In his inaugural address, President Donald Trump pledged to stop the “American carnage” he believed was wracking the country. He might start with America’s police officers, who kill far more people than their counterparts in the rest of the developed world.
In 2015, The Guardian found that 55 people had been killed by police in the U.K. between 1990 and 2014. But American cops, the report found, had killed more people than that in just the first month of 2015.
Then in March, American police killed more people than police in Britain did during the entire 20th century.
Comparing the number of killings by cops in the U.S. to those in other developed nations, a grim picture emerges:
•Icelandic police officers have killed one person since the nation was founded in 1944
•Between 2010 and 2011, German police officers killed just 15 people
•Between 1992 and 2011, Australian police officers killed 94 people
•In Canada, an average of 25 fatal police shootings occur annually
And the list goes on. In Scandinavia, New Zealand, Belgium, and the rest of the developed world, the number of citizens killed by police rarely approaches 100 people per year. Even adjusted for population, American cops kill at alarming rates. The number of people killed by police probably hovers around 1,000 people per year.
“Probably” because a lack of official data makes it hard to say precisely how many people are killed by cops. Addressing the House of Representatives in 2015, FBI director James Comey said:
“We can’t have an informed discussion, because we don’t have data.”
“People have data about who went to a movie last weekend, or how many books were sold, or how many cases of the flu walked into an emergency room. And I cannot tell you how many people were shot by police in the United States last month, last year, or anything about the demographics. And that’s a very bad place to be.”
So why are exchanges with police so deadly in the U.S.? Paul Hirschfield, a sociologist at Rutgers University, argues that two major factors contribute to America’s high rate of police violence.
First, widespread gun ownership has ignited a kind of arms race between cops and “bad guys.” Police officers expect that everyone they encounter is armed, which predisposes them toward resorting to lethal force – even when the individuals they’re interacting with are unarmed.
In the rest of the developed world, however, gun laws are strict, and rates of firearm ownership are far lower. Both cops and citizens rightfully feel safer.
Second, the local character of police departments means that each department hires, trains, and disciplines its officers according to different criteria. Underfunded departments – especially those in rural areas – may not have enough money to train their officers properly in de-escalation techniques or less-lethal alternatives like Tasers.
European police forces, by contrast, are operated almost entirely at the state or federal level. Hiring, discipline, and training follow a common set of protocols based on the European Convention on Human Rights. When problems are identified, these centralized police forces can respond swiftly to adopt new standards.
American police would do well to learn from those in other developed nations. Unfortunately, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has expressed disinterest in continuing the Obama-era oversight of troubled police departments. That means that any chance for serious police reform here in the U.S. will have to wait until the current administration is out of office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ4ONSE1zAg&t=53s
Featured image via YouTube video.
