Using Python to Promote Social Justice
Content Warning
This lab will be dealing with a difficutl subject that may be triggering for some. If you find yourself unable to engae with this dataset please contact me and we can find an alternative way for you to get credit for lab 4.
About the Data
The data we’ll be using today is drawn from multiple sources. The CBC has pubished two articles on police violence, one in 2018 and another in 2020. But there are numerous issues with their data as I’ve mentioned in lecture. Additionally, there is killercopscanada a wordpress blog with texts posts detailing incidents of police involved deaths that started in 2015. The Georgia Straight published a database of police-involved deaths in (2017)[https://www.straight.com/news/1009886/police-involved-deaths-bc-rise-third-consecutive-year] that has records from 2003 - 2017 that also includes deaths in BC prisons resulting from neglect. Additionally, there is a “Coalition Contre La Repression et les Asus Policiers” a fracophone database of names and ages dating back to 1987. These datasets overlap, but are not mutually inclusive, and even with these four sources there are still records left out eg.Harriett Nahanee and Johnny “Bingo” Dawson. I have been working to compile these disparate data sets and add any other missing records where applicaable. My intent is to compil the most comprehensive database of police violence in Canada possible and release it publicly. Today, you will be working with a subset of that data for British Columbia spanning June 2011 - May 2021.