The Budget for Police Related

Fatal Encounters: An Analysis

of US Metropolitan Areas

Meaghan Morrell, Political Science

University of South Carolina
 Background
Mr. Dainell Simmons
29, Male, African American
Died: July 24, 2014
Cause: Tasered
Location: Maryhome Center
of Hope Group Home -
Suffolk County, New York
Department Responsible:
Suffolk County Police
Department
(Lash, 2013)
 Overview
Significance & Purpose
Research Questions
Methods
Results
Discussion
Next Steps
 Significance & Purpose
fatal encounter is a death committed in the
presence of an officer (Burghart, 2017)
19,780+ people were killed in fatal encounters with
police from 2000-2016 (Burghart, 2017)
No data currently exists apart from that taken from
FatalEncounters.org
2,717 law enforcement officers were killed serving
in the line of duty from 2000-2016 (Cosgriff, 2017)
Necessary to look at this issue from a different
perspective to justify the major issue
 Research Questions
1. Which are the top 25 grossing police
departments in the United States in regards
to total operating budgets?
2. How many fatal encounters have occurred
within these jurisdictions for 2000, 2003,
2007, 2013?
3. Do fatal encounters and total operating
budgets yield a significance for these time
periods?
 Methods
Selected these time periods as total operating
budget information is available for only these periods
Conducted tests to produce various regression
outputs and measured significance using 3 methods:
OLS - ignores unobserved individual factors; estimates are
unbiased and assumes no correlation
Fixed Effects - removes unobserved individual factors;
personal factors may affect overall results
Random Effects - assumes no correlation between
independent variables and unobserved factors
 Methods
Dependent variables used were fatal
encounters and budget
Analyzed independent variables for each
period
Budget, police killed, population, fatal encounters, number of
police

T statistics were found from doing regressions

Reverse causality effect
Instead of x yielding changes in y, y yields changes in x
Trying to determine the cause and effect of this project
Figure 1:
Total Total Total Total Fatal Fatal Fatal Fatal
Operating Operating Operating Operating Encounters Encounters Encounters Encounters
Police Department Budget 2000 Budget 2003 Budget 2007 Budget 2013 2000 2003 2007 2013
New York City 3210000000 3210000000 3800000000 4610000000 18 22 17 26
Los Angeles 892000000 892000000 1220000000 1260000000 42 60 33 57
Chicago 910000000 910000000 1230000000 1250000000 17 23 31 22
Houston 426000000 426000000 602000000 620000000 5 10 16 20
Philadelphia 385000000 385000000 514000000 600000000 11 9 19 10
Miami-Dade 352000000 352000000 473000000 526000000 4 5 4 17
San Francisco 255706971 255706971 406970908 492000000 3 2 7 3

Las Vegas- Clark Co. 240714303 240714303 516294527 489000000 2 10 10 5

Suffolk Co. 390000000 390000000 544000000 451000000 0 0 1 2
Washington, D.C. 316666268 316666268 476072040 442071368 0 2 3 4
Dallas 246000000 246000000 362903806 417761422 1 8 11 10
Baltimore 231297485 231297485 346792872 410000000 2 2 2 17
Boston 204000000 204000000 270693353 278780806 2 0 1 3
Detroit 352000000 352000000 408000000 268000000 1 1 1 3
Milwaukee 149812727 149812727 211979812 237538363 2 4 6 6
Memphis 140000000 140000000 199773385 232923990 0 0 0 13
Honolulu 140782160 140782160 189363955 223759296 13 2 3 3
Charlotte 111642098 111642098 174241771 211316611 5 3 1 4
Cleveland 252000000 252000000 181014000 172000000 2 4 4 2
Atlanta 119407023 119407023 184893651 168651480 4 3 0 3
St. Louis 114000000 114000000 136986000 131830464 6 5 0 7
Cincinnati 78148540 78148540 138064860 128712737 4 3 0 1
New Orleans 102000000 102000000 112000000 128528462 2 3 1 1
Nassau Co. 517000000 517000000 693000000 75000000 0 1 0 2
Kansas City 32071917 32071917 43000000 50109247 5 11 10 12
Data compiled from LEMAS 2017 & Fatal Encounters 2017.
 Methods
Figure 2:

Total Total Total Total Fatal Fatal Fatal Fatal

Operating Operating Operating Operating Encounters Encounters Encounters Encounters
Police Department Budget 2000 Budget 2003 Budget 2007 Budget 2013 2000 2003 2007 2013
New York City 3210000000 3210000000 3800000000 4610000000 18 22 17 26
Los Angeles 892000000 892000000 1220000000 1260000000 42 60 33 57
Chicago 910000000 910000000 1230000000 1250000000 17 23 31 22

Data compiled from LEMAS 2017 & Fatal Encounters 2017.

 Methods
Figure 3:
Fatal Encounters

Fatal Encounters 2013

Fatal Encounters 2007

Fatal Encounters New York City

Reported
Los Angeles
Fatal Encounters 2003 Chicago

Fatal Encounters 2000

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Number of Persons Killed

Data compiled from Fatal Encounters 2017 & ODMP 2017.

Figure 3:
Figure 4:
Figure 5:
 Discussion
The OLS, Fixed Effects, and Random Effects models
use different assumptions
Results indicate a significance with a confidence of
95% in various areas of operational budget and fatal
encounters in all 3 time periods and models
The most accurate model in analyzing the data is the
fixed effects model due to personal factors that
could affect the results
According to the reverse causality effect, budget is
the cause while fatal encounters are the effect
 Discussion
Funding allocations
Need for modernized technologies
Accountability for Fatal Encounters in the budget?
Policy Making
Allocation of Aid to Departments
Allocation of Tax Dollars
Justification for use of force
Every year approximately 100,000 people are treated in hospitals
for nonfatal injuries incurred by police officers (Reaves, 2016)
Accounting for self-defense in the budget?
Training programs for police
21 weeks or 840 hours excluding field training (Reaves, 2016)
 Next Steps
Encourage more data to be collected in these
areas
Investigate spending allocations and crime
statistics
Increase sample size as more data becomes
available
Investigate law enforcement training
requirements of US compared to other countries
Bring exposure to this issue from a different
perspective
 Acknowledgements
Dr. Todd Shaw, Chair of Political Science Department &
Mentor
Mr. Eddie Lawson, Political Science PhD. Candidate USC
Columbia
Mr. Bill Sudduth, Head of Government Information &
Maps USC Columbia
Dr. Sharon White, USC Columbia TRIO McNair
Coordinator USC Columbia
2017 Ronald E. McNair Program, Staff, & Cohort

References
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from http://www.fatalencounters.org/
Cosgriff, C. (2017). Law Enforcement Line of Duty Deaths. The Officer Down
Memorial Page (ODMP). Retrieved 1 June 2017, from https://www.odmp.org/
Lash, D. (2013). Why is Dainell Simmons dead?. SocialistWorker.org. Retrieved 1
June 2017, from https://socialistworker.org/2013/07/30/why-is-dainell-simmons-
dead
Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS). (2017).
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http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/series/92
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 References
Reaves, B. A., & Hickman, M. J. (2002). Census of State and Local Law Enforcement
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Retrieved June 1, 2017, from https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/csllea00.pdf
Reaves, B. A. (2010). Local Police Departments, 2007, (NCJ 231174), 34-41.
Retrieved June 1, 2017, from https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/lpd07.pdf
Hickman, M. J., & Reaves, B. A. (2006). Local Police Departments, 2003. Local
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