Police deadly use of firearms: an international comparison

Abstract

ABSTRACTUnder strictly defined conditions based on principles of necessity and proportionality, police may use firearms to achieve a lawful policing objective and not violate fundamental human rights. However, surprisingly little is known about how often the police kill members of the public in the line of work and especially how this prevalence compares across countries. For this study, the authors collected data from 11 countries from all continents on deaths caused by police use of firearms. Finding reliable data proved to be highly challenging as many police agencies either do not keep such statistics or are unwilling to make them public. This lack of transparency feeds into the belief that their use of lethal force may not have been fully justifiable. The authors then correlated police killing rates with homicide rates for each country. The findings confirm that the overall rate of killings by police using firearms strongly correlates with the overall homicide rates in a country. This paper argues that more transparency about police use of firearms is needed in order to gain better understanding of when and why police resort to the use of firearms, and develop more effective measures to prevent loss of life.