Law enforcementWhy do American cops kill so many compared to European cops?
Last week, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with the first-degree murder of Laquan McDonald, a 17-year old African American. In October 2014, Van Dyke shot sixteen bullets into McDonald – fifteen of them after McDonald was already lying dying on the pavement. Van Dyke is an extreme example of a pattern of unnecessary deadly force used by U.S. police. Historic rates of fatal police shootings in Europe suggest that American police in 2014 were eighteen times more lethal than Danish police and 100 times more lethal than Finnish police, plus they killed significantly more frequently than police in France, Sweden, and other European countries. Explanations of elevated police lethality in the United States should focus on more than police policy and behavior. The charged encounters that give rise to American deadly force also result from weak gun controls, social and economic deprivation and injustice, inadequate mental health care, and an intense desire on the part of those pursued by the police to avoid harsh imprisonment. Future research should examine not only whether American police behave differently than European police, but also whether more generous, supportive, and therapeutic policies in Europe ensure that fewer people become desperate enough to summon, provoke, or resist their less dangerous police.
Professor Paul Hirschfield // Source: rutgers.edu
Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first degree murder 24 November in the death of Laquan McDonald. A video released by police shows Van Dyke shooting the teenager sixteen times.
Van Dyke is an extreme example of a pattern of unnecessary deadly force used by U.S. police. American police kill a few people each day, making them far more deadly than police in Europe.
Historic rates of fatal police shootings in Europe suggest that American police in 2014 were eighteen times more lethal than Danish police and 100 times more lethal than Finnish police, plus they killed significantly more frequently than police in France, Sweden, and other European countries.
As a scholar of sociology and criminal justice, I recently set out to understand why rates of police lethality in the United States are so much higher than rates in Europe.
More guns and aggression
Such massive disparities defy a simple explanation, but America’s gun culture is clearly an important factor. Unlike European nations, most states make it easy for adults to purchase handguns for self-defense and to keep them handy at nearly all times.
Acquiring guns illegally in the United States is not much harder. About 57 percent of this year’s deadly force victims to date were allegedly armed with actual, toy or replica guns. American police are primed to expect guns. The specter of gun violence may make them prone to misidentifying or magnifying threats like cellphones and screwdrivers. It may make American policing more dangerous and combat-oriented. It also fosters police cultures that emphasize bravery and aggression.
Americans armed with less-lethal weapons like knives — and even those known to be unarmed — are also more likely to be killed by police.
Less-lethal weapon holders make up only about 20percent of deadly force victims in the United States. Yet the rates of these deaths alone exceed total known deadly force rates in any European county.
Knife violence is a big problem in England, yet British police have fatally shot only one person wielding a knife since 2008 — a hostage-taker. By comparison, my calculations based on data compiled by fatalencounters.org and the Washington Post show that U.S. police have fatally shot more than 575 people allegedly wielding blades and other such weapons just in the years since 2013.
