Bureau of Justice Statistics research indicates that
up to 10% of the people who have contact with the police feel they have been
mistreated. Furthermore, up to 83% of
people who had force used on them by police; felt the force used was excessive. Noteworthy however, is this - of the people
who reported feeling mistreated by the police, only 13% filed a complaint and
only 1% filed a lawsuit.
While an individual's experience is not necessarily objectively correct - these
statistics are potentially very insightful.
One can see pressure and resentment mounting on a day-to-day basis. At the same time,
the vast majority of the people apparently have so little trust in the system
that they make no formal complaint. However we know they talk, blog and write comments on public forums regarding police
stories in the media. This animosity continues to
build until an event releases the pressure and explodes into open
hostility.
It is common to deal with the explosion and act as if “these people” are unreasonable and
ignorant. However, that belief does not make the associated costs go away. One police chief recently
commented that the overtime alone for the recent unrest was over $600,000, but
that cost pales in comparison to the “international black eye” suffered by a
city that depends upon tourism – defending a $20 million law suit and potential
results of an FBI probe.
Some agencies are beginning to see the folly of remaining on the well worn path of simply dealing with what goes wrong. Does yours?
MATTHEW R. DUROSE ET AL., BUREAU
OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE,
CONTACTS BETWEEN POLICE AND THE
PUBLIC: FINDINGS FROM THE 2002 NATIONAL SURVEY, at v (2005)
Joanna C. Schwartz. What Police
Learn From Law Suits. Cardozo Law Review. 2012, Volume 33:3
No comments:
Post a Comment