Conflict Analysis: U.S. Police Forces
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Politics and Activism

Conflict Analysis: U.S. Police Forces

Methods of curtailing deadly force.

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Conflict Analysis: U.S. Police Forces
Petr Kratochvil

In 2012, police officers in Britain fired a weapon a single time. In 2013, that number was jumped to a whopping three times. In the entire recorded history of British police force encounters from the 1900's to the present, there has been a total of 1,433 deaths according to the Inquest, an NGO dedicated to the analysis of police encounters in the UK. In the United States, statistics are difficult to acquire however, the FBI recorded 410 civilians killed by the police justifiably in 2012. That's nearly a third of the total British deaths of 116 years in a single year. To make matters worse, police agencies in the US aren't required to report to the FBI, data collection is voluntary and does not include non-justified police killing. Even accounting for differences in population size, the US police forces are overwhelmingly willing to use deadly force than other developed countries. In 2014, USA TODAY reported that a congressional panel discussed potentially tracking civilians deaths by the police. Nothing came of their efforts.

The question remains, why are so many incidents occurring in the US and not in other developed first world countries. According to Channel 4 news, a British news agency, the British police force is very different from other developed countries in regards to how they handle guns and policing in general. Typical British police officers are armed with night sticks, which are a type of club, instead of guns. Police officers must go through rigorous additional training to handle a taser, which is gaining in popularity among British forces, and even more training for handling firearms. Once police are deployed to a situation, the use of such lethal and non-lethal weapons are determined by a senior officer, not a first responder. Policing, in general, appears to follow a different set of priorities in Britain than in the US. For instance, patrol vehicles in Britain are vibrantly colored and stationed in clear view as a check on the general populace and to provide reassurance. In the United States, police stationed on the road are more likely to be hidden in alcoves and generally perceived as a punishment for behavior rather than a safety net.

The United States has a much larger population which brings in inherently different issues. Drug trafficking is a major problem in the United States as well as illegal immigration and gang violence. Gun laws are extremely lax in comparison to Europe, and the increasingly potent weapons landing in civilian hands has lead to the rapid increase in firepower for police forces. British police forces maintain order in a population around 62 million, the US police force has to contend with a population size over 300 million. Many of the civilian casualties in the US are due to officers "fearing for their safety." According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, an organization devoted to the recording of police officers wounded and killed in the line of duty, there are on average 151 officers killed each year from encounters with criminals. Officer safety is a very real argument for the use of force according to the data however, there is very little transparency in regards to allegations of the abuse of deadly force. In recent years, the US police force has seen a drastic decrease in police deaths. So much so that the Bureau of Labor no longer includes law enforcement in the top ten deadliest jobs in the US. On the job police related deaths account for 2 percent of the total work related deaths, of that two percent 30% are due to homicide. The leading cause of death is traffic related fatalities.

Law enforcement is a thankless, difficult endeavor where police officers daily risk their lives for the safety of others. The recent outcry over the violent actions of US police forces stem primarily from a lack of transparency on the issues and a lack of reform from within law enforcement institutions. As long as statistics and verifiable data continues to remain illusive, there is little police can do to calm the outrage caused by violent actions of a few police officers. That being said, there are entirely too many incidents of deadly force in the field. Law enforcement institutions have the difficult task of policing over 300 million people. Perhaps somewhere along the line, less qualified individuals were admitted to law enforcement by necessity of sheer demand. German police officers have maintained order in a society flooded with refugees and Turkish immigrants for many years without the use of deadly force, it might be time to look abroad to other law enforcement institutions in order to improve the United States police force with the end goal of improving the safety of both civilians and officers alike.


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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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