Transactional Encounters, Crisis‐Driven Reform, and the Potential for a National Police Deadly Force Database

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12180
• Date: 01 February 2016
• Published date: 01 February 2016
• Author: Michael D. White

POLICY ESSAY

MICRO-ECOLOGY OF DEADLY FORCE

Transactional Encounters, Crisis-Driven

Reform, and the Potential for a National

Police Deadly Force Database

Michael D. White

Arizona State University

“Recommendation 4.5: The Federal Bureau of Investigationshould be directed

to collect, compile and make available publicly statistics and information re-

garding assaults on and shootings of civilians by police. These data should be

reported and analyzed by city, circumstances, and characteristics of the parties

involved.” (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1981)

“In the absence of an authoritative national repository for data at least on fatal

encounters between police and those they attempt to arrest, the unfortunate

reality . . . is that public policymakers do not even know . . . whether homi-

cides by American police have gone up or down since the mid-1980s.” (Geller

and Scott, 1992: 49)

“We still live in a society in which the best data on police use of force come to

us not from the government or from scholars, but from the Washington Post.”

(Fyfe, 2002: 99)

“2.2.4 Action Item: Policies on use of force should also require agencies to

collect, maintain, and report data to the Federal Government on all officer-

involved shootings, whether fatal or nonfatal, as well as any in-custody death.”

(President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, 2015: 21)

Klinger, Rosenfeld, Isom, and Deckard (2016, this issue) have conducted an im-

portant study that has significantly advanced our understanding of police use of

deadly force and the factors that influence it. Their study has produced intriguing

The author would like to thank Robert Kane, Sam Walker, and Natalie Todak for their comments on an earlier

draft of this policy essay. Direct correspondence to Michael D. White, School of Criminology and Criminal

Justice, Arizona State University, 411 N Central Ave, Suite 600, mail code 4420, Phoenix, AZ 85004-0685

(e-mail: mdwhite1@asu.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12180 C2015 American Society of Criminology 223

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume15 rIssue 1