A&Q is a special series that inverts the classic Q&A, taking some of the most frequently posed solutions to pressing matters of policy and exploring their complexity.

Updated on April 27, 2016, at 10 p.m.

There’s nearly bipartisan consensus these days that something has gone wrong in the relationship between police and the public in the United States.

Shootings of unarmed people, videos of excessive force, and massive protests from coast to coast attest to the problem.

But recognizing the problem is different from solving it. How can communities across the U.S. improve police accountability?

ANSWER

The obvious place to start is to dig into the data and get a better understanding of the scope of the problem—anything else risks missing the point.

QUESTION

That’s a logical conclusion, but where are you going to get that data? The lack of reliable information on policing has been a major hindrance to discussions.

For example, how many people do the police shoot every year? No one knows. Forget trying to figure out how many of those were unarmed, or what the demographic breakdown of the the people they shot was. There’s a law on the books that purports to gather the relevant information, but it doesn’t work. It requires states to gather information and uses federal grants as a carrot. But the incentive doesn’t work, in part because states often don’t have the requisite information at their disposal—only local police departments do.