NYC police working to reduce implicit bias

A program to fight implicit bias among New York Police Department officers successfully changed many officers’ attitudes, according to an analysis of the effort.

Implicit bias, sometimes defined as the unconscious practice of linking groups to stereotypes, is believed by social scientists to affect the perceptions and behavior of people. It has become an important part of discussions around race and policing.

NYPD leadership and Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to introduce members of the NYPD to the topic in an effort to improve relations with the community amid a number of changes to the department that included overhauls to use-of-force protocols, enforcement and patrol tactics, and disciplinary processes for officers accused of wrongdoing.

The city contracted with Fair and Impartial Policing, a Florida-based company, to deliver the training. Started in 2018 and concluded in 2019, it delivered classroom lessons at the NYPD academy that focused on implicit bias to all 36,000 uniformed members of the NYPD.

A report produced for the NYPD in July and viewed by The Wall Street Journal studied the effect of the training program, which was meant to raise officers’ awareness of implicit bias in their decision making on the job and outside of work.

According to the analysis of the training, which was produced by a team of criminologists and based on surveys of participants, 70% of officers reported a better understanding of implicit bias after the training. More than two-thirds of participants reported they had learned new strategies and skills they could use in their work.

NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Ben Tucker, who helped oversee the implementation of the program, said that the lessons were meant to remind officers of their biases in their interactions with members of the community.

“We all have those biases, and those biases do indeed influence our decision making and our discretion,” Tucker said.

Fair and Impartial Policing CEO Lorie A. Fridell, who is a professor of criminology at the University of South Florida, said that the training offered by her company helps officers become aware of unconscious bias and take action to address it.

“These biases may well be inconsistent with their consciously held beliefs,” Fridell said.

Fair and Impartial Policing has worked with hundreds of departments in the U.S. and Canada to train officers.

The analysis of the NYPD training found that 58% of participants attempted to use some of the coaching they received in their duties. The report found insufficient evidence to conclude that racial and ethnic disparities in enforcement were reduced by the training.

Tucker said that the department would continue to reinforce the lessons of the training and would look into ways to expand upon the effort.

Former Philadelphia police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who co-chaired a federal policing task force that recommended implicit-bias training, said that courses such as those employed by the NYPD help officers break the use of potentially harmful stereotypes.

“We haven’t been successful in eliminating bias from society,” Ramsey said. “Police come from that same society, so it’s a problem everywhere.”

Ben Chapman