CALL TO ACTION

WHY?

​

Killings by Law Enforcement

Research suggests that black boys and men are killed at disproportionate rates.

Edwards, Lee, & Esposito (2019) found that 1 out of 1,000 black boys and men will be killed by police in their lifetime when compared to white boys and men, the rate is 39 out of 100,000. More specifically, black men are 2.5 and 1. 4 times more likely to be killed than white men and women respectively.

​

Black and brown women and men are more likely to be killed by police. Here are the stats:

​

Black women are about 1.4 times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts.

​

American Indian or Native American men are between 1.2 and 1.7 times more likely to be killed a police officer than white men while American Indian or Native American women are between 1.1 and 2.1 times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts (Edwards, Lee, & Esposito, 2019).

​

Latino men are between 1.3 and 1.4 times more likely to be killed by police than are white men (Edwards, Lee, & Esposito, 2019).

​

Overrepresentation in the Juvenile and Criminal Justice Fields

​

African Americans are incarcerated at rates of 5.1 times more than white individuals. In these states: Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, and Wisconsin; the disparity is more than 10 to 1 (Nellis, 2016).

​

In these states (Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missisippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia), more than half of the prison population is black while in Maryland 72% of the population is African American (Nellis, 2016). 

​

While African Americans and Hispanics only make up approximately 32% of the population in the United States, they comprised 56% of all incarcerated people in 2015 (NAACP).

​

Latinos are 1.4 times more likely to be imprisoned than whites (Nellis, 2016).

​

Autism Diagnosis

​

According to the CDC, Black and Hispanic children are less likely to be identified with ASD than white children. They are also diagnosed at later ages.

​

Mental Health

​

Reports from 2005 suggest that African Americans were 7.3 times likely to live in high poverty neighborhoods with limited to no access to mental health services (Denton & Anderson, 2005).

​

Additionally, after entering care for a mental health issue, McGuire and Miranda (2008) found that minority patients were less likely than White patients to receive the best available treatments for depression and anxiety. African Americans are also more likely than Whites to terminate treatment prematurely. Lastly, among adults with a need for mental health or substance abuse care, 37.6% of Whites receive treatment while only 22.4% of Latinos and 25.0% of African Americans, receive treatment.

​

Maternal Mortality

Black women are 2 to 6 times more likely to die from complications during pregnancy when compared to white women, depending where they live (Flanders-Stepans, 2000).

​

In 2016, the rates for maternal deaths were as follows: 48.6 deaths per 100,000 live births for black women, 19.4 deaths per 100,000 live births for white women, and 14.3 deaths per 100,000 live births for Hispanic women (Hoyert et al., 2020).

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does acknowledge that racial bias contributes to the disproportionate number of maternal deaths for black women. In addition, research suggests that providers spend less time with black patients (Penner et al., 2017) and undertreat their pain (Hoffman et al., 2016). There are also numerous reports of providers dismissing the complaints of black women and ignoring their symptoms. 

​

In Sum

We can go on and on about the disparities that black and brown people face everyday. We implore you to do your own research and also learn about the historical contexts for minorities.

​

Written by Vanessa Bethea-Miller, M.A., BCBA, LBS

​

Sites/References/Resources

​

https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/addm-community-report/differences-in-children.html

https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3928067/

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr69/nvsr69_01-508.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4843483/

Penner, L. A., Phelan, S. M., Earnshaw, V., Albrecht, T. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (2017). Patient stigma, medical interactions, and health care disparities: A selective review. In The Oxford Handbook of Stigma, Discrimination, and Health (pp. 183-201). Oxford University Press.

​

​

​

​

​

​