification of […]
• Technology Influences on Police Brutality Modern platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can be used to inform and educate more people about the nature of police brutality.
• Public Administration Issue: Police Brutality The trend is ongoing and is not expected to end any time soon because of the social structure and the culture that does not value the contributions of minorities and people of color.
• Police in Law Enforcement Misconduct This creates a rift between the community and the police leading to further misconduct in the process of enforcing the law.
• The Incidents Involving Police Brutality
• The Infringement of Natural Human Rights Because of Police Brutality in the United States
• Police Brutality and Its Effects on the United States
• The Flaws of Police Officers and the Issue of Police Brutality on an Individual
• The Suffering and Fight of African-Americans Against Police Brutality
• The Image Serving as a Reminder of Police Brutality
• The Negative Effects of Police Brutality
• The Changing Patterns of Racism and Police Brutality in the United States
• Police Brutality and the Death of Freddie Gray
• The Issue of Police Brutality and Injustice in the Story of Kalief Browder
• The Relation Between Police Brutality and Race in the United States of America
• Police Brutality and Racism Against African Americans
• The High Prevalence of Police Brutality Towards African America
• The US Government Faces Different Challenges with Police Brutality
• The Truth About Police Brutality Against Minorities
• The Importance of Body Cameras for Solving the Problem of Police Brutality
• Protesting Protest Against Police Brutality
• The Solutions to the Issue of Police Brutality in the United States
• Racism: Police Brutality and Racial Profiling
• Prejudice, Police Brutality, Racism: The Three Things We Are Trying to Get Rid Off
• Problems Caused by Police Brutality
• Police Misconduct and Police Brutality
• The Issue of Police Brutality Against People of Color in the United States
• The Issue of Police Brutality Against the Colored People in the United States
• The Effects of Violence on Police Brutality
• The Deaths Caused by Hurricane Katrina and Police Brutality in America
• Social Media Activism, Centered on Police Brutality
• The Effects of Police Brutality on the Relationship
• The Long Problem of Police Brutality in the United States
• The Police Brutality Against Minorities
• Race, Police Brutality, Crime, Education and Poverty
• The Issue of Police Brutality in the United States and the Solutions to Curb Police Misconduct
• The Influence of the Media and Social Class in Police Brutality
• The Dangers of Racial Profiling and Police Brutality
• The Effects of Police Brutality on Minority Communities
• The Effects of Police Brutality and Racism English
• The Drug Trade as the Cause of Police Brutality in Brazil
• Police Brutality and Their Power Caught on Video by Bystanders
• How to Deal with the Problem of Police Brutality in the United States?
• What is the Relations Police Brutality and Its Contributors?
• How Repressive Laws and Police Brutality Against Mexican Americans Stigmatized the Race as a Whole?
• How Race and Ethnicity Affects Police Brutality Term?
• Police Brutality Ends Here?
• What Does the Media Cover up the Police Brutality?
• How Does Police Brutality on Children Affect How Society?
• Does Police Brutality Distort the Way People View Law Enforcement?
• How Can We Help Prevent Police Brutality?
• How to Stop Police Brutality Against Minority’s?
• Has Been Police Brutality Alive for Too Many Years?
• Has Police Brutality Increased Throughout the United?
• What Is Wrong with Police?
• How Police Corruption Remains a Tainted Reminder of Police Brutality in the US?
• Does Police Brutality Affect the Mental Health of Black Youth?
• Why Isn’t Outrage over Police Brutality Enough?
• Are the Police Taking Advantage of People by Using Police Brutality?
• Has Been Police Brutality Around for Decades?
• Should There Be Direct Laws Against Police Brutality?
• Can You Trust the Law?
• What Is the Police Brutality Effect on African American Males?
• When the Police Duty to Protect Fails Police Brutality?
• Religious Profiling and Police Brutality: How They Affect Operations?
• What Are the Effects of Police Brutality?
• Police Brutality: What’s Really Going on?
• What is the New York City Police Brutality?
• How Does the Body Camera Increase Police Brutality?
• The Causes of Police Brutality in America: Is It Due to Police Behavior?
• When Excessive Force Becomes Police Brutality Sociology?
• What is the Link Between Police Brutality and the Law Enforcement Officers?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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What the data says about crime in the U.S.

A growing share of Americans say reducing crime should be a top priority for the president and Congress to address this year. Around six-in-ten U.S. adults (58%) hold that view today, up from 47% at the beginning of Joe Biden’s presidency in 2021.

We conducted this analysis to learn more about U.S. crime patterns and how those patterns have changed over time.

The analysis relies on statistics published by the FBI, which we accessed through the Crime Data Explorer , and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which we accessed through the  National Crime Victimization Survey data analysis tool .

To measure public attitudes about crime in the U.S., we relied on survey data from Pew Research Center and Gallup.

Additional details about each data source, including survey methodologies, are available by following the links in the text of this analysis.

With the issue likely to come up in this year’s presidential election, here’s what we know about crime in the United States, based on the latest available data from the federal government and other sources.

How much crime is there in the U.S.?

It’s difficult to say for certain. The  two primary sources of government crime statistics  – the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) – paint an incomplete picture.

The FBI publishes  annual data  on crimes that have been reported to law enforcement, but not crimes that haven’t been reported. Historically, the FBI has also only published statistics about a handful of specific violent and property crimes, but not many other types of crime, such as drug crime. And while the FBI’s data is based on information from thousands of federal, state, county, city and other police departments, not all law enforcement agencies participate every year. In 2022, the most recent full year with available statistics, the FBI received data from 83% of participating agencies .

BJS, for its part, tracks crime by fielding a  large annual survey of Americans ages 12 and older and asking them whether they were the victim of certain types of crime in the past six months. One advantage of this approach is that it captures both reported and unreported crimes. But the BJS survey has limitations of its own. Like the FBI, it focuses mainly on a handful of violent and property crimes. And since the BJS data is based on after-the-fact interviews with crime victims, it cannot provide information about one especially high-profile type of offense: murder.

All those caveats aside, looking at the FBI and BJS statistics side-by-side  does  give researchers a good picture of U.S. violent and property crime rates and how they have changed over time. In addition, the FBI is transitioning to a new data collection system – known as the National Incident-Based Reporting System – that eventually will provide national information on a much larger set of crimes , as well as details such as the time and place they occur and the types of weapons involved, if applicable.

Which kinds of crime are most and least common?

Property crime in the U.S. is much more common than violent crime. In 2022, the FBI reported a total of 1,954.4 property crimes per 100,000 people, compared with 380.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people.  

By far the most common form of property crime in 2022 was larceny/theft, followed by motor vehicle theft and burglary. Among violent crimes, aggravated assault was the most common offense, followed by robbery, rape, and murder/nonnegligent manslaughter.

BJS tracks a slightly different set of offenses from the FBI, but it finds the same overall patterns, with theft the most common form of property crime in 2022 and assault the most common form of violent crime.

How have crime rates in the U.S. changed over time?

Both the FBI and BJS data show dramatic declines in U.S. violent and property crime rates since the early 1990s, when crime spiked across much of the nation.

Using the FBI data, the violent crime rate fell 49% between 1993 and 2022, with large decreases in the rates of robbery (-74%), aggravated assault (-39%) and murder/nonnegligent manslaughter (-34%). It’s not possible to calculate the change in the rape rate during this period because the FBI  revised its definition of the offense in 2013 .

The FBI data also shows a 59% reduction in the U.S. property crime rate between 1993 and 2022, with big declines in the rates of burglary (-75%), larceny/theft (-54%) and motor vehicle theft (-53%).

Using the BJS statistics, the declines in the violent and property crime rates are even steeper than those captured in the FBI data. Per BJS, the U.S. violent and property crime rates each fell 71% between 1993 and 2022.

While crime rates have fallen sharply over the long term, the decline hasn’t always been steady. There have been notable increases in certain kinds of crime in some years, including recently.

In 2020, for example, the U.S. murder rate saw its largest single-year increase on record – and by 2022, it remained considerably higher than before the coronavirus pandemic. Preliminary data for 2023, however, suggests that the murder rate fell substantially last year .

How do Americans perceive crime in their country?

Americans tend to believe crime is up, even when official data shows it is down.

In 23 of 27 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993 , at least 60% of U.S. adults have said there is more crime nationally than there was the year before, despite the downward trend in crime rates during most of that period.

While perceptions of rising crime at the national level are common, fewer Americans believe crime is up in their own communities. In every Gallup crime survey since the 1990s, Americans have been much less likely to say crime is up in their area than to say the same about crime nationally.

Public attitudes about crime differ widely by Americans’ party affiliation, race and ethnicity, and other factors . For example, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are much more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say reducing crime should be a top priority for the president and Congress this year (68% vs. 47%), according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

How does crime in the U.S. differ by demographic characteristics?

Some groups of Americans are more likely than others to be victims of crime. In the  2022 BJS survey , for example, younger people and those with lower incomes were far more likely to report being the victim of a violent crime than older and higher-income people.

There were no major differences in violent crime victimization rates between male and female respondents or between those who identified as White, Black or Hispanic. But the victimization rate among Asian Americans (a category that includes Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders) was substantially lower than among other racial and ethnic groups.

The same BJS survey asks victims about the demographic characteristics of the offenders in the incidents they experienced.

In 2022, those who are male, younger people and those who are Black accounted for considerably larger shares of perceived offenders in violent incidents than their respective shares of the U.S. population. Men, for instance, accounted for 79% of perceived offenders in violent incidents, compared with 49% of the nation’s 12-and-older population that year. Black Americans accounted for 25% of perceived offenders in violent incidents, about twice their share of the 12-and-older population (12%).

As with all surveys, however, there are several potential sources of error, including the possibility that crime victims’ perceptions about offenders are incorrect.

How does crime in the U.S. differ geographically?

There are big geographic differences in violent and property crime rates.

For example, in 2022, there were more than 700 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in New Mexico and Alaska. That compares with fewer than 200 per 100,000 people in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine, according to the FBI.

The FBI notes that various factors might influence an area’s crime rate, including its population density and economic conditions.

What percentage of crimes are reported to police? What percentage are solved?

Most violent and property crimes in the U.S. are not reported to police, and most of the crimes that  are  reported are not solved.

In its annual survey, BJS asks crime victims whether they reported their crime to police. It found that in 2022, only 41.5% of violent crimes and 31.8% of household property crimes were reported to authorities. BJS notes that there are many reasons why crime might not be reported, including fear of reprisal or of “getting the offender in trouble,” a feeling that police “would not or could not do anything to help,” or a belief that the crime is “a personal issue or too trivial to report.”

Most of the crimes that are reported to police, meanwhile,  are not solved , at least based on an FBI measure known as the clearance rate . That’s the share of cases each year that are closed, or “cleared,” through the arrest, charging and referral of a suspect for prosecution, or due to “exceptional” circumstances such as the death of a suspect or a victim’s refusal to cooperate with a prosecution. In 2022, police nationwide cleared 36.7% of violent crimes that were reported to them and 12.1% of the property crimes that came to their attention.

Which crimes are most likely to be reported to police? Which are most likely to be solved?

Around eight-in-ten motor vehicle thefts (80.9%) were reported to police in 2022, making them by far the most commonly reported property crime tracked by BJS. Household burglaries and trespassing offenses were reported to police at much lower rates (44.9% and 41.2%, respectively), while personal theft/larceny and other types of theft were only reported around a quarter of the time.

Among violent crimes – excluding homicide, which BJS doesn’t track – robbery was the most likely to be reported to law enforcement in 2022 (64.0%). It was followed by aggravated assault (49.9%), simple assault (36.8%) and rape/sexual assault (21.4%).

The list of crimes  cleared  by police in 2022 looks different from the list of crimes reported. Law enforcement officers were generally much more likely to solve violent crimes than property crimes, according to the FBI.

The most frequently solved violent crime tends to be homicide. Police cleared around half of murders and nonnegligent manslaughters (52.3%) in 2022. The clearance rates were lower for aggravated assault (41.4%), rape (26.1%) and robbery (23.2%).

When it comes to property crime, law enforcement agencies cleared 13.0% of burglaries, 12.4% of larcenies/thefts and 9.3% of motor vehicle thefts in 2022.

Are police solving more or fewer crimes than they used to?

Nationwide clearance rates for both violent and property crime are at their lowest levels since at least 1993, the FBI data shows.

Police cleared a little over a third (36.7%) of the violent crimes that came to their attention in 2022, down from nearly half (48.1%) as recently as 2013. During the same period, there were decreases for each of the four types of violent crime the FBI tracks:

• Police cleared 52.3% of reported murders and nonnegligent homicides in 2022, down from 64.1% in 2013.
• They cleared 41.4% of aggravated assaults, down from 57.7%.
• They cleared 26.1% of rapes, down from 40.6%.
• They cleared 23.2% of robberies, down from 29.4%.

The pattern is less pronounced for property crime. Overall, law enforcement agencies cleared 12.1% of reported property crimes in 2022, down from 19.7% in 2013. The clearance rate for burglary didn’t change much, but it fell for larceny/theft (to 12.4% in 2022 from 22.4% in 2013) and motor vehicle theft (to 9.3% from 14.2%).

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on Nov. 20, 2020.

• Criminal Justice

John Gramlich is an associate director at Pew Research Center

8 facts about Black Lives Matter

#blacklivesmatter turns 10, support for the black lives matter movement has dropped considerably from its peak in 2020, fewer than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted in 2022, before release of video showing tyre nichols’ beating, public views of police conduct had improved modestly, most popular.

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Police officer hiring in US increases in 2023 after years of decline, survey shows

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Police departments across the United States are reporting an increase in their ranks for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 killing of George Floyd, which led to a historic exodus of officers, a survey shows.

More sworn officers were hired in 2023 than in any one of the previous four years, and fewer officers overall resigned or retired, according to the 214 law enforcement agencies that responded to a survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF.

Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers spurred nationwide protests against police brutality and heightened scrutiny of law enforcement.

As more and more officers left, many of the departments had to redeploy stretched resources by shifting officers away from investigative work or quality of life issues such as abandoned vehicles or noise violations to handle increases in crime and, in some cases, the shortages meant slower response times or limiting responses to emergencies only, police officials say.

“I just think that the past four years have been particularly challenging for American policing,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of PERF, a nonprofit policing think tank based in Washington, D.C. “And our survey shows we’re finally starting to turn a corner.”

Individual departments are turning that corner at different rates, however, according to Wexler, who noted many are still struggling to attract and keep officers.

As a whole, the profession “isn’t out of the woods yet,” he said.

The Associated Press left phone and email messages with several unions and police departments to ask about increased hiring.

The survey shows that while small and medium departments had more sworn officers than they did in January 2020, large departments are still more than 5% below their staffing levels from that time, even with a year-over-year increase from 2022 to 2023.

The survey also showed smaller departments with fewer than 50 officers are still struggling with a higher rate of resignations and retirements.

The survey asked only for numbers, Wexler said, so it’s hard to say whether those officers are leaving for larger departments or leaving the profession altogether. He also said smaller departments, which account for 80% of agencies nationwide, were underrepresented in the responses PERF received.

Many larger departments have increased officer pay or started offering incentives such as signing bonuses for experienced officers who are willing to transfer, something smaller departments can’t really compete with. At least a dozen smaller departments have disbanded, leaving the municipalities they once served to rely on state or county help for policing.

But even some of the highest-paying large departments are still struggling to get new hires in the door.

“I don’t think it’s all about money. I think it’s about the way people perceive their job and feel they are going to be supported,” Wexler said. “You have West Coast departments that are paying six figures, but still seeing major challenges in hiring.”

In addition to pay and bonuses, many agencies are reexamining their application requirements and hiring processes.

Wexler believes some of those changes make sense, including allowing visible tattoos, reweighing the importance of past financial issues and processing applicants’ background checks faster. But he cautioned that PERF does not support lowering standards for training or for applicants.

Maria “Maki” Haberfeld, chair of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says departments have been too focused on officer numbers. She worries some are lowering education requirements and other standards to bolster numbers instead of trying to find the best people to police their communities.

“Policing is a real profession that requires more skills and more education than people can understand,” she said. “It’s not about tattoos or running a mile in 15 minutes. It’s really more about emotional intelligence, maturity and making those split-second decisions that don’t use deadly force.”

Haberfeld also cautioned that any staffing gains made through incentives could easily be erased, especially as officers, including some in riot gear, have been seen breaking up protests against the Israel-Hamas war at universities across the country.

“In policing, it takes decades to move forward and a split second for the public attitude to deteriorate,” she said.

PERF’s survey showed a more than a 20% drop in resignations overall, from a high of almost 6,500 in 2022 to fewer than 5,100 in 2023. They are still up over early pandemic levels in 2020, however, when a few more than 4,000 officers resigned across all responding departments.

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As with the hiring increases, the rate of decrease in retirements tended to depend on the size of the departments. There were fewer retirements in 2023 than in 2019 at large departments, slightly more retirements at medium departments and elevated retirements at small departments. The survey found a steep drop in resignations at large agencies with 250 or more officers and medium-size agencies with between 50 and 249 officers.

In addition to pay and benefit increases, the improved retention can be partly attributed to a shift in how some public officials view their public safety departments, Wexler says.

“We went from having public discourse about defunding the police just a few years ago to public officials waking up to the fact their workforce is leaving,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any question that there has been a sea change among political leaders.”

Paramedic sentenced to probation in 2019 death of Elijah McClain after rare conviction

A Colorado judge sentenced paramedic Jeremy Cooper to probation and work release Friday, closing out the last of three trials around the 2019 death of unarmed Black man Elijah McClain.

Jeremy Cooper was sentenced to 14 months in a work-release program and four years of probation after he was found guilty of criminal negligent homicide in December. Cooper faced up to three years in prison.

McClain's death  gained renewed attention  amid racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and five police officers and paramedics were  subsequently indicted by a Colorado grand jury  on manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and other charges. Three were found guilty and have been sentenced.

Aurora police officer Randy Roedema was sentenced to 14 months in jail in January after being convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault , and fellow paramedic Peter Cichuniec was sentenced to five years in prison in March for criminally negligent homicide and second-degree assault.

It is rare for police officers to be charged or convicted in on-duty killings, and experts previously told USA TODAY it is  even rarer for paramedics to be criminally prosecuted  in such cases.

What happened to Elijah McClain?

McClain, a massage therapist, was walking home from the store on  Aug. 24, 2019,  when he was stopped by police after a 911 caller reported a man who seemed “sketchy.” McClain was not armed or accused of committing a crime. But officers quickly threw him to the ground and placed him in a since-banned carotid artery chokehold. Paramedics later arrived and injected him with ketamine, a powerful sedative. He died days later.

An original autopsy report written soon after his death did not list a conclusion about how he died or the type of death. But an  amended autopsy report  released last year determined McClain died because of "complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint." The amended report still lists his manner of death as "undetermined."

A local prosecutor initially declined to bring criminal charges over McClain's death partly because of the inconclusive initial autopsy report. But as the case received more attention after Floyd was killed by  former Minneapolis police officers , Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser launched a grand jury investigation.

Contributing: Reuters; N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY

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Police officer hiring in US increases in 2023 after years of decline, survey shows

Police staffing shortages.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Police departments across the United States are reporting an increase in their ranks for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 killing of George Floyd, which led to a historic exodus of officers, a survey shows.

More sworn officers were hired in 2023 than in any one of the previous four years, and fewer officers overall resigned or retired, according to the 214 law enforcement agencies that responded to a survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF.

Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers spurred nationwide protests against police brutality and heightened scrutiny of law enforcement.

As more and more officers left, many of the departments had to redeploy stretched resources by shifting officers away from investigative work or quality of life issues such as abandoned vehicles or noise violations to handle increases in crime and, in some cases, the shortages meant slower response times or limiting responses to emergencies only, police officials say.

“I just think that the past four years have been particularly challenging for American policing," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of PERF, a nonprofit policing think tank based in Washington, D.C. "And our survey shows we’re finally starting to turn a corner.”

Individual departments are turning that corner at different rates, however, according to Wexler, who noted many are still struggling to attract and keep officers.

As a whole, the profession “isn't out of the woods yet,” he said.

The Associated Press left phone and email messages with several unions and police departments to ask about increased hiring.

The survey shows that while small and medium departments had more sworn officers than they did in January 2020, large departments are still more than 5% below their staffing levels from that time, even with a year-over-year increase from 2022 to 2023.

The survey also showed smaller departments with fewer than 50 officers are still struggling with a higher rate of resignations and retirements.

The survey asked only for numbers, Wexler said, so it's hard to say whether those officers are leaving for larger departments or leaving the profession altogether. He also said smaller departments, which account for 80% of agencies nationwide, were underrepresented in the responses PERF received.

Many larger departments have increased officer pay or started offering incentives such as signing bonuses for experienced officers who are willing to transfer, something smaller departments can't really compete with. At least a dozen smaller departments have disbanded , leaving the municipalities they once served to rely on state or county help for policing.

But even some of the highest-paying large departments are still struggling to get new hires in the door.

“I don’t think it’s all about money. I think it’s about the way people perceive their job and feel they are going to be supported,” Wexler said. “You have West Coast departments that are paying six figures, but still seeing major challenges in hiring.”

In addition to pay and bonuses, many agencies are reexamining their application requirements and hiring processes.

Wexler believes some of those changes make sense, including allowing visible tattoos, reweighing the importance of past financial issues and processing applicants' background checks faster. But he cautioned that PERF does not support lowering standards for training or for applicants.

Maria “Maki” Haberfeld, chair of the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says departments have been too focused on officer numbers. She worries some are lowering education requirements and other standards to bolster numbers instead of trying to find the best people to police their communities.

“Policing is a real profession that requires more skills and more education than people can understand," she said. "It’s not about tattoos or running a mile in 15 minutes. It’s really more about emotional intelligence, maturity and making those split-second decisions that don’t use deadly force.”

Haberfeld also cautioned that any staffing gains made through incentives could easily be erased, especially as officers, including some in riot gear, have been seen breaking up protests against the Israel-Hamas war at universities across the country.

“In policing, it takes decades to move forward and a split second for the public attitude to deteriorate,” she said.

PERF's survey showed a more than a 20% drop in resignations overall, from a high of almost 6,500 in 2022 to fewer than 5,100 in 2023. They are still up over early pandemic levels in 2020, however, when a few more than 4,000 officers resigned across all responding departments.

As with the hiring increases, the rate of decrease in retirements tended to depend on the size of the departments. There were fewer retirements in 2023 than in 2019 at large departments, slightly more retirements at medium departments and elevated retirements at small departments. The survey found a steep drop in resignations at large agencies with 250 or more officers and medium-size agencies with between 50 and 249 officers.

In addition to pay and benefit increases, the improved retention can be partly attributed to a shift in how some public officials view their public safety departments, Wexler says.

“We went from having public discourse about defunding the police just a few years ago to public officials waking up to the fact their workforce is leaving,” he said. “I don't think there’s any question that there has been a sea change among political leaders.”

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