The Correlates of Law Enforcement Officers’ Automatic and Controlled Race-Based Responses to Criminal Suspects LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER RACE-BASED RESPONSES PERUCHE AND PLANT

The current work explored law enforcement officers’ racial bias in decisions to shoot criminal suspects as well as their self-reported beliefs about Black versus White suspects. In addition, this work examined what factors contribute to officers’ racial biases and the likelihood of having these biases eliminated. Examination of the officers’ explicit attitudes toward Black people and their beliefs about the criminality and difficulty of Black suspects revealed strong relationships with the quality of their contact with Black people on the job and in their personal lives. In addition, officers with negative compared to more positive beliefs about the criminality of Black people were more likely to tend toward shooting unarmed Black suspects on a shooting simulation. However, officers with positive contact with Black people in their personal lives were particularly able to eliminate these biases with training on the simulation. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the training of law enforcement personnel.