(Trends Wide) — A study published Thursday in a medical journal estimated that a federal database did not account for more than 50% of deaths attributable to police violence for nearly 40 years.
The study authors, who used statistical models to extrapolate the number of unaccounted for deaths, concluded that the police had been involved in more than 30,000 deaths between 1980 and 2018.
The researchers, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, calculated that approximately 56% – or 17,100 – of deaths were not recorded in the National System of Vital Statistics, a federal database maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics, a division within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The study compared the deaths reported to that system with those registered in three non-governmental databases that were compiled from news and other public records.
More deaths among black people
According to the researchers’ estimates, the death rate for blacks was 3.5 times that of non-Hispanic whites, and that of Hispanics of any race was 1.8 times that of non-Hispanic whites. The findings are similar to those of another study, from 2019, which also found that police kill black people at disproportionate rates.
The study was published in The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal. Jeff Lancashire, a spokesman for the National Center for Health Statistics, said he could not comment on the specific results of the study, but that it was “commonly understood” that the database underestimated deaths caused by police because death certificates do not typically record the involvement of the police.
Lancashire said another database, known as the National Violent Death Reporting System, would more accurately capture those deaths. This system “collects information on violent deaths, including homicides, suicides and deaths caused by law enforcement agencies in the performance of their duties,” according to the CDC.
In an appendix to the study, the researchers stated that they excluded that system from their analysis because, although it “represents a significant improvement in the transparency of information on deadly police violence from official sources in the US,” it did not contain sufficient data to make national comparisons possible.
A study cited by the researchers found that the system nearly matched one of the nongovernmental data sets the authors used for their study, but only when looking at police shooting and not other uses of force resulting in death. .
The study did not address the number of deadly police encounters that were deemed legal or that were consistent with department policies. The legal reviews of the use of force by the police, which determine whether they act within the scope of the law, and the administrative review of the use of force, which determines whether the police acted within the scope of the policies of their agencies , are carried out at the local level.
Reporting and investigation of deaths, including those caused by the police, is largely a local responsibility, except in the rare cases where federal investigators review police use of force for possible constitutional violations or federal crimes.
Poor quality official data on police violence
As in almost all aspects of law enforcement, there is no single, comprehensive source of national data on the use of force by police officers, nor is there a standard by which any use of force is judged. the force. The poor quality of the data available at the national level came to light after the first recent national reckoning on the use of force by the police, following the death of Michael Brown in 2014.
Five months after Brown’s death, Congress passed a law known as the Death in Custody Reporting Act, which required law enforcement to report deaths in custody to the federal government or risk losing federal money.
A 2018 federal law enforcement review found that many federal law enforcement agencies were largely compliant with reporting requirements, but the Department of Justice had not begun collecting data at the state level because DOJ “considered, and dropped, three different data collection proposals since 2016.”
The report said data collection was expected to begin last year, but it is unclear if that happened and the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The issue received attention again in 2020, after a series of high-profile cases in which police killed black Americans, including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville.
Many states passed laws aimed at changing policing, including some new data reporting requirements. But a federal effort to overhaul the police last summer failed a Republican-controlled Senate, and bipartisan talks on police reform broke down last week.
(Trends Wide) — A study published Thursday in a medical journal estimated that a federal database did not account for more than 50% of deaths attributable to police violence for nearly 40 years.
The study authors, who used statistical models to extrapolate the number of unaccounted for deaths, concluded that the police had been involved in more than 30,000 deaths between 1980 and 2018.
The researchers, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, calculated that approximately 56% – or 17,100 – of deaths were not recorded in the National System of Vital Statistics, a federal database maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics, a division within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The study compared the deaths reported to that system with those registered in three non-governmental databases that were compiled from news and other public records.
More deaths among black people
According to the researchers’ estimates, the death rate for blacks was 3.5 times that of non-Hispanic whites, and that of Hispanics of any race was 1.8 times that of non-Hispanic whites. The findings are similar to those of another study, from 2019, which also found that police kill black people at disproportionate rates.
The study was published in The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal. Jeff Lancashire, a spokesman for the National Center for Health Statistics, said he could not comment on the specific results of the study, but that it was “commonly understood” that the database underestimated deaths caused by police because death certificates do not typically record the involvement of the police.
Lancashire said another database, known as the National Violent Death Reporting System, would more accurately capture those deaths. This system “collects information on violent deaths, including homicides, suicides and deaths caused by law enforcement agencies in the performance of their duties,” according to the CDC.
In an appendix to the study, the researchers stated that they excluded that system from their analysis because, although it “represents a significant improvement in the transparency of information on deadly police violence from official sources in the US,” it did not contain sufficient data to make national comparisons possible.
A study cited by the researchers found that the system nearly matched one of the nongovernmental data sets the authors used for their study, but only when looking at police shooting and not other uses of force resulting in death. .
The study did not address the number of deadly police encounters that were deemed legal or that were consistent with department policies. The legal reviews of the use of force by the police, which determine whether they act within the scope of the law, and the administrative review of the use of force, which determines whether the police acted within the scope of the policies of their agencies , are carried out at the local level.
Reporting and investigation of deaths, including those caused by the police, is largely a local responsibility, except in the rare cases where federal investigators review police use of force for possible constitutional violations or federal crimes.
Poor quality official data on police violence
As in almost all aspects of law enforcement, there is no single, comprehensive source of national data on the use of force by police officers, nor is there a standard by which any use of force is judged. the force. The poor quality of the data available at the national level came to light after the first recent national reckoning on the use of force by the police, following the death of Michael Brown in 2014.
Five months after Brown’s death, Congress passed a law known as the Death in Custody Reporting Act, which required law enforcement to report deaths in custody to the federal government or risk losing federal money.
A 2018 federal law enforcement review found that many federal law enforcement agencies were largely compliant with reporting requirements, but the Department of Justice had not begun collecting data at the state level because DOJ “considered, and dropped, three different data collection proposals since 2016.”
The report said data collection was expected to begin last year, but it is unclear if that happened and the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The issue received attention again in 2020, after a series of high-profile cases in which police killed black Americans, including George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville.
Many states passed laws aimed at changing policing, including some new data reporting requirements. But a federal effort to overhaul the police last summer failed a Republican-controlled Senate, and bipartisan talks on police reform broke down last week.