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When Police Kill
Deaths of civilians at the hands of on-duty police are in the national spotlight as never before. How many killings by police occur annually? What circumstances provoke police to shoot to kill? Who dies? The lack of answers to these basic questions points to a crisis in American government that urgently requires the attention of policy experts. When Police Kill is a groundbreaking analysis of the use of lethal force by police in the United States and how its death toll can be reduced.
Franklin Zimring compiles data from federal records, crowdsourced research, and investigative journalism to provide a comprehensive, fact-based picture of how, when, where, and why police resort to deadly force. Of the 1,100 killings by police in the United States in 2015, he shows, 85 percent were fatal shootings and 95 percent of victims were male. The death rates for African Americans and Native Americans are twice their share of the population.
Civilian deaths from shootings and other police actions are vastly higher in the United States than in other developed nations, but American police also confront an unusually high risk of fatal assault. Zimring offers policy prescriptions for how federal, state, and local governments can reduce killings by police without risking the lives of officers. Criminal prosecution of police officers involved in killings is rare and only necessary in extreme cases. But clear administrative rules could save hundreds of lives without endangering police officers.
Franklin Zimring compiles data from federal records, crowdsourced research, and investigative journalism to provide a comprehensive, fact-based picture of how, when, where, and why police resort to deadly force. Of the 1,100 killings by police in the United States in 2015, he shows, 85 percent were fatal shootings and 95 percent of victims were male. The death rates for African Americans and Native Americans are twice their share of the population.
Civilian deaths from shootings and other police actions are vastly higher in the United States than in other developed nations, but American police also confront an unusually high risk of fatal assault. Zimring offers policy prescriptions for how federal, state, and local governments can reduce killings by police without risking the lives of officers. Criminal prosecution of police officers involved in killings is rare and only necessary in extreme cases. But clear administrative rules could save hundreds of lives without endangering police officers.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published February 20, 2017
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775 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 3, 2017
3.5. This is nonfiction written for academics and policy makers--it doesn't read as a "popular" nonfiction book. Given that, I was surprised at how quickly I got through it. The data--and it is all about the data--was compelling, and the writing lucid.
April 20, 2017
When Police Kill is an important, groundbreaking book by Franklin E. Zimring. It is an absolutely necessary book that addresses the data shortcomings that will frustrate any attempt to address the incomparably high rate of killings of civilians by police in the United States, the relative impunity with which police kill civilians, and the negligible and ineffective efforts to curb the frequency of those killings. It is also a rigorously academic book steeped in statistics and careful, painstaking analysis–a necessary attribute when the subject is so highly charged and fraught with conflict.
Of course, one reason this is such a fraught topic is that uncontested data is simply not available. Data collection is haphazard and no local, country or state law enforcement agencies are compelled to report killings to the federal government. Without compulsory reporting, it’s not surprising that those places that do collect this data vastly undercount police killings by half. After Ferguson, when the media realized the federal government did not track this data accurately, the Washington Post and the Guardian both collected their own database based on news reports of police killings. Even there count may undercount killings as many local and regional papers do not report anything more controversial than the winner of the annual betting pool to pick the day a junker car falls through the ice at the local lake. Nonetheless, it’s clear by their data that there are a minimum of 1000 people killed by police each year–more than three per day. When other countries have two or three or five, you can see how wildly disproportionate police killings are in the United States.
Zimring looks at what factors are most common in situations when police kill, things like how many police are on the scene, how many shots were fired, what rationale for killing was used. Surprisingly, since the public often believes police kill to protect the public, only 2.7% of police killings happened to protect others. They were overwhelmingly cases where the police cited fear for their own safety, though whether that fear is reasonable is what is often the heart of heated public debate.
Zimring, to be fair, looks at how often police are killed by the public as well. He notes that the number of police killed has gone down dramatically, less than a quarter of what there used to be, but there has been no comparable decrease in police killing civilians. Police are measurable and objectively safer, but seem to be subjectively in just as much jeopardy. Zimring attributes much of that to so much of police training and standards being based on non-peer reviewed and never-tested standards such as the 21-foot rule that says never let someone with a knife within 21 feet. It’s a made up rule, taken as gospel, and used to justify several killings ever year and never tested. Police training and practice guidelines are rife with this sort of tradition that has never been empirically tested.
Zimring looks at every aspect of police killings, from the number, the situational attributes, costs and post-shooting accountability and then offers several reform suggestions that make a lot of sense. Most particularly, he advocates an end to local jurisdictional investigation and prosecution (if there is prosecution) in police killings, pointing to the conflicts of interest that inherently govern local investigations. He suggests there be three police-specific federal crimes, voluntary manslaughter with appropriate mitigating or aggravating circumstances, excessive use of deadly force, and knowingly obstructing a deadly force investigation, a way of finding accountability for those officers who are complicit in covering up wrongful deaths with false statements and so on. He does not, however, think criminal prosecution of police will ever do much to reduce police killings. Instead, he argues that the most effective way to stop police from killing people is for the local chief of police or sheriff to tell them to stop killing people.
Police departments should have use of force guidelines and many are too lax, allowing inappropriate use of force that result in the deaths of civilians. Could it really be so simple?
In When Police Kill, Zimring is taking on one of the most hotly contested and irrationally polarized conflicts in American polity? How is it that the party of anti-government distrust and dislike who fears government suggesting what kind of health insurance benefits you should have is perfectly okay with government employees shooting people with impunity? On the other hand, how is it that the party that wants to reduce the flood of handguns in the hands of untrained, unlicensed civilians does not realize that the flood of guns exacerbates the fears of police officers? Some, not all, of their fear is justified by the rampant availability of guns.
Zimring is scrupulously careful to avoid hyperbole or to move into polemic. I suppose that is a good thing since his goal is to influence policy and the people who must be influenced are the chiefs of police, the country sheriffs, and those in police departments who write use of force policies. However, that does make this a very dry book that requires effort to keep reading. The scrupulous consideration of data and the multiplicity of charts to examine data from multiple lenses can be mind-numbing. Yet, it is that stern discipline that in the end gives his analysis authority.
This is not an easy book. Sometimes it slows down to agonizing specificity and drowns you in details, but the point of this book is not to entertain. The idea is abhorrent. This is a book dedicated to finding the facts and it succeeds. The second purpose is to recommend policies and reforms that would reduce the number of killings by police without endangering police. It succeeds. There is another, unspoken, goal, treading the thin border between advocating for greater accountability for police who kill and not alienating the people whose active participation is required to make change. I do not know how well he threads that needle, since many in law enforcement are hostile to any accountability at all, but he made a serious effort.
If you are interested in police reform, knowing the facts is important–particularly when they are much worse than we thought. Knowing what kinds of reform have the greatest impact, where reform is most possible, and recognizing the institutional barriers to accountability are all important. I think this is a must read for anyone interested in police reform.
http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpres...
Of course, one reason this is such a fraught topic is that uncontested data is simply not available. Data collection is haphazard and no local, country or state law enforcement agencies are compelled to report killings to the federal government. Without compulsory reporting, it’s not surprising that those places that do collect this data vastly undercount police killings by half. After Ferguson, when the media realized the federal government did not track this data accurately, the Washington Post and the Guardian both collected their own database based on news reports of police killings. Even there count may undercount killings as many local and regional papers do not report anything more controversial than the winner of the annual betting pool to pick the day a junker car falls through the ice at the local lake. Nonetheless, it’s clear by their data that there are a minimum of 1000 people killed by police each year–more than three per day. When other countries have two or three or five, you can see how wildly disproportionate police killings are in the United States.
Zimring looks at what factors are most common in situations when police kill, things like how many police are on the scene, how many shots were fired, what rationale for killing was used. Surprisingly, since the public often believes police kill to protect the public, only 2.7% of police killings happened to protect others. They were overwhelmingly cases where the police cited fear for their own safety, though whether that fear is reasonable is what is often the heart of heated public debate.
Zimring, to be fair, looks at how often police are killed by the public as well. He notes that the number of police killed has gone down dramatically, less than a quarter of what there used to be, but there has been no comparable decrease in police killing civilians. Police are measurable and objectively safer, but seem to be subjectively in just as much jeopardy. Zimring attributes much of that to so much of police training and standards being based on non-peer reviewed and never-tested standards such as the 21-foot rule that says never let someone with a knife within 21 feet. It’s a made up rule, taken as gospel, and used to justify several killings ever year and never tested. Police training and practice guidelines are rife with this sort of tradition that has never been empirically tested.
Zimring looks at every aspect of police killings, from the number, the situational attributes, costs and post-shooting accountability and then offers several reform suggestions that make a lot of sense. Most particularly, he advocates an end to local jurisdictional investigation and prosecution (if there is prosecution) in police killings, pointing to the conflicts of interest that inherently govern local investigations. He suggests there be three police-specific federal crimes, voluntary manslaughter with appropriate mitigating or aggravating circumstances, excessive use of deadly force, and knowingly obstructing a deadly force investigation, a way of finding accountability for those officers who are complicit in covering up wrongful deaths with false statements and so on. He does not, however, think criminal prosecution of police will ever do much to reduce police killings. Instead, he argues that the most effective way to stop police from killing people is for the local chief of police or sheriff to tell them to stop killing people.
Police departments should have use of force guidelines and many are too lax, allowing inappropriate use of force that result in the deaths of civilians. Could it really be so simple?
In When Police Kill, Zimring is taking on one of the most hotly contested and irrationally polarized conflicts in American polity? How is it that the party of anti-government distrust and dislike who fears government suggesting what kind of health insurance benefits you should have is perfectly okay with government employees shooting people with impunity? On the other hand, how is it that the party that wants to reduce the flood of handguns in the hands of untrained, unlicensed civilians does not realize that the flood of guns exacerbates the fears of police officers? Some, not all, of their fear is justified by the rampant availability of guns.
Zimring is scrupulously careful to avoid hyperbole or to move into polemic. I suppose that is a good thing since his goal is to influence policy and the people who must be influenced are the chiefs of police, the country sheriffs, and those in police departments who write use of force policies. However, that does make this a very dry book that requires effort to keep reading. The scrupulous consideration of data and the multiplicity of charts to examine data from multiple lenses can be mind-numbing. Yet, it is that stern discipline that in the end gives his analysis authority.
This is not an easy book. Sometimes it slows down to agonizing specificity and drowns you in details, but the point of this book is not to entertain. The idea is abhorrent. This is a book dedicated to finding the facts and it succeeds. The second purpose is to recommend policies and reforms that would reduce the number of killings by police without endangering police. It succeeds. There is another, unspoken, goal, treading the thin border between advocating for greater accountability for police who kill and not alienating the people whose active participation is required to make change. I do not know how well he threads that needle, since many in law enforcement are hostile to any accountability at all, but he made a serious effort.
If you are interested in police reform, knowing the facts is important–particularly when they are much worse than we thought. Knowing what kinds of reform have the greatest impact, where reform is most possible, and recognizing the institutional barriers to accountability are all important. I think this is a must read for anyone interested in police reform.
http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpres...
November 29, 2017
This book is a bit terse and academic,but has a lot of good food for thought. It acknowledges the risk United States police face daily. But the comparisons to other nations are astounding. Why do we have such high incident rates versus England etc? Well done book with some thoughts on how we might reduce the numbers.
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February 1, 2020363.232 Z76 2017
April 17, 2017
This book is probably the first of its kind. It examines the rate of killing of civilians by on duty police officers in the US in the 21st century, spurred by the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO.
The book examines what sorts of statistics are available (very few), the quality of the data (not very good), and makes what comparisons can be made. The prime result derived from few sources and analyses is that the official statistics estimate about 500 killings by police per year in recent years, but the numbers are probably a factor of 2 low. The true rate should be much closer to 1000 killings per year. The book makes strong recommendations about what kind of data keeping needs to be done in the future to get a more accurate view of the number and causes of these killings.
The book examines the death rates of officers and shows that they have decreased substantially since the last part of the 20th century, but the civilian death rate has shown no similar decline. Since fear of injury or death is the main justification for police shootings, the book discusses why the observed rates are not related.
The police fear of being harmed is heavily driven by the number of guns in the hands of the public, particularly hand guns. The lethality of police shootings goes up with the number of wounds inflicted. Yet, it is not clear why multiple shots by multiple officers do not seem to be controlled in modern police departments. Zimring does opine that the person best positioned to affect multiple-shot responses is the local police chief.
I think this book could be the basis for taking small but significant steps towards resolving the tensions between police and civilians and reducing the kill rate of civilians.
The book examines what sorts of statistics are available (very few), the quality of the data (not very good), and makes what comparisons can be made. The prime result derived from few sources and analyses is that the official statistics estimate about 500 killings by police per year in recent years, but the numbers are probably a factor of 2 low. The true rate should be much closer to 1000 killings per year. The book makes strong recommendations about what kind of data keeping needs to be done in the future to get a more accurate view of the number and causes of these killings.
The book examines the death rates of officers and shows that they have decreased substantially since the last part of the 20th century, but the civilian death rate has shown no similar decline. Since fear of injury or death is the main justification for police shootings, the book discusses why the observed rates are not related.
The police fear of being harmed is heavily driven by the number of guns in the hands of the public, particularly hand guns. The lethality of police shootings goes up with the number of wounds inflicted. Yet, it is not clear why multiple shots by multiple officers do not seem to be controlled in modern police departments. Zimring does opine that the person best positioned to affect multiple-shot responses is the local police chief.
I think this book could be the basis for taking small but significant steps towards resolving the tensions between police and civilians and reducing the kill rate of civilians.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews