A recent analysis found that among 990 individuals fatally shot by US police officers in 2015, Black civilians were more than twice as likely as White civilians to have been unarmed, and civilians from “other” minority groups were significantly more likely than White civilians to have not posed an imminent threat to the officer(s) or other civilians.
A recent analysis found that among 990 individuals fatally shot by US police officers in 2015, Black civilians were more than twice as likely as White civilians to have been unarmed, and civilians from “other” minority groups were significantly more likely than White civilians to have not posed an imminent threat to the officer(s) or other civilians.
The analysis included information from The Washington Post, whose journalists scoured Web-based news articles, public records, Internet databases, and civilian reports to identify all civilians killed by a firearm, discharged by an officer acting in the line of duty, in 2015.
“Our findings are suggestive of implicit bias—minorities were significantly more likely to have been fatally shot as a result of an apparent threat perception failure by officers,” said Dr. Justin Nix, lead author of the Criminology & Public Policy article.
Additional Information
Link to study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9133.12269/abstract
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Criminology & Public Policy is interdisciplinary in nature, devoted to policy discussions of criminology research findings. Focusing on the study of criminal justice policy and practice, the central objective of the journal is to strengthen the role of research findings in the formulation of crime and justice policy by publishing empirically based, policy focused articles.
Penny Smith-
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