The Disparate Impact of Police Homicides

Fatal police brutality has been a major concern among African American communities at least since the 1920s. Economist Brendan O’Flaherty and his colleagues will examine the disparate impact in the use of lethal police force both across racial and ethnic groups and across cities. The investigators hypothesize that, in considering police reforms, it is better to examine results rather than motives, to observe police departments rather than individual officers, and to focus on police homicide victims rather than perpetrators. They will address these questions: What is the disparate impact by race and ethnicity of police homicides? Where and in what sort of places is this impact greatest or least? To what extent is the disparate impact tied to measures of police contact with civilians like arrests?