These reports represent various approaches to the issue. They measure the use of force as it occurs in different circumstances, such as arrests and traffic stops. They examine both the level of force used and the frequency with which it is employed. And some studies collect data from victims as well as police.
Unfortunately, under-reporting handicaps every means of compiling the data. One report states frankly: “The incidence of wrongful use of force by police is unknown.… Current indicators of excessive force are all critically flawed.”45 The most commonly cited indicators are civilian complaints and lawsuits. But few victims of police abuse feel comfortable complaining to the same department under which they suffered the abuse, and lawyers usually only want cases that will win—in other words, cases where the evidence is clear and the harm substantial.46 Many people fail to make a complaint of any kind, either because they would like to put the unpleasant experience behind them, because they fear retaliation, because they suspect that nothing can be done, or because they feel they will not be believed.47 One survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that “less than 5% of persons who believed the police had not behaved properly filed a complaint.”48 Hence, measures that depend on victim reporting are likely to represent only a small fraction of the overall incidence of brutality.
Naturally, the victim is not always the best judge as to whether force was excessive, but in some cases, he or she may be the only source willing to admit that force was used at all. This fact provides another reason to separate questions concerning the legitimacy of violence from those concerning its prevalence. One report notes:
The difficulties in measuring excessive and illegal force with complaint and lawsuit records have led academics and practitioners to redirect their attention to all use-of-force incidents. The focus then becomes one of minimizing all instances of police use of force, without undue concern as to whether force was excessive. From this perspective, other records, such as use-of-force reports, arrest records, injury reports, and medical records, become relevant to measuring the incidence of the problem.49
Of course, these indicators also have their shortcomings. Arrest records, medical records, and the like will surely reveal uses of violence that have not resulted in lawsuits or formal complaints. But they will still underestimate the overall incidence of force, since not every case will be accurately recorded. For example, attempts to assess the prevalence of force based on arrest reports leave out those cases where force was used but no arrest was made.50 Like the victims (though for very different reasons), the perpetrators of police violence are also likely to under-report its occurrence. And they are likely to understate the level of force used and the seriousness of resultant injuries when they do report it.51 Individual medical records, meanwhile, are not generally available for examination, except when presented as evidence in a complaint hearing or civil trial. And even if emergency rooms were to maintain statistics on police-related injuries, many victims of violence, especially the uninsured, do not seek treatment except for the most serious of injuries.
Other indicators, such as media reports and direct observation, are similarly flawed. The media, of course, can only report on events if they know about them. Furthermore, they are unlikely to report on routine uses of force because it is routine.52 Direct observation is limited by the obvious fact that no one can observe everything, everywhere, all the time. And observation can lead a subject (either the officer or the suspect) to change his behavior while he is being observed. In humanitarian terms, such deterrence is all for the good, but it doesn’t do much for the systematic study of police activity or the measurement of police violence.
The sad fact is that nobody knows very much about the police use of force, much less about the use of excessive force. Its prevalence, frequency, and distribution remain, for the most part, unmeasured; and there is only limited information available concerning its perpetrators, victims, forms, and causes. Nevertheless, some information is available through the sources mentioned above. And, imperfect though they are, the statistics they produce may point to a reliable baseline, an estimated minimum to which we can refer with a fair amount of certainty. With that aim in mind, and with more than a little trepidation, we should turn our attention to the data that is available, and consider what it indicates.53
A Look at the Numbers
According to a Justice Department survey, 19 percent of American adults (43.5 million people) had direct face-to-face contact with the police in 2005. Of those surveyed, 1.6 percent reported the use of force or its threat. In other words, out of every hundred people the police come into contact with, they will threaten or hurt one or two of them. The rate is much higher for Blacks (4.4 percent) and Hispanics (2.3 percent) than for Whites (1.2 percent). The vast majority of the victims (83 percent) characterized the force as excessive.54
“One and a half percent” is a polite way of saying “nearly a million.” An estimated 991,930 people experienced some level of force (including threats); more than half—55 percent, or 546,000 people—were subject to physical force.55 That latter group, if we got them all together, would make for a fair-sized city, larger than Portland, Oregon (population 537,081).56 And when you orient yourself to the fact that this city could be reproduced every year, you start to get some picture of how common police violence really is.
Also in 2005, there were 57,546 officers assaulted in the course of their work, the equivalent of 11.9 assaults per hundred officers. Most involved unarmed assailants (80 percent) and resulted in no injuries (77 percent).57 Comparing the numbers, we find that the police use violence (546,000 times in 2005) nine times as often as they face it (57,546 times that year).
There is a similar imbalance when it comes to fatalities. A study covering the years 2003–2005 found that 380 police died on duty during that time. Only 159 of these deaths were homicides, and 221 were the result of accidents. During the same period, 1,095 people were killed by police and other officials in the process of arrest. That averages 365 each year, or one a day.58 If we do the math, we see that the police kill almost seven times as often as they are killed. The fact is, the police produce far more casualties than they suffer.
The available studies tell us very little about the prevalence of excessive force, but they do indicate that the police use violence more often, at higher levels, and with deadlier effects, than they encounter it. This disparity should not be surprising, considering the nature of policing—the imperative to maintain control at all times, in every situation (hardly a realistic goal), the training to use escalating levels of force to gain compliance, and authority unhindered by genuine oversight. Policing, as I said earlier, is inherently violent; this violence, generally speaking, seems to be of an offensive—rather than defensive—character.
Explaining Away the Abuse
In Uprooting Racism, Paul Kivel makes a useful comparison between the rhetoric abusive men employ to justify beating up their girlfriends, wives, or children and the publicly traded justifications for widespread racism. He writes:
During the first few years that I worked with men who are violent I was continually perplexed by their inability to see the effects of their actions and their ability to deny the violence they had done to their partners or children. I only slowly became aware of the complex set of tactics that men use to make violence against women invisible and to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. These tactics are listed below in the rough order that men employ them.…
(1) Denial: “I didn’t hit her.”
(2) Minimization: “It was only a slap.”
(3) Blame: “She asked for it.”
(4) Redefinition: “It was mutual combat.”
(5) Unintentionality: “Things got out of hand.”
(6) It’s over now: “I’ll never do it again.”
(7) It’s only a