ISLAMABAD, July 1 (online): A new study has found that throughout metropolitan areas in the United States, Black people are more likely to die in an encounter with the police than white people.
In the United States, there is a long history of police brutality, most of which has been aimed at Black people.
The recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Marquez Arbery — to name but a few Black victims of racialized police brutality in 2020 — have spurred demands for justice and change throughout the country.
An increasing number of studies analyzing police data are providing evidence for the need to scrutinize and address violence and bias in the U.S. police force.
Most recently, an analysis from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in Boston, MA, shows that throughout urban areas in the U.S., Black people are significantly more likely than white people to be killed in encounters with the police.
The researchers analyzed data from 5,494 cases of police-related fatalities that occurred between 2013 and 2017 in the U.S. They accessed these data through Fatal Encounters, an independent database endorsed by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Schwartz and Jahn estimated the rates of fatalities involving police encounters in every metropolitan statistical area in the country. These are urban areas with at least 50,000 inhabitants each.
The researchers’ final analysis excluded 1,670 cases filed as suicides or accidents, “including drug overdoses and other medical emergencies, drowning, or falling from a height,” and deaths caused by vehicle collisions.
Moreover, the part of the analysis that focused on racial and ethnic disparities excluded 547 cases that lacked information about race and ethnicity.
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