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CaptainHindsight92 t1_iwkwe6w wrote

This is an interesting graph and highlights the complex relationship between training and police shootings. It would be great to see the same graph split with other variables, such as the overall crime rate and the number of officers. I notice that in your references, violent crime includes four specific crimes: aggravated assault, robbery, homicide, whether intentional or accidental and rape. While crimes such as rape are undoubtedly violent, I can't see any connection to police shootings like robbery or homicide and the inclusion of this might hide correlations. For instance of Alaska's violent crime rate of 837, 147 of these are rapes (sadly it has the highest rate in the country).

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tommytornado OP t1_iwl04la wrote

Indeed, for crime rates I was looking for a more general set of data and this is all I found at short notice. What I ideally wanted was an number of 'crimes' per state. But now I'm writing this again I'm not sure exactly what I mean by crime. Should I compare a petty theft to a mass-murder?

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Fausterion18 t1_iwllz90 wrote

Robbery is probably the best one to use because it's an inherently public act.

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CaptainHindsight92 t1_iwn2mz6 wrote

I guess aggravated assault and homicide are also relevant in many situations if a dangerous weapon is involved... it is a tough one OP.

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marigolds6 t1_iwlm3r2 wrote

You want to look at the NIBRS dataset, or prior to that the UCR dataset.

They break down crime reports all the way to the department level and classify crimes by type and severity in several ways.

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ackillesBAC t1_iwlnocr wrote

Going by crime rates is a problem, because crime rates are reported by police. If they want more funding they report more crimes.

Personally like someone else said I think the issue is the content of the training. Would be interesting to see a graph based on what training courses they took.

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