male cops kill more frequently than female cops

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http://feministing.com/2014/12/17/when- ... ut-gender/

I feel like male aggression is an under-discussed topic when these shootings occur.

One would think that female officers would commit more fatal shootings than men (since presumably they may be less able to physically overpower a suspect on average). But the exact opposite is true. Percentage wise, male officers commit kill more.

I'm sure this is going to make a lot of people hell of angry for posting this but it needs to be said I think. It seems to defy common sense.

There are more male cops than female cops, so you can't get an accurate study. It's a male dominated field. It's like saying more male astro-physicists come up with scientific breakthroughs.

That article is kind of a joke, its like "hey pay attention to me too!"

I imagine female cops apart from being a small minority are also not put out on the beat by themselves especially high crime areas and also perps are probably less likely to show aggression towards a female officer.

There is a substantial body of scientific literature demonstrating that men - on average - are more aggressive than women, which can likely explain some if the overrepresentation of men in fatal officer-involved-shootings... and the overrepresentation of men among violent criminals...

A key difference is in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the brain... A substantial body of scientific studies has demonstrated that:

- The PFC is on average less developed in male brains than in female brains.
- The PFC matures slower in male brains than in female brains.
- Reduced PFC activity/volume has consistently been shown to be associated with aggressive behavior.
- Reduced PFC activity/volume is also associated with other types of "as*hole" behavior, such as narcissism.

A few illustrative studies:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2799952/
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/9/998.long
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article ... id=2472953
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 2216300902

So the fact that male police officers kill more frequently than female police officers may not defy common sense at all. As a matter of fact, the explanation might be almost trivially straightforward...

Women are - on average - better people than men...

Why are you using a man hating website as a news source?

More than one way to see this.

Back when I wanted to be a cop, at the academy we were taught about the "use of force continuum."

In short, you escalated to the next level of force as the suspect escalated.

The problem was the blatant sexism and political correctness of the profession (back in the 1990s). We had a WONDERFUL tool called the PR-24 baton. You could go from simple pain infliction (low use of force) to lethal force depending on how you used it. Very handy all-in-one defensive/offensive tool.

At that time, a female cop could get away with carrying one because the average female cop was less physically capable at hand-to-hand combat. Male cops, however, were increasingly told to never carry it because it was seen as needlessly aggressive. So, the male cops had to rely on hand-to-hand combat, and if/when that failed, the only thing left was the sidearm (lethal force).

So, unless a MALE cop was a black belt in martial arts, he would be more frequently forced to use the THREAT of deadly force as a deterrent (you aren't supposed to draw your weapon unless you believe the need for deadly force is immanent), and this could more frequently lead to needless shootings by the police.

Eventually everyone was denied the use of this tool, so now FEMALE cops were in the same boat...having to resort to their sidearm to bring a suspect under control because most times they weren't strong/skilled enough to do it by hand.

Of course, now we have less-lethal force options like the Tazer and riot spray, but still....

Batons seem much safer than tasers which might not work at all for some while being lethal to others, I believe I had one of those PR-24 which while really heavy I think you'd still have to be really strong and have intent to kill someone with it.