Bias & vulnerability
Overview
To understand who is most vulnerable to misuse of police and legal systems, we must first understand bias - how it works and what its effects are. Based on what we know about bias, which populations are most susceptible to bias? Socioeconomic status (SES), regardless of racial identity, is a major factor of vulnerability in general. Low SES often means being denied access to necessary resources, higher victimization rates, and higher utilization rates of police and legal services - this can create disproportionate statistics, therefore biases and stereotypes may be formed around this population.
What we know:
*A = people in low SES populations are disproportionately represented in people who commit crimes.
*B = People of color are disproportionately represented among low SES populations.
*A + B = People of color become disproportionately represented in crimes, leading people of color in low SES neighborhoods to have more interactions with police and legal systems by default.
If a person is living in an impoverished neighborhood (regardless of racial identity), their chances of being victimized within that neighborhood are higher than that of another neighborhood. Being a person of color in this equation only multiplies the risk of experiencing systematic misuse and bias.
Why? Learn more about Intersectional Identity here.
Measuring bias, legal harms, and access to justice
One way to consider bias within legal systems is to consider who has access to legal services and resources. NCSC uses GIS mapping to show disparities in legal services in states. This data reveals “legal deserts” - places where many people may face challenges accessing legal services or resources. By identifying legal deserts, court leaders, policymakers, researchers, and community advocates can develop targeted strategies to address these gaps and better understand geographic factors of accessing justice.
This resource determines disparities based on factors like
Number of attorneys compared to the population
Distance to a courthouse
Poverty rates
Limited English proficiency
The absence of internet or broadband activity
View Interactive Map here.
NCSC Interactive Map Instructions: Open Tool > select desired state > scroll down to Legal Access Risk Indicator Map and select desired criteria for the map > click on spots of interest within the map for more information.
World Justice Project conducted an Atlas of Legal Needs Survey, providing interactive data by country.
Interactive Map Instructions: Open Tool > Select country of interest on the map > Filter by year, time frame, subnational data, sample size, target population, vulnerable populations, and source > Analyze data
The Justice Gap
According to New York County Lawyer Association,
- Low SES individuals are less likely to have a good legal defense, simply because they cannot afford it.
- The “justice gap” has become a chasm, meaning it is widely known that low-income individuals must often navigate civil-justice issues without legal representation
- American courts no longer face a “gap”, but rather an ever-widening justice chasm.
- 50 million unrepresented people every year
- In a modern democratic society, lawyers are necessities, not luxuries.
- The lack of counsel limits the capacity to defend or pursue rights, resulting in devastating outcomes for vulnerable populations.
- According to a 2022 study, low- income persons do not get enough—or any—legal assistance for 92% of their substantial civil legal problems.
Prison Policy’s resource spotlight provides a compilation of data projects tracking police misconduct, use of force, and employment histories. Below, find useful police misconduct databases that provide important information, and can serve as a model for developing projects.
Below, find other notable police accountability data projects.
Chicago Justice Project Police Board Information Center compiles, archives, and analyzes Chicago Police Board documents related to allegations of serious misconduct, which it obtains through public records requests. Along with archiving case details, the site tallies the number of cases related to specific rules of conduct, trends in case outcomes, and individual Board member recommendations by case.
ACLU of Vermont’s database of “Brady letters” is useful when “when Brady-related issues arise — like an officer exhibiting bias or getting caught lying — state’s attorneys generally send a ‘Brady letter’ to their county’s criminal defense attorneys noting that the officer has known credibility issues. This information may then be raised by defense counsel to call into question the reliability of the officer involved in the case.”
If starting a new project on documenting or tracking misconduct, reference the resources below.
Important to note:
The degree of vulnerability being disproportionately represented in people of color and low SES populations does not mean they are more likely to be mistreated by police or legal systems - it means that they happen to be overrepresented due to the combination of circumstances.
Not all data is accurately representative of a population. In fact, some data existing may do an injustice to a vulnerable population if inaccurate. When viewing the following data sources, proceed with good judgement and consider these caveats.
Justice Initiative conducted an analysis of access to justice using the Global Insights on Access to Justice Survey. To combat issues like SES gaps and poverty, policymakers and governments need to better understand civil justice problems, which disproportionately affect the poor and marginalized. The analysis concludes that these issues have tangible developmental and social impacts on vulnerable communities.
According to this study:
- More than half of those who sought legal help or advice turned to a family member or friend, and less than one-third turned to a lawyer for assistance.
- When seeking resolution, 13 percent turned to a third-party institution or individual for resolution, with the rest either resolving their problem through negotiation, direct agreement, or not resolving the problem at all.
- More than one in six respondents reported that although their legal problem persists, they have given up all attempts to resolve it further.
- More than half of those surveyed reported that it was difficult or nearly impossible to pay the costs incurred to resolve their legal problem.
- Slightly more than one in four respondents reported having experienced a stress-related illness due to their legal problem.
The American Academy of Arts & Sciences provides information on how to acquire essential facts about access to justice in the US. This resource offers practical suggestions and tools for making facts accessible and thereby helping to make justice more accessible. This resource provides information about:
- Public records
- Research tools & requesting records
- Confidential data
- Data use agreements
Measuring Policing Bias
Bias exists at every stage of the criminal process, whether implicit or explicit. While bias is difficult to prove and measure, there are clear patterns in data that can point out social issues.
For example, more police presence more often in a neighborhood results in more stops counted in data
- Is all recorded data reflective of crime rates in neighborhoods of color?
- Are individuals of certain identities stopped more?
It is important to note that data is often NOT collected by randomized controlled trials, but rather often collected in high crime neighborhoods, skewing trends and reinforcing stereotypes.
The National Institute of Justice conducted a study on racial profiling and traffic stops. The research found:
- Differences in driving patterns
- Differences in exposure to the police
- Differences in offending
View the full study here.
active tracking of police bias
Philadelphia Police Transparency Project’s Unconstitutional Pattern and Practice Database is designed for use by attorneys to share information from court documents about police misconduct, particularly for the purpose of identifying and overturning wrongful convictions.
Behind the Badge: Journalists are using public records to make a comprehensive database of police misconduct across New York State’s 500-plus law enforcement agencies. As of 2024, they had obtained files from 290 of those agencies. Their strategy involves requesting records provided to district attorneys’ offices by law enforcement as part of “Brady” disclosure obligations.
OpenOversight Project, a project of Lucy Parsons Labs, is a volunteer-run searchable database of law enforcement officers, including photos and other details wherever possible. Currently, the site offers data from 24 departments across five states, but active projects based on this model have also been developed in Seattle and Virginia.