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Do White Law Enforcement Officers Target Minority Suspects?
Author(s) -
Menifield Charles E.,
Shin Geiguen,
Strother Logan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/puar.12956
Subject(s) - law enforcement , criminology , white (mutation) , use of force , deadly force , race (biology) , political science , police department , law , construct (python library) , racial profiling , psychology , sociology , gender studies , biochemistry , chemistry , gene , international law , computer science , programming language
The debate over possible bias in the use of deadly force has recently been exacerbated by highly publicized killings of African American males around the country. While much research has been conducted examining police behavior, little has been done to investigate the impact of race on police behavior. This article aims to answer this question: are white police officers more likely to use lethal force on minority suspects or people of a specific race? To answer this question, the authors construct a data set of all confirmed uses of lethal force by police officers in the United States in 2014 and 2015. They find that although minority suspects are disproportionately killed by police, white officers appear to be no more likely to use lethal force against minorities than nonwhite officers .