In “Are College Educated Police Safer?”, Kelli Goff uses a study by Joshua Correl, a University of Chicago psychology professor to examine the issue of alleged police bias against racial minorities:
Perhaps most surprisingly, the most recent studies have found that
racial bias does not influence whom officers shoot—at least not in
the way many of us assumed. The studiesfound that those in the
general public are substantially more likely to simulate shooting if
the unarmed suspect is black, when the game was tried by members
of law enforcement they were less likely to commit similar race based
errors. (Goff, 2014).
Research Question: In the study, Correll and his associates wanted to investigate whether police officer decisions to shoot at a potentially hostile target can be influenced by the targets race. They compared police officers to student subjects who also took the test.
Hypothesis: Police should show racial bias, just like the community.
Independent Variables: Black or white video game simulated criminal suspect or non-criminal suspect
Dependent Variables: Response time of police officer to shoot black/white target; and error index (mistaking non-criminal for criminal, or non-weapon as weapon).
Overall design of the study: Police officers were compared with community members in terms of speed and accuracy of simulated decisions to shoot (or not shoot) on Black and White computer generated targets. three distinct groups of participants were studied: 124 police officers from the DPD, 127 members of the Denver community, and a group of 113 officers from all over the U.S. The game presented a series of 100 male targets, half were black and half were white. They appeared on the screen individually. Some targets appeared on screen holding a pistol in a “conspicuous position.” Other targets were unarmed, instead holding harmless object, like a cell phone. Across the entire game, participants saw 25 armed black targets, 25 armed white targets, 25 unarmed black targets, and 25 unarmed white targets. Participants were asked to press a button labeled “Shoot” if the target was armed; if they believed the target was unarmed, participants were instructed to press a button labeled “Don’t shoot.” They were given 850 milliseconds to make this decision. Incorrect responses (such as shooting an unarmed target) or responses that were too slow prompted negative feedback, including an aversive auditory tone and a loss of points. Correct responses prompted positive feedback and a gain of points. Data was calculated and some graphs were created.
Conclusions: The authors concluded that community members showed consistent evidence of bias. Police officers only showed slight evidence of bias in terms of their reaction times. However, unlike the public sample, officers showed no bias in their ultimate decisions. Ultimately, officers’ decisions about whether or not to shoot were unaffected by the target’s race.
Excluded Information: The article fails to mention the numerous disclaimers made by the authors, which makes the results less than spectacular. They authors begin by admitting a computer simulation is not a “complex emotional event” like a real live-shooting event would be.
Furthermore, police officers are trained to identify potential suspects of any race, making them less likely to make errors of any kind. Finally, the authors end their conclusion with “these studies did show pronounced racial bias in their reaction times. Even with extensive training and experience, police still seem to call stereotypes to mind when they see a black target on the computer screen; however, the officers were ultimately able to override those associations and respond in an unbiased fashion. “ There are numerous media reports that only claim this study supports the idea that police are less biased than the public, which to me, is really comparing apples (police) and oranges (public) anyway. The neglect to mention any of the serious flaws and admitted limitations of the study.
References
Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., & Wittenbrink, B. (2002). The police officer's dilemma: using ethnicity to disambiguate potentially threatening individuals.Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(6), 1314.
Goff, K. (2014). Are College Educated Police Safer? Retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/01/are-college-educated-police-safer.html
