title: Are police officers more likely to kill African-American suspects?
abstract: In recent psychological research decisions by police officers to shoot criminal suspects are often assumed to be racially biased, and it is concluded that officers are more likely to shoot African-American suspects. This assumption was tested with national data on persons killed during legal interventions and with data bearing on the African-American proportion of criminal suspects law enforcement officers face. Analysis indicates that the African-American share of persons killed by law enforcement officers, while higher than the African-American percentage of the U.S. population, is lower than one would expect based on the estimated African-American proportion of suspects confronted in violent encounters or the African-American percentage of suspects who kill police officers.
authors: College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA. gkleck@mailer.fsu.edu
authors: Gary
authors: G
authors: Kleck
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006708:Homicide / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D016495:Police / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011287:Prejudice; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology