Toward Data Justice: Understanding Police Shooting Data Systems and Narratives

Background:

The Washington Post
's Fatal Force fatal police shooting database was first created in 2015 to fill a gap in official data collection on police use of force.
Literature review:
Critical data studies scholarship suggests that data system design is rhetorical and communicates cultural values, not just numerical data. Narrative research methods, which focus on thick, rich contextual data, could help address the rhetorical and cultural dimensions of data system design.
Research questions:
1. How do data collection, aggregation, and curation practices influence data stories about crime and violence? 2. How does Fatal Force, a data system about police use of force that originated outside law enforcement, prioritize and organize information? 3. How does designing data systems with explicit, highly specific goals and aims (like the inclusion criteria and purpose of Fatal Force) influence the system as a whole?
Methodology:
Using “unblackboxing,” a combination of narrative and critical data studies methods, I analyzed the Fatal Force database and its accompanying data stories. I compare this database with its institutional counterpart in the FBI's fledgling Use of Force database.
Results:
Fatal Force is constructed with particular attention to questions that users may have about police brutality, police shootings, and race. Fatal Force's data stories use narrative commonplaces like sociality and temporality to humanize the issue of police use of force and communicate greater nuance. The FBI's Use of Force database shows an orientation toward police perceptions of use-of-force incidents and a lack of attention to national conversations about police brutality.
Conclusions:
Data systems show clear perspectives on the issues that they describe, which influence how users encounter the data system, how useful the system can be for various users, and how inclusive or just the data system is.