Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

WH Y WE KNOW SO LITTLE ABOUT POLICE BRUTALITY1be preceding observations provide a framework for understanding police brutality,but tell us almost nothing about its prevalence, its forms, its perpetrators,or its victims. Solid facts and hard numbers are very hard to come by.This dearth of information may say something about how seriously theauthorities take the problem. Until very recently, nobody even botheredto keep track of how often the police use force-at least not as part of anysystematic, national effort. In 1994, Congress decided to require the JusticeDepartment to collect and publish annual statistics on the police use offorce. But this effort has been fraught with difficulty. Unlike the JusticeDepartment's other major data-collection projects-the Uniform CrimeReports provide a useful contrast-the examination of police use of forcehas never received adequate funding, and the reports appear at irregularintervals. Furthermore, the data on which the studies are based are surelyincomplete. Many of the reports rely on local police agencies to supplytheir numbers, and reporting is voluntary. '" Worse, the information, oncecollected and analyzed, is often put to propagandistic uses; its presentationis sometimes heavily skewed to support a law enforcement perspective. Butdespite their many flaws, the Justice Department reports remain one of themost comprehensive sources of information about the police use of force.These reports represent various approaches to the issue. They measurethe use of force as it occurs in different circumstances, such as arrests andtraffic stops. They examine both the level of force used and the frequencywith which it is employed. And some studies collect data from victims aswell as police.Unfortunately, under-reporting handicaps every means of compilingthe data. One report states franklv: "The incidrmrP. nf wrnngfid use of /cree bypolice is unknown .... Current indicators of excessive force are all criticallyflawed."50 The most commonly cited indicators are civilian complaints andlawsuits. But few victims of police abuse feel comfortable complaining to thesame department under which they suffered the abuse, and lawyers usuallyonly want cases that will win-in other words, cases where the evidence isclear and the harm substantiaPl Many people fail to make a complaint ofany kind, either because they would like to put the unpleasant experiencebehind them, because they fear retaliation, because they suspect that nothingcan be done, or because they feel they will not be believed.52 Hence,measures that depend on victim reporting are likely to represent only asmall fraction of the overall incidence of brutality.According to a 1999 Justice Department survey, 'The vast majority (91. 9percent) of the persons involved in use of force incidents said the police actedimproperly .... Although the majority of persons with force [used against them]felt the police acted improperly, less than 20 percent of these people ... saidthey took formal action such as filing a complaint or lawsuit. . .. "53 Naturally,the victim is not always the best judge as to whether force was excessive, butin some cases, he may be the only source willing to admit that force was usedat all. This provides another reason to separate questions concerning thelegitimacy of violence from those concerning its prevalence.12