Protest, Policy and Racial Justice: Measuring US Anti-Police Brutality Protests

As part of a broader Russell Sage Foundation-funded project that examines police policy reforms in U.S. cities, this project will create a comprehensive database of anti-police brutality protests from 2011 to 2022.

The broader goal of the project, being jointly run with Andy Andrews and Rashawn Ray is to study the relationship between Black Lives Matter protests and changes in policing policies in major U.S. cities over the last decade. A key component involves collecting extensive data on protests and demonstrations related to police brutality and racial justice issues.

While some existing datasets capture Black Lives Matter protests, they do not cover the entire timeframe from 2011-2022. This project will fill the gaps by systematically searching news media, wire services, and other sources to identify protest events during uncovered periods. The research team will code details on each protest event, including location, date, size of crowd, tactics used, organizing groups involved, police response, and more. The research will result in a comprehensive dataset documenting the scope, scale, and characteristics of anti-police brutality protests from 2011 to 2022.

This protest event database will then be analyzed alongside data on policy changes, police department characteristics, public opinion, and other factors to rigorously study the relationships between protests and policy reforms across U.S. cities, fulfilling the broader goals of the Russell Sage Foundation grant.

The protest event data collection represents a crucial piece of the overall project and will be a valuable resource for other researchers studying protests, policing, and racial justice in the United States.