You could be sure if you cared to. Find the number of police officers in the U.S. multiple that by the number of shifts they work and then again by a conservative number of citizen contacts per shift. Multiple that by a conservative number of citizens involved in each contact. That is your number of opportunities for abuses. Now, find the number of actual abuses. Time to use the two numbers to find the percentage.
Having worked for two different Police Departments, one with a force of 600 and the other 700 I can tell you that less than 1% of the officers had a propensity for abuses. Of those they were far from uniformly abusive during their shifts, and in fact likely had negative encounters on only 1 to 3% of their shifts, and then not in every encounter during those shifts. What you have, generally is less than 1% being abusive les than 1% of the time. The training and weeding out of those who should not have power is pretty well done. The problem is that even though the % is extremely small it still represents a pattern of abuse, and when applied across large metro areas leads to some problem on a daily basis.
BTW, in my job I have had opportunity to view the I.A. and complaint stats from numerous Departments across the country and the numbers are generally consistent, though there are departments that deviate from the norm more than one standard deviation.
Overall policing is done very well. The problem is that this remains not good enough. It will never be good enough. Likely, also, it may never get much better as human endeavors always fall short of perfection.
Out of curiosity, where do you get the bolded numbers, or where would you recommend others go to get them? I can't imagine there's a reliable way to obtain that data. Obviously police officers themselves are going to under-report or underestimate the number of incidents of abuse and the number of officers who have a propensity for abuse. And victims of abuse are likely not reporting many of the instances of abuse, because to whom would they report them? That's the whole problem with law enforcement abuse of power- the people doing it are the people tasked with administering justice, so there's no recourse. And as certain incidents go public, we've seen many many examples of law enforcement reacting to allegations of bad behavior by closing ranks and protecting their own over their service to the public.
Actually there was a time when reporting abuse was a daunting process. Once upon a time to do so meant coming into station houses, surrounded by the very uniforms with which you just had an adverse experience, sitting, waiting, and filling out forms. Nowadays there are very few Departments which do not have telephone complaint lines and on line reporting. Given case law out there these complaints are all logged and investigated. Whether they lead to discipline, or are found wholly unfounded the records are kept during the entirety of an Officer's employment and are discoverable by subpoena and are then reviewed by the Courts to determine whether they should be made public in trials wherein that officer may be testifying, not just the trial involving the incident, but in all trials involving that officer throughout the remainder of their career.
additionally any officer who uses force during a shift is required to fill out a use of force report. These are Departmental business records and are obtainable through open records requests and can be reviewed by any who would care to do so. If an officer fails to report any use of force, abusive in their minds or not, that failure is subject to discipline and is a firing offense. Those reports are subject to review by the Department, and in most departments are turned over to Tactical Review Boards and Civil Service Review Boards. They are turned over without the names included, but the incidents are reviewed and if discipline is appropriate it occurs.
Oversight and access to information is not the problem, nor is training or vetting of recruits and officers. The problem is that these safeguards are put into place after tragedy. the mob howls, and rightfully so, institutional changes are made and safeguards instituted. The issue fades, and then these boards are not populated by concerned and fair-minded citizens, but rather by interested parties, retired officers, politicians out of office hoping to get back in and willing to curry the favor of the unions who have large war chests for campaign contributions.
The systems are more or less sound. the application of those systems takes ongoing hard work by fair-minded folks. the reality is that fair-minded folks, lack the attention span and interest to people these Boards and they are taken over by interested parties who subvert them. many times I have seen Departments act swiftly and correctly. Discipline is imposed, the officer appeals, the appeal is heard by a Board comprised of former members of the union, and they draw together. they determine that though something may have happened the officer has a substantial interest in continuing a career for which he has devoted substantial time and resources in his training, and he should be retrained and given another chance. That, off course, means turning that known danger loose back on the community. If you want change it is simple, volunteer your time and effort to see that good and responsible government happens. do not let the systems be coopted by those with an agenda. Human nature being what it is I lament that this will ever happen in a meaningful way. We all hope someone else will do the work. We are concerned with our own lives and families. I too suffer that same disinterest.
Oh, the bolded numbers I get from being a Police Legal Advisor after being a Prosecutor. I have access to complaint, discipline, I.A. files as well as all use of force reports. Additionally I have been on several national committees setting Directives and writing model rules and directives.
As for there being no recourse I would disagree. There are plenty of private lawyers and many advocacy groups devoted to creating recourse. Suits against individual officers and departments are, unfortunately, big business.
