An open-source project to collect statistics on law-enforcement overreach
The PADB is a collection of publicly-reported incidents in the United States where law-enforcement personnel committed some type of abuse in their official capacity. Some examples of the types of abuse collected include:
- Physical beating of a restrained suspect
- Harassing someone for recording the police
- Using a SWAT team to serve a simple search warrant
- Shooting a restrained dog
There are also specific things which this database does not attempt to collect. Specifically, since this is a database of law-enforcement abuse, it will not collect incidents where the officer's actions were likely justified by the circumstances or where the abuse was committed by someone other than a law-enforcement officer.
- Unfair prosecution
- Inhumane treatment of prisoners (officer abuse while in holding would be included)
- Biased judges
- Officer shooting at an armed suspect
- Officer conducting a search to which the suspect consented
- Beating a suspect that is actually resisting
- Personal stories that are not publicly documented
- Police in Germany beat up a homeless man (Not in the U.S.)
- Officer beats his wife while off-duty (Not in official capacity)
No model is perfect and while the data definition below will nicely describe the most important details, it will not be a perfect fit for some (or even most) incidents of police abuse. However, some amount of error is allowable as long as the error is consistent and predictable. Here are some guidelines to ensure that incidents are modelled as consistently as possible.
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When multiple agencies are involved and it is not clear which agencies officers committed the abuse, then the incident is modelled using the most localized department. If the Sheriff's department and the city police respond to a call and abuse occurs the incident is modelled as an incident from the city police department. However, if it is reported that a Sheriff's deputy beat a handcuffed suspect then the incident is modelled as an incident from the Sheriff's department.
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When multiple agencies are involved and officers from both agencies committ abuse, then the incident is modelled as an incident from the most localized department. If the DEA and the Sheriff's department drive a tank through someone's living room looking for a dime bag of weed then the incident is recorded as a Sheriff's department incident.
- When an officer commits an unnecessary abuse, anything that results from that abuse is also unnecessary. E.g., if an officer enters a home without permission and without a warrant he has committed a search abuse. If the home owner then tries to remove the officer and is beaten up the beating is also an abuse because the officer should not have been there in the first place.
- The use of SWAT teams to serve search warrants, especially for minor drug offenses, will be considered intimidation (show-of-force) because there was an unnecessary show of force involved in the action. If during the SWAT raid the door is broken then force (destruction-of-property) applies also.
- If an off-duty officer makes use of resources that are only available to a police officer then it is an act of police misconduct. For example, if an officer uses a police database to the address of a guy that is sleeping with his wife, and then beats up the guy, the officer has committed an abuse. If an off-duty officer uses his service weapon or badge in the commission of abuse, then it is officer abuse and not private citizen action.
- An off-duty officer is arrested for soliciting a prostitute, however, and does not appear to be using his position or police property to secure dates or get out of the charges then it is a private matter. While the officer may be fired or demoted, it isn't really an instance of a police officer abusing his or her position as an officer.
http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2014/09/10/washington-d-c-cop-bullies-videographer-recording-arrest-despite-official-departmental-policy/ This officer might be wrong about the legality of video, but he does not at any point become verbally abusive, put hands on the cameraman, or arrest him.
If a jury awards money to a victim then some number of people (juries aren't always 12 people) looked at the facts of the case and decided that the police did SOMETHING wrong. If the city settles the case out of court for some amount of money then something probably went wrong somewhere. The city might be settling because they want to avoid the risk of an unfair payout from the jury, but there must be something to make the city attorney feel like that chance exists. If a prosecutor takes the rare step of bringing charges against an officer then it is likely that the officer did something wrong and it should be recorded.
If an officer commits sexual assault or rape that should be recorded as a sexual abuse in the abuse section. There should also be an injury listed in the physical outcomes section even if the sex was consensual (statuatory rape or coerced) and the victim was not beat up.
If an incident report has few details, lacks dates or location or is based on a lot of information that can't be independently verified then it is low-quality and should not be entered. An accusation that officers beat up somebody with no evidence to back it up is low quality. Video evidence adds quite a bit of quality as do reports from news organizations and impartial witnesses.
If an officer makes a proper decision to use force and in the process another person is accidentally injured that is not going to be considered abuse. It's just a tragic accident. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/nyc-cops-accidentally-shoot-and-kill-man-they-were-trying-to-save-from-knife-attack/#.VC1W9_i_Oj8.reddit In that incident, the police ordered a man to stop stabbing another man. When the man continued to stab, the police shot him. However, one bullet entered the victim too. Sames goes for raiding the wrong house with a search warrant. However, if the officers discover they are in the wrong house and continue their search, they have now committed an abuse. And if the officer thinks he's in the right house, and then uses excessive force it's also an abuse.
The PADB defines five broad types of abuse and has several subcategories for each of them. The database also tries to collect victim demographic information, information about the department and officers involved in the abuse and what outcomes came from the incident.
Defined as the unnecessary use of any of the following. Each of the categories is multi-select which means that every category which applies will be selected.
- force: firearm, taser, chemical, impact-weapon, unarmed, destruction-of-property, dog, false-arrest
- search: vehicle, cavity, person, strip, home
- misconduct: testilying, bribe, falsifying-evidence, misuse-data, theft, civil-forfeit
- intimidation: show-of-force, threats, verbal-abuse, harass-stalk
- sexual: harassment, abuse-minor, abuse-adult
- restrained: boolean
- notes: free-text
- incident_id
- incident_summary
- incident_year
- incident_month
- incident_day
- reported_year
- reported_month
- reported_day
- notes: free-text
- state
- city
- zip
- county
- context: Traffic Stop, 911, Search Warrant, Protest, Border-crossing, Checkpoint, Unknown
- notes: free-text
- url
- date_accessed
- headline
- org_name
- count
- race: white, black, latino, asian, native american, other, unknown
- age: 0-5, 6-2, 13-18, 18-24, 25-34, 45-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65+, Unknown
- gender: male, female, transgendered, unknown
- animal: boolean
- notes: free-text
- service-years:0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19, 20+, Unknown
- gender: male, female, transgendered, unknown
- race: white, black, latino, asian, native american, other, unknown
- multiple-incidents: boolean
- name
- city
- county
- state
- level: Federal, State, County, City, Unknown
- notes: free-text
- internal-investigation: No, Cleared of Wrongdoing, Sanctioned, Unknown
- HR: paid suspension, unpaid suspension, demoted, fired, Unknown
- legal: external-investigation, fines, settlement, criminal-charges, Unknown
- physical: injured, killed, Unknown
- department-statement: Acted appropriately, acted inappropriately, Unknown
- union-statement: Acted appropriately, acted inappropriately, Unknown
- total-fines-settlement: US dollars
- notes
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