Violent Police-Citizen Encounters: An Analysis of Major News

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Discussion and Conclusions

Our data suggest that police brutality is a national problem. The major newspapers we examined from January 1, 1990 to May 31, 1992 reported 130 detailed and important cases in 15 different states. Significantly, the nation’s leaders do not seem to be willing to face these facts. The early 1990s report prepared by the Justice Department, the only nationwide review of police brutality, has not been released in any detail. While our data have some flaws, they are among the best available at this time.

The Kerner Commission report, which was prepared more than two decades ago, stated that to earn respect, police officers and the courts must administer justice in a way that is free from discrimination or prejudice. Unfortunately, the findings of our study suggest that street-level justice still is not administered in a color-blind fashion. Minority citizens accounted for the vast majority of those who were abused in a serious manner by (mostly white) police officers. These findings suggest that some serious racial discrimination exists in the application of U.S. law enforcement in the 1990s.

Our analysis uncovered several interesting findings. One was the possible existence of a "ladder of dominance" among the racial groups. In terms of who gets targeted, whites were found to be the least likely, then the Latinos, and finally the blacks. In addition, there is a similar pattern for the officers. In the few cases involving allegations against black officers, the citizens were all black. For the few cases of Latino officers, the complainants were either black or Latino, not white. Only in the case of white officers were the complainants from all three groups. This finding held true for both male and (the few) female officers. This pattern suggests that officers may only assault those whom they view as members of an equal or inferior racial group. However, before a definite conclusion can be drawn, more cases involving minority police officers would need to be analyzed. Our finding here is only suggestive.

Another interesting finding is the relative lack of penalties given to the officers involved in violent altercations with citizens. Even though the percentage of officers who were penalized in this analysis was somewhat higher than other reported statistics, in this analysis only 13 percent of the officers received some sort of penalty for their alleged involvement in assaults against citizens. Further, in only 3 percent of the cases was the officer ultimately relieved of duty. If harsher penalties were applied, perhaps the rate of police brutality against citizens would decline. We can also recall that the Los Angeles Times study found that black officers were twice as likely as their white peers to be found guilty of misconduct. If the complainant was white, the substantiation rate for black officers was twice that for white officers, while Latino officers were penalized three times more often. It would be interesting to see if this finding could be replicated on a national scale, perhaps controlling for offense of the officer and other important considerations.

Some might suggest that the higher violent crime rates of black Americans might be one reason for the higher rate of police violence against black Americans, especially black men. The idea is that violent criminals are more threatening and thus more likely to provoke police violence. Thus, according to 1992 Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics, black citizens accounted for 45 percent of the total number of arrests for violent offenses (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1993). Mutalia (1982) found that black citizens accounted for 60 percent of those who died in 1,428 justifiable shootings by police officers from 1975 to 1979. According to Mutalia, the disproportionate rate of black victims who were fatally shot by the police was in direct proportion to the level of crime committed by black citizens. However, the data suggest that this proportion is much higher than the arrest-for-violent-crime rate.

Our data suggest some serious problems with this argument. The proportion of black citizens who are victims of police brutality is higher (86.9 percent) than the rate reported for their involvement in violent criminal activity that resulted in arrest (45 percent). Furthermore, as the examination of situational characteristics demonstrates, African American citizens do not have to be involved in the commission of a crime to be victimized: having a disrespectful attitude towards the officer, being involved in a routine traffic stop, or just resembling a violent criminal could very well make an otherwise law-abiding citizen become a target for abuse. In nearly 75 percent of the cases, the victim was not recognized by the officer at the scene as being a direct threat to the officer or other citizens.

In our data more minority citizens were assaulted for lack of compliance/respect to an officer than for posing a serious threat to the officer or another civilian. It is significant that all the victims of abuse in these circumstances of "disrespect" were black or Latino. According to the earlier Kerner Commission report (1968), a criminal justice system cannot function effectively unless it receives the respect of the people it serves. However, by the same token, the criminal justice system must prove itself deserving of respect before the people will defer to it or its agents. Acts of brutality do not instill respect, only resentment and fear.

In the categories in which the officers’ behavior was more proactive in nature, the social class of the victim seemed to have some relation with the assault. Pro-active cases included the traffic stop and mistaken identity categories. In these incidents, the officer stopped the victim on his or her own accord; the civilian did not come to the officer’s attention as a result of answering an assigned call. In the mistaken identity incidents, the officer stopped the citizen because he or she resembled a bank robber, mugger, or drug dealer that was reportedly loose in the neighborhood. According to the descriptions given in the media, the victims whose assault stemmed from a case of mistaken identity were of middle or upper class status. Further, half of those assaulted as a result of an incident related to traffic were of middle or upper class: college students, a former Los Angeles Lakers star, a former police liaison officer, and a successful entrepreneur. In situation where the civilians were indeed of middle or upper status and victims of pro-active enforcement by police officers, the victims were all black. These data suggest that these African Americans may have come to the attention of the police because of their "violation" of the white image of their racial group, that is, they were not lower-class blacks. The middle and upper class status of these black individuals may have indicated to the officers that the victims possessed wealth and resources that rightfully belonged to whites like themselves.

James Q. Wilson (1968) has argued that the class of the victim is more important than race as a determinant of police mistreatment. In his view race only accentuates the brutality. However, our data seem to contradict this argument. If Wilson were correct, more lower-class whites should be the victims of police brutality, and reports of police abuse against higher- class blacks should not be so common.

Finally, in our view the cost to the taxpayer of the misconduct of police officers needs to be addressed at the level of public policy. In reviewing cases for this analysis, we found that since 1989 taxpayers have paid out at least $134 million in awards to citizens alleging police brutality, with another $116 million in lawsuit awards pending. These costs did not include legal fees, which in many cases can be substantial. In the County of Los Angeles alone, $20 million had been paid to citizens alleging police brutality since 1989; this figure does not include $34 million in litigations fees in the same time period. Since only 22 different cities were found to report costs associated with lawsuits alleging police misconduct, the actual nationwide figure is certainly much higher. The costs of police brutality are not simply the scars on the minority victims, which are the most serious, but also the high costs for local governments in the United States.

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Notes:

1. The number of incidents reported by state were: Alabama (1), California (35), Connecticut (3), Florida (1), Georgia (1), Illinois (7), Louisiana (1), Maryland (2), Massachusetts (7), New Jersey (1), New York (52), Tennessee (1), Texas (4), Virginia (2), Washington (6), Washington, D.C. (4).

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