Luke Yardley

The Consequences of Race for Police Officers’ Responses to Criminal Suspects

1. The overall purpose of this study was to analyze how much of an impact a person’s race
would have upon a police officer’s decision to shoot that person. This was to see if
stereotypes affect law enforcement and policing activities, even such as just pulling cars
over.
2. To conduct this study, researchers used a mixed-methods design that included both a
laboratory experiment and field observations. In the laboratory experiment, participants
(police officer proxies) were presented with a video simulation of a potential criminal
suspect, either Black or White. The researchers measured how quickly the participants
reached a decision to shoot or not to shoot the suspect. The results showed that
participants made faster decisions to shoot when the suspect was Black compared to
when the suspect was White. During the field observation part of the study, the
researchers analyzed data from body-worn cameras used by police officers during traffic
stops. They found that police officers were more likely to search Black drivers compared
to White drivers, even when controlling for other factors such as the reason for the stop
and whether the driver was male or female. The independent variable in this study was
race, being either black or white, and the dependent variable was the participants'
decision to shoot or not to shoot the suspect in the laboratory experiment, while in the
field observations, the dependent variable was the decision to search or not to search
the driver.
3. The implications of this study showed that overall, police officers are influenced by racial
bias in their decisions. They are more likely to shoot or search someone of color versus
a white person. This study implies that perhaps racial training should be given to police
officers to take away any bias they might have towards criminals or would be criminals
they deal with. The study implies that racial profiling is morally wrong and can be harmful
to normal citizens.
4. This study does not have too much to do with in my life as I am not a police officer and I
don’t typically have to decide whether to shoot at all, but this study does connect with the
information in the textbook, which discusses the concept of racial profiling and how it
affects people's lives. Racial profiling is the practice of law enforcement officers using
race as a factor in deciding who to stop and search.
5. The study has external validity as it used a mixed-methods design that included both a
laboratory experiment and field observations. However, the study's findings may not be
generalizable to all police officers or jurisdictions, as the sample size was relatively
small. The participants may also have had their own bias, and not really applied to most
police officers anyway.
6. This study was ethical as it was based on using good morality as no one was harmed
during the study as in the simulations that the undergraduates did posing as police
officers. This study also was based on making moral decisions and did not impose on
emotions too much.