A top U.S. economist has found that police are far more likely to use non-lethal force against African-Americans -- from pushing to pointing weapons -- but appear no more likely to shoot at black Americans than whites.

Roland G. Fryer, Jr., who studies race and inequality at Harvard University, examined at four sets of data, none of which he says are 鈥渋deal鈥� but which he writes may move the conversation beyond 鈥渟imple counts.鈥� His results are published as a by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The datasets include five million Stop and Frisk records from New York City, the U.S. Justice department鈥檚 Public-Police Contact Survey and review of 1,332 officer-involved shootings from 10 cities and counties.

Even after accounting for gender, age, police precinct location, whether the police stop took place in a high-crime area and other factors, the study estimates African-Americans are:

  • 17 per cent more likely than white to have police place hands on them
  • 18 per cent more likely to be pushed against a wall or the ground by police
  • 19 per cent more likely to have an officer pull a gun on them
  • 24 per cent more likely to have an officer point a weapon at them
  • 25 per cent more likely to be pepper sprayed or hit with a baton by police.

The study also looked closer at 507 police-involved shootings that occurred in Houston, Texas, between 2000 and 2015, to try and answer the question of whether officers are more likely to shoot African-Americans.

It found that African-Americans were 23.8 per cent less likely than whites to be shot at by police and that Hispanics were 8.5 per cent less likely than whites be shot at by police.

In other words, researchers found no evidence of discrimination.

Fryer calls the results are 鈥渟tartling鈥� given what he calls the 鈥渟tream of video evidence which many take to be indicative of structural racism in police departments across America, the ensuing and understandable outrage in black communities across America, and the results from our previous analysis of non-lethal uses of force.鈥�

He emphasises the results 鈥渄o not rule out the possibility that there are important racial differences in whether or not these police-civilian interactions occur at all.鈥�

Sendhil Mullainathan, another Harvard economist who studies racial bias, recently made a similar point in a for the New York Times. He argues police shootings of African-Americans are higher overall but that may be largely due to the fact that police interact more with African-Americans.

He notes that the FBI鈥檚 Uniform Crime Report shows 31.8 percent of people shot by police are African-American. That鈥檚 2.5 times greater than the proportion of African Americans in the general population.

But it鈥檚 also very close to the 28.9 per cent of nationwide arrests that are African-American.

Mullainathan theorizes that this means police shootings are indeed 鈥渁 race problem,鈥� but not necessarily because of racial bias in policing.

鈥淭he deeper you look, the more it appears that the race problem revealed by the statistics reflects a larger problem: the structure of our society, our laws and policies,鈥� he wrote.

For example, 鈥減olice officers tend to be most active in poor neighborhoods, and African-Americans disproportionately live in poverty.鈥�

Fryer admits there are limitations to his study. For example, the researchers contacted 15 police departments for data and three of them failed to provide the numbers. He also points out that these departments are 鈥渘ot likely to be a representative sample of cities.鈥�

Another potential problem is that police may under-report use of force 鈥� although Fryer asserts that not reporting an officer-involved shooting 鈥渟eems unlikely.鈥�

Fryer argues that the much greater frequency in use of non-lethal force may fuelling the widespread view that police are more likely to shoot black men whom they encounter.

Fryer also theorizes that police may be willing to use only non-lethal force in a racially-biased way more often because they face 鈥渉igher costs for officer-involved shootings.鈥�

As a result, he argues police forces ought to focus on things like 鈥渉olding officers accountable for the misuse of hands or pushing individuals to the ground.鈥�