Black Louisianans Are 31% Of Population But 60.5% Of State Police Use-of-Force Cases Over Three Years

A new three-year analysis of Louisiana State Police data confirms what Black communities in the state have long said: the system that feeds people into Louisiana’s prisons operates with deep racial imbalance, beginning at the point of police contact. According to a report from Innocence and Justice Louisiana, Black residents make up 31% of the state’s population yet accounted for 902 use-of-force incidents between 2022 and 2024,  60.5% of all recorded cases. White residents, who represent 61% of the population, accounted for just 23%.

For many Black Louisianans, these numbers are not surprising. They reflect lived experiences of disproportionate surveillance, escalation, and harm that often lead directly into incarceration. As Esme Lee, data and community coordinator for Innocence and Justice Louisiana, explained, the report focuses on outcomes, not intent. “The analysis evaluates how policing is experienced and distributed in practice;  not the subjective intent of individual officers,” she said.

Racial disparities appeared across all 10 State Police troops, with the most extreme imbalance in Troop D in southwest Louisiana, where Black and Native American residents experienced use of force at three times their population share. Even gaps in the data point toward a larger problem. “There was a high category of unknown citizen race entries in that incident data, so that does limit the precision of our analysis,” Lee noted, meaning disparities could be even greater.

State Police officials pushed back, arguing the data lacks context. Public affairs commander Capt. Russell Graham said, “While the numbers are accurate, it’s not a fair depiction of our stats,” pointing to vehicle pursuits that were included in use-of-force counts. Lee countered that including pursuits aligns with national data practices and accountability norms. “Reclassifying pursuits outside of use-of-force reporting would reduce transparency,” she said.

Even using the agency’s own breakdown, disparities remain stark. In 2024, 64% of use-of-force and pursuit incidents involved Black suspects, compared with 21% involving white suspects. Lee emphasized why this matters: “Repeated exposure to police contact… systematically increases the likelihood of escalation, serious use of force and harm.”

The report also connects to a broader lack of accountability that has long defined Louisiana’s prison pipeline. The forthcoming Louisiana Law Enforcement Accountability Database aims to track officer conduct patterns, giving the public tools long denied to them. As Lee put it, the goal is “to provide a public resource to individuals to hold officers accountable.”

Taken together, the data shows that racial disparities are not isolated incidents but a consistent pattern; one that begins on the roadside and too often ends behind prison walls, validating what Black communities in Louisiana have been saying for generations.

Link: LA Illuminator