During the five-year period of the study, reported murders rose by about 11.5 percent.
While police killings declined in the aftermath of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, a recent study found that there was a jump in homicides as police became “less proactive” due to worries about public perception and lawsuits.
The Sept. 14 study analyzed two major waves of BLM protests—those following the death of Michael Brown, from 2014 to 2015, and those following the death of George Floyd, from 2020 to 2021.
Mr. Brown was an 18-year-old black man shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Mr. Floyd, 46, died after a white police officer knelt over his neck during an arrest in Minneapolis in 2020. The study analyzed how police treatment changed over a five-year period between the two protest waves.
“The findings of the event study suggest that the BLM protests led police departments to pull back from interactions with the public and obtain body cameras, leading to increased crime and decreased police killings,” wrote study author Travis Campbell.
The study found a 14 percentage-point increase in the share of agencies obtaining body-worn cameras over the five-year period.
“Rather than focusing on improving evidence quality or reducing agency liability, they reported objectives such as reducing the use of force and enhancing community perception,” the report said.
“The combined effect of police pullback and the widespread adoption of body cameras led to a 10% to 15% reduction in lethal force between the end of 2014 and 2019, preventing approximately 200 police killings.”
Less Police Activity
While police killings declined, homicides surged. During the five-year period of the study, reported murders rose by about 11.5 percent, which translates into more than 3,000 additional homicides, the study noted.
In addition, property crime arrests fell by about 12 percent, and the property crime clearance rate—the number of cases solved by law enforcement—saw a “sharp decline” of 8 percent.
“These statistics are not only alarming but also offer compelling evidence of a substantial decrease in police activity,” Mr. Campbell wrote.
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