Studies

Research on racial bias in policing

“We find that race and gender shape not only exposure to police contacts but also their associated exchanges” & “Black females expressed … feeling ‘unimportant,’ ‘threatened,’ and ‘manipulated’ in the context of … both voluntary and involuntary encounters."

“Racial profiling occurs virtually irrespective of the race or ethnicity of the police officer who is involved. Instead, police-involved violence seems to be principally attributable to the organizational cultures and institutional norms and roles found in law enforcement."

“The Supreme Court has interpreted the Fourth Amendment to enable and sometimes expressly legalize racial profiling… [which] exposes African Americans not only to the violence of ongoing police surveillance and contact but also to the violence of serious bodily injury."

“A minimum of 1 in 4 fatal police encounters ends the life of an individual with severe mental illness. At this rate, the risk of being killed during a police incident is 16 times greater for individuals with untreated mental illness than for other civilians."

“Individuals are more likely to voluntarily comply with the law when they perceive the law to be legitimate and applied in a non-discriminatory fashion. From the point of view of racial minorities, this is precisely the opposite of the current state of affairs."

"[In areas of NYC] 80% of young African American men… had been stopped … by police within the last year… If practice and law were reconciled, we would have to believe that the police reasonably believed that 80% percent of [AA] youth … were about to commit a crime."