Citation

Ozkan T, Worrall JL, Zettler H. J. Crime Justice 2018; 41(3): 334-345.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Midwestern Criminal Justice Association, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/0735648X.2017.1326831

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Researchers have yet to explore the validity of 'unofficial' media-driven and crowdsourced police-involved killings data. This omission is important because unofficial data are touted as providing accurate counts and narratives pertaining to officer-involved shootings - at least relative to official data. To address this shortcoming, we compared the incidence of and details surrounding officer-involved killings in three unofficial data-sets (FatalEncounters.org, Deadspin, and the Washington Post) to officially collected data on officer-involved shootings from the city of Dallas. Reporting on the incidence of officer-involved killings was mostly consistent across data sources. Incident details varied across data sources, however, especially with respect to investigation outcomes.

Language: en

Keywords

civilian casualties; crowdsourcing; media; murder; Police killings