Police Use Of Lethal Force Research Articles

Enhancing accountability for police use of lethal force: Global monitoring and comparative benchmarking

Abstract Policing and law enforcement bodies and the public authorities that govern them should be accountable for all deaths connected with a use of force. Accountability is a requirement of international human rights law and related provisions on the use of force, and foundational to legitimate, constrained, and consensual policing in liberal democracies. However, divergence in normative compliance and types of state system means that accountability for lethal force is inconsistent around the world. This paper discusses how a global system for monitoring lethal force could enhance accountability by making effective use of comparative benchmarking.

Two processes of dehumanization: an in-depth study of racial biases in real-life officer-involved shootings of black citizens

ABSTRACT Officer-involved shootings (OIS) of people of color concern fundamental societal issues, including race, violence, and policing. While scholars have gathered extensive insights on contextual circumstances of OIS, the unfolding of encounters still remains a black box, and research is still debating whether racialized biases actually matter for shootings. To study this question, this article discusses findings from an in-depth analysis of real-life OIS as they unfold. It triangulates video footage with document data to analyze the role of racial biases and situational interaction in shootings. It compares police shootings of black and white citizens, as well as a police-citizen encounter that did not end in a shooting. Findings suggest two intertwined processes of dehumanization contribute to the shootings of black citizens, one operating on the cultural and one on the situational level. The article contributes to research on race and racism, violence, police use of lethal force, and sociological theory.

Res nulla loquitur

The concept of res nulla loquitur, the no-thing speaks, is a reformulation of the rule of evidence, res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself. It is drawn from a careful examination of the recorded arrest of Sandra Bland in 2015, and the evidence collected in Texas’s subsequent investigation of her death while in custody. Engaging with what remains of Sandra Bland’s speech performatively by “listening while you look” (Moten), the article offers a critical reading of the rhetoric of self-evident truth associated with Fourth Amendment jurisprudence on lethal arrest and more recent audio-visual evidence of police use of lethal force against black citizens. To emphasize the sonic dimension of the terrain of struggle with the violence of the word of law, each section is accompanied by sound loops the author created from evidence used by artist, lauren woods, in her exhibit, American Monument (2020). These sounds loops can be accessed at resnullaloquitur.com.

Restraining Police Use of Lethal Force and the Moral Problem of Militarization

I defend the view that a significant ethical distinction can be made between justified killing in self-defense and police use of lethal force. I start by opposing the belief that police use of lethal force is morally justified on the basis of self-defense. Then I demonstrate that the state’s monopoly on the use of force within a given jurisdiction invests police officers with responsibilities that go beyond what morality requires of the average person. I argue that the police should primarily be concerned with preserving public safety. As a consequence, police have additional moral permissions to use lethal force. But this also means that the principle of restraint is inherent to the policing function and therefore police are obliged to go to greater lengths to avoid killing. I concede that the just use of police force can be made difficult in extreme situations such as a mass riot. In such cases, police should take proportionate actions necessary to protect the lives of inhabitants by restoring order, which might include calling on military support. I conclude with a cautionary note opposing militarization of the policing role.

Occurrence of fatal police violence during pregnancy and hazard of preterm birth in California.

Exposure to fatal police violence may play a role in population-level inequities in risk for preterm delivery. To evaluate whether exposure to fatal police violence during pregnancy affects the hazard of preterm delivery and whether associations differ by race/ethnicity and fetal sex. We leveraged temporal variation in incidents of fatal police violence within census tracts to assess whether occurrence of fatal police violence in a person's tract during pregnancy was associated with increased hazard of extremely (20-27weeks), early (28-31weeks), moderate (32-33weeks), and late (32-36weeks) preterm delivery in California from 2007 to 2015. We used both death records and the Fatal Encounters database to identify incidents of fatal police violence. We estimated hazard ratios (HR) using time-varying Cox proportional hazard models stratified by census tract, controlling for age, race/ethnicity, educational attainment, health insurance type, parity, and the year and season of conception. We further stratified by race/ethnicity and infant sex to evaluate whether there were differential effects by these characteristics. Exposure to an incident of fatal police violence was associated with a small increase in the hazard of late preterm birth using both the death records (N=376,029; hazard ratio [HR] 1.05, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.00, 1.10) and the Fatal Encounters data (N=938,814; HR 1.03, 95% CI 1.00, 1.06). We also observed an association for moderate preterm birth in the Fatal Encounters data (HR 1.06, 95% CI 0.98, 1.15). We did not observe associations for early or extremely preterm birth in either data source. Larger relative hazards of moderate (HR 1.25, 95% CI 0.93, 1.68) and late preterm delivery (HR 1.18, 95% CI 1.05, 1.33) were observed among Black birth parents with female births in the Fatal Encounters data. Preventing police use of lethal force may reduce preterm delivery in communities where such violence occurs.

Another capital punishment: the lethal violence of the Brazilian penal system

A letalidade policial no Brasil tem sido um tema amplamente discutido e investigado, não somente por pesquisadores brasileiros, mas inclusive por órgãos e institutos internacionais. O presente trabalho não pretende revelar as determinações causais deste fenômeno, mas demonstrar como tal prática se configura como uma pena de morte oficializada. Para tanto, o artigo é divido em duas partes, ambas sustentadas por análises comparativas de dados secundários. Na primeira, expõem-se números e características da conduta policial, viabilizando uma apreciação sobre a hipótese do uso excessivo da força letal pela polícia brasileira. Na segunda, ao considerar também o papel do Ministério Público e do Poder Judiciário, a "pena de morte oficializada" é comparada tanto com a pena de morte oficial aplicada em outros países, quanto com a aplicação da pena de prisão no Brasil. De tal forma, conclui-se que a letalidade policial massiva não configura apenas uma prática de assassinatos "extrajudiciais", mas, em realidade, representa a aplicação de uma outra pena de morte na realidade brasileira.

‘It’s not OK to shoot and kill Americans’: families’ perceptions of police use of lethal force in the United States

ABSTRACT This article examines the police use of lethal force against American citizens from the perspective of families affected by these deaths. It is based on qualitative research undertaken with family members who lost loved ones after police contact in the United States. The article examines how organizational practices and cultures are perceived to enable the use of lethal force, and how multiple narratives are employed to legitimize its use in the aftermath of a citizen’s death. It considers how procedural justice might provide a framework that enables an understanding of how these deaths are perceived by sections of US society. Key findings are that families believe police uses lethal force with relative impunity due to an aggressive mindset and a lack of effective regulation. The article further finds that symbolic legitimation strategies reward officers for using lethal force, and denigrate the deceased enabling these deaths to be classified as justified.

Black Lives Matter: Banning Police Lynchings

In the United States, police officers are granted a license to use lethal force and are subsequently exonerated from personal criminal liability for fatal killings, particularly when the victim is an African American. This Article advances the normative claim that the Court’s death penalty jurisprudence, including the “Cruel and Unusual Punishment” Clause of the Eighth Amendment, protects the victims of police homicides. Further, it contends that the police use of lethal force against African Americans constitutes “lynching”—a State-sponsored act of terror that supports systemic racism. Finally, it posits that the Constitution mandates that the police use of lethal force be abolished—a transformative solution to save Black lives and to achieve equal justice.

Five Years after Ferguson: Reflecting on Police Reform and What’s Ahead

Policing in the United States is not the same profession it was before Michael Brown’s death on a street in Ferguson, Missouri, five years ago. Police use of lethal force has become central to the debate triggered by Ferguson. In this article, I review steps taken to implement policing reforms at local, state, and federal levels; note obstacles to reform; and speculate about which proposals advanced by authors in this volume might be implemented by policy-makers at different levels of government. I conclude by suggesting four areas where attention is needed if reform measures are going to be successfully institutionalized, and I comment on current bipartisan attention in Washington to criminal justice that offers the potential for federal action.

Integrating the Literature on Police Use of Deadly Force and Police Lethal Victimization: How Does Place Impact Fatal Police–Citizen Encounters?

Use of lethal force by police officers has incited riots, inspired social movements, and engendered socio-political debate. Police officers also assume a high level of risk during police–citizen encounters. Yet, existing studies tend to center on these two phenomena independently. Additionally, the under-utilization of multilevel research in these areas of inquiry has hampered attempts to empirically disentangle the individual, agency, and contextual correlates of fatal police–citizen encounters. This study integrates the predominantly distinct research bases on these phenomena to examine the contexts in which police use lethal force, relative to the contexts in which officers are killed in the line of duty. Data were compiled on 6416 citizen fatalities and 709 officer fatalities distributed across 1735 agencies and 1506 U.S. places from 2000 to 2016. A series of three-level logistic regression models examined the civilian and officer characteristics, organizational factors, and contextual features that impacted the odds of citizen fatalities by the police relative to police lethal victimization. Findings indicated that structural disadvantage increased the odds of police lethal victimization relative to citizen fatalities by the police. Moreover, this contextual effect was, in part, a product of increased firearm usage by citizens who killed police in more disadvantaged areas. A more complete understanding of fatal police–citizen encounters requires considering police use of lethal force and police lethal victimization concurrently in their broader social contexts.

The Effect of Police Use of Lethal Force on Murder Levels in American Cities Before and After Ferguson

We assess the effects of police use of lethal force on subsequent murders by victim race and armed status before and after the August 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. We regress monthly murder levels on instances of police use of lethal force by race and armed status controlling for fixed effects, population, unemployment, and murders in the prior month using city-level data for 93 cities from 2013 to 2015. For 2013–2015, we find that a police lethal force incident predicts a 1.8% increase in murders 2 months following the incident. However, prior to Ferguson, a police lethal force incident increases murders by 4.5% (after 2 months) and we are unable to find any evidence of differential responses to police use of lethal force based on victim race. However, we find evidence of differential responses to police use of lethal force based on victim armed status. Post-Ferguson, police use of lethal force is associated with significant differential responses based on victim race. In addition, we see a shift in the aggregate-level response to police use of lethal force. Post-Ferguson, a police lethal force incident decreases the murder level by 3.8% 3 months following the incident. In addition, lethal force incident involving a non-black victim decreases the number of murders by 4.3% while an incident involving a black victim increases the number of murders by 2.1% (after a 2-month lag). Changes in policing following the events of Ferguson had a generally positive but uneven effect.

Violence Exposure and Support for State Use of Force in a Non-Democracy

AbstractHow do individuals respond to internal security threats in non-democracies? Does violence make individuals more supportive of a strong state? Are the effects of violence on individual attitudes uniform, or are they heterogeneous with respect to the identity of the perpetrators? We field an online survey experiment on a national sample of Chinese citizens, in which respondents were randomly selected to view reports on violent acts in China. We show that exposure to violence makes individuals more supportive of a strong state: respondents randomly exposed to violence are more likely to approve police use of lethal force, and this effect is particularly strong among the less wealthy Han Chinese. We also find suggestive evidence that individuals exhibit intergroup biases in their reaction to violence.

Race, Structural Predictors, and Police Shootings: Are There Differences Across Official and “Unofficial” Accounts of Lethal Force?

Police shootings have received considerable attention recently. While official data have often been used to capture police use of lethal force, “unofficial” databases have been developed to document lethal force patterns throughout the United States. Thus, it is now possible to systematically compare databases, exploring racial differences and potential causes, which is important given longstanding criticisms of official records. Here, we examine police shootings using Mapping Police Violence and Supplemental Homicide Reports data and investigate the impact of commonly used structural predictors on race-specific police shootings. Significant differences are revealed across official and unofficial databases, particularly by race. We conclude that the data used to estimate police shootings matter, which has key implications for future work on this important topic.

Right to Life: Interest-Convergence Policing

In the United States, police officers fatally shoot over a thousand people every year. Yet, those officers are seldom prosecuted for, and rarely found guilty of, unjustified use of lethal force. This Article contends that the lack of prosecutions results mainly from leading United States Supreme Court decisions that establish the criminal liability standard for police use of lethal force. It also contends that this standard discourages investigation of such incidents, which diminishes the quality of policing. Using empiricism and normative principles, this Article seeks to re-direct the doctrinal approach for assessing the legality of police use of lethal force in non-custodial situations. Through a case study, it analyzes how some police officers used lethal force in an unjustified manner and (nearly) got away with murder. It concludes that a constitutional right to life principle requires the lowering of the criminal liability standard for assessing police shootings and recommends the mandating of federal investigations of all such incidents. Finally, it proposes federal legislation regulating the investigation and prosecution of police officers' use of lethal force and provides the constitutional basis for this proposal.

State violence and the criminalization of race: Epistemic injustice and epistemic resistance as social work practice implications

ABSTRACTIn this article we use the theoretical framework of epistemic injustice to examine different forms of state violence against racially marginalized people. We use the two-decade public debate on the Toronto police practice of “carding,” recent examples of the police use of lethal force, and economic disparity and structural inequity, as entry points to discuss exclusion and the criminalization of race. Finally we discuss how racialized people in Canada resist practices of epistemic injustice, which erode their civil right to safety and justice, by using different forms of epistemic resistance, to claim their knowledge/power/human dignity, while actively working to construct a democratic society.

Understanding Racial Disparities in Police Use of Lethal Force: Lessons from Fatal Police‐on‐Police Shootings

AbstractDuring a 29‐year period studied by a government task force, 10 off‐duty police officers were found to have been mistaken for civilians and fatally shot by another police officer. Eight of these officers were Black, one was Hispanic, and one was White. Given that at least 75% of U.S. police officers in this period were White, we estimate that there is a roughly one in one million chance that this disparity reflects a random deviation from a condition in which Black and White officers faced the same risk of being fatally shot by another officer while off duty. Estimates of the magnitude of this racial disparity must be interpreted cautiously, but the increased risk faced by Black officers while off duty compared to their White counterparts appears to be even larger than the racial disparity among civilians killed by police officers. The disparity is much less pronounced in mistaken‐identity fatal shootings of on‐duty officers, of which two were Black, one was Hispanic, and 12 were White. These incidents are rare, but they comprise an important subset of all police interactions because they are known errors that involve a misperception of threat, and because the differential patterns of racial disparities suggest that there are situational factors that vary systematically and contribute to the observed outcomes. We examine fatal, mistaken identity police‐on‐police shootings and explore potential explanations for the dramatic racial disparity among officers killed while off duty.

Whose Lives Matter: The Media’s Failure to Cover Police Use of Lethal Force Against Native Americans

The August 9, 2014, police shooting of Michael Brown reinvigorated the Black Lives Matter movement and triggered widespread media scrutiny of police use of lethal force against African Americans. Yet, there is another group, Native Americans, whose members have experienced very high levels of fatal encounters with the police, but whose deaths arguably have not generated media attention. In this research, we tracked the numbers of African American and Native American deaths associated with police use of lethal force as well as fatalities in police custody following arrest from May 1, 2014, through the end of October 2016. Then, we examined the extent of mainstream media coverage given to these fatalities in the 10 highest circulation newspapers in the United States. Finally, we considered the reasons for the disparities between the two groups.

Implicit Racial Bias and Police Use of Lethal Force: Justifiable Homicide or Potential Discrimination?

Implicit bias seems to be a universal primitive function of all brains. Police officers have been found to have near universal implicit bias against racial and ethnic minorities. This does not mean that discriminatory behavior (explicit bias) has to inevitably follow. Reports of police use of lethal force have found that African Americans are far more likely to be shot and killed than their numbers in the population would predict. The actual number of individuals killed by police is not certain since the reporting of lethal force by police departments is voluntary. Evidence suggests that appropriate training of police can help reduce any tendency for police officers to exhibit discriminatory lethal violence against African Americans. We recommend the following changes: required reporting of all police shootings and the circumstances surrounding the shootings, counter training for implicit bias for all police officers, organizational policy and legislative reforms for law enforcement, and more diligent prosecution of inappropriate use of lethal force by police officers.

The Influence of Agency Policies on Conducted Energy Device Use and Police Use of Lethal Force

Law enforcement agencies across the United States, partly in response to public outcries over fatalities associated with police use of lethal force, have adopted numerous less lethal technologies, including conducted energy devices (CEDs). Although the device was intended to reduce citizen deaths resulting from police use of force, various human rights groups have linked its usage to increased fatalities. The present study adds to the literature on CEDs by examining (a) the relationship between the restrictiveness of CED-related policies and CED deployments and (b) the relationship between these policies and fatal police shootings. Using data from a nationally representative sample of American law enforcement agencies, this study estimates a series of count regression models to examine the influence of departmental policies on CED usage and fatal shootings by police. Findings illustrate that less restrictive CED policies are associated with increased CED usage and fewer fatal shootings by police. Although design limitations preclude causal arguments, these results suggest that police departments should at least consider adopting more liberal policies regarding the application of this less lethal technology. Future studies on this issue using more rigorous designs are warranted.

Analysis of Fatal Police Shootings

Police use of lethal force occurs rarely and is legally permissible when used appropriately. When police use fatal force, their behavior is highly scrutinized by the legal system and the public. The present study analyzed factors characteristic of 45 coronial investigations of police engagements that culminated in civilian fatalities between 1980 and 2008 in Victoria, Australia. Findings suggest that fatalities commonly occurred at arrest during unplanned police operation, and the majority of incidents were of short duration. The majority of the decedents were armed, acted aggressively, resisted arrest, and escalated the incident. A third of the incidents met the criteria for possible suicide by police. Differences in mental health, incident, and police response characteristics were found between those who met these criteria and those who did not. The findings and their implications for law enforcement, the public, and the mental health system are presented and discussed.