Did California Act to Save Lives? AB 392 and fatal officer-involved shootings

Abstract

American police face considerable criticism from the public about the perceived unnecessary and excessive use of deadly force in civilian interactions. Police reform advocates often call for widespread change to reduce officer-involved shootings and other forms of deadly force. Some, such as California, pursued statewide legal interventions to limit police deadly force. AB 392, the California Act to Save Lives, changed the deadly force standard so that objectively reasonable officers, when considering the totality of circumstances, can only use deadly force when necessary to defend human life. The stricter standard was designed to limit officer deadly force and reduce civilian deaths so this paper considers the efficacy of AB 392 on the incidence of fatal force in California. The results of interrupted time series and synthetic control method (SCM) analyses find no evidence of a reduction in deadly force after the passage of AB 392. Any effort to change deadly force should be coupled with legislative changes and evidence-based practices. Policymakers, practitioners, and researchers will need to explore a multi-pronged approach to reduce deadly force encounters.