Jamal AndressIt's simple, really: Police departments with more use-of-force policies have fewer police killings and fewer police officers getting killed.
That's according to a Campaign Zero report. Campaign Zero is a police-reform plan created by Black Lives Matter activists and researchers. The campaign's report examines deadly force statistics and use-of-force policies of 91 of the 100 largest police departments in the U.S.
SEE MORE: Deadly Police Shooting Sparks Violent Protests In Charlotte, N.C.
The report looks at eight use-of-force policies that are in place around the country — things like banning both chokeholds and shooting at moving vehicles.
According to the report, police departments that had implemented any of the eight policies killed fewer people than departments that had not. The departments that had implemented four or more of these policies had the lowest rates of police-involved killings in the country.
Cities like Washington, D.C.; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Miami had 7, 18, and 10 police killings per million, respectively, from January 2015 to July 2016 — that's among the lowest per capita in the U.S.
These policies also correlated with a smaller number of assaults and killings of police officers.
However, the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the country, has released multiple statements saying restrictive use-of-force policies endanger officers and that the public should rely on the judgment of its officers.
In all fairness, the stats on police killings only account for about 19 months worth of data since there was no reliable count of police killings nationally before 2015.
Most police departments in the group studied have already implemented at least three of the eight policies, but Campaign Zero hopes all eight policies can become the standard across the country.
