5 Things You Should Know About Policing In America

Use of Force is Relatively Rare, but Bias Exists

It is a common stereotype that police use force very often in their duties. When examining the facts however, this is not true. Both the use of force, and threats of force are quite rare. Out of all police contacts, only 1.4% result in any force or threat. Additionally, the more severe the force, the rarer it is. Soft hands and verbal threats make up the majority of use of force cases.

In regards to racial bias in use of force, like most subjects in policing, the data is mixed. There is, without a doubt, a racial disparity in the use of force. This is however, at least partially, due to disparities in who commits crime. To some, this accounts for all of the disparity in use of force. The reality is a bit more complicated.

According to a Harvard study, there was unaccountable disparity in low level force (such as soft hands) between races. This means that there is a strong possibility of racial bias. The higher the force however, the lower the disparity. The study even alleges that white suspects are disproportionately shot. When looking at this data we see that the issues of police bias in force is often more complicated than presented by either side of the issue.