In the country that is famous for personal liberty and individualism, a deadly virus spreads. The virus has no shape or form but is ubiquitious in every ground of the nation. It infects people inconspicuously by eating on people's fears and tears. It has a special preference for racial minorties and those already suffered. Some people call it the dedicated agent of the "New" Jim Crow and treat it like the most formidable person they know. When tensions cooled down after the breakout, some accpeted it, complied with it, and forgot it. Some, on the other hand, still refuse to stay silent, and they fight against it with their courage and power. The country is the United States, and the virus is police killing of civilians.
In year 2015 alone, more than 1500 people lost their lives on the hands of police officers. The Washington Post collected information about these 1500 people and incidents that led to their death and conducted a series of data journalism works. For research purpose, I acquired the data from the website, with which I created some visualization, which are intended to make people know what happened in 2015, reflect on those tragedies, and look to the future with plans.
The Story: In year 2015, 378 out of 1537 victims murdered by police officers in the US were Blacks. Equivalently, this is close to say around one in four people who was shot to death by officers was an African American. This group, however, only represented 13ish % of the nation's population. The disproportionality also reflects on people with Hispanics origins, which is even smaller in population than Blacks but was the third largest racial group among police violent victims. Comparatively, whereas half of the victims was Whites, the group accounted for over 70% of people who live in the US. Therefore, Whites are in fact underrepresented.
Why vertical bar chart?: A bar chart is a solid choice to display information about groups. For this plot, I have one single mission in mind when creating it: showing the number of police killings by race. This make a horizontal/vertical bar chart appropriate. I chose to display bars vertically because the number of groups is small. Usually, the unwritten rule is using a horizontal chars when the number of categories is larger than 5.
Data points: race
Supplementary information: I would want to filter down by age, sex, or mental health condition and see how this graph changes.
The Story: In 2015, the majority of victims murdered by police officers in the US were armed during their confrontation with officers, but the gap varies for different racial groups. For Whites and Hispanics, being armed was a significant factor that caused them being shot. It was less so for Blacks for which the difference is smaller in numbers. The distance is tiny for Asians or other racial groups.
Why Clerkland dot chart?: A Clerkland dot chart is a variation of the lollipop chart, which is a variation of the bar chart. This chart is said to come from Tufte and is best used to present the difference in values between categories or over a time frame, which makes it appropriate for my emphasis on the armed vs unarmed divide in victim numbers. Codes are adapted from a tutorial on D3 website (here). Note that the dot to the righter side (the blue dot) refers to the armed category, wheres the dot to the left (the white/light blue dot) is the unarmed one (so it matched the title).
Data points: race, weapon (weapons can be guns, rifles, or other weapons, for example, knives)
Supplementary information: It would be interesting to further break down by state or age group and see if the gap persists, expands, or shrinks.
The Story: Most of people who were killed by police officers in 2015 did not have any mental issue, regardless of their age. This is especially the case for young and middle-aged people (under 30). Depending on the age, the proportion of people whose deaths were related to their own mental problems could range from 10ish% to 30ish% with an average falling on 20%. Despite the rate may not be as high as we thought, mentality is undeniably a big issue as people who have mental problems often are also the population that is in low-income, without enough access to quality healthcare and education, live in segregated neighborhoods, and possess marginal or minority identities. When we consider these factors all together, the effect of intersectionality becomes huge.
Why horizontal stacked bar chart?: A horizontal stacked bar chart puts numbers or proportions on the x axis, categories on the y axis, and use different colors to color filters (additional categorical variable). It does two things: let people compare the sizes of a factor (the length of horizontal bars) and let people see the composition of another factor inside this factor. That is, it's a combination of a horizontal bar chart and a proportional bar chart. Since I am interested in knowing what percentage of victims in different ages had mental problems when them being shot, this is an ideal chart format.
Data points: age, mental_illness
Supplementary information: It would be interesting to facet on race, sex, and other facors to understand the effect of mixed identites. It would also be interesting to add the overall US population data on top of this one, so we can see if on a national scale, people with mental problems are more likely to be killed.