Research conducted in the area of officer-related injuries and fatalities reveals a significant gap in the need for more accurate data collection. Relevant data regarding law enforcement injuries and fatalities is not being collected, and is clearly documented throughout the literature and recognized by leaders in the policing profession. According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), “the officer injury picture has been narrowly defined, with the majority of the focus on line-of-duty deaths and
17 IACP, Reducing Officer Injuries. 18 “Law Enforcement Facts.”
19 “By Their Own Hand: Suicide among Law Enforcement Personnel,” Community Policing Dispatch, April 2009, http://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/April_2009/suicide.htm.
assaults.”20 Accurate data on police officer accidents and injuries, however, has been
virtually non-existent.21
Steven Brandl and Meghan Stroshine’s study on the physical hazards of police work indicates that there are significant problems associated with defining the danger of the policing profession strictly in terms of assaults and homicides, since (they argue) it “distorts the risk and severely underestimates the hazards involved.”22 The lack of accurate
data also makes it difficult for police executives to address the range of risks faced and enact preventative measures.23 Their study further recognizes the need to research and
measure the psychological effects to police officers after physical injuries are sustained.24
To properly assess and understand the range, nature, and cause of officer-related injuries and fatalities across the policing profession, it is essential that data on all accidents and injuries be captured from law enforcement agencies nationwide. This need was recently recognized by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which called for a nationwide repository for officer injuries in order to make effective recommendations on tactics, training, equipment, and policies.25
In its 2014 report titled Reducing Officer Injuries, the IACP identifies three reasons why tracking all police-related injuries is important:
(1) to determine the impact of costs such as lost wages, medical expenses and insurance claims, as well as productivity decreases;
(2) to develop effective training and policies to prevent injuries; and
(3) to gain a comprehensive understanding of the scope of all police-related injuries on a national level.26
20 IACP, Reducing Officer Injuries. 21 Ibid.
22 Steven G. Brandl and Meghan S. Stroshine, “Toward an Understanding of the Physical Hazards of Police Work,” Police Quarterly 6 (2003): 172–191. doi:10.1177/109861113006002003.
23 Brandl and Stroshine, “Toward an Understanding,” 172–191. 24 Ibid.
25 President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. (Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2015).
The development of effective safety programs is dependent on this knowledge and must incorporate identified trends and patterns of injuries and fatalities, and how they occurred.
In addition to the lack of a comprehensive database to properly analyze officer injuries, research also reveals a lack of willingness on the part of law enforcement agencies to openly share lessons learned due to fear of reprisal or criticism.27 The use of
after-action reviews (AARs) has been inconsistent and largely reserved for major incidents, and is not standardized or mandated in the profession. The AARs that are conducted often do not provide an honest depiction of the issues due to professional concerns over reputations and liability.28
In 2013, the Police Foundation, an “independent, non-membership organization dedicated to improving policing through innovation and science,” developed an online near-miss reporting system for law enforcement officers that is modeled after the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) near-miss reporting program.29 The
Internet-based program “encourages law enforcement personnel to share their near miss stories and lessons learned to shield other law enforcement personnel from accidents, injuries and fatalities, as well as to prevent other community crises from occurring.”30
Information shared on the website is anonymous, secure, non-punitive, and confidential. Efforts such as these to capture valuable lessons are encouraging but are limited by the voluntary cooperation and honest reporting of participating law enforcement agencies.
The Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA) 2010 Guide to Occupational Health and Safety for Law-Enforcement Executives is the only professional source located during this literature review that identified the need for a comprehensive approach to occupational health and safety programs for law enforcement. The guide provides a
27 Police Foundation, “LEO Near Miss: Lessons Learned Become Lessons Applied,” accessed Nov. 21, 2014. http://www.leonearmiss.org.
28 Amy Donahue and Robert Tuohy. “Lessons We Don’t Learn: A Study of the Lessons of Disasters, Why We Repeat Them, and How We Can Learn Them.” Homeland Security Affairs II, July 2006,
https://www.hsaj.org/articles/167.
29 Police Foundation, “Home,” accessed Oct. 31, 2015, http://www.policefoundation.org.
framework for “identifying the basic program elements for creating new, or strengthening and maintaining existing, occupational health and safety programs for law enforcement agencies, regardless of the threat identified.”31 While this resource provides an excellent
starting point for developing comprehensive state and local law enforcement safety programs, it fails to recommend the incorporation of dedicated safety officer resources to oversee officer health and safety, especially during training and response to high-risk incidents, or recommend an approach to train and certify specialized law enforcement safety officers.
Although current safety programs can and have been effective in addressing specific targeted risks, they often operate independently or in isolation, failing to address safety in a coordinated and comprehensive manner. This can result in gaps regarding safety protocols within agencies. This was a key point in a 2010 report published by PERF and BJA, which stated, “the law enforcement field could significantly benefit from adopting a standardized and comprehensive approach to occupational health and safety.”32 Also missing from current law enforcement safety programs are performance
measures to evaluate the effectiveness of those programs that do exist. Without measures and evaluations to determine whether existing programs are having a positive impact on safety, agency resources may be misdirected and/or programs eliminated from annual budgets.
This literature review revealed that no comprehensive safety management system exists in the law enforcement profession, a system that addresses risk comprehensively in routine, training, and operational environments. Such a system includes practices such as a comprehensive assessment of risks and hazards in the workplace; investigation and analysis of accidents and incidents; implementation of safety-related policies and regulations; performance metrics and reporting mechanisms; and system audits to determine if control measures are being practiced.
31 Sanberg et al., A Guide to Occupational Health and Safety, 1–62. 32 Ibid.