RESEARCH
Impact of Department Policies on Reduced Officer-Involved Shootings
Fatal shootings of civilians by police officers in the last few years have drawn intensive attention from news media , elected officials , and civil right activists . Past research of these incidents has focused on three categories including the personal or psychological , organizational , and situational factors of the incidents . However , there has been very little systematic research to identify how agency polices may be associated with reduced likelihood of a fatal officer-involved shooting . In an effort to address this issue , researchers conducted a review of every police-involved shooting that resulted in the death of a civilian between 2000 and 2015 . This data included records from more than 10,000 police-involved shootings and constituted the most comprehensive data set in the United States . This research was limited to data from agencies serving 25,000 or more citizens . This reduced the sample size to 5,141 officer-involved shooting deaths across 1,107 agencies .
Researchers developed four hypotheses to evaluate department policies that could be associated with reduced officer-involved shootings . First , it was proposed agencies that were more representative of their community would have fewer officer-involved shootings that resulted in the death of civilians . Second , it was suggested a policy that required an officer to complete a written report every time they pointed their weapon at a civilian would discourage officers from unnecessarily using a firearm . Agencies with this policy would likely have fewer officer involved shootings .
Finally , two other hypotheses focused on the impact of community policing to reduce the likelihood an officer-involved shooting death of a civilian . To accomplish this , they compared the impact of mandatory completion of community policing training to officer-involved shootings and the relationship of officers being assigned to regular patrol areas with the frequency of shootings .
Only one of the four policies researchers expected to predict officer-involved shooting deaths of civilians was statistically significant ; the requirement that officers produce a written report whenever they point a weapon at an individual . It is important to note the study also found the documentation requirement ‘ had no effect on the rate of gun deaths of police officers ’.
The authors noted these findings provided ‘ strong evidence between adoption of this policy and lower rates of gun deaths by police ’.
Additional research should be conducted to provide more conclusive evidence .
___________________________ NOTES
Jay T . Jennings and Meghan E . Rubado , “ Preventing the Use of Deadly Force : The Relationship between Police Agency Policies and Rates of Officer-Involved Gun Deaths ”, Public Administration Review , Vol . 77 , Iss 2 , pp . 217-226 , March-April 2017 .
60 FALL . 2020