GAO: Justice needs better use-of-force data
The Department of Justice has work to do on collecting and reporting use-of-force data from the nation’s law enforcement agencies.
The Department of Justice has work to do on collecting and reporting use-of-force data from the nation’s law enforcement agencies.
In a December Government Accountability Office report, auditors found that between 2016 and 2020, DOJ did not publish an annual summary of data on excessive force because it had not assigned responsibility for that work. Without this data, it’s difficult to better understanding of how to reduce the use of excessive force, GAO said.
The use-of-force data is collected through nine separate efforts under various DOJ component agencies, some of which said they had not been informed of data collection responsibilities and others that collected or published data for only some of the years GAO examined.
The FBI launched a new use-of-force data collection program for 2016 through 2022, but low participation by law enforcement agencies (less than the 60% threshold required by the Office of Management and Budget) prevented the FBI from publishing that information every year. Nor has the program identified any alternative way of building its data collection, GAO said.
The FBI’s program also makes no differentiation between incidents involving reasonable force and those involving excessive force, GAO said. Plus, because there is no information on whether officers followed department policy for given incidents, “it is unclear how DOJ could use these data to publish a summary on excessive force by law enforcement officers,” the report stated.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics, which also manages some data collection efforts related to use of force, has seen delays – sometimes of more than a year – in report publication. BJS has not assessed or documented reasons for the delays, the auditors said.
GAO also found that some of DOJ’s data collection efforts overlap, though the department has not completed reviewing the extent of duplication among the reporting efforts.
Thousands of complaints about excessive use of force come into DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and other components, and the department faces challenges managing those allegations, according to the report. Specifically, component agencies do not systematically track and share information, nor does the Civil Rights Division use this information to inform decision making or to identify patterns of systemic law enforcement misconduct.
After reviewing scholarship on use of force actions, GAO found that several peer-reviewed articles suggested “the lack of comprehensive and reliable national data on law enforcement’s use of force hindered researchers in fully understanding which practices may be effective in reducing the use of force.”
Stakeholders interviewed by GAO, including law enforcement associations, civil rights organizations and academic researchers, also emphasized the importance of DOJ’s data related to law enforcement’s use of force, citing its relevance to federal, state and local legislation. The representatives also noted that reliable use of force data “could improve transparency in law enforcement operations, which could inspire public trust in law enforcement,” GAO said.