How do Police Departments representation, in terms of racial

demographics, of the community they serve affect the number of complaints

of force against them?
1



Matt, Alejo, Taliah & Jack



2

3


1
All racial demographic data from Mercury News (http://www.mercurynews.com/pacifica/ci_26392299/data-
center-bay-area-police-departments-by-ethnicity) and all force complaints data from National Archive of Criminal
Justice (!""#$%%&&&'()#*+',-()!'./,%)0(12(3%456%76895%!*/:;3:)</=>??@?1AAA?)
2
Data on number of force complaints per Police Department is from 2007
3
Data on racial demographics per population and per Police Department is from 20012




Our data potentially demonstrates an association that police departments with a smaller proportion of blacks in the
police department than in the general population could have more force complaints against that police department. Both
the purple bubble and the teal bubble have slightly smaller proportion of black officers in their respective police
departments than in the population, these 2 bubbles have some of the most force complaints in the Bay Area. However,
the orange bubble has a significantly higher proportion of black officers in the police department than in the population,



and the orange bubble represents the district with the 3rd most police complaints. there are also multiple police
departments with 0 black officers, and around 2-4% of those communities are black. In some of those communities,
force complaints are higher than in the little orange bubble, where there is a larger proportion of blacks in the PD than in
the population.





Our data here shows that there may be an association between police departments that have a smaller proportion of
latinos in the police department than in the population and more force complaints against those police departments.
Although the community with the largest amount of force complaints, the purple bubble, is fairly even in terms of



distribution, the communities with the second and third most force complaints both have a much smaller proportion of
latinos in the police department than in the populationthe light blue and orange bubbles. There is also a general trend
that most police departments have a smaller proportion of latinos in the police department than in the population.






This set of our data is probably the least conducive to associations, as there are extremes on both ends of
the spectrum. There is a police department that has no asian officers in a community where over 20% of the
population is asian, and force complaints are fairly high. Meanwhile; however, there is also a community in
which almost 50% police department is asian while the population is under 20% asian. Generally, there are
more communities with a smaller proportion of asians in the police department than in the population;
however, these communities do not necessarily have more force complaints than places with a larger
proportion of asians in the police department than in the population







Our data for shows that there may be an association between police departments with higher proportions of whites
than the corresponding population and force complaints against that police department. The purple bubble has the most
force complaints of any police department in the bay area, and has a slightly higher proportion of whites in the police
department han in the population. however, the districts with the largest disparities, such as the orange bubble and the



cluster just above it, all have significant amounts of force complaints and a large disparity in the amount of white
officers versus the amount of whites in the population.