From 2018 to 2020, the share of Black Americans who experienced threats and nonfatal use of physical force during police contact increased, according to a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The same is true for people in the multiracial, Native, or Pacific Islander American category.
Rates increased from 3.8% to 4.3% for Black Americans and from 2.5% to 2.7% for multiracial, Native, or Pacific Islander Americans.
Meanwhile, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans saw a decrease from 3.4% to 2.4% and from 1.3% to 1%, respectively. Threats and nonfatal use of force rates for white Americans remained at 1.5%.
In 2018, Black Americans had the highest rates of police handcuffing (4.4%), threats of force (2%), cursing (1.7%), and pushing, grabbing, hitting, or kicking (1.6%) in cases when police initiated contact or the interaction was related to a car accident. Additionally, at 0.9%, Black Americans were slightly more likely than Hispanic Americans (0.8%) to have a weapon used on them by police. Hispanic Americans had the highest rate of being shouted at by police.
There is often a lag between government data collection and release. The Police-Public Contact Survey collected data in 2018 and 2020, but Bureau of Justice statisticians did not release the report analyzing the data until November 2022.
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All of the data on the page was sourced directly from government agencies. The analysis and final review was performed by USAFacts.