Reporting by the Prison Policy Initiative and the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that fewer people face interactions with the police than in past years. Additionally, only about half of calls to the police are related to possible crimes—and only about 4% are related to violent crimes—suggesting that these calls would be better handled by a non-police response.

While white people are more likely than any other racial group to call the police, black people are more likely (twice as likely) to be stopped or arrested in a police-initiated contact. Black people are also more than three times as likely to experience violence from police during a police encounter.