Race and policing

Special collection

Again and again the data show that people of color in the U.S. are disproportionately, and systematically, stopped, frisked, arrested, and exposed to the use of force by police. Police departments and communities across the U.S. are struggling with these realities and with what has become a glaring divide in how Americans experience and relate to policing. This special collection includes research from nonprofits, foundations, and university based research centers, who have not only described and documented the issue but who also provide much-needed recommendations for addressing this chronic and tragic problem.

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Re-imagining Public Safety: Prevent Harm and Lead with the Truth

November 26, 2019

This report is a joint effort between the Center for Policing Equity and the Yale Justice Collaboratory. The goal is to highlight the policies that science and experience say have the best chance to make the most progress towards producing public safety systems that are both effective and align with our values. This is not an exhaustive list. But it does represent the policies we believe should lead the charge towards re-imagining public safety.

Defunding, Abolition, & Alternatives to Policing

National Justice Database Sample City Report

July 9, 2016

How do you measure justice? It is a question that has confounded scholars, activists, and public servants since before it was even asked. Yet, despite the inherent philosophical, methodological, and logistical difficulties, law enforcement executives are increasingly asked to turn over data with the aim of evaluating how fairly they are doing their jobs. Rather than shrink from this task, courageous executives are seeking out partnerships with prominent researchers to solve this riddle and lead policing in the nation with respect to civil rights and public accountability.

Police Data

The Science of Justice, Race, Arrests, and Police Use of Force

July 1, 2016

The current report examines racial disparities in use of force across 12 law enforcement departments from geographically and demographically diverse locations and reveals that racial disparities in police use of force persist even when controlling for racial distribution of local arrest rates. Additionally, multiple participating departments still demonstrated racial disparities when force incidents were benchmarked exclusively against Part I violent arrests, such that Black residents were still more likely than Whites to be targeted for force.

Racial Bias & Profiling; Use of Force

The Science of Policing Equity: Measuring Fairness in the Austin Police Department

February 23, 2016

This brief is a partnership between Urban and the Center for Policing Equity's National Justice Database, in collaboration with the White House's Police Data Initiative. The brief analyzes publicly available data in 2015 vehicle stops and 2014 use of force incidents on the part of the Austin Police Department. Findings indicate that even when controlling for neighborhood levels of crime, education, homeownership, income, youth, and unemployment, racial disparities still exist in both use and severity of force. We also document that APD has a high level of transparency, and the analysis demonstrates the value of that democratization of police department data in examining whether community-level explanations are sufficient to explain observed racial disparities.

Data Gaps; Racial Bias & Profiling

The Essence of Innocence: Consequences of Dehumanizing Black Children

March 1, 2014

This research, consisting of four studies of police officers and college students, finds that Black boys as young as 10 may not be viewed in the same light of childhood innocence as their white peers. Instead, they are more likely to be mistaken as older, be perceived as guilty, and face police violence if accused of a crime. The research provides evidence that these racial disparities are predicted by the implicit dehumanization of Blacks.

Racial Bias & Profiling

Protecting Equity: The Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity Report on the San Jose Police Department

January 16, 2013

The goal of this project was to identify what role (if any) individual officers played in the production of any observed racial/ethnic disparities and provide the San Jose Police Department (SJDP) and the broader San Jose community with new tools with which to measure--and improve--racial equity in San Jose policing. This assessment broadly engages three areas of possible disparity: pedestrian stops, complaints against an officer, and officer use of force against residents. The results reveal two major findings. First, individual officers play a significant role in producing a culture of equitable treatment at the SJPD. Second, the analyses reveal a novel way to use existing data to assess officer-level disparities.

Data Gaps; Racial Bias & Profiling; Reform Strategies