And the law relaxed the rules – A quasi-experimental study of fatal police shootings in Europe

Abstract

Can the behavior of civil servants with a large autonomy, the police, be regulated by law? In the case of the use of deadly force, the subject remains understudied in Europe. A 2017 law in France relaxed restrictions and allowed for the first time the national police to use weapons beyond self-defense. This quasi-experimental study examines the impact that this regulatory change, used as an exogenous shock, has had on the number of deaths of occupants of vehicles. The monthly number of killings has significantly increased for the national police (experimental group), who are directly affected by the new regulation, but not other forces unaffected by the regulation such as the French gendarmerie, a military status force (control group 1), and other police forces of two neighboring states (Germany, Belgium, control group 2 and 3). The findings hold after controlling for the variations in level of violence in society, and police exposure to and death in dangerous traffic violations during the study period. When using more conservative specifications, the observed increase in lethal shootings does not reach statistical significance due to a lack of statistical power related to the rarity of police lethal shootings in the European context. We recommend that national regulations governing the use of weapons by police more clearly and unambiguously embed the notions of proportionality and absolute necessity.