Major
English
Class Standing
Senior
Course Number and Title
DATA 3310 Data Visualization
Faculty Member's Name
Ariana Mendible
Project Description
Across the country, social justice advocates and federal investigators alike report unconstitutional and excessive police use of force (UOF) that particularly targets minoritized communities. While some thorough investigations into individual municipalities have been made, certain issues unique to UOF data create barriers to conducting large-scale analysis. Notably, there is no standardized national system of data acquisition and treatment; how UOF incidents are recorded and investigated vary substantially between cities. Though not amending the problem of how data is collected by police, this project explores analysis tools for comparing possible predictors of outcome in police use of force incidents, or what level of force is used. Publicly available UOF datasets are utilized to compare three cities of different population sizes: New Orleans, Seattle, and Chicago. Census data from these cities is also used to provide additional demographic information. Results show that race may be used as a strong indicator of what level of force police use in a given incident, meaning that there is a strong correlation between high levels of force and minoritized racial groups. Black residents are overrepresented in UOF incidents overall. While finding ways to recognize and analyze such patterns in the data can be helpful in the initial steps of deconstructing systemic racism and violence, future work is needed to uncover, address, and prevent the causes of such patterns.
Click below to download Reflective Statement.
Analyzing Possible Predictors in Police Use of Force Incidents
Across the country, social justice advocates and federal investigators alike report unconstitutional and excessive police use of force (UOF) that particularly targets minoritized communities. While some thorough investigations into individual municipalities have been made, certain issues unique to UOF data create barriers to conducting large-scale analysis. Notably, there is no standardized national system of data acquisition and treatment; how UOF incidents are recorded and investigated vary substantially between cities. Though not amending the problem of how data is collected by police, this project explores analysis tools for comparing possible predictors of outcome in police use of force incidents, or what level of force is used. Publicly available UOF datasets are utilized to compare three cities of different population sizes: New Orleans, Seattle, and Chicago. Census data from these cities is also used to provide additional demographic information. Results show that race may be used as a strong indicator of what level of force police use in a given incident, meaning that there is a strong correlation between high levels of force and minoritized racial groups. Black residents are overrepresented in UOF incidents overall. While finding ways to recognize and analyze such patterns in the data can be helpful in the initial steps of deconstructing systemic racism and violence, future work is needed to uncover, address, and prevent the causes of such patterns.