Benjamin Madoff

29 October 2024

People have been watching police car chases in movies and television shows for decades, and most of the time they end with the police capturing the criminals and putting them away. What if in real life things don’t go as smoothly? There are high-speed police pursuits all over the country every day. However, over one quarter– a good portion– of these high-speed chases result in crashes, which damage property and may result in injuries or casualties from the cops, the criminals, or bystanders [1]. Along with other police policy reformations, such as body cameras and a ban on excessive force, police pursuit policy has become more restrictive [2]. This means that police cannot chase after anyone they want. They need to have reasonable suspicion that a car or a person in the car has violated a serious and dangerous offense. However, as of recently, some states are rolling back on these restrictions on police pursuits. The question that police and states are deliberating is how strict pursuit policy should be and how pursuit policy affects crime and casualty rates. What the burden of evidence supports, however, is that pursuit policies need to remain restrictive due to the amount of damage and casualties resulting from an excessive amount of pursuits. Specifically, police should only commence chasing when other drivers are placed at a much higher risk on the road with the law violator than if the violator was left to their own devices.

State governments generally control police policy but leave the specifics to individual departments. For example, Pennsylvania Statutes Title 75 Section 6342 indicates that each police department “shall develop and implement a written emergency vehicle response policy governing the procedures under which a police officer should initiate, continue and terminate a motor vehicle pursuit” [3]. The section provides a multitude of items police departments must include in their own policies, but up to their own interpretation. However, the state can step in to restrict or loosen any of these policies if they wish. This policy is flawed because it leaves individual police departments to do what they want while the state acts as a tool to reel in the police, but only rarely. With this policy, the Pennsylvania state government has to micromanage the actions of each police department and enforce punishment or changes on departments that create policies that stray from the state’s mission. This siphons resources away from the state’s other important departments and serves to complicate the chain of command. Instituting a singular list of policies for the entire state to follow would be more efficient and easier to change and enforce if need be.

The legislature in Washington State now has something similar due to an amended law that changed the language of when an officer can pursue a violator of the law. This law was labeled Initiative 2113, which came into effect on June 6th, 2024. Previously, the law required an officer to identify or have reasonable suspicion that someone had committed a dangerous crime (whether it be sexual assault, violence, driving under the influence, etc.). This worked more effectively because chasing after anyone who commits the smallest offense wastes officers’ time while also raising the risk of people getting into car accidents. Restricting who cops can chase reduces these problems. Now, Washington State only requires police to have a reasonable suspicion that someone has violated any law [4]. This desired power being returned to the Washington police serves to drastically increase the number of chases these officers undergo each year.  Higher police discretion for pursuits reduces the manpower that departments would have for larger chases or more important police efforts than chasing someone who accidentally ran a red light by one second. The Washington police now have more autonomy, and this negatively impacts public safety as it means that cops are driving around putting people’s lives in danger more often because they feel compelled to pursue an all-out chase because of a broken tail light.

Other places such as the state of Florida [5], the District of Columbia, and the city of San Francisco have all rolled back on restrictive policies but not to the same extent as Washington in the past year as well [2]. States all over the country are slowly transitioning from stricter pursuit policies to less restrictive ones, and it begs the question of whether more will follow. These states and cities removing restrictions on pursuits creates a more unsafe environment for everyone involved.  Strict pursuit policies will lead to more damages and casualties all over the United States, and the costs of property and human life will only continue to pile up if nothing is done about it. These lessening restrictions do not bode well for the future of public safety if this becomes a recurring trend. There is only so much that can be done to maintain public safety, and rolling back on these restrictions is the complete opposite of what needs to be done.

These policies are meant to help police catch those who are committing wrongdoing and reduce crime in general. They also serve to make the police more of a presence in the eyes of the people. According to the Washington State Patrol, between July 26th, 2021 and March 31st, 2024 (almost the entire time the restrictive pursuit policies were in place), almost 8,000 drivers fled from troopers. Most of the time, though, troopers could not chase them because they did not match the criteria of being eligible to be pursued. Chris Loftis, communications director for the Washington State Patrol, stated that people “were just ignoring the lights. They were just ignoring the sirens …. At the same time, you started seeing similar spikes in car thefts and smash and grabs and various property crimes.” Word on the street was that the cops could not chase, and criminals took advantage of it by committing more crimes they otherwise would not such as grand theft auto and running more red lights [6].

These instances and behaviors gave the state legislature and police reason and motivation to lessen these restrictive policies. With the passing of Washington State’s lax policy, police have now been given more discretion and are announcing to all criminals that their “free pass to commit crime has been revoked.” [7] However, they did not properly weigh the negatives by loosening them. They have only served to put more lives at risk and waste time. Providing more discretion to cops allows them to chase after whoever they want as long as they believe that drivers have committed any kind of violation. However, this, as stated before, can distract officers from stopping more dangerous violators, reducing manpower, and can result in more crashes over petty problems. The Washington State Patrol seeks to reduce all forms of crime, but in reality, it only ends up stretching resources that would be better utilized focusing on solely major crimes. While giving more power back to the police can serve to lightly benefit the community, it will also cause irreparable damage if left unchecked. 

While there are states that have rolled back restrictions, there are also states that have ramped up the restrictions on pursuits, and for good reason. Michigan state police policy, for example, restricted pursuits to only if police had “probable cause” a violator has committed a “violent or life-threatening felony,” and even then pursuits are not automatically cleared for initiation [8]. This drastically reduces the number of chases patrol cars undertake, which may lead to more criminals getting away. However, one effect, and arguably a much more important effect, of limiting these high-speed chases is to “protect the lives of innocent bystanders and [their] enforcement members.” It is impossible to know how a crash will happen and what will result, and the likelihood of a crash occurring increases with there being lighter policies. According to the Pennsylvania Police Reporting System, twenty-seven percent of the pursuits from 2023 and 2024 have resulted in crashes. This amounts to 1,414 crashes between 2023 and 2024, 802 from 2023, and 612 crashes in 2024. This ties well into the number of injuries each year from pursuits, which totals 580 injuries, 325 from 2023 and 255 from 2024. Alongside injuries, these crashes have also resulted in millions of dollars in property damage, specifically $5,158,231 of damage in 2023 and $4,617,939 of damage in 2024 so far. [1]. While these stats regarding injuries and property damage are quantifiable, what each and every one of these crashes has the potential to take away is a human life. There is no calculable measure to determine how valuable a person’s life is and how impactful the loss of such life can be. 

Returning to Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania’s policies are just as lenient as Washington’s, except its policy has resulted in a tragic accident. This past April, there was a police pursuit in Delaware County which resulted in four people, including a pregnant woman’s unborn child, being killed. The reason the chase began was because the officer on duty noticed the car the victims were in committed an equipment violation and decided to pull them over, but the car refused. This then resulted in a chase which ended in the deadly crash. [9] This means that more accidents like this can occur simply because the police can decide to go after anyone who does not pull over, even without probable cause of a serious crime. Even though there is little data on the effect of loosening these restrictive pursuit policies other than anecdotes, there is data on the effect of tightening these restrictions. The Washington Coalition for Police Accountability, a group against Initiative 2113, provided data regarding the amount of casualties of vehicular pursuits before and after the Vehicle Pursuit Law was enacted on July 25th, 2021 (the policy which restricted police pursuits before Initiative 2113). Given an equal amount of time before and after the law was put into effect (totaling around five years), the policy reduced persons killed by 50 percent, proving the effectiveness of the law and validating its efforts to reduce loss of life [10]. While initially restricting pursuits seems counterintuitive to maintaining safety, restrictions are much more effective in diminishing death and other damages.

All in all, the topic of policy on police pursuits can be incredibly complex and every state, as is their right, is going about this problem in their own way. However, the threat of crashes from irresponsible drivers, petty criminals, or cops trying to do their job outweighs these people’s crimes and their potential escape. Given how less restrictive pursuits are resulting in more fatalities, the correct choice in terms of legislation would be to impose strict criteria for police, preferably where the value of a human life is weighed infinitely more so than the prospect of putting lesser criminals behind bars. Police should only chase when other drivers are more endangered by the law violator on the road than if the violator was left to their own devices. To maintain order and accountability for both the police and the community, the police need to be held to a higher standard, and in doing so, the United States slowly shapes itself into becoming more of its ideal self.

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Works Cited

[1] Pursuit Reporting Unit, Pennsylvania Police. PA Police Pursuit Reporting System, 2024. https://www.policepursuits.pa.gov/.

[2] Hernández, Amanda. “In Reversal, More Areas Allow High-Speed Police Chases • Stateline.” Stateline, April 12, 2024. https://stateline.org/2024/04/12/in-reversal-more-areas-allow-high-speed-police-chases/.

[3] Pennsylvania, State of. “Pennsylvania State Legislature: Title 75 Section 6342.” Section 6342.0 – title 75 – vehicles, January 1, 2022. https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/75/00.063.042.000..HTM. 

[4] Washington, State of. “I – 2113 – Let’s Go Washington.” Let’s Go Washington – Essential Statewide Initiatives, June 15, 2023. https://letsgowashington.com/i-2113/. 

[5] Florida, State of. “Florida Highway Patrol Policy Manual.” Florida Highway Patrol Policy, March 19, 2024. https://www.flhsmv.gov/pdf/fhp/policies/1705.pdf.

[6] Mirfendereski, Taylor. “Thousands of Washington Drivers Fled from Cops after Law Limited Pursuits | King5.Com.” King5, June 3, 2024. https://www.king5.com/article/news/investigations/investigators/thousands-washington-drivers-fled-from-cops-after-law-limited-pursuits/281-8195c8be-dfad-4249-87c2-63ad4ef910ed.

[7] King 5 Staff. “Police Can Now Engage in Car Pursuits More Often in Washington State | King5.Com.” King5, June 6, 2024. https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/washington-police-pursuit-law/281-a2216dab-b074-4b87-aaa3-2bf64b93ea8e. 

[8] Police, Michigan State. “Michigan State Police Order 10-20.” Vehicle Pursuits, March 14, 2024. https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MIMSP/2022/03/14/file_attachments/2102502/JNET%20Media%20Release.pdf. 

[9] Vargas, Claudia. “Deadly Delco Crash Raises Questions on the PA.. State Police Chase Policy.” NBC10 Philadelphia, May 2, 2024. https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/investigations/deadly-delco-crash-raises-questions-on-the-pa-state-police-chase-policy/3848512/.

[10] Partners, WCPA. “WCPA Opposes Dangerous Police Pursuits Initiative.” Washington Coalition for Police Accountability, January 23, 2024. https://www.washingtoncoalitionforpoliceaccountability.com/our-voice/wcpa-opposes-dangerous-police-pursuits-initiative.