# any statistics about police brutality rates? (need answer fast) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 5, 2011, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265 "2011-02-05T06:31:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/1 "2011-02-05T06:31:30Z")
It started with a pit thread. I held that police are mostly good, another poster held they were mostly bad and it came down to why aren’t there examples of police officers stopping fellow brutality. So now I’m re-examining my position. I think it could either be confirmation bias (Joe Friday doesn’t get nearly the same press as Officer Beatings), or there’s a lot more rogue, or at least apathetic cops than I thought. So what’s the straight dope on police brutality? How common is it? Or do we know? ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/2 "2011-02-05T12:07:36Z")
I’m just posting to subscribe. I had thought to start a thread asking how realistic the interrogation scenes in different police dramas were over the years. British dramas show suspects being interviewed with much emphasis on recording and solicitors being present, from what I’ve seen of The Wire and a French drama, you might find a frostier reception on the other side of both the Atlantic and the English Channel. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/3 "2011-02-05T12:24:58Z")
> [@Pushkin](#): > > I’m just posting to subscribe. I had thought to start a thread asking how realistic the interrogation scenes in different police dramas were over the years. > > British dramas show suspects being interviewed with much emphasis on recording and solicitors being present, from what I’ve seen of The Wire and a French drama, you might find a frostier reception on the other side of both the Atlantic and the English Channel. I suspect they are not realistic at all. All a suspect has to do is ask for a lawyer and the police more or less have to leave the room. At any rate, the interrogation is over. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/4 "2011-02-05T14:15:35Z")
FYI, [earlier related thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=544489) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/5 "2011-02-05T14:34:53Z")
Police misbehavior is a natural result of the occupation. Can we point to any time or place in the history of mankind in which government organs authorized to utilize force have not had at least a portion of their members engaged in illicit activity only possible because of said membership in the government entity? I think things have gotten better in the last hundred years but they still have a very long way to go–in truth until human nature is changed I don’t expect the problem will ever be eradicated. In the early 20th century you had many police forces who actually acted as _enforcement arms_ for private criminal concerns. Now, you have some police departments where police are “on the take”, but I think we can definitely see how they incidence and degree of corruption, on the whole, has decreased since the 1910s/1920s. Other occupations have certain types of corruption that are systemic as well. For example in a pizza place, let’s say the store policy is that employees must pay full menu price for any food they eat. That’s typically _not_ store policy in the real world, but it certainly is at _some_ places. How often are the employees going to sneak a slice for free? The answer, at least from anecdotal experience is: as often as they want, because pretty much all of them will do it. How often will employees at such a store give discounts to their friends, against store policy? How often will they let their friends walk out the store with a free pie? Maybe a little less than they’ll sneak a free slice, but from my experience, the answer is again: as often as they want. A lot of them will do it and none will report it to the owner/store manager. A bit higher level, let’s say you have a person at a high level of responsibility in a government bureau. They get to sit on the committees that decide which company will be contracted with to provide certain things. There is a formalized RFP/RFQ process that is, in theory, supposed to limit the ability for corruption to materialize. However, let’s say that one of the administrator’s personal friends is the owner of one of the companies who is submitting a bid. Is the administrator going to do everything he can to “put his thumb on the scale” and tilt the process in favor of that company? Well, from my experience in state government, the answer to that is “yes.” ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/6 "2011-02-05T16:29:45Z")
I think there’s less outright corruption & physical abuse today. The biggest concern, IMO, is the trend of “militarizing” police departments. Nowadays many PDs and SOs have a wide assortment of military gear, which fosters an “us against them” attitude amongst many LEOs. For evidence of this, notice how most LEO like to refer to non-LEOs as “civilians.” ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/7 "2011-02-05T19:29:57Z")
Since the OP asked for statistics, here some lazy ones: When I searched for “police brutality” on YouTube, I got 6,720 results; when I searched for “police rescue”, I got 5, 730 results. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/8 "2011-02-05T23:31:29Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > FYI, [earlier related thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=544489) Thanks! That and **Martin Hyde** ’s post have given me something to think about. **Lazy** , I think that stands a good chance of showing how much people tend to focus on negatives (not that brutality is anything that should be overlooked). What I’m looking for is statstics about how likely a cop is to commit brutality. However, it;s more of a data point than I had before so thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/9 "2011-02-05T23:45:50Z")
**Martin Hyde** , I’ll agree, but only to an extent. I’ve been an EMT for the last three years, and, as such, have had the chance to interact with many fine, fine police officers. These people are willing to take a bullet for the public. And, on a scene, they look at EMTs and firefighters as a branch of their own. I’ve been confronted by angry families, and had a gun pulled on me by a family member. The officers at that scene took care of that situation as if someone pulled a gun on a fellow officer. That’s not to say that there aren’t bad apples. There are. There are bad apples in any job. But I believe that most people are fundamentally good, and that most police officers take the professionalism of their job seriously, and are good men and women doing a very difficult job. Now, I’m not suggesting for a second that you’re saying that all cops are corrupt. And I’d like to think that the good cops outnumber the corrupt ones, and to a high degree. However, it’s the bad ones that give the good ones the reputation that police have. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/10 "2011-02-06T01:46:12Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > **Martin Hyde** , I’ll agree, but only to an extent. I’ve been an EMT for the last three years, and, as such, have had the chance to interact with many fine, fine police officers. These people are willing to take a bullet for the public. And, on a scene, they look at EMTs and firefighters as a branch of their own. I’ve been confronted by angry families, and had a gun pulled on me by a family member. The officers at that scene took care of that situation as if someone pulled a gun on a fellow officer. > > That’s not to say that there aren’t bad apples. There are. There are bad apples in any job. But I believe that most people are fundamentally good, and that most police officers take the professionalism of their job seriously, and are good men and women doing a very difficult job. > > Now, I’m not suggesting for a second that you’re saying that all cops are corrupt. And I’d like to think that the good cops outnumber the corrupt ones, and to a high degree. However, it’s the bad ones that give the good ones the reputation that police have. Outside of Detroit, you are mostly right. New Orleans has been famous for a corrupt police force, though. I suspect there are more corrupt and brutal officers than most people believe. TV proves they can solve any crime in an hour without ever stepping over the line. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/11 "2011-02-06T11:45:11Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > However, it;s more of a data point than I had before so thanks. It’s not much of one until you know how many of the results refer to the same event. ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/12 "2011-02-06T13:28:56Z")
On the YouTube search, I get a message at the bottom suggesting that YouTube has at least made some effort to eliminate duplicates. Many of the “police rescue” hits refer to movie or TV show scenes. Not exactly gold-standard statistics, but at the least it suggests that the problem of police brutality is real and not rare. IMO, both police rescues and police brutality are spectacular and fairly likely to be videoed, maybe police brutality somewhat less so because of intimidation, and the police taking bystanders into account. Maybe police rescues are more likely to be titled something else. I admit that the statistic is semi-garbage. Not total, just semi. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/13 "2011-02-06T13:34:04Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > TV proves they can solve any crime in an hour without ever stepping over the line. Say what? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/14 "2011-02-06T14:00:02Z")
> [@Lazy](#): > > On the YouTube search, I get a message at the bottom suggesting that YouTube has at least made some effort to eliminate duplicates. Many of the “police rescue” hits refer to movie or TV show scenes. Not exactly gold-standard statistics, but at the least it suggests that the problem of police brutality is real and not rare. > > IMO, both police rescues and police brutality are spectacular and fairly likely to be videoed, maybe police brutality somewhat less so because of intimidation, and the police taking bystanders into account. Maybe police rescues are more likely to be titled something else. > > I admit that the statistic is semi-garbage. Not total, just semi. I took a trip through youtube videos the other night. **Contrapuntal** is right, there is a lot of duplicates. When I tried that experiment on google video I got “about 12,200” results for police brutality, and “about 11,000 results” for “police rescue”. However many of links aren’t on topic, like for example some are about the Chillian miners, or a cop being rescued. Some look damned heroic though, like cops risking life and limb to rescue people. I guess another problem with this what about “chaotic neutral” cops. Cops who might save life your life, or beat the shit out of you for a parking violation. Such a cop could have entries in both sets. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/15 "2011-02-06T14:18:48Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > However, it’s the bad ones that give the good ones the reputation that police have. Nope. It’s that the “good ones” disappear when the “bad ones” show their ugly mugs. It’s when an individual or group of officers violate the public trust and you suddenly have department heads sticking up for them, fellow officers LYING on police reports, and covering up wrongdoing, higher ups and DA’s cutting them slack they would never cut any other member of the citizenry. So where did all the “good” cops suddenly go? Were they all on break? That circle starts to expand in almost EVERY case. Cop does something obviously wrong, other cops help or simply ignore it - The circle expands. Then others lie about what happened, or plead the fifth - the circle continues to expand. Then the department heads go all ape-shit on the guy who took the video, because of the poor, poor cop who fucked up now has a big spotlight on him, and it’s just all so unfair! They stall investigations, dismiss complaints, etc - the circle is now huge. Then The DA and mayor and the chief of police all stand had in hand singing cumbaya hoping the whole thing disappears, and won’t affect re-election votes all the while talking about how ALL, I mean EVER SINGLE ONE of their officers is a shining example of virtue! And the circle is so god damned big at this point you could fit Jupiter in it. ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/16 "2011-02-06T14:32:47Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > I guess another problem with this what about “chaotic neutral” cops. Cops who might save life your life, or beat the shit out of you for a parking violation. Such a cop could have entries in both sets. Probably most cops who commit acts of police brutality in other circumstances would do genuinely heroic, selfless things. People are complex and the situations they find themselves in make a huge difference. I would generally hesitate to label cops “good” or “bad” based on an incident that happened to become public. There is a huge element of what philosophers call “moral luck” involved. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/17 "2011-02-06T14:47:54Z")
Well checking Wikipedia found these sources which are better than what I found googling. If I have time tomorrow maybe I can find something in the library. I haven’t had a chance to look them over well but here’s some interesting quotes I found from those sources on first glance: [Shielded from Justice Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States](http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/reports98/police/uspo14.htm) - Human Rights Watch > [@](#): > > Police abuse remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police officers, including unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and rough treatment, persists because overwhelming barriers to accountability make it possible for officers who commit human rights violations to escape due punishment and often to repeat their offenses.1 Police or public officials greet each new report of brutality with denials or explain that the act was an aberration, while the administrative and criminal systems that should deter these abuses by holding officers accountable instead virtually guarantee them impunity. > > This report examines common obstacles to accountability for police abuse in fourteen large cities representing most regions of the nation. The cities examined are: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Research for this report was conducted over two and a half years, from late 1995 through early 1998. > [@](#): > > Our investigation found that police brutality is persistent in all of these cities; that systems to deal with abuse have had similar failings in all the cities; and that, in each city examined, complainants face enormous barriers in seeking administrative punishment or criminal prosecution of officers who have committed human rights violations. Despite claims to the contrary from city officials where abuses have become scandals in the media, efforts to make meaningful reforms have fallen short. > [@](#): > > One recent, positive development has been the federal “pattern or practice” civil investigations, and subsequent agreements, initiated by the U.S. Justice Department.3 In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Steubenville, Ohio, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has examined shortcomings in accountability for misconduct in those cities’ police departments; the cities agreed to implement reforms to end violative practices rather than risk the Justice Department taking a case to court for injunctive action. The reforms proposed by the Justice Department were similar to those long advocated by community activists and civil rights groups, and included better use-of-force training and policies, stronger reporting mechanisms, creation of early warning systems to identify current, and potential, officers at risk of engaging in abuse, and improved disciplinary procedures. The Justice Department does not usually make its investigative choices public, but several other police departments, including those in Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia, are reportedly under investigation by the Civil Rights Division. > > Police abuse experts, and some police officials, refer to “problem” officers, by which they mean officers who either have significant records of abuse or significant records of complaints from the public, and who thus should receive special monitoring, training and counseling to counter the heightened risk that they will be involved in some future incident of misconduct or brutality. In this report, we will use this terminology where police officials and experts use it, to denote officers who, on account of their record of either sustained or unsustained complaints, appear to present a higher than normal risk of committing human rights violations. [Fighting Police Abuse: A Community Action Manual](http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_prisoners-rights_drug-law-reform_immigrants-rights/fighting-police-abuse-community-ac#gather) -ACLU > [@](#): > > B. Use of physical force. You need to know how frequently police officers in your city use physical force in the day-to-day course of their encounters with citizens. Do officers try to refrain from using such force against citizens, or do they quickly and casually resort to force? > > In its report on the Los Angeles Police Department in the aftermath of the March 1991 beating of Rodney King, the Christopher Commission confirmed a long held suspicion: A small number of officers were involved in an extraordinarily high percentage of use-of-force incidents. Ten percent of the officers accounted for 33.2 percent of all use-of-force incidents. The Commission was able to identify 44 such officers who were not disciplined despite the fact that they were the subjects of numerous citizen complaints. > > In 1981, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found a similar pattern in Houston and recommended, as a remedy, that police departments establish “early warning systems” to identify officers with high rates of citizen complaints. Patterns in the use of physical force reveal a lot about the “culture” of a particular police department. Clearly, a department whose officers repeatedly engage in physically coercive conduct needs reform. Police officials often deny that their personnel are prone to using force inappropriately, so if your community believes it has a problem in this area citizens must be able to support their claims with existing data, or data they have gathered themselves. [Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics Citizen Complaints about Police Use of Force](http://web.archive.org/web/20070812023457/www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/ccpuf.txt) -US DOJ > [@](#): > > - During 2002 large State and local law enforcement agencies, > representing 5% of agencies and 59% of officers, received a total > of 26,556 citizen complaints about police use of force. This > corresponds to an overall rate of 6.6 force complaints per 100 > full-time sworn officers. > > - About a third of all force complaints in 2002 were not sustained > (34%). Twenty-five percent were unfounded, 23% resulted in officers > being exonerated, and 8% were sustained. > > - Complaint volumes, rates, and dispositions varied by agency > characteristics, such as the size and type of agency, as well as > policies and procedures related to the handling of complaints. > > - About a fifth (19%) of large municipal police departments had a > civilian complaint review board (CCRB) or agency within their > jurisdiction. Overall, departments with a CCRB had a higher rate > of force complaints as compared to those without a CCRB (11.9 > versus 6.6 per 100 officers). > > - Using sustained force complaints as an indicator of excessive > force results in an estimate of about 2,000 incidents of police use > of excessive force among large agencies in 2002 C an overall rate of > 1 incident per 200 full-time sworn officers. > > * * * > > Large State and local law enforcement agencies -– those with 100 > or more sworn officers – received more than 26,000 citizen > complaints about officer use of force during 2002. This total > figure resulted in overall rates of 33 complaints per agency and > 6.6 complaints per 100 full-time sworn officers. > > Overall rates were higher among large municipal police departments, > with 45 complaints per agency, and 9.5 complaints per 100 full-time > sworn officers. > > Among those complaints having a final disposition at the time of > data collection, about 8% were sustained, meaning there was > sufficient evidence of the allegation to justify disciplinary > action against the subject officer(s). > > These findings are from the 2003 Law Enforcement Management and > Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey, sponsored by the > Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)and the Office of Community > Oriented Policing Services (COPS). This report presents data on > citizen complaints about use of force and complaint dispositions > in large agencies. Because the majority of force complaints were > received by large municipal police departments, additional detail > is provided on policies and procedures relating to the processing > of complaints in these departments. [IN THE SHADOWS OF THE WAR ON TERROR: PERSISTENT POLICE BRUTALITY AND ABUSE OF PEOPLE OF COLOR IN THE UNITED STATES](http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/ngos/usa/USHRN15.pdf) - United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination > [@](#): > > Moreover, racial profiling by law enforcement officials and racially disproportionate concentration of law enforcement efforts continues to afflict African American, Latino/a and Native American communities in the U.S., and post September 11, has escalated with respect to Arab, South Asian, Middle Eastern and Muslim men and women. As recognized by the Declaration of the World conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related intolerance, such racially discriminatory conduct, policies, and practices on the part of law enforcement agencies substantially contribute to persistent racial disparities in the criminal justice system and in the incarcerated population.7 As law enforcement officers typically represent the initial point of contact with the criminal justice system, racially is criminatory stops, searches and arrests, particularly in the context of the “war on drugs” and "quality of life"strategies, fuel racial disparities in incarceration rates in the U.S. Interesting stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/18 "2011-02-06T15:11:22Z")
> [@Lazy](#): > > On the YouTube search, I get a message at the bottom suggesting that YouTube has at least made some effort to eliminate duplicates. Many of the “police rescue” hits refer to movie or TV show scenes. Not exactly gold-standard statistics, but at the least it suggests that the problem of police brutality is real and not rare. If I understand how youtube works, and I very well could be wrong, what it suggests is that some 6,000 odd users have uploaded videos and included the words “police brutality” in the title. Whether that reflects actual incidents of police brutality is another thing. But let’s go with your conclusion, that police brutality is both _real_, which I don’t dispute, and _rare_. My question would be how many police/citizen encounters in total occur in the time covered by the youtube search? In other words, 6,000 events out of how many? The answer to that will tell you how rare it is. Assuming, again, that the videos represent actual, discrete events. ---
**Author:** ![Lazy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc29f/32.png) [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/19 "2011-02-06T15:37:22Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > But let’s go with your conclusion, that police brutality is both _real_, which I don’t dispute, and _rare_. My question would be how many police/citizen encounters in total occur in the time covered by the youtube search? In other words, 6,000 events out of how many? The answer to that will tell you how rare it is. Assuming, again, that the videos represent actual, discrete events. I was suggesting that police brutality was real and _not_ rare. I don’t think you could use that YouTube search to get anything close to a realistic estimate of the rate of incidence of police brutality. It just suggests that the rate of incidence of the sort of cases of police brutality that would be worth posting a video of is in the same ball park as the rate of incidence of police rescues worth posting a video of. Or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know that much about YouTube searches either. It just seemed to me that this type of sampling could compliment other statistics that have their own flaws. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-statistics-about-police-brutality-rates-need-answer-fast/570265/20 "2011-02-06T16:24:27Z")
> [@Lazy](#): > > I was suggesting that police brutality was real and _not_ rare. Of course you were.:smack: My mistake. FWIW, I found 2 duplicates in the 24 videos on the first page of those search results.