Geographic clusters of police killings of civilians

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Mapping Police Violence is a public dataset that tracks lives lost during police encounters in the US and compiles information around the circumstances of these incidents. While these incidents are geographically distributed widely across the US, some incidents occur in clusters. We analyzed incidents from 2013-2021 and identified clusters by binning incidents in a hexagonal grid of 1-mile radius tiles. We compared incidents occurring inside and outside clusters, as well as those occurring on highways, both in terms of demographics of the civilians killed and officers involved, and measures tied to the geographic regions in which the clusters occurred. These regional measures include demographic data (for example, of residents and of police forces operating there), economic data (including employment rate, median household income), and others such as mental health-related measures. Understanding what makes specific locations more or less prone to police killings of civilians will help develop policies to reduce their occurrence.

Authors

• Andrew David Zaharia, Campaign Zero

• Kathryn McKelvey, Campaign Zero

• Abdul Rad, Oxford University