Police Pursuit Research Paper

Introduction
The goal of this paper is to inform the public of the difficult decisions that law enforcement officers and officials have to make on a daily basis in regards to police pursuits. This also includes the potential safety risks to the public, officers and suspects that are involved or not involved in a police pursuit. This paper will also highlight the statistics of police pursuits as well as the efforts and processes that are involved in making police pursuit policies. Police pursuits are often sudden decisions that have the potential to affect many other people’s lives.
Police pursuits are a hard subject to fully understand by law enforcement and the public. Some people look at the frightening statistics that one person dies everyday, one police officer dies every 11 weeks or 1% of all line of duty police deaths are from police pursuits (Schultz, Hudak, and Alpert, 2010). Others look at the fact that if law enforcement doesn’t chase suspects that everyone one will end up fleeing if they know that no one will chase them or that serial killers will escape and kill someone else. These are some of
Their average age was 26 years old, ninety four percent male, thirty percent ended in a crash, thirty percent stopped, and twenty five percent out ran the police (Schulz, Hudak, and Apert 2010). Reasons for fleeing included thirty two percent driving a stolen car, twenty seven percent had a suspended driver’s license, twenty seven percent didn’t want to get arrested, and twenty one percent were driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol (Schulz, Hudak, and Apert 2010). Seventy five percent of suspects also stated that they would slow down when they felt safe (Schulz, Hudak, and Apert 2010). Feeling safe meant that they didn’t hear sirens or see lights for at least two blocks in town or two and a half miles on the highway (Schulz, Hudak, and Apert