Do White Police Officers Unfairly Target Black Suspects?

Abstract

Using a unique new data set on police-involved homicides, we apply several discrimination tests to determine if white police officers discriminate against black suspects. We find that the probability of an unarmed black suspect being killed by a white police officer is not significantly greater than the probability of a black suspect being killed by a black police officer. We also find that while black officers are generally more likely than white officers to kill unarmed black suspects at a higher rate than they kill unarmed white ones, the differences in these gaps for black and white officers are not statistically significant. These findings are inconsistent with taste-based discrimination on the part of white police officers.

published Economics, Law and Policy, Vol 4, no 2, 2021

Keywords: discrimination, police use of force, racial bias

JEL Classification: K42, J71