Analysis of rates of police-related fatalities finds significant race-
related differences
Study also shows significant variation across metropolitan areas

Date:
June 24, 2020
Source:
PLOS
Summary:
A new study analyzes and describes U.S. police-involved fatalities
across racial/ethnic groups at the level of individual metropolitan
statistical areas.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A study analyzing and describing US police-involved fatalities across
racial/ ethnic groups at the level of individual metropolitan statistical
areas publishes June 24, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, by
Gabriel Schwartz and Jaquelyn Jahn from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of
Public Health.


==========================================================================
In the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of the police in
Minneapolis and the following surge of protests against police violence, uncovering specific data on police-related fatalities in the US has
never been more critical.

In order to estimate rates of fatalities involving police for every metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the US -- a level of geographical precision that surpasses previous work in this area -- Schwartz and
Jahn analyzed 5,494 police-related fatalities from 2013-2017, using a comprehensive and independently-validated database, Fatal Encounters
(endorsed by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics). The analysis
excluded 1,670 cases reported as suicides, accidents, or vehicle
collisions; 547 deaths also lacked race/ ethnicity data, and so were
excluded from the portion of the analysis related to racial/ethnic
inequities. While Fatal Encounters offers the most comprehensive
data on police use of deadly force in the US at this time, it likely
misses a number of similar cases because not all of these incidents are reported. Other limitations with the dataset include a possibility of
racial/ ethnic misclassification, since race was not self-reported,
and a risk of misclassification of cause of death (e.g.: accidental
versus non-accidental death). The database also does not include the circumstances around each police-related fatality, and it's unclear if
every fatality in the database would have been prevented had the police
not become involved.

The data showed large variation in the number of police-involved
fatalities across MSAs generally -- rates of fatal police violence were
nine times higher in the metro area experiencing the highest rates than
the least lethal metro area. Across all groups, fatalities were higher in
the West and South than in the northern Midwest and Northeast. The data
also shows large inequities in the rates at which White and Black people
were killed during police contact. Across all MSAs, Black people were on average 3.23 times more likely to be killed than White people (95% CI:
2.95, 3.54, p < 0.001). The specific rates varied greatly across MSAs:
Black fatalities ranged from 1.81 times greater than White fatalities
in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell MSA, to 6.51 times greater than
White fatalities in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin MSA. In general,
MSAs with low rates of police-related fatalities against White people
tended to exhibit more extreme Black-White inequities. The authors did
not calculate MSA-specific rates for people of other races/ethnicities, including Native American, Middle Eastern and Asian/Pacific Islander,
due in part to the low total number of deaths for these groups in the
Fatal Encounters database.

Importantly, Schwartz and Jahn compare rates of fatal police use of
force to the general population, and not to the number of general police contacts with the population, making it impossible to examine rates of
fatal police use of force relative to all police contacts. While this
paper is descriptive, and thus does not attempt to draw conclusions
about the causes of the observed disparities, the authors suggest
that place-specific policies, such as firearm regulations, levels
of segregation, differences in police training and police department
protocols, may help to explain differences in incidence rates.

The data highlights the fatal impact of disparate police use of force
on populations and on public health. More and better data, as well
as an awareness of the varying historical contexts across the US at a metropolitan and even at a neighborhood level, will enable researchers
to dig further into the reasons behind these described disparities to
address the public health issue of police-related fatalities in the US.

The authors add: "People's risk of fatal police violence varies hugely
from one metro area to another; some metros have death rates 9 times
those of other cities, which points to how preventable these deaths
are and why so many people are protesting police violence across the
country." They conclude: "Nationally, Black people are at much higher
risk of being killed by the police, but in some places the difference
is truly enormous: Black Chicagoans are more than 650% more likely to
be killed than White Chicagoans."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by PLOS. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Gabriel L. Schwartz, Jaquelyn L. Jahn. Mapping fatal police violence
across U.S. metropolitan areas: Overall rates and racial/ethnic
inequities, 2013-2017. PLOS ONE, 2020; 15 (6): e0229686 DOI:
10.1371/ journal.pone.0229686 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200624211021.htm

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