Understanding Police Use of Force: Does Measurement Matter?

• In Event: Solving the Problem of Police Data: The National Justice Database

Abstract

Contact with the police is a known determinant of individual socialization and wellbeing, and a potential driver of social inequality at a population level. However, our understanding of the use of force (UOF) by police officers, and the unique contribution of police activity to racial inequality, is limited by a lack of systematically collected data. Police departments have tremendous discretion in the extent to which they provide data to the public on police-public encounters, and the data provided varies in its detail and the way it is used. Standardizing UOF data across departments presents challenges, which the National Justice Database (NJD) seeks to address. This analysis draws on new data from the NJD and standardizes UOF data across many of the country’s police departments. We measure the prevalence and severity of UOF in each department, as well as racial disparities in UOF, and compare the disparities observed in the distribution of police force. UOF is defined and classified in diverse ways across departments, and we therefore examine the sensitivity of departments’ relative rankings to alternative definitions of UOF and force severity. We hypothesize that the relative ranking of departments in the magnitude of observed racial disparities is relatively robust.

Authors

• Amanda Geller, New York University

• Phillip Atiba Goff, Center for Policing Equity

• Tracey Lloyd, The Urban Institute

• Steven Raphael, University of California, Berkeley

• Jack Glaser, University of California, Berkeley