Over the decades, some fatal police shootings in U.S. cities, mainly those of young, unarmed Black men, sparked public outrage and protest. Their deaths raised questions of justice and kicked off contentious political debates about policing.
Most police shootings in cities, however, are nonfatal shootings. They go unnoticed by the public, receiving little of its attention. Why? The absence of public data on police shootings. That also explains why Americans collectively know less than we should about the occurrences, locations, and subjects of urban police shootings, and the police officers who use it.
Deadly Force: Police Shootings in Urban America draws on original data, compiled by political scientists Tom Clark, Adam Glynn, and Michael Leo Owens, to examine police shootings, both fatal and non-fatal, in hundreds of American cities. Clark, Glynn, and Owens find that there are strong patterns, matching public assumptions, in when, where, and whom the police shoot in U.S. cities.
The book presents sound evidence of unjustifiable disparities in police shootings. It’s not just that young, unarmed Black men are disproportionately subjected to gunfire during encounters with police officers. Police shootings are disproportionately concentrated where most Black and Hispanic urbanites live. That’s true even after accounting for violent crime rates and other factors. A result? Black and Hispanic residents of mid-to- large cities are disproportionately exposed to police shootings, even when they as individuals aren’t the subjects of them.
The book offers other insights, including the connection between police department funding and rates of police shootings and the weak link between political leadership and police shootings. Plus, it convincingly demonstrates that when the media spotlight the most shocking fatal shootings we learn only a small part of the bigger story of police shootings in our cities.
It is only through a deeper knowledge and understanding of police shootings in U.S. cities, the authors argue, that we can make effective reform possible to reduce their occurrence in urban America.
Read Chapter 1 here.
Praise for the Book
“This book presents the largest, most comprehensive, and best study to date of police shootings in urban America. Anyone concerned with racial equity, police training, the sociology or politics of policing, government transparency, or the health of American democracy should read this book.”—Frank R. Baumgartner, coauthor of Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us about Policing and Race
“Police shootings get media attention, but less careful academic study. This remarkable, extremely readable book is an exception: it’s an important read for policing scholars, policymakers, and the general public. The product of extremely hard work and rigorous social science, it is full of findings both fascinating and troubling.”—Barry Friedman, author of Unwarranted: Policing Without Permission
“Deadly Force provides a rare look into the dynamics of police shootings across US cities. Through a volley of public information requests about both fatal and nonfatal shootings, the authors build a novel database that reveals when and where the police shoot and how to measure the racial bias in these shootings. In the process, the book illustrates the woefully inadequate public documentation around fatal force, concluding with a plea for more government transparency.”—Michelle Phelps, author of The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America
“In this incredibly readable and meticulously analyzed account Clark, Glynn, and Owens detail the frequency and pattern of police shootings in America. With findings that both confirm and complicate prior understandings, the dataset they have arduously collected will serve as the new definitive source on this deeply important topic.”—Jessica Trounstine, author of Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities