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Resolution of apparent paradoxes in the race-specific frequency of use-of-force by police

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Listed:
  • Cody T. Ross

    (Ecology and Culture. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

  • Bruce Winterhalder

    (University of California)

  • Richard McElreath

    (Ecology and Culture. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

Abstract

Analyses of racial disparities in police use-of-force against unarmed individuals are central to public policy interventions; however, recent studies have come to apparently paradoxical findings concerning the existence and form of such disparities. Although anti-black racial disparities in U.S. police shootings have been consistently documented at the population level, new work has suggested that racial disparities in encounter-conditional use of lethal force by police are reversed relative to expectations, with police being more likely to: (1) shoot white relative to black individuals, and (2) use non-lethal as opposed to lethal force on black relative to white individuals. Encounter- and use-of-force-conditional results, however, can be misleading if the rates with which police encounter and use non-lethal force vary across officers and depend on suspect race. We find that all currently described empirical patterns in the structuring of police use-of-force—including the “reversed” racial disparities in encounter-conditional use of lethal force—are explainable under a generative model in which there are consistent and systemic biases against black individuals. If even a small subset of police more frequently encounter and use non-lethal force against black individuals than white individuals, then analyses of pooled encounter-conditional data can fail to correctly detect racial disparities in the use of lethal force. In more technical terms, statistical assessments of racial disparities conditioned on problematic intermediate variables, such as encounters, which might themselves be a causal outcome of racial bias, can produce misleading inferences. Population-level measures of use-of-force by police are more robust indicators of the overall severity of racial disparities than encounter-conditional measures—since the later neglect the differential morbidity and mortality arising from differential encounter rates. As such, population-level measures should be used when evaluating the local-level public health implications of racial disparities in police use-of-force. Research on encounter-conditional use-of-force by police can also fruitfully contribute to public policy discussions, since population-level measures alone cannot address whether racial disparities are driven by disparities in encounters or disparities in use-of-force conditional on encounters. Tests for racial biases in the encounter-conditional use of lethal force, however, must account for individual-level variation across officers in terms of race-specific encounter rates or risk falling to Simpson’s paradox.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:4:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-018-0110-z
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-018-0110-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2016. "An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force," NBER Working Papers 22399, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Judea Pearl, 2014. "Comment: Understanding Simpson's Paradox," The American Statistician, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 68(1), pages 8-13, February.
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    1. 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).
    2. Abrahams, Scott, 2020. "Officer differences in traffic stops of minority drivers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    3. 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).
    4. 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.
    5. 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).
    6. 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).
    7. 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).
    8. 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.

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