Attempted suspect-provoked shootings in Victoria: prevalence and characteristics

The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of attempted suspect-provoked shootings (SPS) in Victoria, Australia, and explore nonlethal tactics police officers use to resolve such incidents.

A random sample of 20 percent of police-attended incidents was sourced from a police contact-based database. The narrative of each incident was coded using established criteria for “suicide-by-cop.” Incidents that met the criteria were further analyzed to elucidate historical and situational characteristics. To supplement these data, operational police officers were invited to participate in a survey about particulars of an attempted SPS incident that they had attended and resolved non-fatally.

Police are encountering these incidents up to three times a week in Victoria, Australia. While they engage in a range of tactics, police report that communication and negotiation skills are the most effective means of successful resolution.

Although the survey attempted to correct for the potential limitations of using administrative data for research purposes, its weakness is in the modest sample size that utilizes self-report data that may lead to recall biases. Further research would benefit from using complementary methodologies that seek to examine police tactics and elucidate decision-making processes using video-based or written vignettes.

Officers’ awareness of both the commonalty of this phenomenon and of the important situational characteristics may lead to greater skill and confidence in managing these.

This is one of the very few published studies investigating prevalence and characteristics of attempted SPS incidents.