Map of Localized Police Misconduct

URL: http://www.injusticeeverywhere.com/?p=1615.

This is a map of localized police misconduct incidents in the United States in 2009. I found this map at a website called Injustice Everywhere at  www.injusticeeverywhere.com. The map uses color to show the number of incidents of reported police brutality by county in the United States. Darker color represents higher numbers with dark purple expressing 30 incidents or higher. The majority of the United States has less than 3 incidents of police brutality. From the map it appears that the majority of police brutality occurs in California. One thing to think about when looking at this map, is that the counties in California are much larger than elsewhere in the country. This may cause a viewer to get the sense that almost all police brutality occurs in California when some of the other states such as Florida have a high number of incidents as well. However even though county size may distort the actual statistics somewhat, California does have very high reportings of police misconduct. Another cause of this could be a denser population in the state. However, the Eastern United States is very populated and the map shows much less dark regions in the East. This map is very interesting to me as a southern California resident.  I thought of police brutality as a national issue but maybe is really only a major topic in Southern California. Though this is just one map, the information it expresses could be used to incite social uproar. The map could be used not only as informational, but as a call for social change.