A series of incidents from across the country have raised the profile of police violence against Africa Americans. But while the news stories have provided anecdotal evidence about the situation of African Americans and police, there has been little hard evidence to show the extent of the problem.

That changed this weekend, when the Justice Department released a study on data on police interactions with the public collected over a ten year period, according to the Washington Post. The data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Police-Public Contact Survey is the only source of data on non-lethal force used by police nationwide.

According to the study, African Americans are more than twice as likely as whites to face nonfatal force or threats of force from police. The study found that 44 million adults annually have such encounters with police, with 75 percent of civilians who experienced such interactions with police saying they believed the authorities used excessive force.

In any type of contact initiated by police that resulted in the use of nonfatal force, the study found that more Blacks than whites or Latinos were stopped during routine street checks or while investigating crimes. Blacks were also more likely to perceive the use of force as excessive.

In addition, people in urban areas were far more likely to experience force from police than those in rural or suburban places, and men and people ages 16 to 25 were more likely to be stopped by police than women or older people.

So far this year 853 people have been shot and killed by police, according to an investigation by the Washington Post. There have been several months of protests this year, resulting from fatal shootings by police of numerous Africa Americans in New York, Missouri and other states.