All people want the police to be successful and respectful towards themselves and their communities. The policemen and policewomen sacrifice themselves and do so much for the whole society.
But the problem arises when the very small minority of police officers behave inappropriately. That’s when police misconduct appears. And many countries, including the States, have this issue.
That’s why we’ll try to shed a light on it and present to you some shocking facts about police misconduct in the country.
Statistics for Police Misconduct
Number of Killed Americans
According to the website Killed by Police, the numbers of American citizens by police officers will stun everyone. Moreover, in the last three years, more than three thousand Americans have lost their lives as a result of police brutality. To be more exact, in 2017 the number was 1,323. Twenty-five percent of those that died were members of the black community. In 2018, it was 1,311 people. Until now, 446 individuals have died in 2024. It’s estimated that approximately every seven hours, a cop kills a person in the States.
Holding Accountable Police Officers Who Committed Misconduct
The numbers displayed by FiveThirtyEight as well as Killed by Police suggest that there is little accountability when it comes to members of the law enforcement who committed an act of police brutality or misconduct. In 2015, ninety percent of the cases for police misconduct didn’t end with criminal charges. So, police officers who don’t behave and act properly are convicted of a crime in less than one percent of the killings. Just for comparison, this rate is ninety percent for regular citizens.
Police Officer Reports
There are around seventeen thousand agencies for law enforcement. Yet a small number of them keep track of reports regarding police misconduct. There was a general report issued by the Department of Justice in 2001. The statistics it was based on were given willingly. Unfortunately, only around five percent of police departments participated. Anyway, 4,861 reports were accumulated and 6,613 police officers took part in it. Most of the types of misconduct which were reported were filed under ‘other’. A huge part belonged to brutality, followed by sexual assaulting, general misconduct, and others. The Department of Justice also presented that 84% of police officers claimed to be witnesses of colleagues using more force than it was appropriate. And sixty-one percent of them didn’t have the habit of reporting serious abuse done by colleagues.
Wrapping Up
It’s sad to see how such a small number of police officers who don’t do their job properly can do so much damage. When a type of police misconduct happens, one of the first things that victims do is look for an attorney to get some legal advice. For instance, online platforms like USAttorneys.com offers a database of lawyers who specialize this. What do you think about these statistics? Are you maybe aware of some other numbers relevant to the topic of police misconduct? We’d like to take a look at them!
