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New Jersey Police Use of Force Statistics

carlitos

"más divertido"
carlitos
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The full report
Five years. 72,607 documents. Every local police department in N.J. We built the most comprehensive statewide database of police use of force in the U.S.

…

The Force Report, a 16-month investigation by NJ Advance Media, found New Jersey's system for tracking police force is broken, with no statewide collection or analysis of data, little oversight by state officials and no standard practices among local departments. Two decades ago, officials envisioned a centralized database that would flag potentially dangerous cops for scrutiny. But that database was never created. So we built it.
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The Splinter News Article.

A few highlights:

  • Just 10 percent of all New Jersey officers are responsible for 38 percent of violent encounters.
  • While 296 officers used force at rates five time the state-wide average, 156 officers put at least one person in the hospital every year all five years the outlet reviewed.
  • Black people are three times more likely to have police use force against them—that’s just statewide though, as that ratio skyrocketed to as high as 21:1 in some counties and towns.
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I would really love to see more reporting like this.
 
A "good cop" can become a "bad cop" - so there's that too which can be added to the depression.
 
This is the kind of thing that should be built into metrics and KPIs for officers, but these reports are still analog in 2018, pieces of paper tucked away in filing cabinets. So no one spots a trend like this, until there is a high-profile case:

In Middlesex County, a Carteret officer accounted for one-fifth of all uses of force by officers in the 50-person department over a two-year period. But that pattern never came to light until after the officer, Joseph Reiman, was indicted on accusations of assaulting a teenager after a brief car chase.
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One officer out of 50 = 2%
One-fifth of uses of force = 20%
 
One good point they make in the FAQ is that this is based on reports the police themselves make so some of the seemingly more prolific users of force might just be the ones most scrupulously honest about reporting it.
 
Civet said:
One good point they make in the FAQ is that this is based on reports the police themselves make so some of the seemingly more prolific users of force might just be the ones most scrupulously honest about reporting it.
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Also an officer on a SWAT team might be expected to have a higher use of force than one working a more desk based job. These stats provide questions not answers. Those with the least use of force might also need education. Alternatively they might be sources of education in how to defuse situations and avoid violence.
 
While I applaud this initiative, I think it needs to be studied carefully as well. As the creators point out in the FAQs, this is a use of force database, not a use of excessive force database. Use of force can mean anything from twisting an arm of a non-compliant suspect so as to allow handcuffs to be applied, all the way to shooting someone. Just because force was used, does not mean that force was inappropriate, and just because an officer has more uses of force than another officer doesn't mean that they are a bad officer, it might just mean that they have a tendency to be the one dealing with people who need to have force applied to take them into custody more often than other officers, perhaps because of the area they work, or what division they are in.

Even having someone have to go to hospital doesn't actually mean that there was excessive forced used. For example, if a suspect flees and the cop chases and tackles them resulting in their head hitting the concrete pavement and causing a contusion, then the suspect would be hospitalized, but tackling a fleeing suspect isn't excessive force. Also K9 operators are likely to have more suspects hospitalized just due to the nature of the job.

So yes it's a good start, but the numbers don't tell the true tale behind the curtain, just as the numbers from the various police shooting databases don't tell the whole story. What is needed is to be able to determine the excessive force numbers because that would tell the real story about how good, or bad, the cops involved are.

Sadly though it seems that the non-skeptical stance has been taken on the database by both the author of the story and many of the posters here.

Now having said that, there are some majorly concerning things, such as the blacks were 21 times more likely to have force used on them than whites in Lakewood, especially when Wikipedia states that the black population of Lakewood is just 6% compared to an 84% white population. So either the very small black population is not only highly criminal, but also very willing to fight arrest, while the white population are all pure as snow, or there is something very, very wrong happening in that township. (until I see otherwise I'm leaning towards the second of those options)
 
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PhantomWolf said:
While I applaud this initiative, I think it needs to be studied carefully as well. As the creators point out in the FAQs, this is a use of force database, not a use of excessive force database. Use of force can mean anything from twisting an arm of a non-compliant suspect so as to allow handcuffs to be applied, all the way to shooting someone. Just because force was used, does not mean that force was inappropriate, and just because an officer has more uses of force than another officer doesn't mean that they are a bad officer, it might just mean that they have a tendency to be the one dealing with people who need to have force applied to take them into custody more often than other officers, perhaps because of the area they work, or what division they are in.
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Ah, yes. If Big Bob is seven foot tall and built like a brick shitehouse, then of course he has disproportionate use of force numbers because, if I'm a policeman going to a potentially violent situation, you can bet your last penny I'm taking Bob with me.
 
3point14 said:
Ah, yes. If Big Bob is seven foot tall and built like a brick shitehouse, then of course he has disproportionate use of force numbers because, if I'm a policeman going to a potentially violent situation, you can bet your last penny I'm taking Bob with me.
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Actually I'd say that Big Bob is likely to be a total pussy cat that bad guys just give up too on seeing him get out of the car. The one that's more likely to be good in a fight is the 5 foot nothing guy who looks like he'd ready to punch through the nearest wall 90% of the time.
 
3point14 said:
Ah, yes. If Big Bob is seven foot tall and built like a brick shitehouse, then of course he has disproportionate use of force numbers because, if I'm a policeman going to a potentially violent situation, you can bet your last penny I'm taking Bob with me.
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PhantomWolf said:
Actually I'd say that Big Bob is likely to be a total pussy cat that bad guys just give up too on seeing him get out of the car. The one that's more likely to be good in a fight is the 5 foot nothing guy who looks like he'd ready to punch through the nearest wall 90% of the time.
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Can we settle on 6ft Simon? Always steady and ready.
 
As Phantom Wolf points out, “force” covers a lot of ground. We have to document all “uses of force” and that includes “compliant” handcuffing.
Likewise, ANY injury incurred during an arrest results in the suspect having to go to the hospital for a “fit for confinement” certification.

To some degree, this might be a case for the “culture” not only of the department, but of the area we police. Used to be that the “third district” in St. Louis was notorious for it’s hardcore residents...”You can arrest me if you can beat my ass....”. That sort of attitude.
Officers working in areas with lots of gang/drug activity are going to be involved in more use-of-force incidents than those like me... Working on a college campus.
 
Bikewer said:
As Phantom Wolf points out, “force” covers a lot of ground. We have to document all “uses of force” and that includes “compliant” handcuffing.
Likewise, ANY injury incurred during an arrest results in the suspect having to go to the hospital for a “fit for confinement” certification.

To some degree, this might be a case for the “culture” not only of the department, but of the area we police. Used to be that the “third district” in St. Louis was notorious for it’s hardcore residents...”You can arrest me if you can beat my ass....”. That sort of attitude.
Officers working in areas with lots of gang/drug activity are going to be involved in more use-of-force incidents than those like me... Working on a college campus.
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Exactly. The 21:1 stat above for some counties and towns are likely indicative of this, not local cops roughing up grandmas. Jersey has some nasty towns.
 
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