Keep Factually independent
Whether you agree or disagree with our analysis, these conversations matter for democracy. We don't take money from political groups - even a $5 donation helps us keep it that way.
Which U.S. states have the highest per-capita rates of police killings of Black people in 2013–2023?
Executive Summary
Available analyses and metadata indicate that the sources supplied do not contain a ready-made ranking of U.S. states by per-capita police killings of Black people for 2013–2023, and no single provided document delivers that precise statistic for the full 2013–2023 window. Multiple repositories and tools are referenced — including The Washington Post database, Mapping Police Violence state comparison tools, and academic meta-analyses from the Global Burden of Disease and related studies — but each either covers different years, requires additional processing, or lacks the specific state-by-state per-capita breakdown for Black victims across 2013–2023 [1] [2] [3] [4]. To answer the question definitively requires merging incident-level datasets with 2013–2023 population denominators and standardizing definitions across sources; none of the provided items offers that end-to-end calculation as-is [5] [6] [7].
1. Why the claim can’t be answered directly from the provided files — “Data gaps and mismatched windows.”
The supplied source analyses repeatedly state that the materials do not directly list per-capita rates for Black victims by state for the 2013–2023 period. Several items either omit the necessary racial breakdown, stop before 2023, or present national-level estimates rather than state-level per-capita counts. The Washington Post database is comprehensive for incident-level fatal police shootings and includes race fields, but its public presentation does not provide a pre-calculated state ranking for the 2013–2023 span; it requires downloading and reaggregation to compute rates per 100,000 Black residents per state [1]. Mapping Police Violence offers a State Comparison Tool and downloadable data useful for calculating disproportionate impacts, but it similarly needs user-driven computation and relies on census denominators for per-capita math [2]. Academic syntheses like the Global Burden of Disease and network meta-regressions provide age-standardized mortality estimates for earlier windows (through 2019) and broader methodologies, but they do not supply a simple tabulated ranking for 2013–2023 without further manipulation [3] [4]. The provided "Police Killings by State 2025" and Statista notes are explicitly flagged as lacking the required specificity or behind paywalls, limiting immediate use [5] [6].
2. What the usable building blocks are — “Databases, tools, and studies you can stitch together.”
Despite the lack of a finished ranking, the analyses identify reliable building blocks that, when combined, would produce the desired per-capita state rates. The Washington Post’s incident-level shootings database contains race, date, and location fields necessary to enumerate Black fatal-police-killing incidents and to limit the window to 2013–2023; these raw records are the essential numerator for any per-capita calculation [1]. Mapping Police Violence provides a State Comparison Tool and downloadable figures often used to highlight disproportionate impacts on Black communities; its documentation explicitly mentions using 2020 census data as denominators and therefore supplies a methodological template for rate calculations [2]. The GBD and related peer-reviewed meta-regressions offer age-standardized mortality estimates and methodological cross-checks for undercounting and classification biases; these studies can validate whether incident-level counts align with modeled estimates and help adjust for reporting gaps, though their time windows only partially overlap 2013–2023 [3] [4]. The other flagged sources either summarize state patterns in narrower regions or are unavailable in full without purchase [7] [6].
3. How to compute the ranking responsibly — “Methodological pitfalls and corrections to consider.”
Any credible ranking requires transparent decisions about inclusion criteria, denominators, and age-standardization. Analysts must define whether to include all police-related fatalities or only shootings, how to classify race consistently, and how to handle cases with unknown race or jurisdictional ambiguity; the Washington Post data can be filtered, but inconsistent race coding and differing local reporting standards will bias raw tallies if uncorrected [1]. Denominators must be the Black population of each state averaged appropriately over 2013–2023 or age-standardized using census-derived population structures; Mapping Police Violence’s use of 2020 census data is a practical approach but may misstate rates for earlier years without smoothing [2]. Comparing incident tallies with modeled mortality from GBD or meta-analytic studies is essential to detect underreporting, as scholarly work has found that official tallies can undercount fatal police encounters relative to comprehensive surveillance methods [3] [4]. Analysts should present uncertainty ranges and sensitivity analyses alongside any state ranking.
4. What existing partial findings imply — “Patterns to expect from past analyses.”
Previous work and the tools cited point to consistent geographic and demographic patterns: Black people are disproportionately affected by fatal police encounters compared with their share of the population, and certain states or regions have appeared persistently elevated in past analyses. Mapping Police Violence’s state comparison functionality and historical GBD outputs indicate clustered higher rates in specific states, particularly where policing practices, demographic concentrations, and reporting completeness interact; however, arriving at a 2013–2023 top-five list requires the reaggregation steps noted above [2] [3]. The supplied regional study of the Mountain West highlights that smaller-population states can show high per-capita rates with relatively few incidents, demonstrating the necessity of per-capita calculations rather than raw counts to reveal true comparative risk [7]. Statista and other secondary aggregators have produced state-level rankings for broader police killings metrics, but their accessibility and methodological transparency vary [6].
5. Practical next steps if you want the ranking done — “Data merge, calculation, and reporting checklist.”
To produce a defensible list of states with the highest per-capita rates of police killings of Black people for 2013–2023, obtain the Washington Post incident data and Mapping Police Violence exports, define inclusion rules (shootings vs. all police killings; race classification), merge incidents by state and year to obtain numerators, and compute rates using annual Black population estimates or an age-standardized approach anchored to census data. Cross-check totals against GBD and network meta-regression modeled estimates to flag undercounting, and present uncertainty bounds and sensitivity tests. The provided analyses make clear that this workflow is required because no single source among the files supplied already performs it; undertaking these steps will convert the available building blocks into a confirmed, transparent ranking [1] [2] [3] [4].