IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jcjust/v75y2021ics0047235221000489.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Police use of firearms: Exploring citizen, officer, and incident characteristics in a statewide sample

Author

Listed:
  • Stansfield, Richard
  • Aaronson, Ethan
  • Okulicz-Kozaryn, Adam

Abstract

This paper analyzes the more than 70,000 police use of force incidents in New Jersey from 2012 to 2016 to examine the association of a citizen’ s race and ethnicity with the likelihood of officers pointing a firearm, shooting, and the number of shots discharged. Our study suggests that Black and Hispanic New Jerseyans are not more likely to experience force incidents involving a firearm relative to other citizens who experience police use of force, however this relationship is conditioned on the size of the place the incident occured. Black residents of smaller municipalities are almost twice as likely (OR = 1.70), and Hispanic residents more than twice as likely (OR = 2.30), than white citizens to have an officer pull their service weapon out during a stop. Furthermore, among all use of force incidents where a gun is brandished by police, Black and Hispanic residents are more likely to be shot, and shot numerous times compared to white citizens. While some of the relationship between race and force is mediated by crime type and subject behavior, a relationship between race and force remains. The need for systematic data reporting from smaller agencies and implications for research and policy are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Stansfield, Richard & Aaronson, Ethan & Okulicz-Kozaryn, Adam, 2021. "Police use of firearms: Exploring citizen, officer, and incident characteristics in a statewide sample," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:75:y:2021:i:c:s0047235221000489
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2021.101828
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235221000489
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2021.101828?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fridell, Lorie & Lim, Hyeyoung, 2016. "Assessing the racial aspects of police force using the implicit- and counter-bias perspectives," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 36-48.
    2. Cody T. Ross & Bruce Winterhalder & Richard McElreath, 2018. "Resolution of apparent paradoxes in the race-specific frequency of use-of-force by police," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2018. "Reconciling Results on Racial Differences in Police Shootings," NBER Working Papers 24238, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Pryor, Cori & Boman, John H. & Mowen, Thomas J. & McCamman, Michael, 2019. "A national study of sustained use of force complaints in law enforcement agencies," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-1.
    5. Shane, Jon M. & Lawton, Brian & Swenson, Zoë, 2017. "The prevalence of fatal police shootings by U.S. police, 2015–2016: Patterns and answers from a new data set," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 101-111.
    6. Roland G. Fryer Jr., 2018. "Reconciling Results on Racial Differences in Police Shootings," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 228-233, May.
    7. Frank Edwards & Hedwig Lee & Michael Esposito, 2019. "Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(34), pages 16793-16798, August.
    8. Lynne Peeples, 2019. "What the data say about police shootings," Nature, Nature, vol. 573(7772), pages 24-26, September.
    9. Roland G. Fryer Jr., 2019. "An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(3), pages 1210-1261.
    10. Cody T. Ross & Bruce Winterhalder & Richard McElreath, 2018. "Correction: Resolution of apparent paradoxes in the race-specific frequency of use-of-force by police," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-1, December.
    11. Steven N. Durlauf & James J. Heckman, 2020. "An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force: A Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(10), pages 3998-4002.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wilkes, Rima & Karimi, Aryan, 2023. "Multi-group data versus dual-side theory: On race contrasts and police-caused homicides," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    2. Annan-Phan, Sébastien & Ba, Bocar A., 2024. "JUE Insight: Hot temperatures, aggression, and death at the hands of the police: Evidence from the U.S," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    3. Pradhi Aggarwal & Alec Brandon & Ariel Goldszmidt & Justin Holz & John List & Ian Muir & Gregory Sun & Thomas Yu, 2022. "High-frequency location data shows that race affects the likelihood of being stopped and fined for speeding," Natural Field Experiments 00764, The Field Experiments Website.
    4. Abrahams, Scott, 2020. "Officer differences in traffic stops of minority drivers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Mitchell, Jeffrey & Chihaya, Guilherme Kenji, 2022. "Tract level associations between historical residential redlining and contemporary fatal encounters with police," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    6. Huff, Jessica, 2021. "Understanding police decisions to arrest: The impact of situational, officer, and neighborhood characteristics on police discretion," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    7. Aliprantis, Dionissi & Martin, Hal & Tauber, Kristen, 2024. "What determines the success of housing mobility programs?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    8. Riddell, Jordan R. & Worrall, John L., 2021. "Predicting firearm and CEW displays as police officers' response to resistance," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    9. Cunningham, Jamein & Feir, Donn. L. & Gillezeau, Rob, 2021. "Collective Bargaining Rights, Policing, and Civilian Deaths," IZA Discussion Papers 14208, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Lieberman, Carl, 2024. "Variation in racial disparities in police use of force," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    11. Brendan O'Flaherty & Rajiv Sethi & Morgan Williams, 2024. "The nature, detection, and avoidance of harmful discrimination in criminal justice," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(1), pages 289-320, January.
    12. Marilyn D Thomas & Alexis N Reeves & Nicholas P Jewell & Eli K Michaels & Amani M Allen, 2021. "US law enforcement policy predictors of race-specific police fatalities during 2015–16," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-17, June.
    13. Simckes, Maayan & Willits, Dale & McFarland, Michael & McFarland, Cheryl & Rowhani-Rahbar, Ali & Hajat, Anjum, 2021. "The adverse effects of policing on population health: A conceptual model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    14. Carolyn Greene & Marta-Marika Urbanik & Kanika Samuels-Wortley, 2022. "“It Stays with You for Life”: The Everyday Nature and Impact of Police Violence in Toronto’s Inner-City," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-11, August.
    15. Dhammika Dharmapala & Richard H. McAdams & John Rappaport, 2019. "Collective Bargaining and Police Misconduct: Evidence from Florida," CESifo Working Paper Series 7718, CESifo.
    16. Bruce, Marta M. & Ulrich, Connie M. & Webster, Jessica & Richmond, Therese S., 2022. "Injured black men's perceptions of the recovery environment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    17. Makofske, Matthew, 2020. "Pretextual Traffic Stops and Racial Disparities in their Use," MPRA Paper 100792, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Pauline Grosjean & Federico Masera & Hasin Yousaf, 2023. "Inflammatory Political Campaigns and Racial Bias in Policing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 413-463.
    19. Alex Armand & Paul Atwell & Joseph F. Gomes & Yannik Schenk, 2023. "It’s a Bird, it’s a Plane, it’s Superman! Using Mass Media to fight Intolerance," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2023012, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    20. Ferrazares, Toshio, 2024. "Monitoring Police with Body-Worn Cameras: Evidence from Chicago," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:75:y:2021:i:c:s0047235221000489. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcrimjus .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.