Denver Post

Is the job's danger a self-fulfilled prophecy?
By AnnJanette Rosga

Sunday, August 10, 2003 - Police officers in the United States kill an average of 373 people each year. In virtually all cases, authorities deem such homicides "justified" on the grounds that an officer's life was in danger.

Already, that is the defense emerging for a Denver police officer's killing of Paul Childs in early July.

Police training and socialization in the U.S. is suffused with constant reiterations of its risks and dangers. Criminologist Steve Herbert's study of Los Angeles police describes the litany of safety and danger talk that characterizes daily police life, and that my own research confirms.

DETAILS

High-risk work Total number of people who died from occupational injuries in 1999, by selected job types: Construction trades 1,190 Farming, forestry and fishing 807 Trucking and nonflying courier services 563 Business services 161 Restaurant and bar service workers 146 Police 111 Finance, insurance and real estate 106 Amusement and recreation services 85 Educational services 78 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 1999.

"Roll calls regularly end with the admonishment to 'stay safe out there,' and officers at the end of a watch express satisfaction that they have returned safely. ... A common folk saying around the department holds that 'it is better to be judged by 12 than carried by six' - \[it's\] better to take an action that guarantees the preservation of your life even if it results in criminal action against you," Herbert writes.

The idea that policing is among the most dangerous of professions is accepted as faith in U.S. popular culture. Pictures of police as everyday heroes who risk their lives to save us from chaos and destruction are commonplace, even more so since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Without doubt, police officers sometimes perform heroic deeds; without question, they sometimes face fatal risks. But the dangers they face are not nearly as great as most of us have been taught to assume. Because danger to police officers is almost always the justification offered for killings they commit in the line of duty, it is worth scrutinizing exactly how dangerous their jobs really are.

Studies on occupational danger show that the risks of on-the-job death faced by police officers are comparable to those faced by electricians. Farm workers and roofers are each twice as likely to die while working; taxi drivers more than three times as likely to be killed on the job; pilots nearly six times as likely; and employees of fishing industries die at more than eight times the rate of police officers on the job.

Faced with data that challenges their perceptions of police work, many people still express skepticism. As one friend put it, "The statistics might be right, but the meaning of the statistics is wrong - policing feels more dangerous. I'm sure even the fishermen whose jobs are eight times as risky would say policing feels more dangerous."

Maybe. But I would argue that evidence suggests policing needn't feel so dangerous. Why does it? And why are we so invested in believing that it is?

The perceived dangerousness of policing is inextricable from what little glamour the job has. How many young men, in particular, would choose to become police officers if they knew just how much of their time would be spent assisting the ill, stranded or frightened, resolving domestic disputes, and writing reports?

Consider as well the gendered quality of this glamour. In a 2002 report, the Feminist Majority Foundation reviewed research from seven major U.S. police agencies and found "what many police and community leaders have known for a long time: Women officers are substantially less likely than their male counterparts to be involved in problems of excessive force."

I cite this research not to suggest that women are "by nature" less violent than men. No doubt, the sources of such a dramatic gender difference are complex: Fewer women may be sent on the most dangerous calls or male civilians might be embarrassed to bring excessive-force complaints against female officers. Nonetheless, given women's and men's typically different socialization experiences, women are less likely to find physical force exciting, glamorous or persuasive as evidence of authority.

Police procedure might allow officers to shoot at an individual holding a knife, but studies of gender and policing suggest not all police officers will choose to exercise that policy. Studies of excessive force also find that the context of "threat" to a police officer will affect his or her decision to use deadly force.

As police researcher Carl Klockars has written, "The nature of police work involves managing situations where persons make sudden or unexpected body movements - what police call 'suggestive moves.' Under these circumstances, police view shooting first as self-defense. However, this is specific to certain territories and categories of people, and if the person encountered does not fit a stereotype connoting danger, officers may hesitate to shoot."

Statistics on the race of police homicide victims suggest the possibility that officers perceive African-American men as particularly threatening.

"Proper procedure" includes exerting complete control of a given space and of all the people within that space. It often encourages police to display their means of overwhelming force. Departments justify such procedures on the grounds that they protect officers. I know of no studies that prove that assumption. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, as often as not, heavily armed and guarded police preparation for "worst-case scenarios" cause civilians to feel threatened and to act irrationally.

When police fail to consider the fear their actions induce in others, they can create the very conditions in which a cornered civilian may be too terrified to drop his or her weapon.

The problem with endlessly rehearsing the dangerousness of policing, and with the use-of-force procedures such danger seems to require, is that both increase the likelihood that police will enter a situation in a state of adrenalized fear and/or excitement.

The public must not let the same fear and excitement cloud our judgment about the degree and sources of risk to police officers. Without careful reconsideration of the occupation's standard operating procedures, we can probably count on another 373 police homicides this year.