Organizational Problem
The primary focus of being a Police Officer is to protect the citizens of the city you work for. This is accomplished by being dispatched to 911 calls, local patrol and close patrol of high-crime areas as well as being a visible presence in the community.
One of the hazards of patrolling is the occasional police pursuit of criminals desperate to flee the scene, and not be apprehended. Each city has its own pursuit policy and the criteria as to the definition of a pursuit, authorized reasons for the pursuit and the justification as to when to cancel the pursuit.
It is this researcher's intent to examine if police pursuits are warranted; what are the overall safety factors involved during pursuits, statistical data from crashes during pursuits, and how the safety of the community would be affected if pursuits were discontinued altogether. My proposed research will examine whether that which is to be gained, namely the apprehension of the suspect, justifies what could be lost, the lives of the participants/ innocent citizen.
Physical Location and Stakeholders
The physical location for this practicum research will be the author's primary agency, Austin Police Department-Austin, Texas. Included in this research will be statistics from the immediate surrounding central Texas area, and statistically the national averages of major cities nationwide.
The principal stakeholders are the Austin Police, the citizens of Austin, and the emergency first responders: EMS, Fire and Rescue Services.
Local Organizations, Policies, Programs and Services Affecting the Issue
The local organizations affected directly would be all the police departments located in Texas and perhaps the nation. The emergency services: EMS and Fire Departments, that serve as first responders. The City Manager's office and various Legal representatives throughout central Texas would also be directly affected.
Purpose of the Research
High-peed police pursuits and the inherent risk of injury and death that can result constitute an important law enforcement and public safety issue. Police pursuits are dangerous. Available data indicate that the number of pursuits continues to increase, as well as the number of pursuit-related injuries and deaths.
Officers face the basic dilemma associated with high-speed pursuits of fleeing suspects: Do the benefits of potential apprehension outweigh the risks of endangering the public and the police? Research indicates that too many restraints placed on the police regarding pursuits can put the public at risk. In the other hand, insufficient controls on police pursuit can result in needless accidents and injuries.
Some research indicates that police pursuits result in about 350 deaths per year and the number of pursuits increases each year. One organization estimates that about 2,500 persons die each year as a result of police pursuits and that another 55,000 are injured. Although some law enforcement sources argue that these estimates are exaggerated, they concede that the 350 figure may be too low.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that 314 people were killed during pursuits in 1998. Of this total, 2 were police officers and 198 were individuals being chased. The remaining 114 were either occupants of unrelated vehicles or pedestrians. The total was higher in each of the 4 previous years. The lack of a mandatory reporting system hampers attempts by NHTSA to track pursuit fatalities and results in the collection of as little as one-half of the actual data. Typically, only 90 percent of states report pursuit fatality data to NHTSA. By extrapolating the 5-year totals to include 100 percent reporting, calculations would show an average of 375 deaths per year. Even conservative estimates by various researchers recalculate the actual number of fatalities between 400 to 500 deaths per year.
Significance of the Study
Police pursuit records provide some frightening statistics. First, the majority of police pursuits involve a stop for a traffic violation. Second, one person dies every day as a result of a police pursuit. On average, from 1994 through 1998, one law enforcement officer was killed every 11 weeks in a pursuit, and 1 percent of all U.S. law enforcement officers who died in the line-of-duty lost their lives in vehicle pursuits. Innocent third parties who just happened to be in the way constitute 42 percent of persons killed or injured in police pursuits. Further, I out of every 100 high-speed pursuits results in a fatality.
The remainder of the research paper will focus on separate aspects of the research. There will be the following sections; Deconstruction, Methodology, Construction and contextualization. These sections will go into detail as to the statistical comparisons of local municipalities vs. national averages for pursuit-related injuries; participants utilized who have been involved in pursuits, research processes as well as government policies governing the participation of police pursuits.
Deconstruction
As mentioned in the Focus and Framing section of this research, the purpose is to determine whether the risks of high-speed police pursuits are worth the rewards. Pursuits are hazardous and potentially fatal for all parties involved, and even innocent citizens caught in the wrong place.
