The Consequences of Race for Police Officers' Responses to Criminal Suspects
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The current work examined police officers' decisions to shoot Black and White criminal suspects in a computer simulation. Responses to the simulation revealed that upon initial exposure to the program, the officers were more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed Black compared with unarmed White suspects. However, after extensive training with the program, in which the race of the suspect was unrelated to the presence of a weapon, the officers were able to eliminate this bias. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the elimination of racial biases and the training of police officers.
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Practice on a shooter task in which race is nondiagnostic for correct decision-making inhibits activation of racial concepts and reduces the frequency with which police officer participants make racially biased errors in computer tasks.
“Moreover, practice on a shooter task in which race is nondiagnostic for correct decision-making (i.e., Black and White suspects are equally likely to be displayed with a gun or an innocuous object) inhibits activation of racial concepts and reduces the frequency with which police of fi cer participants make racially biased errors in computer tasks (Plant & Peruche, 2005).”
From A call to dismantle systemic racism in criminal legal systems. (2022) · cites this paper as Plant & Peruche, 2005
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- Authors
- Plant, E. A., & Peruche, B. M.
- Affiliations
- Florida State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Plant, E. Ashby
- ORCID
- Plant, E. Ashby
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2005-03
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 180-183
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- OpenAlex
- W2121391532
- Cited by
- 311
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 32 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 58.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Deception detection and forensic psychology
- Keywords
- racial bias, lethal force, racial discrimination, police training, computer simulation, criminal suspects, implicit bias
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