The Cost - A Memorial Field

”The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” —W.E.B. DuBois (1868–1963)

Who pays for police misconduct?

The controversial uses of force in policing is something that troubles most Americans. Yet, many do not realize that the financial burden of wrongful deaths is shifted onto taxpayers due to a lack of police accountability for misconduct. If a national program systematically collected the data needed to quantify and qualify the costs of police violence and its resulting procedural injustices, communities would then be able to determine how they want elected policymakers to negotiate contracts with police departments. Understanding the scope of true costs could compel us to reform a system that privileges officers’ survival over public safety, especially when the perception of danger by law enforcement is impacted by racism and reductive biases.

Richard williams Norman Rockwell style painting

Richard Williams for Mad Magazine, 2015, update of Norman Rockwell’s “The Runaway,” 1958.

Costs and legislation related to police misconduct.

5 WRONGFUL DEATHS THAT COST TAXPAYERS
$103 MILLION

$38 million
Baltimore County, MD
$27 million
City of Minneapolis, MN
$20 million
Prince George’s County, MD
$12 million
Louisville, KY
$6 million
Cleveland, OH

IN TENNESSEE…
The Black Lives Matter movement resulted in legislative gains in Memphis. The “Tyre Nichols Driving Equality Act” barred officers from conducting certain traffic stops for low-level violations and more.
In 2024 state Rep advances a bill to cancel the Act, claiming crime ticked up because of police reforms.

IN ALABAMA 2021…
Legislature passed a law to create a database to track bad actors in police departments and keep police with records of misconduct out of local agencies and from policing neighborhoods.
However, the funding was not secured: millions to create the database and about $80,000/yr for maintenance.

IN COLORADO 2020…
A law eliminated “qualified immunity” for police officers and granted local governments the ability to make officers pay 5% or up to $25,000 of a settlement or judgment from a lawsuit in certain circumstances.
Despite this law, as of 2023, no local government has required an offending Colorado police officer to pay for his misconduct.

FINANCIAL GYMNASTICS OVER POLICE MISCONDUCT SETTLEMENTS
“From 2015 to 2019, more than $2 billion, mostly taxpayer money, was used on civilian payouts for police misconduct in only the 20 largest police departments.”

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