Police Spending Linked to Shorter Lives for Black Americans

Amid calls to increase policing levels in U.S. cities, new Rutgers research suggests spending on social services may be a healthier alternative

A groundbreaking Rutgers study finds that increased police spending correlates with more suicides and police-related deaths among Black Americans, while greater investment in housing may help reduce those risks.

The research is among the first ever to investigate the association between state and local police expenditures and suicide and police-perpetrated killing among Black and white residents.

We found no benefit to suicide or police violence for white communities, and more money has meant thousands of years of life lost to suicide and police violence for Black communities.

Devin English

Assistant Professor, Department of Urban-Global Public Health, Rutgers School of Public Health

“Our results suggest that funding housing and community development, rather than more money for police, may reduce rates of Black suicide and police perpetrated killing,” said Devin English, an assistant professor in the Department of Urban-Global Public Health at the Rutgers School of Public Health, and lead author of the study published in the healthcare journal, The Milbank Quarterly

In the U.S., police are often frontline responders for mental health-related calls, including in suicide response. But the practice has come under scrutiny amid an uptick in violent outcomes. Suicide has been increasing among Black youth, and in one national study, 23% of people killed by police displayed signs of mental illness during the interaction.

To assess the structural drivers of these trends, English and his coauthors compared money spent on police and social services in all 50 states and the District of Columbia with data on suicides and police killings between 2010 and 2020. Budget information was retrieved from the Urban Institute’s database on government budgets, which tracks spending using U.S. Census Bureau figures. Nonhomicide violent-death statistics were drawn from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System.

Results were measured against years of potential life lost, a benchmark used to study death prior to a typical life expectancy. For this study, the researchers set age 75 as the average lifespan, which coincides with Black life expectancy in the U.S. So, for someone who died by suicide at 60, the researchers recorded this as 15 years of potential life lost.

By controlling for other potential influences on suicide and police-perpetrated killing, such as state firearm policies, political representation, racial segregation and overall expenditures, English and his coauthors were able to isolate the effects of police spending on violent deaths from other political, social and economic impacts. The researchers examined both short and longer-term effects of expenditure changes by testing their impact on suicide and police-perpetrated killing rates one and five years later.

The results showed associations between suicide and police-perpetrated killing for Black residents. For example, for every $100 increase in per-capita police expenditures there were 35 years of life lost to suicide and seven years of life lost to police perpetrated killing per 100,000 Black residents a year later. Therefore, for the 41.1 million Black residents in the U.S., these annual increases in police spending accounted for 14,385 fewer years of life because of suicide and 2,877 fewer years of life because of police-related violence.

By contrast, per-capita police spending had no impact on years of potential life lost for white residents, said English.

English and his coauthors also tested the relationship between life expectancy and spending on public services, like education, housing and community development, and hospitals. Housing and community development expenditures produced a very different relationship: for every $100 increase in annual per-capita spending on these services, the researchers calculated 29 fewer years lost to suicide per 100,000 Black residents. The researchers also found that education spending was linked to fewer years lost to suicide among white residents.

Our results suggest that funding housing and community development, rather than more money for police, may reduce rates of Black suicide and police perpetrated killing.

Devin English

English said his findings should inform conversations about how public money is spent, and whether increasing the presence of police in American cities, as has been ordered by the Trump administration, will exacerbate these trends.

“We invest in police to keep us safe, and this includes everything from leading frontline mental health response to reducing gun violence,” English said. “However, our data suggests that in communities across the U.S., Americans aren’t getting what they pay for. We found no benefit to suicide or police violence for white communities, and more money has meant thousands of years of life lost to suicide and police violence for Black communities. Recent actions to expand the size and scope of law enforcement across the country are alarming.”

English added that research and consideration should instead focus on the duties that police officers are funded to undertake, including mental health response, and whether alternative approaches, like mental health practitioners leading mental health crisis outreach, could help to reduce rates of suicide and police violence.

Explore more of the ways Rutgers research is shaping the future.