How many complaints against police officers can be abated by incapacitating a few “bad apples?”

Abstract

The notion that the unjustified use of force by police officers is concentrated among a few "bad apples" is a popular descriptor that has gained traction in scholarly research and achieved considerable influence among policy makers. But is removing the bad apples likely to have an appreciable effect on police misconduct? Leveraging a simple policy simulation and data from the Chicago Police Department, we estimate that removing the top 10% of officers identified based on ex ante risk and replacing them with officers drawn from the middle of the risk distribution would have led to only a 4-6% reduction in the use of force incidents in Chicago over a 10-year period. Policy Implications: Our analysis suggests that surgically removing predictably problematic police officers is unlikely to have a large impact on citizen complaints.By assembling some of the first empirical evidence on the likely magnitude of incapacitation effects, we provide critical support for the idea that early warning systems must be designed, above all, to deter problematic behavior and promote accountability.

Where racial and ethnic disparities in policing come from: The spatial concentration of arrests across six cities

“…For example, the fact that adjusting for racial composition of residential populations in each block group did not alter our estimates hints that even if racial threat theory is correct, it may not be a particularly important driver of population‐level racial disparities in arrests. Likewise, it is hard to reconcile the stable concentration of arrests with theories focused on errant “bad apple” officers or more universal processes such as implicit bias (Chalfin & Kaplan, 2021; Russell‐Brown, 2018). To be clear, our findings do not mean any of these theories are wrong, but they are incomplete and unlikely to be a main driver of population‐level racial disparities in arrests.…”

Police Uses of Force in the USA: a Wealth of Theories and a Lack of Evidence

“…Chalfin and Kaplan ( 2021 ) recently published a study examining the potential outcomes if EIS were properly implemented including the use of resources to identify and extricate problem officers. Concluding that removing “high-complaint ‘bad apples’” from police departments would result in only small reductions in civilian complaints, Chalfin and Kaplan contend that agencies should focus their resources on broader reforms rather than committing substantial resources to EIS.…”

Modeling Officer Perceptions of Body-worn Cameras: A National Survey

“…These systems are intended to predict "problem" officers, and intervene prior to those officers using unlawful force or otherwise becoming a civil or criminal liability to their employing agency. Though there is sparse evidence these systems can be effective (Gullion & King, 2020), or that agencies would even be able to achieve those goals by abating problem officers (Chalfin & Kaplan, 2021), there is still substantial effort at their development.…”