Lifetime Risks of Being Killed by Police in the United States by Race and Gender

Frank Edwards , Rutgers University
Hedwig Lee, Washington University in St. Louis
Michael Esposito, University of Michigan

We use novel data to provide the first estimates of the lifetime risk of being killed by police in the U.S. by race and gender. We also provide age-specific risks of being killed by police by race and gender. We find that Black men and women are at highest risk of being killed by police within their respective gender groups. For each 100,000 births and at current rates, about 26.6 Black men and 2.2 Black women will be killed. Risk for all groups peaks during early adulthood, between the ages of 20 and 29, and decline rapidly with age.

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 Presented in Session 157. Violence and Health