Validating media-driven and crowdsourced police shooting data: a research note

Ozkan, Turgut; Worrall, John; Zettler, H

doi:10.1080/0735648x.2017.1326831

Cited by 28 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Studies have found evidence that crowdsourcing and MB efforts can provide valid demographic data on OIS and can be more inclusive than the one source of official public health data on injuries inflicted by law enforcement-The National Vital Statistics System (Feldman, Gruskin, Coull, & Krieger, 2017a, 2017b. In criminology, a study similar to ours has been carried out using data from Dallas (Ozkan, Worrall, & Zettler, 2018). We build on this study by expanding the number of cities included in the analysis, by including non-fatal shootings, and by covering a longer time period.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

How Comprehensive Are Media-Based Data on Police Officer–Involved Shootings?

Baćak

Mausolf

Schwarz

2019

J Interpers Violence

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In the absence of systematic data collection by the state and federal governments, efforts to collect information on officer-involved shootings (OIS) have been assumed by the public and news agencies. In a combination of journalistic reporting and what is known as crowdsourcing, media and masses of individuals volunteer their time to identify OIS incidents and enter them into online databases. These efforts are invaluable in describing interpersonal violence between citizens and law enforcement, but it is not well known to what extent the media-based datasets are comprehensive. In the present study, we compared data from three major media-based websites to official data from five police departments that made their data available—Dallas, Denver, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Knoxville. We found a higher rate of matches than discrepancies with regard to fatalities but a much lower rate with regard to non-fatal shootings. Systematically recording and reporting OIS incidents should be the function of the government. Before—and if—that happens, our findings add to the growing evidence that media-based efforts, combined with crowdsourcing, can be useful though limited alternatives.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

How Comprehensive Are Media-Based Data on Police Officer–Involved Shootings?

Baćak

Mausolf

Schwarz

2019

J Interpers Violence

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“…Crowdsourced data are used to map violence against women [62], for police-involved killings [63], for analyzing the international crisis between India and Pakistan for the dispute over Kashmir [64], for preventing crime events, and emergencies [65], and for capturing the fear of crime [66].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding peace through the world news

et al. 2022

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Peace is a principal dimension of well-being and is the way out of inequity and violence. Thus, its measurement has drawn the attention of researchers, policymakers, and peacekeepers. During the last years, novel digital data streams have drastically changed the research in this field. The current study exploits information extracted from a new digital database called Global Data on Events, Location, and Tone (GDELT) to capture peace through the Global Peace Index (GPI). Applying predictive machine learning models, we demonstrate that news media attention from GDELT can be used as a proxy for measuring GPI at a monthly level. Additionally, we use explainable AI techniques to obtain the most important variables that drive the predictions. This analysis highlights each country’s profile and provides explanations for the predictions, and particularly for the errors and the events that drive these errors. We believe that digital data exploited by researchers, policymakers, and peacekeepers, with data science tools as powerful as machine learning, could contribute to maximizing the societal benefits and minimizing the risks to peace.

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“…In a rare example of a study that explored the nature of errors in media-based HbP data, Okzan et al (2017) compared media-based data with the internal records of Dallas, Texas police agencies. The study found that the data are rarely updated to reflect the findings of investigations into HbP incidents.…”

Section: Three Flawed Data Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Multiple Flawed Measures to Construct Valid and Reliable Rates of Homicide by Police

Renner

2018

Homicide Studies

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The study of homicide by police (HbP) has been hampered by measurement error in existing data. This study draws from three separate flawed data systems and uses confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to quantify and correct for these errors. Results show that the CFA models presented can be used to construct more valid and reliable measures of sub-national HbP rates. The improved measures are useful for conducting analyses of causes and correlates of HbP. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.

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Validating media-driven and crowdsourced police shooting data: a research note

Cited by 28 publications

References 15 publications

How Comprehensive Are Media-Based Data on Police Officer–Involved Shootings?

How Comprehensive Are Media-Based Data on Police Officer–Involved Shootings?

Understanding peace through the world news

Using Multiple Flawed Measures to Construct Valid and Reliable Rates of Homicide by Police

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