As we have all been witness to recently, the media has splashed their publications with depictions of Male Police Officers Unfairly Depicted In Use of Force Scenarios white male police officers killing unarmed black males. It seems there’s an endless reporting of these tragedies with the inevitable call for reforms in policing.
We’ve seen in the news where the police have explored less lethal weapons to sensitivity training to hiring more minority officers to stem the tide of this perceived white officer on black victim litany of shootings.
Two points came to mind while reading these articles and hearing these discussions. The first was how accurate are the numbers being presented of white officers shooting and killing black males? Although the recent headlines scream of the disproportionate number of these incidents occurring, just how accurate are these numbers? You can read two articles with numbers depicting opposite findings.
Secondly, the same scenario jumps out time and again with white male officers shooting black male victims. How accurate are these rates? Why so few female officers reported. Is there a genuine gender difference to use of force? Along with the consideration of more minorities, should some consideration be given to hiring more females?
First to point one. To be blunt, there is no national tracking of the number of times the police shoot someone. The numbers presented recently are expert opinions only and not based on any reportable data or figures. According to the Washington Post ( How Many Police Shootings? No One Knows) the FBI only requires monthly reports from the local departments for their Uniform Crime Reports.These do not include police use of force or deadly force. Those reports are separate and are voluntary and few departments submit them. In an effort to compile better data, the Department of Justice is still looking into compiling data less based on voluntary reporting and more on mandated reporting. But at this time, no one has any idea the exact number of people killed by police. Even should someone just add up the number reported in the media, those numbers are by no means accurate and are based on the press release given by the departments.
To point two. There are those that would have us believe that the fault lies in the male officer and had there been a female officer present, the use of force may not have been in consideration. The National Center for Women and Policing ( “This Is What You Get When Men Rule Roost”) stated that “…female officers are less authoritarian and use excessive force less often…” They based these findings on several studies done on a local level with various cooperative police departments, but no national compilation was cited since none was ever done, according to the Washington Post article. Locally that may be the case, but nationally it may be a different trend.
Rather than jump to some conclusion based on limited data about police use of force in the US, perhaps the wiser approach would be to support the effort by the Department of Justice to get an accurate statistical picture of police use of force. Painting male white officers as the cause is biased and racist and uncalled for when a remedy is being sought. Blaming males for use of force is just adding to the prejudice already suffered by males in general and specifically in police work. Numbers and hard data are what we need to make decisions not opinion and innuendo.
