Saturday, July 16, 2016

Geography of police shootings

The Washington Post has compiled a database of fatal shootings by police in 2015 and 2016.  Breaking it down by state seems like an obvious thing to do, but I haven't seen anyone do it, so here are the rates (per 100,000) by state.

Highest:

New Mexico     1.6
Wyoming        1.4
Alaska         1.1
Oklahoma       1.1
DC             1.1
Arizona        1.0
Nevada         0.9
Colorado       0.9

Lowest:

Mass.          0.25
Pennsylvania   0.23
Maine          0.23
Michigan       0.22
New Jersey     0.21
Rhode Island   0.19
New York       0.15
Connecticut    0.14

The general pattern is clear: fatal shootings by police are most common in the West and least common in the Northeast.  The South may be a little higher than average, but doesn't stand out:  southern states range from 10th (Louisiana) to 35th (Virginia).  Of course, there are racial and ethnic differences:  27% of those killed were black and 18% were Hispanic.  But controlling for population composition would make the West stand out even more, since the black population is relatively small in those states.

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