Is police violence a public health issue? It’s a leading cause of death among black men
Police violence is a leading cause of death among young black men, who are more than twice as likely to be killed by law enforcement than white men, according to a newly released study.
The study, from Rutgers University, found that black men face a one in 1,000 chance of being killed by police, compared to one in 2,000 for men in general. Black men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white men, while black women are 1.4 times more likely to be killed by police than white women.
The study also found that American Indian men and women were 1.5 times more likely to be killed by police than are white men and women; Latino men were 1.4 times more likely to be killed by police than white men, though Latina women were 1.2 times less likely to be killed by police than white women.
Men are at the greatest risk of dying by police between the ages of 25 and 29.
“The inequality is not surprising,” said Frank Edwards, the study author, in a statement. “All you have to do is turn on the news to see that people of color are at a much greater risk of police-related harm. What we lack in this country are the solid estimates of police related deaths because there is no official database where this information is stored.”
Edwards argued that this evidence shows that police violence is a public health issue, and he called on the government to create a system to track police-related deaths.
‘’We need to increase transparency of police use of force if we are going to decrease the number of civilian deaths in this country as a result of these encounters,” Edwards said, according to a statement about the study.
This story was originally published August 6, 2019 at 11:34 AM with the headline "Is police violence a public health issue? It’s a leading cause of death among black men."
