Mental Illness, Civilian Race, and Resistance: An Examination of Police Killings of Mentally Ill People

• In Event: Race and Violence Studies in Policing

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to assess the influences of race/ethnicity on the presence of resistant behavior during deadly police contacts with mentally ill people. Little attention has examined mentally ill people’s behavior, particularly their resistance, before police killings. We focus on the impact of individual race/ethnicity and community minority representation on such resistance, given that racial/ethnic minorities, particularly Black Americans, face heightened risks of police killings. Using data from the Mapping Police Violence Database, we analyzed situational contexts related to 775 mentally ill individuals killed by the police. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates and Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates were used to capture county-level racial composition and poverty estimates as well as Census regions. Regression analysis showed that race/ethnicity is not a significant predictor of resistance, except for the “attacking” situation where being Hispanic lowered the odds of attacking the police, compared to a White person. Furthermore, incidents in counties with a higher percentage of the Hispanic population have a lower probability of people being armed with a deadly weapon, whereas counties with a higher percentage of the Black population have a higher likelihood of people attacking the police.

Authors

• Krishanna Prince, University of Delaware

• Ivan Sun, University of Delaware