3 weeks ago
New tool spots US counties with unusual police lethal force
Scientists made a special new tool called the Anomaly Detector.
It looks at police officers across the United States.
The tool checks how often police use their weapons in every county.
It compares each county to what scientists expect for places like it.
Big cities are expected to have more police actions than small towns.
The tool finds places that are very different from what is expected.
That could mean police there act more often or less often than usual.
People might use this information to learn more about their community.
It does not say whether the police are good or bad.
It just helps people know where to look more closely.
The Anomaly Detector, developed by the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research, flags counties where police use of lethal force is more or less frequent than statistical models predict.
It uses SPOTLITE data covering all 3,142 US counties from 2014 to 2023.
The predictive model relies on population size, population density, and levels of civilian gun violence.
Counties are classified into five categories, ranging from many more incidents than predicted to many fewer than predicted.
Researchers caution the classifications signal counties that merit closer study, not evidence of effective or ineffective policing.
- Who
- Researchers at the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, led by Scott Althaus.
- What
- Launched the Anomaly Detector, a national-scale tool identifying counties with unusually high or low numbers of police lethal force incidents.
- Where
- United States, covering all 3,142 US counties.
- When
- The tool analyzes data from 2014 to 2023; SPOTLITE was publicly launched in 2022 and the Anomaly Detector is a newly added feature.
- Why
- To direct attention to counties that may warrant closer examination, including areas that might need reform or that may already be reducing unnecessary uses of lethal force.
Key facts
- Tool
- Anomaly Detector
- Project
- SPOTLITE
- Developer
- Cline Center for Advanced Social Research, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Research lead
- Scott Althaus
- Coverage
- All 3,142 US counties
- Data period
- 2014-2023
- Model variables
- Population size, population density, civilian gun violence
- SPOTLITE launch
- Publicly launched in 2022
Sources
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