University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2020 Group Threat and Racial Disparities in Police-Caused Killings Ruben A. Ortiz University of Tennessee, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Ortiz, Ruben A., "Group Threat and Racial Disparities in Police-Caused Killings. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2020. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/5823 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Ruben A. Ortiz entitled "Group Threat and Racial Disparities in Police-Caused Killings." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Sociology. Stephanie A. Bohon, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Michelle Brown, Kasey Henricks, Tyler Wall, Nicholas Nagle Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Group Threat and Racial Disparities in Police-Caused Killings A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Ruben A. Ortiz May 2020 ABSTRACT Blacks, Latinos, and American Indians are killed by police at a disproportionately higher rate than whites and Asians, but whether racial discrimination accounts for these killings remains disputed. I contribute to this debate by assessing whether group threat theory is associated with the overall, and race-specific count of police-caused killings at the metropolitan and county level across the US. Furthermore, I assess whether there is evidence of racial bias in police-caused killings, and if county-level measures of threat are associated with measures of racial bias at the individual level. Using data from the Census Bureau, American Community Survey, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Uniform Crime Reporting program, my results indicate that the size of the black and Latino population relative to the white population is consistently associated with a higher expected count of police-caused killings of blacks and Latinos at the metropolitan and county level. Moreover, I find that an increase in the size of the black and Latino population relative to the white population across US counties is associated with decreases in the expected count of police-caused killings of all people and white people. I find that regional differences exist in the expected count of police-caused killings across metropolitan areas, and counties. Moreover, my results provide evidence of racial bias in police- caused killings. Among people who were shot and killed by police, Latinos were 1.26 times as likely as whites to have not been attacking people when killed, and blacks were 1.38 times as likely as whites to have been unarmed prior to getting shot by police. deaths. In developing solutions to reduce police-caused killings, researchers should look beyond the proximal causes of death (i.e. the police) to the distal factors operating across metropolitan areas and counties that predict the expected count of police-caused killings of minorities. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 LIMITATIONS OF PREVIOUS WORK ....................................................................................... 4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ............................................................................... 7 IMPLICATIONS .............................................................................................................................. 9 Implications for Public Policy ................................................................................................... 11 Chapter Two: GROUP THREAT THEORY AND POLICE-CAUSED KILLINGS .................. 13 Police Deadly Force ................................................................................................................... 19 USING GROUP THREAT THEORY TO UNDERSTAND POLICE-CAUSED KILLINGS . 24 SITUATING THE CURRENT STUDY ..................................................................................... 32 Chapter Three: DATA SOURCES .................................................................................................. 40 The Counted ............................................................................................................................. 40 Fatal Force ................................................................................................................................. 43 Supplementary Homicide Reports ............................................................................................ 44 Decennial Census and the American Community Survey ....................................................... 48 Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program ............................................................................. 49 DEPENDENT VARIABLES ........................................................................................................ 51 INDEPENDENT VARIABLES .................................................................................................... 55 CONTROL VARIABLES ............................................................................................................. 63 Population ................................................................................................................................. 63 Police .......................................................................................................................................... 64 Crime rate .................................................................................................................................. 65 Regional controls ....................................................................................................................... 65 Urban-Rural Designations ......................................................................................................... 66 Chapter Four: GROUP THREAT IN METROPOLITAN AREAS ............................................. 68 ANALYTICAL STRATEGY ......................................................................................................... 70 RESULTS ...................................................................................................................................... 75 iii Descriptive Statistics .................................................................................................................. 75 Evaluating Different Specifications of Threat ........................................................................... 80 Is There a Relationship Between Threat and Police-Caused Killings? ..................................... 81 Is it Population? Or Population Growth? ................................................................................. 86 Are there differences between models? ..................................................................................... 90 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................ 93 Chapter Five: GROUP THREAT IN COUNTIES ACROSS THE US ....................................... 95 ANALYTICAL STRATEGY ......................................................................................................... 99 RESULTS .................................................................................................................................... 100 Descriptive Statistics ................................................................................................................ 100 Assessing the Relationship between Group Threat, and Killings across Counties ................ 103 Is There Evidence of Racial Bias in Police-Caused Killings? ................................................... 108 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................... 113 Chapter Six: RACIAL DISPARITIES AND BENCHMARKING ............................................. 115 BENCHMARKING, IS IT POPULATION OR CRIME? ......................................................... 119 RESULTS .................................................................................................................................... 131 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................... 134 Chapter 7: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................... 135 Question 1a. ............................................................................................................................ 137 Question 1b. ............................................................................................................................ 138 Question 1c. ............................................................................................................................