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FBI Will Publish Long-Delayed Police Use-of-Force Data

Christopher Wray, FBI Director, said last Friday in speech that long-awaited statistics about police force use will be released by the Bureau this spring. It gives the public a first look of what the Federal Government’s largest and most thorough efforts have been to collect information on where, how, and when police use force across the United States.

The FBI was established three years ago. National Use-of-Force Data CollectionWray declared that the project was at risk of being stopped due to insufficient police participation. However, Wray stated that they have finally achieved a threshold for publishing data which requires 60 percent participation by law enforcement agencies.

Wray spoke at the Baton Rouge conference for black law enforcement officers. The threshold means that we will soon be able release the first statistics about the force-used, such as the most used types and resistance encountered. We’ll also publish the percentages that we see for different incidents and reasons for contact.

The Justice DepartmentThey have vowed to rebuildAfter receiving reports from, it has begun data collection regarding the use of force by police officers in 2015. The Washington PostMedia outlets and media that displayed the FBI’s list of U.S. fatal police shootings, as self-reported police departments by the police, greatly undercounted police deaths. The truth is that despite the media attention on police shootings there were simply no reliable federal government dataThe details of how and when the police officers from the nearly 18,000 different departments used deadly force.

But, it is not possible for the federal government to force police departments submit reports. Although participation in the FBI’s program has been steadily increasing since its launch, the FBI never achieved the OMB threshold for obtaining data from 60 per cent of the agencies involved before statistics are published.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO). ReportThe FBI was advised in December that “due insufficient participation by law enforcement agency, the FBI faces risk that it may not reach the participation thresholds” set forth by the OMB “and may therefore never publish force incident data.”

The GAO report stated that the collection could be discontinued “further” by 2022.

While the threshold was intended to make sure that all data is representative of the majority of law enforcement officers it also indicates that the FBI had a huge, yet unpublished, trove of data which frustrates researchers and civil liberties groups.

Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights attempted to request raw FBI reports. But, both the FBI and Justice Department have denied Freedom of Information Act requests by the Leadership Conference.

Sakira Cook (senior director, Justice Reform Program, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights), stated that the FBI’s collection of use-of force data has been kept secret from the beginning. This is why they were asking for more access. Submitted There are reasons earlier in the month. Let’s not forget, despite the FBI’s claims that these records are kept secret, this data should be made public.

It appears now that some summary statistics will soon be made public. Wray stated that more detailed data would be available if the threshold of 80 percent is reached.

However, that decision is left to police.