Data Mining: Relationship Between Police Brutality and Race in the US

Introduction

Demonstrations against institutional racism and police brutality swept across the United States after the murder of George Floyd — a 46 years old African American man. George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020 (Galofaro, C., 2020). According to Bassett M.T. (2020), about three people are killed every day by the Police in US and those killed by the US police are disproportionately Black Americans. The number of Black Americans killed in the United States is significantly higher than those in other affluent countries (Vitale, A.S., 2017). Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for about 8 minutes and 46 seconds which made George Floyd to die of lack of oxygen. This event resulted in a wave of protest led by several groups' leadership, most notably Black Lives Matter — an organization created in 2013 by three radical Black women (Krieger, N., 2020). From the shooting of George Floyd to Chantal Moore, Stelkia, K., (2020) stated that racism and police violence are garnering the long overdue attention in the United States and across the globe. Police brutality and racism are now increasingly being debated in the Black and Indigenous communities.

There has historically been a disparity in firearm murder between Black and White people in the United State of America (Fowler, K.A. 2015). For decades, sociological literatures have revealed racial prejudice in police shootings in the United States (Gabrielson R. 2014). Ross, C.T., (2015) argued that some possible reasons include close community violence theory, psychology and personal bias of police officers, racial bias in encountering and reporting suspects, and structural racism. According to Bailey et al., (2017), the totality of ways in which the society promotes racism through established systems is referred to as structural racism.

Experts claim that racism is different from race, with the former being the root of inequity. Institutional systems were cited by experts as being responsible for the increased killing of people of colour. These institutions, which range from healthcare to the criminal justice system all have their root in the 400 years old establishment of slavery and white supremacist ideology which are massaged by racist laws that create and maintain unequal access to resources and power (Barber, S., 2020). The aim of this project is thus to estimate the relationship between police brutality and race in the United State of America.

Problem Statement

According to Grinshteyn, E. and Hemenway, D., (2016); about 82% of all gun-related deaths in the world occur in the US. According to Mesic A. et al. (2018), about 59% of the victims of these firearm killings are people of colour although they make up only about 14% of US population. Mesic A. et al. (2018) further argued that Black people are eight times more likely to be killed by firearm in the US than White people. Police brutality based on skin colour affects the mental health of people of colour and sparked both peaceful and violent protest in which people defied social distancing in the middle of a global pandemic.

Aim and Objectives

The aim of this project is to explore, analyze and gain insight into the relationship between police brutality and race in the United State of America. The objectives of this research work are as follows:

1. To examine and mine for insight in the variation of police brutality and race in the United State.
2. To find out if police brutality is significantly related to a particular race in the United State.
3. To use the insight gotten from the analysis to find out if reformation of the United States police on racism is necessary.

Research Questions

The research questions for this project are as follows:

1. Is police brutality rampant in the United States?
2. Is police brutality related to race in the United States?
3. Is there need to reform police across the United States on racism?

Deliverables

The deliverables of this project are exploratory data analysis, data munging, data mining, data analysis, and a project report. The report should thoroughly explain the source of the data used, exploratory data analysis, code implementation, feature selection, model selection as well as model performance.

Relevance

This project is mainly focused using data to ascertain whether police brutality is related to race in the United States.

Methodology

This project would consider a secondary research, modeling, and forecasting. They are further buttressed below:

Secondary research

The secondary research in this project will utilize a systematic approach (Johnson et al., 2016) to review the works of literature. The steps involved in the systematic review of the literature are provided below:

• Step 1: Identify the research questions that can be used for the project.
• Step 2: Identify the keywords that should be used to research the works of literature.
• Step 3: Extract the journals and books that are appropriate for this project.
• Step 4: Write the literature review chapter.

Data Analysis

This section involves sourcing insight in the data. The steps involved are as follows:

• Data collection
• Exploratory Data Analysis
• Data Munging
• Data Analysis
• Interpretation of Result and Conclusion.

Evaluation

The risk assessment conducted for this project is provided in the table below:

Table 1:  Risk assessment