FBI Might Shut Down Its Police Use-of-Force Database Because, Surprise, Cops Aren’t Participating

If you’ve watched TV, learn a newspaper, or used the web within the final a number of years, you could have seen plenty of police departments embroiled in violent misconduct scandals—the likes of which appear to recommend that too many cops are far too desirous to unholster their weapon or put somebody in a headlock.

In 2019, the FBI launched an effort to trace these sorts of incidents through the National Use-of-Force Data Collection program, a big database set as much as catalog use-of-force tendencies in police departments nationwide. However, in accordance with a new report from the federal Government Accountability Office, that database might need to close down quickly. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not sufficient departments are submitting information.

The FBI’s program, which is voluntary, asks federal, state, native, and tribal businesses to submit data to the federal government on “any incident in which a law enforcement officer discharges a firearm at or in the direction of a person, or which results in death or serious bodily injury.” However, the GAO’s report, printed Tuesday and first reported on by the Washington Post, reveals that this system hasn’t but been in a position to meet the reporting thresholds laid out by the Office of Management and Budget.

To keep operational, the database is required to satisfy a 60 p.c participation charge nationally—one thing it’s gotten near however nonetheless in the end hasn’t met. If it could’t meet that purpose, the mission will probably be terminated as quickly as subsequent yr, the GAO report states.

“After 2 full years of data collection, the FBI had achieved participation by law enforcement agencies representing 44 percent and 55 percent of officers nationwide in the National Use-of-Force Data Collection, according to FBI documentation, for calendar years 2019 and 2020, respectively,” the report states. OMB has mandated that “if the FBI did not achieve 60 percent participation by the end of 2022, the FBI was to end the data collection effort and explore alternatives for collecting law enforcement use of force data,” the report continues.

The motive for a 60 p.c participation charge is expounded to information high quality, the report states, and a excessive response charge is “an important indicator of data quality.” In different phrases, the database can’t be thought of an authoritative have a look at police abuse as a result of there isn’t sufficient information, and there isn’t sufficient information as a result of police aren’t notably thrilled about shining a light-weight on their very own abusive actions.

As of Wednesday, the bureau had apparently reached a 57 p.c participation charge—which, hey, sounds fairly good, really! Just get a pair extra departments concerned and we’re in enterprise.

Yet even when the bureau meets its participation threshold, it’s not completely clear that the information will in the end be that helpful in giving us an summary on which departments are notably violent, or why sure officers might stray exterior the bounds of sanctioned coverage. That’s as a result of, because the FBI’s website openly states, the database “does not assess or report whether officers followed their department’s policy or acted lawfully” and the GAO report additional clarifies that “according to FBI documentation, the National Use-of-Force Data Collection does not differentiate between incidents involving reasonable force and incidents involving excessive force.”

So, the information will merely replicate the place use-of-force was utilized, and whereas that is likely to be helpful in additional complete analyses of police interactions with the inhabitants, it most likely received’t present any stark insights as to why, each time we flip round, we’ve got to click on on CNN to listen to about another unfortunate incident.