Crime and Inequality Final

"Double Transformation" of police killings

1. No longer a tendency to claim police use of deadly force as a singular, localized event but rather part of national narrative 2. What was once a question of crime policy became question of civil rights

Officer settings and conduct as it is related to number of police officers present when police shootings occur

4x more likely to shoot if they are alone

Estimates regarding the impact of shooting restrictions

Don't shoot people with knives ■ Saves ~165 lives/year Don't shoot people with no weapons ■ Saves ~113 lives/year Don't shoot people with knife, no weapon, other, automobile ■ Could save ~376 lives/year ■ Normally ~1,100 people die/year ■ Could save ⅓ of lives

The advantages of using the Guardian data set?

It is from another country so the data and info is neutral with no egotistical motives and no worries about getting along with authorities here

Racial and ethnic identities of Taser and in-custody victims

More likely to taser minorities which correlated to shootings as well

The incentives and disincentives that need to be created to push police departments in the correct direction

Need policies for when police can shoot and when they need to stop shooting There needs to be clear policies aimed at police use of force not just technology ■ This doesn't really address police accountability Make protocols that would make a difference ■ Make a policy where the adversary has no weapo ● Don't fire except in a few specific circumstances

Police deaths regarding firearms versus knives

Only 2 officers were killed between 2008-2013 by knives

Rodney King incident. How was it different from Michael Brown?

Seen as Local LA issue and was considered to be out of the norm of police brutality- seemed excessive and a singular case

What accounts for the difference between the US and other countries regarding police use of force and police fatalities/risks?

The risk for officers is higher here than elsewhere because of the number of firearms in the US in circulation

Categories of killings and the age difference between arrests and police killings

When arrests go up, police killings goes down and same for the opposite

Policing activities that produce civilian deaths (Types of police interactions: criminal versus non-criminal interactions)

■ Non-criminal Disturbance (Domestic and other) Traffic stop ■ Criminal Crime in progress Serving warrants Arrests Crime investigation

Tennessee v. Garner

○ 1985 ○ Legal precedent for use of force ○ Justifiable for police to shoot someone if they're resisting arrest and running away ■ IF the suspect poses a significant threat of death or significant injury to the officer or others ● Where discretion is problematic ○ So where this helped limit the scope of police use of deadly force (can only be used as stated above and not used the same general way police use if force is) it set the precedent for use of deadly force and now helps on the justification

Assaults and injury rate of police

○ About 55,000 assaults on officers per year ○ About a quarter of all officers assaulted were injured

American exceptionalism regarding police use of force and police risk

○ American Exceptionalism is the idea that American is so great and Democratic and free, but we fail to realize that now everyone has caught up and is exceeding us because we're stuck in the past ideology that we are the best there is ○ Because of this, police are given weapons and people are given weapons and are told to maintain our independence and freedom but keep things in order. With too much pressure, not enough training, but given lethal weapons, it is a recipe for disaster

Why the increase in public concern about the use of deadly force by police after the killings and protest in Ferguson in 2014?

○ BLM movement presence ○ Social media ○ The way he was killed was a representation of how an average black male is killed by the police ■ Generalizable ■ Represents police involved shootings ○ Recognized it was an ongoing narrative ○ Local issue → national issue of policing in the U.S. ■ Interconnected across cities and states

Settings where restrictions on continued shots fired can be justified based on currently available data

○ Based on current data Zimring identifies 3 settings where restrictions are justified ■ 1. When Adversary may have a gun but has not discharged and has been wounded by police gun fire ■ 2. When adverse Siri has not fired shots and is now on the ground ■ 3. Fleeing from confrontation with police (these are frequently "shot in the back" cases)

Protocols to restrict use of force

○ Cannot use lethal force when a person doesn't have a weapon ■ People shot were believed to have a weapon, so difficult to implement depending on accountability ○ Officer alone is more likely to shoot including someone without a gun, so not sending officers alone to situations like this ○ Use of lethal force with a knife should be prohibited with very few exceptions ○ Not firing on people in automobiles ○ Shouldn't shoot even if someone is confronted and walks/runs away but could be an exception where they may look like they have a weapon or could be a threat to people ○ Most of the risk is situational and increases the closer officers get

Findings from death risk data regarding police

○ Compares regular citizen homicides and police deaths ○ About 92% of police deaths by firearms ○ About ⅔ of homicides for average citizen are by firearms followed by 13% from knives

Context regarding number of shots fired by police

○ Comparisons with civilian shootings ■ Police: shoot 3-4 times ■ Civilians: shoot 1-2 times

The policy changes that make civilian killings less likely and don't require any real research

○ Don't kill people that don't have weapons ○ Reconsidering shooting and the number of shots ○ For binding officers who are alone to shot without first calling back up

The inadequacies of official data on police involved killings. What are the various official sources and the shortcomings of them?

○ FBI - "justifiable homicides" ○ CDC - keep track of births and deaths, not police-involved killings ○ Bureau of Justice stats. - biased, problem categorizing i.e. "perceived weapon" ○ Not audited ○ Self-reported ■ Police determine whether to send data out or not

Problems encountered by those seeking to determine the volume of police killings in the United States. Why is it important?

○ FBI report is problematic ○ Data is not audited ○ Labels of the categories are problematic ■ "Justified police shootings" ■ "Perceived weapon"

Types of provocations that lead to police response and types of weapons possessed by police targets

○ Firearm - 55.7% ○ Knife (non-lethal weapon) - 16.5% ○ No weapon - 11.3% ○ Other weapon - 5.6% ○ Motor vehicle - 4.2% ○ Looked like a gun - 3.7% ○ Unknown - 2.9%

Comparisons between US and other countries regarding police killed by civilians

○ For every police officer killed in Germany, more than 35 are killed in the US ○ Risk for officers is higher here than elsewhere because of the amount of firearms in the US in circulation ○ In other countries, police officers killed is nearly nonexistent

Effectiveness of "Twenty-One-Foot Rule"

○ Lack of accountability ○ Has become conventional wisdom for PD's ○ The strategy increases the rate of death and injury to their targets ○ Federal government hasn't even evaluated the evidence (or lack thereof) that this makes the police more safe or the citizens more safe ○ Substantial number of people with knives are shot and killed by police officers

What can the experiences of other nations tell us about whether the dangers confronting police require the use of lethal force?

○ Lethal attack is a major part of being a cop in the US ○ This is not the case elsewhere ○ Police use force less and use lethal force almost never ○ Police are also killed less anywhere else

Changes in protocols governing lethal force that can reduce civilian casualties without significant risk to police safety

○ Limiting when police can and should use lethal force (i.e. not when someone has a knife, using tasers first) ○ Limiting the amount of shots fired

Comparisons between the US and other countries regarding risk in general of police officers

○ Murder and gun violence are more common in the U.S. putting the police in more situations that they need to use police force. One of the explanations is that americans are much more likely to own guns than other european regions.more guns will lead to more violence. Therefore this makes police officers anticipare the use or the encounter of a gun more often from a civilian, making them more likely to anticipate and perceive a threat and use of deadly force as a result. There is a lax leal standard that allows cops to justify deadly force against suspects who pose no danger and sometimes are only perceive to pose a threat to officers bc they hold racial biases that are endemic to the criminal justice system.

The relationship between current policy in police response to assaults and the likelihood of a police officer's death

○ Of all assaults, firearms are only a small percentage, as well as knives, but personal force is a HUGE majority followed by other dangerous weapons ○ Risk of dying is almost nonexistent ○ Knives considered justifiable use of force right now but the stats for police injury or death by knives is extremely low

The character of the victims, the settings where lethal force erupts, the provocations and explanation of how police-involved deaths happen.

○ Older (30+) (40+) ○ African American ○ Men ○ Provocations ■ Disturbances (Domestic, family) notice the main provocation is Non Criminal

Elements that have kept police killings from being seen as part of a larger national problem

○ Police departments release what they want to the media ■ Not audited and unreliable ○ Absence of legal scholarship- again much about Cap Punishment but nothing about police shootings ○ Low visibility due to being seems as "local issue" due to the local nature of government and police

Organizational changes needed to best reduce police killings

○ Reevaluate the 21 foot rule ○ Rethink whether lethal force is necessary towards a person with a knife ○ New policies to protect citizens and hold the police accountable

The most accurate sources of data regarding police-involved killings. How do they compare with the official sources of police-involved killings?

○ The Guardian ○ The Washington Post ○ The Guardian, however, is the best because it has links to the real time articles and local news reports it's getting the info from- this in essence is a self/public audit unlike any other source

Comparisons between US and other industrialized nations regarding homicide rates and rates of police involved killings

○ The US has higher rates in general among all of these categories ○ The violence is part of the problem, but something else must be going on to explain the huge gap between the level of homicides and police killings ○ Police killings in the US is 4x that of Canada and 40x that of Germany ○ One major difference between the US and many other countries is firearms ■ Much more firearms in circulation in the US on both sides (police and citizens)

To what extent is the United States unique in the character and rate of killing as a byproduct of urban policing?

○ The US has way higher rates of killings in every aspect than any other developed or not developed country ○ US gun violence is 3x Canada's and 4a5x Australia and England ○ Police kill more and are killed more at a higher rate than any other country

Number of police killings versus number of people killed by capital punishment

○ USA government stats says there are an average of 50 CP deaths each year and 400 police shooting (which we know to be around 1,100) yet the media coverage of CP far exceeded that of police shootings ○ Also important because CP happens after judge and jury while the police assume guilt through death - no trial nor justice

The special character of lethal force

○ Use of force is seen as an essential part of policing and a fundamental characteristic ○ Fine line between justifiable use of force and killing someone

Why the belief that preservation of the lives of civilians is an important principle of police policy

○ Zimring says they don't care ■ "Justifiable shootings" ● "Self-congratulatory" in essence ○ Data isn't even audited ○ Wide set of circumstances of when they can kill