In a new analysis of 7,082 fatal shootings by law enforcement across 3,125 U.S. counties between 2015 and 2022, scholars from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have found that areas with greater income inequality experience a significantly higher rate of fatal shootings by police. While this finding held true for all racial groups, it was most pronounced among Black Americans.
On average, Black individuals were fatally shot by police at a rate of 4.6 per 10,000 residents in a county. In contrast, the rate per 10,000 for White and Hispanic individuals was just 0.3 and 0.8, respectively. This disparity was more pronounced in counties with greater income inequality; Black individuals in these areas experienced a tenfold increase in fatal police shootings compared to counties with lower inequality. Even when the researchers removed violent crime from their analysis, the association between income inequality and fatal shootings by law enforcement remained.
“This is a critical nuance, violent crime does not explain away the racial disparities in fatal police shootings,” said lead author Hossein Zare, associate research professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. “The research suggests that income inequality rooted in decades of structural racism, redlining, segregation, and economic disinvestment creates the conditions in which these disparities persist and compound.”
The research team included authors from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles.
