Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Hitting (or missing) the mark

Hitting (or missing) the mark The purpose of this paper is to examine police shooting accuracy and the factors that influence whether officers hit, or miss, their intended target.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive statistics explore both incident-level and hit rate shooting accuracy in single officer/single suspect shooting incidents in the Dallas Police Department between 2003 and 2017. Multiple regression models analyze the predictive utility of officer, suspect and situational factors on the two accuracy outcomes.FindingsConsistent with prior research, the results demonstrate that officers are often inaccurate in officer-involved shooting (OIS) incidents. Additionally, several factors emerged as significant predictors of shooting accuracy.Practical implicationsThe results are discussed in terms of the practical implications for training and accountability.Originality/valueIt has been more than a decade since the last academic study investigated this important topic using actual OIS data. Acknowledging the general dearth of this literature, this study explores what factors contribute to shooting accuracy. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management Emerald Publishing

Hitting (or missing) the mark

Download PDF
16 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/hitting-or-missing-the-mark-cBCOYTyDn5

References (27)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
1363-951X
DOI
10.1108/pijpsm-05-2018-0060
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine police shooting accuracy and the factors that influence whether officers hit, or miss, their intended target.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive statistics explore both incident-level and hit rate shooting accuracy in single officer/single suspect shooting incidents in the Dallas Police Department between 2003 and 2017. Multiple regression models analyze the predictive utility of officer, suspect and situational factors on the two accuracy outcomes.FindingsConsistent with prior research, the results demonstrate that officers are often inaccurate in officer-involved shooting (OIS) incidents. Additionally, several factors emerged as significant predictors of shooting accuracy.Practical implicationsThe results are discussed in terms of the practical implications for training and accountability.Originality/valueIt has been more than a decade since the last academic study investigated this important topic using actual OIS data. Acknowledging the general dearth of this literature, this study explores what factors contribute to shooting accuracy.

Journal

Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management – Emerald Publishing

Published: May 23, 2019

Keywords: Police use of deadly force; Hit rates; Police training; Police accountability

There are no references for this article.