The Crisis of Missing Data on Racial Bias in Police Killings

Black Lives Matter protesters in St. Paul in 2015. Photo by Fibonacci Blue.

In the weeks since the murder of George Floyd, the deaths of unarmed Black people at the hands of the police have dominated the American political conversation. With that said, mainstream media reporting has largely ignored the most pressing problem in American policing today: no one knows how many people are killed by the police every year. There is no federal database that accurately accounts for the number of deaths in police custody—instead, the most complete data come from sources like The Washington Post and Mapping Police Violence, a public initiative which compiles data from existing databases. However, these sources have to rely on news reporting in order to compile their data. In order to make the existence of a racial bias in American policing clear, it is vital that complete national data on officer involved-deaths is collected and released. Until we have a federal database on officer-involved deaths, no adequate reforms can be made and no bias in policing can be dismissed. 

There are two main federal systems that collect data on police killings: the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (B.J.S.) Arrest Related Deaths (A.R.D.) report, which has not been released in full since 2011, and the “expanded homicides” section of the F.B.I.’s Uniform Crime Report (U.C.R.), which lists police-related deaths as “justifiable homicides,” defined as “the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty.” Reporting to both of these systems is voluntary, resulting in incomplete data. In a 2015 review, the B.J.S. found that their reports—even when supplemented by homicide reports from the F.B.I.—only achieved around 69 percent coverage of that of the A.R.D.; meanwhile, the F.B.I.’s U.C.R. is released yearly, but accounts for less than half of the deaths reported by news outlets.  Even the preliminary data currently available shows a clear disparity in the police’s treatment of different racial groups. The number of deaths that major news outlets have recently reported in order to oppose the charge of racial bias in policing—999 in 2019 (recently revised from 1,004)—comes from The Washington Post’s Fatal Force database, which was established in 2015 in response to the lack of data available following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Fatal Force only accounts for shooting deaths that involve officers, meaning that George Floyd’s death will not be counted in this year's total. Further, it relies primarily on newspaper headlines to collect its data. Even with these limitations, Fatal Force routinely reports more than twice as many deaths as the F.B.I.’s U.C.R. does—992 deaths were reported in 2018 versus the U.C.R.’s 410 “justifiable homicides.”

Even with limited data, the racial disparity in police killings is still apparent. According to a report by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there is a one in 1,000 chance that a Black man will be killed by the police in his lifetime, which is 2.5 times higher than the same probability for a white man. Of the 999 people who were shot and killed by the police in 2019, 25 percent were Black (250 out of 999), even though Black people only constitute 13 percent of the national population. Furthermore, the 25 percent that is cited is likely to be an under-representative statistic due to under-reporting, as the race of 20 percent of victims is unknown due to the vagueness of the available reports. Again, this data is merely preliminary. Those 999 deaths only account for those killed by a police shooting, and primarily only those whose deaths made headlines. There is no telling how many deaths go uncounted and unreported every year, meaning the oft-reported death rate of 25% could in fact be much higher. 

In order to make any conclusion on the extent of a racial bias in American policing, there needs to be clear and conclusive data pertaining to killings of Black Americans at the hands of the police. The federal government must establish a robust system of mandatory reporting. It must count all deaths in police custody in this reporting, including victims of excessive physical force by police, like George Floyd and Eric Garner. Furthermore, this data must be made publicly available, in order to hold police departments and officers accountable, as well as to eliminate any sense of impunity. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, which also introduces bans on chokeholds and sweeping measures to combat qualified immunity, proposes such a system of accountability. Under the leading Democratic police reform bill, data collection will be required on all use-of-force incidents by police, and the first national registry of police misconduct will be established, in order to prevent problematic officers from being rehired in another jurisdiction. The bill recently passed in the House, but is not expected to make it out of the Republican-controlled Senate. 

As America grapples with the ongoing impact of the coronavirus pandemic, it is evident that police violence is a pandemic in its own right, standing as the sixth-leading cause of death among all men ages 25-29, according to a report from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Far too many people are being killed by the very same individuals who are supposedly tasked with protecting them, and a disproportionate number of those dying are Black. These victims are denied due process, even if some have been killed in defensive action. Too many are killed when unarmed or presenting no threat, and too many of their deaths are uncounted. The Senate must pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in order to establish a federal system that holds all police departments accountable, as well as to assert control over rampant impunity in policing. This is not a problem that can be resolved with only grandstanding and expressions of sympathy, and the racial disparities in policing should not be considered a partisan issue: it is the prerogative of every public servant to ensure that all people—no matter their race, sex, or creed—are treated equally under the law. 

Andrew Thomas is a rising sophomore in Columbia College studying history. He is a board member at Camp Kesem Columbia and enjoys exploring American social and political history.

This article was submitted to CPR as a pitch. To write a response, or to submit a pitch of your own, we invite you to use the pitch form on our website.