Police Use of Deadly Force and Mentally Troubled Civilians: Correlates of Fatal and Non-Fatal Outcomes

• In Event: Posters II

Abstract

Mental health cases have overwhelmed American criminal justice. The handling of mentally ill or emotionally troubled civilians weighs heaviest on the police, who are often not logistically and professionally prepared to manage this complex problem. According to the Washington Post, American police shot and killed 986 civilians in 2015; 277 (28%) of them were in the middle of psychiatric crisis. Inexplicably, no data or empirical studies have directly addressed this tragic and ongoing crisis. This study will analyze the 658 police shooting cases with or without civilian casualties that took place in February 2015 across the United States. Using an open-source approach and based on the geospatial tallies by the not-for-profit organization Gun Violence Archive, characteristics of civilians, police officers, encounters, police departments, and communities involved in these incidents will be reviewed and computerized. Profiles of exposed civilians and officers, at-risk encounters, involved departments, and vulnerable communities are expected to emerge from descriptive statistics. Special emphasis will be placed on the identification of risk factors associated with the killing of mentally ill or emotionally troubled civilians in multi-level models. Findings will shed light on the failure of current police practices and inform future policymaking.

Authors

• Yuchen Hou, The Graduate Center, CUNY

• Hung-En Sung, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

• Frank Pezzella, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

• Yun-Ho Yeom, The Graduate Center, CUNY