Cleveland officers to be part of study to combat biases

The Cleveland CLEVELAND — police department will participate in a three-year research study aimed at identifying the most effective ways to combat subconscious police biases against people of different races, genders and ages.

The study, headed by Washington State University assistant professor Lois James and funded through a Justice Department research grant, is scheduled to begin in January. A randomly selected group of 400 Cleveland police officers will begin implicit bias training in spring of 2019, according to a news release.

Implicit bias refers to attitudes and stereotypes that subconsciously affect decisions and behavior. James’ research about how implicit bias affects policing was borne out of the national dialogue that was sparked by the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Many law enforcement agencies around the country already administer implicit bias training, but the question James hopes to answer is which kind of training works best in changing police behavior.

The results of the study could go on to impact policy and police practices nationwide, James said.

“Most people recognize implicit bias training is a very good idea, but there’s very little evidence to say whether or not it works,” she said in a phone interview.

Some Cleveland police officers will receive classroom training, while others will use Counter Bias Training Simulation, which is a portable simulator that James helped develop. A third group of officers will undergo both methods, and a fourth group will receive neither type of training, the release says.

The portable simulator projects life-sized police scenarios on a screen, according to James.

Officers armed with modified Glock guns must then make decisions about who to shoot, or whether to shoot at all, James said. Those scenarios are based off typical, real-world armed encounters between police and civilians, James said.

“We wanted to reflect the encounters that are most likely to deteriorate into an officer-involved shooting. We’re trying to (see if ) officers look past any subconscious biases they might have about how they respond to the suspects,” James said.

In the simulator, “suspects” of each race will be represented equally, and none are more or less likely to be armed than the others. This may likely show whether officers unconsciously expect a certain demographic to be more dangerous, James said.

After officers undergo simulation training, classroom training, a combination of the two, or neither, researchers will tally results to see how that training affected officers’ actions.

Researchers will measure those affects by scoring body-camera footage and citizen complaints. They’ll take input from focus groups, survey police, and survey people arrested to see if they felt like they were treated fairly, James said.