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Hall 1

Nasjah Alexis Hall

CAS 138, Section 003

Professor Ben Henderson

1 April 2018

America is sick (of Police Brutality)

On April 12, 2015, Freddie Gray was arrested for the possession of a switchblade.

Gray died seven days later, on April 19, 2015, from “a severe spinal injury” because the

arresting officers failed to put his seatbelt on (Cox). On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile was

pulled over and shot for reaching for his ID, after previously being asked to by the officer on

site. On August 25, 2017, Johnnie Rush was savagely beaten and arrested for jaywalking. In

these cases and like many other cases of police brutality, there was no justifiable cause for

the cruel and excessive behavior of the police officers on the scene. Police brutality is not a

new disease. No, this disease has been present since the establishment of the first police force

in America. No sufficient justice is being served. The people not only want to see the

conviction of these abusive officers, but they also want to see the eradication of this disease

that is sickening America. The big question is: how can cops be discouraged from utilizing

excessive use of force? More importantly, how can officers be more accountable for their

actions? The most realistic solutions to the problem that the questions pose are to: 1) require

police departments to report the deaths that occur while civilians are in their custody and 2)

severely penalize those who fail to do so.

Briefly examining the history of policing, it is an old profession. The first American

police force was established in Boston in 1838 (Potter). When America saw the benefits of

Boston’s police force, a wave of police forces emerged along the east coast and partially the
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Midwest. Dr. Gary Potter, a professor of Justice Studies, stated that the need for the

establishment of a police force arose from the growth of the urban cities of the States. The

population was increasing, and more people were moving to the Northeast because there

were more job opportunities. “Mob violence, particularly violence directed at immigrants and

African Americans by white youths” began to occur more frequently, and systems of old

were becoming ineffective (Potter). Police officers could no longer function as watchmen. As

officers of the law, their primary job had to shift from controlling the masses and preventing

public disorder onto crime prevention. At the peak of urbanization in the United States, the

consumption of alcohol was illegal because it was believed to be “the major cause of crime

and public disorder” (Potter). As a result of the climbing crime rates and instances of public

disorder, police officers began patrolling in an effort to prevent crime (Potter). In the early

1900s, methods of policing altered because America changed. Today, America is changing

again. Despite those changes, policing strategies are not evolving, but how can police change

if they are not held accountable for their actions? In order to improve policing methods and

lessen instances of police brutality, recordings of arrest-related deaths must become more

precise. In order to increase the precision of this data, a majority of police departments must

participate and file their data.

Admittedly, however, law enforcement has certainly made an effort to improve their

reporting systems. In 2000, the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DIRCA) was implemented.

According to gov.track.us, the DIRCA required that police officers must:

[report to the Attorney General] on a quarterly basis, information regarding the death

of any person who is in the process of arrest, is en route to be incarcerated, or is

incarcerated at any municipal or county jail, State prison, or other local or State
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correctional facility (including any juvenile facility), including: (1) the name, gender,

race, ethnicity, and age of the deceased; (2) the date, time, and location of death; and

(3) a brief description of the circumstances surrounding the death.

The DIRCA made a lot of changes to what the U.S. government deemed valuable to

record and file. It also inspired the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to create the first Arrest-

Related Deaths Program (ARD) in 2003. In the ARD Program, the FBI maintained a

database in which police precincts voluntarily reported both the amount and the details of

police-related deaths that occurred. This was a critical development in the way the federal

government gathered its data because it could make agents of the law, more accountable for

their actions. However, it did have technical issues.

According to a study conducted by the BJS in 2011, “despite demonstrated

improvements in the ARD Program coverage over time, there are still a large number of law

enforcement homicides that go unreported, indicating that the ARD is not a census” (Banks,

et al). In a previous study directed by the BJS in 2010, the BJS acknowledged that this was a

well-known issue. Professionals knew that the first ARD Program had a flawed methodology

of gathering data when looking at the results of 2009’s turnout of 55%. In an attempt to

correct this weakness, the BJS focused more on “open information sources, such as media

stories, to identify arrest-related deaths, rather than relying solely on law enforcement

agencies to identify and report these deaths” (Banks, et al). As a result, in 2011, the turnout

only increased to about 69%. Despite the growth, the outcome remained insufficient. Also, it

was quite obvious that the ARD Program did not gather very accurate data as it primarily

depended on police voluntarily filing any arrest-related deaths that transpired in their
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precincts. Thus, the data received from the ARD Program’s reports could have been skewed

or even biased.

On August 4, 2016, in response to the first ARD Program’s weaknesses, the U.S.

Department of Justice announced that it was revising the program. This second ARD

Program mandated that every single law enforcement agency must file all of their police-

related deaths “directly to the Department of Justice, including information about the location

and time of the incident, manner of death, the victim’s behavior during the incident, reason

for initial contact, and the victim’s race, age, and gender, and so on” (Owens). What

differentiates the previous ARD Program from the latter is that if police precincts fail to obey

the terms of the program they “could lose 10% percent of their agency’s funding” (Owens).

According to the BJS, the revised ARD Program was designed to “increase the reliability,

validity, and comprehensiveness of data collection” (Banks, et al).

Furthermore, the idea behind the second ARD Program was that if law enforcement

was required to report their officer-related deaths, it would discourage officers from killing

suspects without reasonable cause. However, there is no conclusive data explicitly stating

that the second ARD Program actually deterred any police-related deaths. As stated

previously, the second ARD Program was redesigned in an effort to enlarge the scope of the

compilation of the FBI’s data. To do so, they incorporated news reports of arrest-related

deaths provided by the media. In the years 2003-2009 and 2011, arrest-related deaths

increased and decreased in an inconsistent manner. For example, in 2004, 375 deaths were

reported, and in 2005, 377 deaths were disclosed (Banks, et al). In contrast to both of those

years, in 2006, a whopping total of 447 deaths were reported (Banks, et al). The data
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inevitably caused the public to ask an important question: what occured in 2006 to have

inspired an increase of 70 deaths in a year?

The answer is quite simple. In 2005, only 39% of law enforcement agencies reported

their arrest-related deaths, but in 2006, 47% of law enforcement reported their deaths (Banks,

et al). Comparably, when looking at the data, in 2009, the amount of deaths jumps from 496

to 689 in 2011 (Banks, et al). Again, the difference was how many law enforcement agencies

actually participated. In 2009, only 55% of law enforcement reported their deaths, but in

2011, 69% of officers disclosed theirs (Banks, et al).

However, in 2015, the media reported to the FBI that from June 1, 2015 through

August 31, 2016, a total of 379 arrest-related deaths occured (Bank, et al). In an effort to

improve the credibility of the media’s statistics, the FBI conducted a survey with law

enforcement agencies, asking them to confirm or deny the deaths that the media reported (of

which only 69.8% provided a response) (Banks, et al). After computing the numbers, the FBI

then gathered the data that law enforcement agencies reported, and discovered that from June

to August, 427 arrest-related deaths occured; of the 427 deaths, law enforcement agencies

only reported 48, “exclud[ing] agency-reported deaths that duplicated media-reported deaths”

(Banks, et al).

It is appropriate to assert that the ARD Program does not work to prevent law

enforcement-related deaths. It only passively compiles them. In fact, it is certain that there

are gaps in the all of the years prior to 2015’s data. From 2003- 2009 as well as 2011, the

data was unreliable because it relied solely on law enforcement’s will to report the deaths.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to compare 2016’s data to that of 2017 because it has yet to be

completed, but even with the statistics that they may yield, the results will be the same.
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Deaths are not lessening. They are either increasing or remaining constant because no proper

action has been taken. To lessen incidences of police misconduct, the problem must be

approached from where it is most lacking, recordings of arrest-related deaths.

To gain more responses from officers, there must be a more severe punishment. There

must be a policy established that imposes a drastic penalty should police departments fail to

participate in the ARD Program. As stated previously, the revised ARD Program required

officers to report their arrest-related deaths. If they did not, there was a possibility that they

would lose 10% of their federal funding (Owens). While this stipulation produced an increase

of police response, it was clearly ineffective if only 69.8% of officers responded (Banks, et

al).

Instead of simply threatening precincts with the chance of losing 10% of their

funding, the new policy would clearly state that should police departments fail to participate

in the ARD Program, their precincts will be thoroughly investigated by Internal Affairs (IA)

along with losing 35% of their federal funding, indubitably. All findings would then be

reported to the Attorney General. The purpose of requiring IA to vet precincts that do not

record their arrest-related deaths would be to check and balance officers’ powers. IA’s

primary purpose is to “provide accountability for [police] departments” as well as to

“...report the facts and uphold the integrity of the profession” (Roufa). Generally, if IA

investigated precincts, IA investigators would be more efficient and yield more accurate

results as it is their job.

However, requiring IA to investigate police departments more frequently is

accompanied with two noteworthy drawbacks. IA is never called to investigate an officer

without reluctance because an internal investigation is time consuming. For example, the
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U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recommends that an investigation lasts no more than “180

days” because it could easily extend for a much longer time, which means that officers are

away from their jobs for the duration (“Standards and Guidelines for International

Affairs…”). IA investigations are also expensive. For reasons unbeknownst to the public, IA

does not release the price of a federal or state internal investigation. With this in mind, it is

reasonable to assume that should police officers be forced to go on paid leave for the duration

of the investigation, the vetting would be unreasonably expensive--especially when

considering the fact that the state will be paying officers for no work. Also, IA requires that

police departments under investigation must submit all of their files and paperwork.

Gathering all of the necessary paperwork is time consuming and costly as it takes officers

away from their primary job. It would also cause officers to work overtime, further adding to

the cost of the investigation.

Additionally, the U.S. DOJ states that IA should investigate “officer-involved

shootings, in-custody deaths, [and] alleged constitutional violations…” (“Standards and

Guidelines for International Affairs…”). When the FBI compiled the data that they received

from the ARD Program, it should have been protocol for IA to investigate the police

departments that reported the most deaths. The threat of an IA investigation forces officers to

“know the laws [they] are enforcing” and to “...have an articulable, defensible [reason for

their] discretion” (Petrocelli). The presence of IA compels officers to perform their jobs

better. Officers begin to focus on the legality of their actions and not on the power bestowed

upon them by the federal government. The threat of a potential IA investigation would most

likely impel a majority of officers to report their arrest-related deaths and deter them from

committing acts of misconduct. Moreover, if the policy manages to boost the police-reporting
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of officer-involved deaths to about 85%- 90%, it would weaken the FBI’s reliance on the

media for data. A majority of the news that the media reports could be described as biased

and oftentimes unreliable. Despite the FBI’s system of checking the validity of the media’s

reports, relying on the media’s data jeopardizes the soundness of the FBI’s statistics, which

the entire nation depends on. This would also improve the faith that the public has in the

government, allowing citizens to trust that law enforcement’s primary job is to help, protect,

and serve their community.

In the end, offering a more severe punishment, such as threatening an IA

investigation, would compel police departments to adhere to the policy and report their

arrest-related deaths, making them more accountable for their actions. This would allow for

the Commissioners of Police of each department to see the areas where his or her officers

need to improve. It would also expose corrupt officers or departments, enabling IA to

investigate to see the extent of officer misconduct in a particular department. Ultimately, IA

investigations produce more accountability for individual officers and entire police

departments, discouraging them from abusing their power and utilizing excessive use of

force--thus lessening incidences of police brutality.

WC: 2336
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Works Cited

“Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection Comments Requested; New

Collection: Arrest-Related Deaths Program.” Federal Register, 4 Aug. 2016,

www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/08/04/2016-18484/agency-information-

collection-activities-proposed-collection-comments-requested-new-collection#furinf.

Banks, Duren, et al. “Arrest-Related Deaths Program Redesign Study, 2015-16: Preliminary

Findings.” Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), RTI International , 15 Dec. 2016,

www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5864.

Banks, Duren, et al. “Arrest-Related Deaths Program Assessment: Technical Report.”

Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), RTI International, 3 Mar. 2015,

www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5259.

Cox, John Woodrow, et al. “Who Was Freddie Gray? How Did He Die? And What Led to

the Mistrial in Baltimore?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 16 Dec. 2015,

www.washingtonpost.com/local/who-was-freddie-gray-and-how-did-his-death-lead-

to-a-mistrial-in-baltimore/2015/12/16/b08df7ce-a433-11e5-9c4e-

be37f66848bb_story.html?utm_term=.d03a08f33d48.

“H.R. 1800 (106th): Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2000.” GovTrack.us,

www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/106/hr1800/summary.

“Jobs.” Find Jobs and Careers - SimplyHired.com Job Search,

www.simplyhired.com/salaries-k-internal-affairs-officer-jobs.html.

Owen, Tess. “The US Government Will Track Killings by Police for the First Time Ever.”

VICE News, 9 Aug. 2016, news.vice.com/article/the-us-government-will-track-

killings-by-police-for-the-first-time-ever.
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Petrocelli, Joseph. “An Internal Affairs Investigation.” Police Magazine, 5 Apr. 2010,

www.policemag.com/channel/patrol/articles/2010/04/an-internal-affairs-

investigation.aspx.

Potter, Gary. “The History of Policing in the United States, Part 1.” The History of Policing

in the United States, Part 1 | Police Studies Online, Eastern Kentucky University, 25

June 2013, plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united-states-part-1.

Potter, Gary. “The History of Policing in the United States, Part 2.” The History of Policing

in the United States, Part 2 | Police Studies Online, Eastern Kentucky University, 2

July 2013, plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united-states-part-2.

Roufa, Timothy. “What Do Internal Affairs Investigators Really Do?” The Balance, 30 Apr.

2017, www.thebalance.com/internal-affairs-investigator-career-profile-974831.

Standard and Guidelines for International Affairs: Recommendations from a Community of

Practice. U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing

Services, 2005, Standard and Guidelines for International Affairs: Recommendations

from a Community of Practice, ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p164-pub.pdf.

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