An Intriguing Link Between Police Shootings and Black Voter Registration
What we found was staggering. The number one determinant of over-representation in fatal police shootings—after controlling for all other aforementioned indicators—was the percentage of eligible black Americans registered to vote within the state in question. In other words, the higher the percentage of eligible black Americans registered to vote, the lower the over-representation ratio in a given state. Furthermore, states suffering from increased rates of income inequality (i.e. Gini index, median household income) demonstrated higher over-representation ratios, while states with increased diversity (i.e. percentage of noncitizen residents) demonstrated lower over-representation ratios…
…Though black Americans comprise 12 percent of the US population, they account for 27 percent of the victims in fatal police shootings reported between January 1, 2015 and July 7, 2016, according to a database compiled by the The Washington Post. Moreover, police officers were twice as likely to shoot and kill unarmed black individuals than unarmed white individuals…
What does this all mean? In addition to promoting diversity and reducing income inequality, these preliminary results suggest that increasing voter registration among black Americans could potentially reduce the risk of fatal police shootings of black victims.
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