Not every issue is an economic one, but there are economic elements to most issues, including police shootings. This is a deep societal question right now in the Twin Cities that involves political, sociological and psychological issues rather than economics per se. But a few economic insights may be helpful in thinking this through.
The base of all economics is the idea of “opportunity cost.” This is the value of what you give up when you choose one alternative over another. If you eat hamburgers you cannot be a vegetarian. If you work as a police officer you cannot earn the income of an investment banker. Become a futures trader and you might forego the satisfaction a social worker gets from serving others. Pass on joining the Peace Corps and you might give up an opportunity to live among another culture, but perhaps also the risk of getting hepatitis.
When it comes to police shootings there are increasing opportunity costs both at the institutional and individual levels.
Institutionally, make rules too stringent on drawing and firing service weapons and more police may be killed by criminals who fire first. Prosecute more police shooting and more crime may occur because perpetrators know that they will have time to get away or get their own weapons out in case the police arrive.
At the other end of the spectrum, if the consequences for use of police weapons are too lax, innocent people may be killed by nervous or vindictive officers. If one officer among several thinks they see something in someone’s hand that might be a gun, everyone must shoot. All other officers on scene are supposed to join in and keep firing until there is no possible threat. A backfiring car can lead to a summary execution with nearly 150 bullets fired into two innocent men, as happened a few years ago in Ohio.
Few police are killed in the line of duty, but just one in the news can change the instantaneous calculations an officer often has to make. Add in regular court acquittals or non-indictments of officers whom prosecutors choose to pursue for their actions, and citizens become hesitant to call the police in many cases. Consider a family with a mentally-ill relative who is not really dangerous but more than parents or siblings can handle. They fear that if they call police, and this loved one makes what an officer might interpret as a threatening move, he or she will be killed.
These are opportunity costs on the individual level — officers choosing to risk their careers by shooting rather than risk their lives by not; citizens choosing to forgo police services that may be needed or helpful.
The recent shooting of Justine Damond, a 40-year old Australian woman, by Minneapolis police, tells people it is dangerous to call 911 and then go outside to meet the police and explain what you think happened. “Call 911 and get killed” is a new sardonic slogan.
Where then to operate on that long continuum between police hardly ever firing weapons or firing at the slightest threat?
Comparisons with other states and countries are useful. Economists compare, for example, levels of household debt relative to income, or levels of taxes paid relative to economic growth in a range of nations. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development all put great effort into tabulating databases of economic indicators that are comparable between countries. The World Health Organization does the same for health indicators.
Unfortunately, similar resources and sophistication are not present in producing internationally comparable crime and policing data. But various sources, however imperfect, exist. These show that the United States has levels of police shootings that are far higher than other developed countries. Compared to England and Wales, most studies show a U.S. resident is 75 to 200 times more likely to be shot to death by the police; a Danish study for Europe over the 1996-2006 decade shows that the U.S. rate is 850 times higher than the U.K. and several other European nations.
Expectations are a powerful force in economics and are a factor in police shootings. The phenomenon of “suicide by cop” is well known here. If you can reasonably expect that the police will open fire and keep shooting if you threaten them, then doing so is, for some, an easy way out. You don’t even need to own a firearm yourself.
But if the expectation is that police won’t shoot you, then provoking a police shooting is not a viable option for self-harm. Suicide by cop is virtually unknown in the U.K., Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Germany or New Zealand.
Relative abundance of key resources is also an element in economics. In the debate over violent crime, the availability of firearms is often cited as a determining reason why there are more shootings in the United States and for why police here need to be trained to shoot earlier in confrontations. More guns = more shooting, on both sides of the law, the equation goes.
Americans do own more firearms than citizens of other countries, but the gap is not nearly as great as one might believe. There are more firearms in countries like England, France and Germany than Americans think. Our country has roughly four times more guns of all types per capita than Germany, but our police are 60 to 400 times more likely to shoot and kill someone than in that country. True, most guns in Europe are shotguns kept in low-crime rural areas. Pistols — despite all the hoopla about assault rifles — remain the overwhelming weapon of choice used in homicides; the ratio of per capita pistol ownership in the U.S. vs. Europe is much higher, perhaps 25 to one.
Higher levels of economic inequality and higher proportions of racial and ethnic minorities correlated to poverty also are given as factors in the nature of U.S. criminal violence and the necessary police response to it. The United States does have a more racially mixed population than many other industrialized nations but the gap is narrower than most Americans think.
Then there is culture. Our nation has a culture of individualism and violence, one glorified in books and movies and as part of our national ethos. This undoubtedly is true to some extent. The degree to which it determines level of gun use in crime and prudent police practices in response is hard to quantify. And how one can modify culture is as knotty a problem in criminal justice issues as in economics.
If you believe, as I do, that in recent decades we have gone too far toward the “quick-to-shoot” end of the spectrum, then one must ask how this can be changed. A look at U.S. history shows that democracy is surprisingly effective, especially when there is political leadership. Political corruption was high, especially in the 1830s and 1870s-1890s. But reforms eventually took place at state and federal levels. The spoils system and the power of political machines slowly eroded in the face of popular sentiment expressed through the vote.
Another aspect of U.S. culture is that government responds to the people. U.S. police forces will change their training and operational procedures when voters elect officials who feel that change must occur.