Implicit Bias

Implicit bias describes the automatic association people make between groups of people and stereotypes about those groups.

Implicit bias describes the automatic association people make between groups of people and stereotypes about those groups. Under certain conditions, those automatic associations can influence behavior—making people respond in biased ways even when they are not explicitly prejudiced. More than thirty years of research in neurology and social and cognitive psychology has shown that people hold implicit biases even in the absence of heartfelt bigotry, simply by paying attention to the social world around them. Implicit racial bias has given rise to a phenomenon known as “racism without racists,” which can cause institutions or individuals to act on racial prejudices, even in spite of good intentions and nondiscriminatory policies or standards.

In the context of criminal justice and community safety, implicit bias has been shown to have significant influence in the outcomes of interactions between police and citizens. While conscious, “traditional” racism has declined significantly in recent decades, research suggests that “implicit attitudes may be better at predicting and/or influencing behavior than self-reported explicit attitudes.”

Discussions of implicit bias in policing tend to focus on implicit racial biases; however, implicit bias can be expressed in relation to non-racial factors, including gender, age, religion, or sexual orientation. As with all types of bias, implicit bias can distort one’s perception and subsequent treatment either in favor of or against a given person or group. In policing, this has resulted in widespread practices that focus undeserved suspicion on some groups and presume other groups innocent.

Reducing the influence of implicit bias is vitally important to strengthening relationships between police and minority communities. For example, studies suggest that implicit bias contributes to “shooter bias,”—the tendency for police to shoot unarmed black suspects more often than white ones—as well as the frequency of police stops for members of minority groups. Other expressions of implicit bias, such as public defenders’ prioritization of cases involving white defendants, can have major impact on communities. This latter point is particularly significant in light of recent findings about the importance of procedural justice in fostering cooperation between citizens and the criminal justice system and cultivating law-abiding communities.

Despite these challenges, the work of Phillip Atiba Goff, President of the Center for Policing Equity, has shown that it is possible to address and reduce implicit bias through training and policy interventions with law enforcement agencies. Research suggests that biased associations can be gradually unlearned and replaced with nonbiased ones. Perhaps even more encouragingly, one can reduce the influence of implicit bias simply by changing the context in which an interaction takes place. Consequently, through policy and training, it is possible to mend the harm that racial stereotypes do to our minds and our public safety.

Research

La Vigne, N., Fontaine, J., & Dwivedi, A. 2017. How Do People in High-Crime, Low-Income Communities View the Police?. Urban Institute. https://nnscommunities.org/uploads/how_do_people_in_high-crime_view_the_police.pdf

The Sentencing Project. Disproportionate minority contact.

La Vigne, N. G., Lachman, P., Rao, S., Matthews, A. (2014). Stop and Frisk: Balancing Crime Control with Community Relations. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

Beattie, G., Cohen, D., & McGuire, L. (2013). An exploration of possible unconscious ethnic biases in higher education: The role of implicit attitudes on selection for university posts. Semiotica 2013, 197, 171-201.

Richardson, L. S., & Goff, P. A. (2013). Implicit Racial Bias in Public Defender Triage. Yale Law Journal, 122, 13-24

Sadler, M. S., Correll, J., Park, B., & Judd, C. M. (2012). The world is not Black and White: Racial bias in the decision to shoot in a multiethnic context. Journal of Social Issues, 68(2), 286-313.

Alexander, M. (2011). The New Jim Crow. New York: The New Press.

Goff, P. A., Eberhardt, J. L., Williams, M., & Jackson, M. C. (2008). Not yet human: Implicit knowledge, historical dehumanization, and contemporary consequences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(2), 292-306.

Correll, et al., (2007). The influence of stereotypes on decisions to shoot. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37: 1102–1117.

Eberhardt, J. L., Davies, P. G., Purdie-Vaughns, V.J., & Johnson, S. L. (2006). Looking deathworthy: Perceived stereotypicality of Black defendants predicts capital-sentencing outcomes. Psychological Science, 17(5), 383-386.

Ziegert, J. C., & Hanges, P. J. (2005). Employment Discrimination: The Role of Implicit Attitudes, Motivation, and a Climate for Racial Bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(3), 553-562.

Eberhardt, J. L., Goff, P. A., Purdie, & Davies, P. G. (2004). Seeing Black: Race crime, and visual processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(6), 876-893.

Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., & Wittenbrink, B. (2002). The police officer's dilemma: using ethnicity to disambiguate potentially threatening individuals. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(6), 1314-1329.

Dovidio, J. F. (2001). On the nature of contemporary prejudice: The third wave. Journal of Social Issues, 57(4), 829-849.

Blair, I. V., Ma, J. E., & Lenton, A. P. (2001). Imagining stereotypes away: the moderation of implicit stereotypes through mental imagery. Journal of personality and social psychology, 81(5), 828-841.

Dovidio, J. F., Kawakami, K., & Gaertner, S. L. (2000). Reducing contemporary prejudice: Combating explicit and implicit bias at the individual and intergroup level in S. Oskamp (Ed.), Reducing prejudice and discrimination (pp. 137-163). Hilldale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Oskamp, S. (2000). Reducing prejudice and discrimination. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Chartrand, T. L.; Bargh, J. A. (1999). The chameleon effect: The perception–behavior link and social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(6), 893-910.

Resources

Tactical Perception: Using the Science of Justice (PJ3) Facilitator Guide

The goal of this course is to engage police officers in critical thought and discussion about contemporary mechanisms of bias regarding race, gender, sexuality, and other identities within the context of law enforcement, centering on identity traps and drawing on the scholarship of implicit bias and self-threats. Read More

Tactical Perception for Community: The Science of Justice (PJ3) Facilitator Guide

Principled Policing

Stockton Chief of Police Eric Jones published his thoughts on what he calls "principled policing" and how the Stockton Police Department is using that concept to build trust with its community and enhance public safety. Read More

Strengthening Community-Police Relationships: Training as a Tool for Change

The California Partnership for Safe Communities, in conjunction with the CA Department of Justice, police and community leaders, and researchers at Stanford University have produced "an innovative training curriculum to promote procedural justice and address implicit bias." This document seeks to combine real-world experiences and academic evaluation in order to develop training practices that will enhance police-community relations. Read More

Issue Brief: Implicit Bias

The COPS Office and the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice have provided overview briefs on topics important to building community safety by improving police legitimacy. Implicit Bias focuses on the phenomenon of automatic associations individuals make between groups of people. Read More

How to Serve Diverse Communities

The Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, in partnership with the Vera Institute of Justice and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, has released a series of guidebooks intended to serve as a tool for all levels of law enforcement. This is one in a series of three guides, all of which can be found in the "Tools and Guides" section of the National Initiative website. Read More

How to Increase Cultural Understanding

Fact Sheet: US DOJ Gender-Bias Policing

The Department of Justice announced new guidance in December 2015 designed to help law enforcement agencies (LEAs) prevent gender bias in their response to sexual assault and domestic violence, focusing on the need for clear policies, robust training and responsive accountability systems. Read More

Identifying and Preventing Gender Bias in Law Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced a new guidance from the Justice Department designed to help law enforcement agencies prevent gender bias in their response to sexual assault and domestic violence, highlighting the need for clear policies, robust training and responsive accountability systems. Read More

Strengthening the Relationship Between Law Enforcement and Communities of Color

On April 4, 2014, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) hosted a conference with law enforcement officials, civil rights activists, academic experts, community leaders, and policymakers at the Ford Foundation offices in New York City. This forum was the first in a series of forums focusing on building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. This publication, recently published by COPS at DOJ, is a great outline of the first of many forums to focus on building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Read More

Procedural Justice 3 Community Training Deck (Template)

The goal of this course is to engage police officers and the communities they serve in critical thought and discussion about contemporary mechanisms of bias regarding race, gender, sexuality, and other identities within the context of law enforcement centering on identity traps and drawing on the scholarship of implicit bias and self-threats. Click here to view and download the PowerPoint.

Procedural Justice 3 Training Deck (Template)

IACP Communities of Color Toolkit

"The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) convened three focus groups of community stakeholders, frontline officers, and law enforcement executives to discuss building community trust. They discussed strategies that have been used successfully to develop communities of trust and identified challenges facing law enforcement and the community. This toolkit collects some of the most successful strategies, and tools for engaging communities of color, here defined as people of African, Latino or Hispanic, Native American, Asian, or Pacific Island descent.

Communities of color have faced many decades of real and perceived mistreatment by the justice system and law enforcement, leading to fear, anger, resentment, and distrust. Communities of color often feel marginalized and mistreated. Recognizing and responding to mistrust lies at the heart of building stronger community-police relationships. This requires a variety of resources, protocols, policies, strategies, and training. Communities of color and police must continue to join forces to create safe environments. In this toolkit we share a number of promising programs working to improve community-police relations on a daily basis."

Executive Summary

The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice is a project to improve relationships and increase trust between communities and the criminal justice system and advance the public and scholarly understandings of the issues contributing to those relationships. In September 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a three year, $4.75 million grant to establish the project. In collaboration with the Department of Justice, the National Initiative is coordinated by the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, with partnership from the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School, the Center for Policing Equity at John Jay College and UCLA, and the Urban Institute.

Leveraging Community Voices in Violence Prevention

On September 27, 2016, research conducted by the Urban Institute under the National Initiative was presented by Nancy La Vigne at a Congressional Briefing on "Violence and Violence Prevention." At the briefing, which was sponsored by Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP) in collaboration with WestEd’s Justice and Prevention Research Center, La Vigne detailed data collected from surveys distributed to residents of high-crime, low-income neighborhoods in each of the National Initiative’s six pilot sites—Birmingham AL; Fort Worth, TX; Gary, IN; Minneapolis, MN; Pittsburgh, PA; and Stockton, CA—that confirms suspicions of longstanding mistrust between law enforcement and communities of color.

For example, fewer than half of all survey respondents believe that police officers are responsive to community concerns and are held accountable for misconduct. Similarly, more than half of those surveyed agreed that officers judge local residents "based on personal biases or prejudices" and that they treat people differently based on their race or ethnicity.

Despite this high degree of mistrust, law enforcement and communities of color share common ground, with many residents willing to serve as active partners in crime prevention. More than 60 percent of respondents said they would report crimes or suspicious activities to police and about half said they would attend community meetings to discuss crime prevention.

These surveys, part of the National Initiative's research and evaluation component, were distributed in each of our six pilot sites before the project was underway. Following its completion, a second round of surveys will be distributed to measure the impact of interventions oriented around implicit bias, procedural justice, and reconciliation.

Click here to download a PDF of the presentation and below for the video.

Law Enforcement and the Transgender Community: A Training Video

The U.S. Department of Justice's Community Relations Service (CRS), aiming to improve interactions between police and transgender individuals, has soft-launched a new cultural professionalism roll-call training video entitled “Law Enforcement and the Transgender Community.” The video, which features scenarios of the three most common ways police officers encounter members of the transgender community, provides the information, tools, and techniques for departments to exercise procedural justice and mitigate implicit bias when interacting with this community.

NNSC National Conference 2015: Karol V. Mason

Karol V. Mason, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, delivers the keynote address of the National Network for Safe Communities' National Conference 2015.

NNSC National Conference 2015: Truth-Telling, Reconciliation, and the National Initiative

This plenary session of the National Network for Safe Communities' conference provides an overview of the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice and situates it within the context of the post-Ferguson climate around trust, legitimacy, reform, and reconciliation. Participants discuss the genesis of the National Initiative, its aims and early steps, and its relevance to the national interest in re-examining traditional criminal justice and promoting truth-telling and reconciliation between law enforcement and the communities it serves. Moderated by David Kennedy, Director of the NNSC, this panel features Katherine Darke Schmitt, Policy Advisor in the Office of Justice Programs at the US Department of Justice, Tom Tyler, Macklin Fleming Professor of Law at Yale University, Tracie Keesee, Project Director of the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, and Priscilla Hayner, independent writer and consultant on truth and reconciliation processes.

NNSC National Conference 2015: Police and Communities in Motion

This plenary session of the National Network for Safe Communities' conference addresses the cultural shifts taking place in law enforcement agencies and communities around the country. Participants discuss how gradually changing law enforcement practices have affected the relationships between police and the communities they serve, and how momentum has built behind practices that acknowledge history, repair legitimacy, and rebuild public trust. Moderated by Professor Phillip Atiba Goff of the Center for Policing Equity at UCLA, this panel features Chief A.C. Roper of Birmingham Police Dept., Ben McBride, Founder of the Empower Initiative, and Rev. K. Edward Copeland, Pastor of the New Zion Baptist Church of Rockford, IL.

Interim Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing

“When any part of the American family does not feel like it is being treated fairly, that’s a problem for all of us,” said the President. “It’s not just a problem for some. It’s not just a problem for a particular community or a particular demographic. It means that we are not as strong as a country as we can be. And when applied to the criminal justice system, it means we’re not as effective in fighting crime as we could be.”

Download and read the full report.

Stockton, California

Stockton, California, is one of six pilot sites employing strategies, examining policies, and developing evidence through research to reduce implicit bias, enhance procedural justice, and promote racial reconciliation. - Learn More

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is one of six pilot sites employing strategies, examining policies, and developing evidence through research to reduce implicit bias, enhance procedural justice, and promote racial reconciliation. - Learn More

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota, is one of six pilot sites employing strategies, examining policies, and developing evidence through research to reduce implicit bias, enhance procedural justice, and promote racial reconciliation. - Learn More

Gary, Indiana

Gary, Indiana, is one of six pilot sites employing strategies, examining policies, and developing evidence through research to reduce implicit bias, enhance procedural justice, and promote racial reconciliation. - Learn More

Fort Worth, Texas

Fort Worth, Texas, is one of six pilot sites employing strategies, examining policies, and developing evidence through research to reduce implicit bias, enhance procedural justice, and promote racial reconciliation. - Learn More

Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham, Alabama, is one of six pilot sites employing strategies, examining policies, and developing evidence through research to reduce implicit bias, enhance procedural justice, and promote racial reconciliation. - Learn More

The Evolution of Policing and a Return to Principles

Stockton Police Chief Eric Jones: "It is clearer than ever that to reach significant reductions in violent crime, police trust-building must be a priority. Whether some community members do not report crime or do not work with police due to apathy, fear, or a lack of confidence, it is data-driven policing coupled with trust-building that can begin to change that. Whether some community members do not occupy their public spaces because of perceived or actual crime, smarter policing and trust-building can ease these fears." - Read More

A Word from the National Initiative on Recent Events

The National Initiative would like to take this moment to offer a word of support to all of our law enforcement and community partners. - Read More

National Initiative Research Roundtable Report

On November 19 and 20, 2015, the National Initiative held a rountable discussions hosted by the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School. - Read More

Getting Beyond Ferguson

The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice is designed to make real and rapid progress on the strained and often broken relationship between many communities -- especially, alienated communities of color -- and law enforcement. - Read More