Uncovering Differences in Police Shooting Demographics

During today’s CLASS session, our primary focus was to closely examine potential disparities in the proportions of individuals from Black and White communities affected by police shootings. Our analytical journey commenced with the extraction of crucial statistical parameters for each dataset. These foundational metrics laid the groundwork for our subsequent creation of impactful visual representations through histograms.

Noteworthy was our discovery of a departure from the anticipated distribution in the age profiles of both Black and White victims of police shootings. Confronted with this deviation from the norm, we navigated the statistical landscape with care, opting for the Monte Carlo method to estimate the p-value. This decision was prompted by skepticism surrounding the suitability of the t-test in the face of non-normal data. Employing Cohen’s d technique, we precisely measured the magnitude of this dissimilarity, culminating in a value of 0.577—a designation denoting a medium effect size. This numerical insight underscored a significant and discernible difference between these two demographic groups.

In summary, our in-depth exploration not only illuminated potential imbalances in police shooting victim profiles but also highlighted the importance of methodological adaptability in the presence of non-normally distributed data. The strategic combination of statistical techniques and critical thinking revealed nuanced dynamics within these datasets, providing a comprehensive understanding of the complexities surrounding this critical issue.

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