The Impact of Police Surveillance on Racial Bias using Open Data

How do new policing technologies affect racial bias in police-citizen encounters? Proponents claim that such technologies are ‘colorblind’ and thus should reduce racial or ethnic bias in policing. However, numerous accounts document that these technologies are often used as a legitimate cause to target communities of color, only reinforcing existing inequalities. In this project, we propose the first country-wide study to measure the effects of new technologies on  racial biases in law enforcement using large open-source data across more than two thousand police departments between 2000 and 2022. Our results, data, and tools will become part of the open “data hub” dedicated to fostering the evidence-based design of racially equitable policing and justice systems.

Team members: Timur Abbiasov, Fábio Duarte, Devavrat Shah, Manish Ragavan, Fotini Christia