In today's society, it can seem that every few weeks we're faced with news of yet another life lost due to police violence. The images of police shootings are jarring, and in some ways, seeing the cold, hard numbers that tabulate police brutality's prevalence are even more sobering.

The Atlantic recently reported on a new study that breaks down those very numbers, and calling the results appalling may be an understatement. Adding nuance to the numbers, the study's authors gathered not just the races and ages of everyone killed by police in 2015 and 2016, but also compared the age at which each person was killed to the life expectancy of the average person of their background.

In 2015, 1,146 people were killed by police, and in 2016, 1,092 were killed. In those two years, 52 percent of the victims were white, 26 percent were black and 17 percent were Latinx. Together, these victims lost at least 57,375 and 54,754 years of life to police violence in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Young people and people of color were disproportionately affected: nonwhite, non-Hispanic ethnic groups accounted for 52 percent of these lost years of life.

The authors found that the number of people killed by police has climbed higher than the number of accidental gun deaths.

The total number of years is actually more than that of accidental gun deaths. 

While the number of people killed by police remains high, The Atlantic reports that the number of police killed in the line of duty seems to be on the decline. In 2017, 46 officers were killed at work; 66 officers were killed in 2016. So far this year, 27 officers have been killed.

Police departments around the world have implemented measures to ensure police shootings remain rare; however, departments in the United States have been slow to follow suit.

However, the Washington Post reports that the Los Angeles Police Department recently implemented a system where it presents a “preservation-of-life medal to an officer who makes great efforts to avoid a fatal shooting.” The system may have a positive effect; police killings dropped from 21 in 2015 to 15 in 2017.