Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex

Frank Edwards; Hedwig Lee; Michael Esposito

doi:10.1073/pnas.1821204116

New Research In

Edited by John Hagan, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and approved July 3, 2019 (received for review December 12, 2018)

Significance

Police violence is a leading cause of death for young men in the United States. Over the life course, about 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police. Risk of being killed by police peaks between the ages of 20 y and 35 y for men and women and for all racial and ethnic groups. Black women and men and American Indian and Alaska Native women and men are significantly more likely than white women and men to be killed by police. Latino men are also more likely to be killed by police than are white men.

Abstract

We use data on police-involved deaths to estimate how the risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States varies across social groups. We estimate the lifetime and age-specific risks of being killed by police by race and sex. We also provide estimates of the proportion of all deaths accounted for by police use of force. We find that African American men and women, American Indian/Alaska Native men and women, and Latino men face higher lifetime risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. We find that Latina women and Asian/Pacific Islander men and women face lower risk of being killed by police than do their white peers. Risk is highest for black men, who (at current levels of risk) face about a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by police over the life course. The average lifetime odds of being killed by police are about 1 in 2,000 for men and about 1 in 33,000 for women. Risk peaks between the ages of 20 y and 35 y for all groups. For young men of color, police use of force is among the leading causes of death.

Footnotes

↵¹To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: frank.edwards{at}rutgers.edu.

Author contributions: F.E. and H.L. designed research; F.E. and M.E. performed research; F.E. and M.E. analyzed data; and F.E. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Data deposition: All scripts and data used in this analysis are available on Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/c8qxh/).
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1821204116/-/DCSupplemental.

Published under the PNAS license.

View Full Text