plcy 700 journal_article_review assign 22.pdf

Running Head: JOURNAL ARTICLE REVIEW

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Journal Article Review

Dr. W. Scott Wilson

PLCY-700

Foundations of Public Policy

JOURNAL ARTICLE REVIEW

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Cesario, J., Johnson, D. J., & Terrill, W. (2018). Is There Evidence of Racial Disparity in Police

concerning this topic and I want to explore the reasons for that.

disparity in police use of deadly force; that comparing each races’ raw shooting numbers against

their population size number assumes that every person in that race has the same chance of

engaging with the police. They suggest, instead, that exposure to the police is the number that

matters instead of total population size of each group (Cesario et al., 2018). The authors, using a

qualitative research approach, calculate this by using the rates of criminal involvement for Black

people and White people and the raw number of shootings for each group (Cesario et al., 2018).

The data for this calculation is gathered for the two-year span of 2015 to 2016 from many

different sources: Summary Report Systems, National Incident-Based Reporting System,

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disparities exist in death by police gunfire in the United States at the national level reveals that if

anything, there is more of a disparity toward White people or no significant difference rather

than a disparity toward Black people. These results show consistently through homicide data,

violent crime data, and weapons violation data. The only section that showed there could be

stronger evidence suggesting race does influence police killings is the category of fatal police

shootings of unarmed citizens reaching for or holding a harmless object when adjusting for

violent crime rates; however, it is not consistent or shown in the other categories (Cesario et al.,

2018). Also, the number of cases included are few, therefore, there is uncertainty. Based on the

data these authors use in their study, the conclusions are reasonable (Cesario et al., 2018). One

could reasonably assume that the racial group that has more engagement with police would have

police and using that number indicates that they do. So, instead, they use the raw number of

criminal involvements of each racial group (Cesario et al., 2018). This suggestion/theory makes

sense, the total population does not always have interactions with the police therefore one cannot

assume they do by comparing that number to the number of Black and White people killed by

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killed at a higher rate (Cesario et al., 2018). However, I wonder if this new benchmark accurately

measures racial disparity. Though I do think it is a step in the right direction, I would argue that

population size still plays a part in this equation. It is reasonable to assume that any racial group

that is the majority of the whole population would also have higher raw numbers in

subcategories. Therefore, since White people are the majority of the United States, one would

assume they would also have higher raw criminal involvement numbers, as well as higher

mortality rates, etc. If that is reasonable to assume, then population size still needs to be

calculated to determine if there is racial disparity in police killings. Since we are looking to see if

the Black population is disproportionately killed by police, there is still a need to turn the

criminal involvement rates of Black and White people into per capita numbers. What I would

et al., 2018). Now that it is 2022, I would be interested in whether the results would be different

if 2017-2021 were included, especially because over the last couple of years there seem to be an

increase in racial injustices. It is hard to say definitively that the results of your research are

representative of the whole picture and able to use in general terms if they only consider two

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argue that the situations (mainly) in question when it comes to racial disparity in police killings

are the non-high-risk situation. It is less likely for organizations to cry out injustice if a suspect

who is Black is holding a gun when police are investigating a homicide, violent crime, or

weapons violation than if police are executing a traffic stop and kill a Black individual for

reaching for their phone or wallet. The majority of the data used in this study is centered around

whether there is racial disparity in high-risk criminal involvement. I consider that a flaw, it

should be focused on the accidents or misjudgment situations. So that the question can be asked,

why are these misjudgments happening mostly to Black individuals and not to White

individuals? That is arguably the data that would show if there were racial disparity in police

shootings/killings. This study does include the number killed by police gunfire who were

when victim is reaching for or holding a harmless object (Cesario et al., 2018). The limitation

with this is that with the number of cases in this scenario being so small there is a lot of

uncertainty (Cesario et al., 2018). However, Cesario et al. (2018) acknowledge that if the cases

increase over the years and the pattern continues that this could show a trend of anti-Black racial

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benchmark to show evidence of racial disparity in fatal police shootings. However, it seems to

still be a long way from perfected or even reliably accurate. Researchers need to keep expanding

on this research with more years studied, correct police interactions considered, and a better

benchmark created.