Determinants of Civilian Injuries and Deaths in Police Shooting Incidents: An Empirical Inquiry from Situational Crime Prevention

• In Event: Profiling and Understanding Police Shootings in Metropolitan America

Abstract

Controversies surrounding African American fatalities associated with the police use of deadly force often center on the circumstances that escalated the conflict. According to the Washington Post, there were over 900 use of force civilian fatalities in 2015. Ironically, not a single conviction for excessive use of force has been recorded. Situational crime prevention (SCP) offers several clues on how to predict and perhaps reduce the police use of lethal force. For instance, SCP forces an analysis of the circumstances before during and after the conflict honing in on what gives rise to the escalation. We examine over 600 cases derived from open source data to analyze the natural and opportunistic conditions surrounding police use of firearms. The lethality of encounter outcomes is conceptualized and measured as a continuum that begins with no civilian casualties, progresses to injurious results, and culminates in citizen fatalities. Situational measures such as victim demographic factors, time, place, reasons of encounter, sequences of interactions, numbers of bystanders and civilians, and community factors were included in the models constructed to predict the degree of lethality. Findings will be interpreted from the SCP perspective to draw implications for prevention and reduction in the lethality of police use of force.

Authors

• Marilyn Reyes, The Graduate Center, John Jay College / CUNY

• Daniella Rice, The Graduate Center, John Jay College / CUNY

• Yunho Yeom, The Graduate Center, John Jay College / CUNY

• Yuchen Hou, The Graduate Center, John Jay College / CUNY