American police kill civilians at incredibly high rates.
Compared to police in other wealthy democracies (Australia, Britain, Germany, Japan, etc.) American police kill civilians at incredibly high rates {https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/)
- In 2019 in the US 1,099 civilians were killed (that's 33.5/10 million)
- In 2019 in Australia, 21 civilians were killed (that's 9.8/10 million)
- In 2019 in Germany, 11 civilians were killed (that's 1.3/10 million)
- In 2019 in England and Wales, 3 civilians were killed (that's .5/10 million)
- In 2019 in Japan, 39 civilians were killed (that's 9.8/10 million)
People of color are killed disproportionately often by police. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ )
The rate at which Black Americans are killed by police is more than twice as high as the rate for white Americans even though they account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population. White people are killed by police at the rate of 15/million, Hispanic people at the rate of 28/million, and Black people at the rate of 37/million.
Nationwide, only 5% of all arrests made in 2018 involved alleged violent crimes and only 4% of what police spend their time doing overall involves enforcing violent crime (homicide, robbery, rape, and aggravated assault).
The majority of arrests that police make annually are for low-level, non-violent activities in encounters that often escalate to deadly force. For example, in 2014, police killed at least 287 people who were involved in minor offenses and harmless activities (drug possession, homelessness, mental illness). In many cases healthcare professionals and social workers are better equipped than the police to handle these issues.
https://www.campaignzero.org/solutions#brokenwindows
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/upshot/unrest-police-time-violent-crime.html
Police union contracts block accountability
Research has established that police unions, and the police union contracts and laws they’ve worked to enact, are associated with higher rates of police violence and lower levels of police accountability. Fewer than 1 in every 12 complaints of police misconduct nationwide results in some kind of disciplinary action against the officer(s) responsible, due in some part to unfair protections for police officers in their contracts and in statewide Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights. These provisions make it difficult for Police Chiefs or civilian oversight structures to punish police officers who are unfit to serve.
https://nixthe6.org/research