Since 2016, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has provided reports, based on assessments conducted under a DOJ consent decree, intended to assess bias in their department’s procedures. However, upon a closer look at the data, there appear to be inconsistencies in NOPD’s analyses, verified by several independent experts, including the Gun Violence Data Hub and CPE. More specifically, reports WWNO 89.9, NOPD’s use of force analyses, in which any use of force is justified if it is followed by an arrest, actually hides racial disparities, particularly against Black people. CPE’s Nicole Napolitano, Director of Research Strategy, breaks down the issues with NOPD’s reporting and assessment of their own data:
“They seem to assume that the arrest justifies the use of force. But in law enforcement, arrest and use of force are correlated,” said Nicole Napolitano with the Center for Policing Equity, a national nonprofit that gathers and analyzes policing data. “That does not indicate that the reason for the use of force was justified, because you can engage in an arrest and also very excessive force,” Napolitano said.
According to NOPD data, about three out of every four use of force incidents end in arrest.
Napolitano, the center’s director of research strategy, said that comparing percentages of use of force that culminate in arrests by racial group “disguises a potential source of disparities upstream” — that officers might pay more attention to certain neighborhoods or people, which could make both arrests and use of force more likely for people of color.
Read the full article at WWNO’s website.