IHME | GBD Study | Dr. Alexes Harris Discusses Police Violence in the United States (1980-2018)

Dr. Alexes Harris discusses a new study published in The Lancet on police violence in the United States. The study finds that more than half of police killings in the United States are missing from the official data system and Black Americans experience fatal police violence at a rate 3.5 times higher than white Americans.

Alexes Harris, Ph.D., is the Presidential Term Professor and Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. Dr. Harris’ work has spanned the criminal justice system, including juvenile justice, case processing outcomes, and monetary sanctions. Her research is fundamentally centered on issues of inequality, poverty and race in the United States’ systems of justice. Her book, A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as a Punishment for the Poor details the ways in which sentenced fines and fees often put an undue burden on disadvantaged populations and place them under even greater supervision of the criminal justice system.

While Dr. Harris is not a co-author of the study, we have asked her to comment on the findings due to her high degree of expertise.

Transcription:

The analysis finds that African Americans in this country are killed at a rate of 3.5 times higher than white people by police. The data really highlight that we have a serious problem, and the authors frame it in a public health approach. So many different groups from policymakers to advocates to commissions have been calling for an approach to really decrease the use of force, but many folks have been really hiding behind the lack of numbers, and the lack of numbers highlighting racial disparities in this country. This report now calls us to the carpet and asks us what are we going to do to address this violence?