- In 2023, police in the U.S. Killed over 1,300 people, marking a steady increase in police killings, as reported by Mapping Police Violence.
- There were only 14 days without a police killing, and on average, a person was killed by law enforcement every 6.6 hours.
- While the number of people killed by gunfire and officers killed in the line of duty declined, this data highlights the need for significant changes in policing in the country.
Heres some data for the UK to compare.
America has some serious problems
| Characteristic | Road traffic fatalities | Fatal shootings | Deaths in or following police custody | Apparent suicides following custody | Other deaths during or following police contact\* |
| -------------- | ----------------------- | --------------- | ------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| 2010/11 | 26 | 2 | 21 | 46 | 57 |
| 2011/12 | 19 | 2 | 15 | 39 | 47 |
| 2012/13 | 31 | 0 | 15 | 65 | 22 |
| 2013/14 | 12 | 0 | 11 | 70 | 44 |
| 2014/15 | 14 | 1 | 18 | 71 | 43 |
| 2015/16 | 21 | 3 | 14 | 61 | 106 |
| 2016/17 | 32 | 6 | 14 | 56 | 131 |
| 2017/18 | 29 | 4 | 23 | 57 | 177 |
| 2018/19 | 42 | 3 | 17 | 63 | 156 |
| 2019/20 | 24 | 3 | 18 | 54 | 107 |
| 2020/21 | 25 | 1 | 19 | 54 | 92 |
| 2021/22 | 40 | 2 | 11 | 57 | 111 |
| 2022/23 | 28 | 3 | 23 | 52 | 90 |
So, if I’m reading this right, the US had 6.6 times more fatalities by police (1,300 vs 196), with only 5 times more population (332 million vs 67 million).
Population equalized, 1,300 US vs 980 UK. Unless I’m reading this wrong.
This source is including many more causes of death not included in the US number. The average annual direct killings by the US police is 1096 (33.1 per 10 million), while the UK is 3 (0.5 per 10 million), about 66 times worse per capita.
It seems like that’s just shootings. I’m really curious what the “other” category is for the UK. That seems like that might be direct killings that aren’t shootings. That would inflate the number to 93.
But even if all of the others are murders (since unattributed deaths in custody is its own category), that would still make the US police 3 times as likely to murder you.
I don’t have the info to clarify this either way, but the data Ive shared isn’t only “directly killed by police action” but includes suicide and other deaths related to police contact but not necessarily directly caused by police
e. interpreting the US statistics as “directly killed by police, with their hands” then I would count only “fatal shootings” and possibly “deaths in and following police custody”.
Here’s another slice of UK people killed by shootings https://www.statista.com/statistics/319246/police-fatal-shootings-england-wales/
2023 there were 3 police shootings resulting in death
In USA there were 1153 fatal shootings by police
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/
