Is policing safer today?

• Author: Kelle Barrick,Nicholas J. Richardson,Kevin J. Strom
• Date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12418
• Published date: 01 February 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12418

POLICY ESSAY

POLICE OFFICER DEATHS IN THE U.S.

Is policing safer today?

The case for a more comprehensive definition of dangerousness

Nicholas J. Richardson Kelle Barrick Kevin J. Strom

RTI International

Correspondence

NicholasJ. Richardson, RTI International, 3040 E. Cornwallis Rd, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709.

Email:nr ichardson@rti.org

The hazards of policing represent a significant public safety and public health concern. Yet policing

and public health have mainly been observed as separate perspectives by policy makers, researchers,

and the medical profession (Shepherd & Sumner, 2017). The dangers of policing work are well

documented with a decades-long record of scholarly research dedicated to the topic (see, e.g., Barrick,

Strom, & Richardson, 2018; Bierie, 2017; Duhart, 2001; Fridell, Faggiani, Taylor, Brito, & Kubu,

2009; Kaminski, 2002; Kent, 2010; Lester, 1981; Meyer, Magedanz, Dahlin, & Chapman, 1981).

Today, however, American policing is at a crossroads. On the one side, policing leaders and policy

makers are faced with growing concerns about use of force and policing legitimacy and trust, whereas

on the other side, many in the policing field feel under attack, both figuratively and literally.

Many leaders have recognized the need to seek out and implement reform in the policing field to

address unnecessary police use of force and racial discrimination. The final report from the President's

Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015) comprises a framework for steps that should be taken to

promote positive change in American policing. Others have claimed, however, that negative reactions

to law enforcement have resulted in a “de-escalation” among officers, including in a retraction from

more proactive policing activities that could be scrutinized or put the officers into unsafe situations

(Mac Donald, 2015). This phenomenon has been titled the “Ferguson Effect,” but it continues to prove

difficult to define and operationalize within an applied policing setting.

We have long known about the potential consequences of an occupation that puts officers in highly

unpredictable situations where even seemingly ordinary encounters can turn violent. There is also the

reality of brazen, ambush-style murders of law enforcement officers as demonstrated in high-profile

shootings in places such as Dallas and Baton Rouge over the last several years. These types of events

have led some to suggest that there is a “war on cops” and that the rhetoric of some social-justice–

oriented organizations (e.g., Black Lives Matter) are responsible for a perceived uptick in violence

directed toward law enforcement. In fact, the group “Blue Lives Matter” was a counter-group formed

in response to Black Lives Matter in order to spread awareness of a perceived increase in the dangers

of policing. Although policing is inherently a dangerous profession, little is known about how these

hazards have changedover time and more specifically, how the prevalence and characteristicsof officer

line-of-duty deaths, both felonious and nonfelonious, have shifted during the last 50 years.

Criminology & Public Policy. 2019;18:37–45. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2019 American Society of Criminology 37