It’s been a while since I’ve posted any more statistics from the National Police Misconduct Statistics & Reporting Project, so I thought, what better day to do it than on a Saturday?
Well, I ran a few projections based on the two and a half month’s worth of statistics gathered so far and the numbers I come up with are fairly interesting because they appear to indicate that, as a group, police officers appear to commit more crimes than the general population in the US.
First, let’s look at some US statistics put out by the US government:
469.0 – 2007 US Violent Crime Rate per 100,000 General Population
084.9 - 2006 US Sexual Assault Rate per 100,000 General Population (255,630 in 2006)
005.6 – 2007 US Homicide Rate per 100,000 General Population
Now let’s look at the estimated 2009 stats for police misconduct:
724.8 – Est 2009 Reported Police Misconduct Rate per 100,000 Law Enforcement Population (est 6378)
087.3 – Est 2009 Reported Sexual Assault Rate per 100,000 Law Enforcement Population (est 768)
064.1 – Est 2009 Reported Homicide Rate per 100,000 Law Enforcement Population (est 564*)
*Note: these are not total deaths in custody, these are only deaths that occurred associated with reported allegations of misconduct.
Pretty interesting, isn’t it?
See, the numbers are based on the population samples used. After all, since the US stats are based on number of incidents incurred in general population, we can’t use general population as a basis for the stats on police misconduct. So, instead, we have to use a sample based on the number of police officers estimated to be in the US at the time, which is about 880,000.
When we do this, we see that the crimes per population rates aren’t just similar, but actually higher for police officers than they are for the general population.
Some more numbers?
Based on these estimates:
1 out of every 138 police officers in the US will end up reported in the news feed for misconduct.
1 out of every 502 police officers will be convicted or disciplined for an act of misconduct.
1 out of every 51,082 people in the US will become a victim of police misconduct in 2009.
(that might not seem like much, but that’s nearly 6,000 people)
But, this was just a quick extrapolation based on a 2.5 month sample set that was averaged out and then projected into an estimated annual incident number… when/if I get more data after a few more months of this, we’ll see how these numbers hold up.
Why, you might ask, did I do projections instead of just using the data I had? Well, most data published by the US government are done annually so, in order to make some comparisons, I need an annual number…
Are they accurate? Well, based on the margin between the weekly average for each month so far, they’re fairly accurate, within a margin of +/-10 incidents per week… and as you’ll see, that won’t be too significant. Plus, keep in mind our previous discussion about how under-reporting is a big issue with these numbers, so it’s highly probably that these stats are much lower than the number of actual occurrences.
But, for now, I thought it would be some interesting food for thought.
Hey, I just read this and it bears out what I’ve thought all along, i.e. the police are more prone to misconduct than the general public. Heck, they can’t even play soccer without getting bent out of shape! And, as you say, incidents are under-reported, so the stats are surely actually higher. Police misconduct is rampant, and the discipline for that misconduct is much, much less punitive that what you or I would suffer if we committed the exact same acts. All in all, interesting statistics.
Thanks Lorraine, that soccer story was very interesting to read… (For those who didn’t see it, see here, I really encourage you to check it out)
I hope to have a better set of stats later in the year after I see if the averages so far remain steady. But so far they seem pretty consistent even into June with over 200 reports before the first half of the month is done.
Thanks for reading, and the comment!
“1 out of every 138 police officers in the US will end up reported in the news feed for misconduct”
This is a high number but given the intimidation factor of dealing with a cop you know the real percentage of misconduct is much higher. And there are stories where people have been harassed and threatened just trying to make a complaint in the first place. I also wonder, for every story that makes it into the news feed, how many times that cop has gotten away with similar stuff? I’ll bet more the one.
NBC,
Indeed, it’s hard to tell… the method I’m using is far from accurate but, more likely than not, a vast underrepresentation of the actual incident rates.
But, as I said in another post… just how much underreporting that actually occurs is nearly impossible to determine, and I do feel awful for anyone who never has their story told.
Thank you for the comment!
It’s the nature of the job-it attracts psychopaths who want no accountability!