The Cop Column
September, 2001
Rick Hord, Public Information Officer
Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office
What are Your Chances of Meeting an Officer in Person?
If you have recently had to deal with a Deputy Sheriff or other law enforcement officer, you're in the minority. Almost 80% of Americans age 16 and older did not have direct contact with an officer during the year 1999.
That finding is from the US Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, which recently released the results of a major survey. The so called "PPCS-II," or "Police-Public Contact Survey" was a huge undertaking, involving more than 80,000 interviews conducted during the last six months of 1999. The first "PPCS," much smaller in scale, was conducted in 1996. The two surveys produced very similar findings, with the newer, larger version provided more details.
Some of the results:
*-About 21% of the population reported at least one face-to-face contact with a law enforcement officer during the year.
*-Slightly more than half of those contacts were traffic stops.
*-Slightly more than half (54.2%) of traffic stops resulted in a citation against the driver.
*-Young drivers are more likely to be stopped. Almost one of every five (18.2%) teen drivers were pulled over during the year. That's almost double the rate of licensed drivers as a whole, and more than quadruple the rate of drivers age 50 and older.
*-About 4-million drivers, or 2.1% of all licensed drivers, were pulled over two or more times during the year.
*-Although we hear a lot about the exceptions to this one, the police seldom abuse their authority. No less than 84% of the drivers pulled over admitted they deserved to see blue lights in their mirror; and 90% of the time the drivers said the officer acted properly during the stop.
*While traffic stops (52%) are the common way citizens meet a police officer, about 20-million Americans had encounters other than traffic stops. The majority of those citizens sought out an officer to report a crime, discuss a neighborhood problem, or ask for assistance.
*About just seven-tenths of one percent of the population reported being confronted by a law officer as a suspect. That percentage is only slightly higher in big cities of one million or more population than in less-populated jurisdictions. A huge difference, though, is seen in a demographic breakdown: teenagers were more than ten times as likely to report that type of encounter than were citizens age 50 or older.
By the nature of our job, many encounters will be perceived as less than welcomed by the citizen involved. In Okaloosa County, Sheriff Charlie Morris recognizes that fact, but he always demands courtesy, respect, and professional conduct from his deputies in all contacts with citizens.
-30-