Differentiating Black and Hispanic: outcome differences of segregated communities and police shootings in the USA, 2015–2020

Abstract

Background Police shootings are unevenly spatially distributed, with substantive spikes throughout the USA. While minorities are disproportionately the victims of police force, social or structural factors associated with this distribution are not well understood. The objective of this work was to evaluate police shootings in relation to victim race or ethnicity and residential segregation and racial diversity. Methods Validated crowdsourced data from the Washington Post’s Fatal Force (2015–2020) were linked with census tract-level data from the American Community Survey. Residential minority dissimilarity, interaction, and a racial and ethnic diversity metric were calculated in order to assess the potentially variant importance of evenness in distribution, exposure likelihood, and general representation. Logistic and multinomial regression was used to model associations between segregation and diversity, adjusted for other ecological characteristics. Analyses were stratified by victim race or ethnicity (Black, Asian, or Hispanic). Results Across all races combined, the odds of a police shooting in a particular census tract were associated with non-Hispanic Black dissimilarity (OR = 0.98, 95% CI 0.97, 0.99) and racial and ethnic diversity (1.046, 95% CI 1.044, 1.060). Areas with higher racial diversity had a higher likelihood of having a police shooting event with Black victims (OR = 1.092, 95% CI 1.064, 1.120) or Asian victims (OR = 1.188, 1.051, 1.343) than less diverse areas. Higher non-Hispanic Black interaction was associated with a lower likelihood of having a police shooting event with Black victims (OR = 0.914, 95% CI 0.833, 0.946) than lower interaction areas. Higher Hispanic dissimilarity was associated with a lower likelihood of having a police shooting event with a Hispanic victim (OR = 0.398, 95% CI 0.324, 0.489) than lower dissimilarity areas. Conclusions The variant effects of residential segregation are only seen when victims are analyzed separately by race. There appears to be a protective effect for Hispanic populations in Hispanic communities, while the reverse is true of Black individuals. We urge law enforcement responsible for locations with segregated communities to monitor individual interactions that police have with residents as well as the patterns of frequency and context of those interactions.

Resident perspectives on police involvement in the response to mental health crises

“…Most studies evaluating programs have been conducted in settingsunlike the United States-where access to behavioural health care and high-quality safety-net housing are high and where rates of gun possession and serious violence are relatively low. Few, if any, studies explore the experiences and perspectives of community members living in areas marginalized by high rates of poverty and serious crime, where rates of mental distress are higher, due to disproportionate exposure to poverty, violence, and other trauma (Walker & Diforio, 1997), and involvement with police is greater and riskier (Gaston et al, 2021;Leslie et al, 2022). The present study examines preferences for police involvement in mental health crises in two areas of Philadelphia where there is concentrated economic disadvantage and where unmet social and health needs are extensive.…”