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The international newspaper The Guardian has been tracking killings by police in the US since 2015. They've just published their findings for 2016. The numbers continue to be shocking, both in terms of racial disparities and the enormous contrast between the US and other countries.
The basics:
--Police in the US killed 1091 people in 2016, slightly down from 1,146 in 2015.
That represents a rate of 3.4 deaths per million people in the US. For perspective, that's 44 times the rate in the UK, 38 times higher than in Germany, 24 times the rate in Canada and 15 times that of France.
--If you're Black in America, your risk of being killed by police is 2.3 times as high as if you're white.
--If you're a Black man 15 to 34 years old, your risk of dying in a police encounter is 9 times that of whites and 4 times higher than a white man your age.
--If you're a Native American, you have 3.5 times the risk of being killed by police than if you're white.
--Deaths at the hands of police vary greatly state-by-state. Police in Alaska, New Mexico and Oklahoma are 3 times as likely to kill people as the national average, and 10 times more likely than police in Delaware, with just one such death in 2016 and a population just under 1,000,000.
In recent years, videotapes of shootings by police under questionable circumstances have shocked millions of people, provoked multiple demonstrations and riots, and brought the issue of police use of lethal force in the US out into the open. Although the statistics for 2016 (and earlier years) clearly show a serious racial bias in US policing, we should be equally concerned about the fact that US citizens, regardless of race or ethnicity, are far more likely to die at the hands of police than citizens of any other western nation.
You can read about some of the causes and possible cures for this ongoing epidemic in two earlier postings:
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE US--DUE PROCESS VS STREET "JUSTICE"
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| Protest following the death of Akai Gurley, 11/20/14--Credit Wikimedia |
The basics:
--Police in the US killed 1091 people in 2016, slightly down from 1,146 in 2015.
That represents a rate of 3.4 deaths per million people in the US. For perspective, that's 44 times the rate in the UK, 38 times higher than in Germany, 24 times the rate in Canada and 15 times that of France.
--If you're Black in America, your risk of being killed by police is 2.3 times as high as if you're white.
--If you're a Black man 15 to 34 years old, your risk of dying in a police encounter is 9 times that of whites and 4 times higher than a white man your age.
--If you're a Native American, you have 3.5 times the risk of being killed by police than if you're white.
--Deaths at the hands of police vary greatly state-by-state. Police in Alaska, New Mexico and Oklahoma are 3 times as likely to kill people as the national average, and 10 times more likely than police in Delaware, with just one such death in 2016 and a population just under 1,000,000.
In recent years, videotapes of shootings by police under questionable circumstances have shocked millions of people, provoked multiple demonstrations and riots, and brought the issue of police use of lethal force in the US out into the open. Although the statistics for 2016 (and earlier years) clearly show a serious racial bias in US policing, we should be equally concerned about the fact that US citizens, regardless of race or ethnicity, are far more likely to die at the hands of police than citizens of any other western nation.
You can read about some of the causes and possible cures for this ongoing epidemic in two earlier postings:
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE US--DUE PROCESS VS STREET "JUSTICE"
OFFICER-INVOLVED DEATHS IN BLACK AND WHITE
And you can read an update for the first 10 months of 2017, showing a continuation of the same deadly pattern, here.
And you can read an update for the first 10 months of 2017, showing a continuation of the same deadly pattern, here.
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