jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:sec jats:titleResearch Question</jats:title> jats:pCan racial equity in crime and policing be measured with the use of a Risk-Adjusted Disparity (RAD) Index of the degree to which policing across racial categories is “balanced” in its ratios of preventive police actions per 100 serious crimes committed against members of each racial category?</jats:p> </jats:sec>jats:sec jats:titleData</jats:title> jats:pOffice of National Statistics (ONS) reports on crime and policing in England and Wales, and Dorset Police data on violent crime victimization and stop-search by race of suspect across the 452 Lower-Layer Super-Output Levels in Dorset.</jats:p> </jats:sec>jats:sec jats:titleMethods</jats:title> jats:pWe conceptualize the problem of equal protection under law as fundamentally protecting the lives and liberties of each citizen from criminal harms, as well as from disproportionately intrusive policing. We combine these dimensions into a single metric that defines proportionality of policing in relation to risk of violent crime victimization, such that whatever intrusion on liberty is applied for the aim of protection can be equalized across racial groups.</jats:p> </jats:sec>jats:sec jats:titleFindings</jats:title> jats:pThe use of a Risk-Adjusted Disparity (RAD) Index to measure reliably the equality of police intrusions across racial groups based on victimization rates can be illustrated by adjusting for homicide. In the past decade, the population-based disparity rate shows that Blacks are stopped by police nine times more often than whites. When that rate is adjusted for the differential risk of homicide in the two groups, the disparity estimate drops from 800% to 58%. Other changes of major magnitude result from using the RAD Index.</jats:p> </jats:sec>jats:sec jats:titleConclusions</jats:title> jats:pWe conclude that an index of proactive policing using victimizations by race is more likely to lead to equal protection of law than a residential population-based metric of proactive police actions, as is commonly used in official reporting. A victim-based, Risk-Adjusted (RAD) Index for measuring racial disparity might focus police efforts on the 5% of local areas where serious violence is concentrated, and deflect stops away from the vast majority of areas that have little serious crime.</jats:p> </jats:sec>