Record Details

Replication Data for: Are Police Racially Biased in the Decision to Shoot?

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title Replication Data for: Are Police Racially Biased in the Decision to Shoot?
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/9GSJ6V
 
Creator Clark, Tom S.
Cohen, Elisha
Glynn, Adam
Owens, Michael Leo
Gunderson, Anna
Schiff, Kaylyn Jackson
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description We present a theoretical model predicting that racially biased policing produces 1) more use of potentially lethal force by firearms against Black civilians than against White civilians and 2) lower fatality rates for Black civilians than White civilians. We empirically evaluate this second prediction with original officer-involved shooting data from 2010 to 2017 for eight local police jurisdictions, finding that Black fatality rates are significantly lower than White fatality rates and that this significance would survive an omitted covariate three times as strong as any of our observed covariates. Furthermore, using outcome test methodology and a comparability assumption, we estimate that at least 30% of Black civilians shot by the police would not have been shot had they been White. An omitted covariate would need to be at least three times as strong as any of our observed covariates to eliminate this finding. Finally, any omitted covariate would have to affect Black fatality rates substantially more than Hispanic fatality rates in order to be consistent with the data.
 
Subject Social Sciences
Policing
Racial Bias
Officer Involved Shooting
Formal Model
Sensitivity Analysis
 
Contributor Cohen, Elisha