Police use of force: Ending excessive use of force by law enforcement is a crucial step toward healthy, safe communities.
Insights & Analyses
- Large racial disparities are evident in police use-of-force incidents in the Nine-County Bay Area: the rate of use of force incidents on Black and Latino residents are higher than all other groups over the four-year period of 2016 to 2022.
- Over the seven-year period of 2016 to 2022, the rate of use of force incidents on Black civilians was 34 per 100,000 compared with only eight per 100,000 overall.
- The overwhelming majority of law enforcement use-of-force incidents involve men.
- Of the nearly 650 use-of-force incidents between law enforcement and civilians in the Nine-County Bay Area from 2016 to 2022, nearly 70 percent resulted in serious bodily injury to civilians and about 20 percent resulted in civilian death.
- Napa County has the highest incidence of police use-of-force per 100,000 people (20 incidents per 100,000 people), while Marin County has the lowest (about 1 incident per 100,000 people).
Drivers of Inequity
Police brutality is a longstanding issue in the US and in the Bay Area, where the Black Panther Party and Black Lives Matter movements took root to counter police violence toward the Black community. Historically, vagrancy laws gave the police license to arrest Black citizens with little cause. Today law enforcement is still not held accountable for the shooting deaths of civilians, who are often unarmed and predominantly Black and brown men. Permissive use-of-force policies and the lack of standards, transparency, and robust data perpetuates the challenge. In addition, police unions have generally organized against any attempts at reform aiming for greater accountability.
Strategies
Invest in people: Strategies to protect and value the lives of all residents
- Support campaigns to decrease use-of-force and officer-involved shootings.
- Support initiatives to increase police transparency and accountability and end special privileges for police.
- Reduce or eliminate police involvement and prioritize hiring and training counselors and mental health professionals to work with students, unsheltered populations, individuals with mental health concerns, and individuals in intimate partner violence situations.
- Advocate for divestment from police and investment in communities.
- Support community-led alternatives to policing.
- Prioritize positive youth development, engagement, and prevention in improving community/police relations.
- Require local police departments to adopt truth and reconciliation practices.
Strategy in Action
After adopting a new policy on deadly force, Stockton's police shootings decreased 73 percent. To reduce crime and increase trust, Stockton Police Chief Eric Jones began listening to residents. A conversation with one resident prompted a listening tour that reached over 100 residents and became a routine practice. The Chief ultimately used community feedback and research to implement systemic departmental changes: acknowledgment of past harms by the police; routine follow-up with victim’s families; and officer training. Between 2017 and 2018, police shooting decreased by 73 percent compared to the previous year. By 2018, homicides and nonfatal shootings declined and anonymous tips increased. The homicide clearance rate increased from about 40 percent in 2017 to 66 percent in 2018. Learn more.

Resources
- Organizations: Campaign Zero; Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice; Impact Justice; Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; ACLU Southern California; Anti Police-Terror Project; PolicyLink
- Reports: Report of The Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Law Enforcement; What to do Instead of Calling the Police; Emerging Issues: Alternatives to Enforcement; Turning Back the Tide: Promising Efforts to Demilitarize Police Departments; Police Scorecard
- Data: Police Shootings Database; Gun Violence Archive; The Counted
- Toolkits: Building Momentum from the Ground Up: A Toolkit for Promoting Justice in Policing