Abstract Number:
1348
Submission Type:
Invited Paper Session
Participants:
Claire Kelling (1), Claire Kelling (1), Dean Knox (2), Tarak Shah (3), Greg Lanzalotto (2), Claire Kelling (1)
Institutions:
(1) Carleton College, N/A, (2) University of Pennsylvania, N/A, (3) Human Rights Data Analysis Group, N/A
Chair:
Session Organizer:
Speaker(s):
Session Description:
Excessive use of force by police is an urgent problem of concern to sociologists, statisticians, policymakers, and the general public. Issues with data quality, processing of unstructured data, tradeoffs between data access and privacy concerns, statistical challenges in analyzing fairness, and other topics have been highlighted as specific areas of concern. In addition, the methodologies used to analyze police use of force have also been extremely varied and results are often incompatible or rely on implausible unstated assumptions. In November 2023, we will host an in-person Ingram Olkin Forum (IOF) workshop where we hope to shed light not only on unique approaches and perspectives in these areas, but also to develop and suggest steps that statisticians and researchers should consider to gain a deeper understanding of these issues and provide better evidence to inform reform efforts.
During the Invited Paper session, we will invite the Organizing Committee members to debrief on the findings of the Ingram Olkin Forum and discuss next steps for research in the areas that are the main focus of the forum. Since policing in the United States is decentralized and reporting standards are inconsistent and unenforced, statistical analysis of police use of force must account for issues of unrepresentative samples and incompleteness. Increasing digitalization of bureaucratic processes along with increasing professionalization of police have contributed to a large amount of unstructured data, such as scanned incident reports and use-of-force reports, available for researchers to address some of the inherent issues. However, leveraging such sources requires new approaches to information extraction. Another promising avenue is community-collected data; these provide a rich additional source of data, but are necessarily incomplete and limited by the organizations' own capacity, and incorporating such data into analyses again requires the appropriate statistical methods and modeling approaches. These research areas are listed in the titles shown below.
One of the key objectives of the forum is to foster a collaborative environment that will lead to the development of new research largely in the form of publications. These publications will synthesize the collective insights and research findings gleaned during the forum, serving as a comprehensive resource. We aim to extend the reach of the forum's outcomes, thereby contributing to broader academic discourse and public policy debates on the issue of police use of force. The publications, along with group discussion held during the forum, will inform and shape the content of our invited session at JSM.
This session is also strongly related to the JSM theme of "Statistics and Data Science: Informing Policy and Countering Misinformation" as we are hoping to inform policy and practice on policing and to counter misleading narratives that can be created from analysis of policing data that is not thorough and careful.
We note that although the session chair and discussant have not been selected at this point in time, we anticipate that these roles will be quickly filled after the conclusion of the forum in November 2023.
Titles:
Dean Knox, "Statistical Issues in Analyzing Fairness and Bias"
Tarak Shah, "Unstructured Data: Prospects and Challenges"
Claire Kelling, "Data Access and Privacy Considerations"
Greg Lanzalotto, "Community Collection and Use of Policing Data"
Sponsors:
Committee on Law and Justice Statistics 3
Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion Outreach Group 2
Social Statistics Section 1
Theme:
Statistics and Data Science: Informing Policy and Countering Misinformation
Yes
Applied
Yes
Estimated Audience Size
Medium (80-150)
I have read and understand that JSM participants must abide by the Participant Guidelines.
Yes
I understand and have communicated to my proposed speakers that JSM participants must register and pay the appropriate registration fee by June 1, 2024. The registration fee is nonrefundable.
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