New Scorecard Reveals 'Disturbing Picture' Of Policing In U.S.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to provide additional clarity on the 2021 Police Scorecard scoring and methodology.

ACROSS AMERICA — A new database that analyzes shootings, arrests, misconduct complaints and other available records for more than 16,000 public safety agencies across the United States has revealed “a disturbing picture of policing across the nation,” according to researchers.

The 2021 Police Scorecard, a data-based project founded by data scientist, policy analyst and activist Samuel Sinyangwe, released its newest findings this week.

The scorecard, launched in 2019, previously only tracked police and sheriff’s departments in California. The project released its first nationwide analysis Wednesday.

Policing in the United States has come under intense scrutiny in the last year following a series of high-profile deaths at the hands of police.

The goal of the Police Scorecard is to create a database detailing municipal and county law enforcement agency scores on police violence, accountability, racial bias and other outcomes. The first national report compiled available data from more than 13,200 municipal police departments and 2,800 county sheriff departments.

Agencies were given an overall score between 0 and 100 percent — if an agency received an overall score of 50 percent, that means it scored better than 50 percent of similar-sized agencies.

Agencies were also given percentage scores in four categories: police funding, police accountability, police violence and approach to law enforcement. For example, if an agency receives a score of 44 percent on police accountability, that means it scored better than 44 percent of similar-sized agencies in the number of upheld misconduct, excessive force, and discrimination complaints.

Read more about the Police Scorecard’s methodology.

Most departments received an overall score lower than 50 percent and almost no departments scored higher than 70 percent.

“This suggests the need to thoroughly reimagine and transform the way the vast majority of cities and counties in the United States approach public safety,” the report says.

Departments received a higher score if they made fewer arrests for low-level offenses, used less force during arrest, spent less money on policing and upheld civilian complaints of police misconduct more often than other agencies.

Read more about the Police Scorecard’s methodology.

The scorecard is an “ongoing project,” according to its website, and will be updated as new information becomes available.

The database was compiled using information pulled from research literature as well as input from activists and experts in the field. It also used data from the FBI Uniform Crime Report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics' Annual Survey of Jails, the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of State and Local Government Finances, and the California Department of Justice's OpenJustice database.

The initial analysis of data found that policing outcomes vary greatly by state and city.

Based on the methodology used to score each department, Nevada and Georgia had among the lowest average scores, while Pennsylvania and Massachusetts had among the highest average scores.

Compiling the data also helped researchers make a series of conclusions about the state of policing across America. Here’s a brief look at what they discovered:

Police continue to hide substantial amounts of data from the public: In 36 states, laws restrict or prohibit agencies from making these records public.

Policing also differs substantially by city: Police departments in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and El Paso, Texas, had among the highest overall scores. By contrast, police departments in Chicago, Long Beach, and Kansas City had among the worst outcomes.

Police are making fewer arrests for low-level offenses: Two-thirds of all arrests reported in 2019 were for low-level offenses, which include loitering, disorderly conduct, substance use, sex work and other offenses that are not crimes against people or property.

As arrests decline, racial disparities persist: Black persons were arrested at higher rates than white persons in 92 percent of police jurisdictions.

Black communities are more heavily policed: Communities with more Black residents tended to be more saturated with police officers, with more police officers per population.

Some police departments show a clear pattern of using more force than other departments: Police in Oakland, Miami, San Francisco and New York had among the lowest rates of police shootings per every 10,000 arrests they made. Meanwhile, Detroit and Oklahoma City consistently had the highest rates of police shootings.

Eighty percent of jurisdictions increased police funding from 2013-18: Residents in Baltimore City, Oakland and New York City spent three to four times more per capita on policing than residents in El Paso, Virginia Beach or Indianapolis in 2018.