Demographic and Socioeconomic Differences between Armed and Unarmed Police Homicide Victims

Abstract

In the past two years there has been a growing public and academic interest in understanding the relationship between police violence and possible racially motivated shootings of unarmed minorities by law-enforcement. Though, much research has identified and evaluated gaps in knowledge and accounting of police killings and shootings in the United States, deaths by law-enforcement personnel regardless of victim race appear to be unusually high. Reasonable justification of police lethal force is certainly warranted in situations where potential suspects clearly appear to be armed with a weapon, however, little work had been done to establish any commonality characteristics of armed suspects that law-enforcement frequently encounter. Thus, this data analysis seeks to determine if there are any associated demographic or socioeconomic characteristics among armed or unarmed police homicide victims that may help explain possible biases that law-enforcement workers may have. Overall analysis revealed that no demographic characteristics or socioeconomic status estimates were associated with armed or unarmed status. Clearly, much work needs to be done to reduce bias and improve strained relations between law-enforcement and minority communities in many parts of the United States. Read Full Paper