"A groundbreaking study of when, where, and whom police shoot in America's largest cities Police shootings in America spark outrage and protest and raise questions about police use of lethal force. Yet despite the attention given to high-profile shootings, it is extremely difficult to draw wider conclusions about the frequency and outcomes of police gunfire because there is no systematic and centralized source of information on these incidents. This pioneering book draws on original data, compiled by theauthors, to examine police shootings, both fatal and non-fatal, in hundreds of American cities. It documents racial disparities in shooting incidents and shows that the media spotlight on the most shocking fatal shootings tell only part of the story of police gunfire in our cities.The authors find that there are patterns in when, where, and whom the police shoot, and they present strong evidence of unjustifiable disparities. It's not just that young, unarmed Black men are disproportionately subjected to gunfire during encounters with police officers; there is also a disproportionate concentration of shootings in the places where most Black and Hispanic urbanites live, even accounting for violent crime rates and other factors. As a consequence, Black and Hispanic residents of large cities are disproportionately exposed to police gunfire, even when they are not themselves the targets of it. The authors offer other insights as well, exploring the connection between department funding and rates of shootings,and considering the influence of a city's political leadership on police use of gunfire. It is only through a deeper understanding of police shootings, the authors argue, that we can reduce their incidence and make effective reform possible"--
"A deep exploration of police shootings in America, informed by the most comprehensive data yet assembled on notoriously non-transparent topic. As much attention as police violence has garnered in recent years, one central frustration has stymied attempts to understand exactly what is happening, why, and to whom: the lack of data on use of force. This project pulls together the results of a massive data-gathering project on police shootings from all US cities with over 100,000 people. The authors use this information to answer pressing questions-and reveal much needed insight-around police shootings in America today. The authors explore first why it is so difficult to get good data on police shootings and provide fascinating and troubling details on the difficulty-and sometimes, impossibility-of getting records from police departments, and what strategies are needed to put together nation-wide numbers that are complete as possible. They then turn to central questions and their answers, pointing out surprising insights as they go. In exploring how many officer-involved shootings happen in a city, for instance, they find that oversight boards and the political orientation of city leadership have little impact, but that the size of the police force does. And, intriguingly, as one considers movements to defund the police, they find police shootings are highest in cities with under-resourced officers-indicating that some efforts to "defang" forces may have the opposite effect. Later chapters look at where within cities shootings happen, the demographics of victims, and the fatality rate of shootings. The authors end the book by considering what these new data tell us about how to decrease the frequency and deadliness of armed actions by American police"--
A groundbreaking study of when, where, and whom police shoot in America’s largest cities
Police shootings in America spark outrage and protest and raise questions about police use of lethal force. Yet despite the attention given to high-profile shootings, it is extremely difficult to draw wider conclusions about the frequency and outcomes of police gunfire because there is no systematic and centralized source of information on these incidents. This pioneering book draws on original data, compiled by the authors, to examine police shootings, both fatal and non-fatal, in hundreds of American cities. It documents racial disparities in shooting incidents and shows that the media spotlight on the most shocking fatal shootings tell only part of the story of police gunfire in our cities.
The authors find that there are patterns in when, where, and whom the police shoot, and they present strong evidence of unjustifiable disparities. It’s not just that young, unarmed Black men are disproportionately subjected to gunfire during encounters with police officers; there is also a disproportionate concentration of shootings in the places where most Black and Hispanic urbanites live, even accounting for violent crime rates and other factors. As a consequence, Black and Hispanic residents of large cities are disproportionately exposed to police gunfire, even when they are not themselves the targets of it. The authors offer other insights as well, exploring the connection between police department funding and rates of shootings, and considering the influence of a city’s political leadership on police use of gunfire. It is only through a deeper understanding of police shootings, the authors argue, that we can reduce their incidence and make effective reform possible.
