The so-called
Pew study suggests ‘Ferguson effect’ a reality for police
“Ferguson effect” — in which officers back off policing out of fear that their actions will be questioned after the fact — has never really been quantified. A new study suggests the concept is a reality, though.
ATLANTA — The “Ferguson effect” — officers backing off on policing out of fear that their actions will be questioned later — has been talked about but never really quantified.
A new study suggests the effect is a reality, with three-quarters of officers surveyed saying they are hesitant to use force, even when appropriate, and are less willing to stop and question suspicious people.
The nonpartisan Pew Research Center questioned at least 8,000 officers from departments with at least 100 officers between May 19 and Aug. 14 last year — most of it ahead of the fatal shootings of five officers in Dallas and three officers in Baton Rouge.
What it found was a significant fear among police about their safety and about carrying out some everyday acts of policing.
It also shows a stark difference in how white and black officers view the protests that have taken place after some of the high-profile shootings of black suspects in the past several years, with black officers believing the protests are genuine acts of civil disobedience designed to hold police accountable, while white officers are more skeptical of the protesters’ motives.
“White officers and black officers have very different views about where we are as a country in terms of achieving equal rights,” said Kim Parker, director of social trends research for the Pew Research Center. Some of the key findings: 86 percent of officers said that fatal encounters between blacks and police have made policing more difficult;
93 percent said more concerned safety;
76 percent said they’re more reluctant to use force when appropriate;
75 percent said interactions between police and blacks are more tense;
72 percent said they or their colleagues are more they’re about reluctant to stop and question people who seem suspicious.
In 2014, a white officer in Ferguson, Mo., shot and killed black teen Michael Brown, setting off a movement that drew greater scrutiny of police use of force, particularly against black citizens. In the years since, other fatal encounters between police and civilians — many of them unarmed — elsewhere have put officers under the microscope, especially as video has captured more of these events.
There has been a concern, largely shared in anecdotes, of officers holding back on stopping suspicious people or other policing out of concern that they’d be cast as racist. But the Pew survey provides the first national evidence that those concerns may be having an effect on how officers do their jobs.
“Officers are concerned about being the next viral video, and so that influences what they do and how they do it and how they think about it,” said Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.