Assumed race moderates spontaneous racial bias in a computer‐based police simulation

We demonstrated that playing the roles of different outgroup races can elicit extrapersonal racial bias associated with respective racial groups. In a modified version of a computer‐based police simulation, the police officer's race was visually manipulated to be either Black or White. Korean participants made quick decisions whether to shoot targets (Black or White, armed or unarmed) on screen. Comparison of behavioral bias in the task revealed that, as expected, playing the role of a White police officer was associated with a stronger bias against Black targets compared to playing a Black police officer's role. The result suggests that when a social category is activated, one's race‐related behavior can reflect one's beliefs about the biases that members of that category hold.     

The effects of body‐worn camera footage and eyewitness race on jurors' perceptions of police use of force

Police use of body‐worn cameras (BWCs) is increasingly common in the USA. This article reports the results of one of the first experimental examinations of the effects of three BWC status conditions (absent, transcribed, viewed) and eyewitness race (Black, White) on mock jurors' case judgments, in a case in which a community member (defendant) was charged with resisting arrest but where the officer's use of force in conducting the arrest was controversial. Results provide evidence of significant main effects of both eyewitness race and BWC status. When the eyewitness supporting the defendant was White, mock jurors were less likely to vote the defendant guilty of resisting arrest, as well as more likely to consider the defendant credible and the officer culpable for the incident. In addition, when BWC footage of the arrest was viewed, compared with transcribed or absent, participants were less likely to vote the defendant guilty of resisting arrest, and also rated the officer's use of force less justifiable, and the officer more culpable and less credible. Follow‐up analyses demonstrated that these relationships between BWC condition and case judgments were all mediated by moral outrage toward the officer.     

Being Watched by Anthropomorphized Objects Affects Charitable Donation in Religious People

This study assessed the effect of bottom‐up visual cues—the cues of being watched—from anthropomorphized (face‐like) everyday objects on religious people's prosocial behavior. As religious people are more likely than less‐religious people to perceive faces in everyday objects and as perception of face‐like objects promotes prosociality, it was expected that religious people would become more prosocial when they perceived face‐like objects. To test the hypothesis, the study replicated a past finding in a Japanese sample in which religious people tended to perceive a face in everyday objects. Next, results showed that the decision to donate in religious people (compared to less‐religious people) was increased when a face‐like object was displayed with charitable appeals. This effect was not observed with a non‐face‐like object. The current study indicates that interaction with the surrounding environment plays an important role in motivating prosocial behavior among religious people.     

Procedural injustice,police legitimacy,and officer gender: A vignette‐based test of the invariance thesis

Role congruity theory suggests that gender‐based stereotypes can result in female police officers paying a higher price (i.e., viewed as less legitimate) relative to male officers for mistreating people. The invariance thesis posits that the effect of (un)fair treatment by legal authorities on legal attitudes and beliefs is stable across situations, time, and space. This study tested the invariance thesis by assessing whether the effect of procedural injustice on police legitimacy differed across officer gender. A factorial vignette survey that consisted of two types of citizen‐initiated police encounters was administered to a university‐based sample (N = 525). The results showed that the effect of procedural injustice had a powerful and significant influence on participants' legitimacy perceptions. These effects were consistent regardless of whether the treatment was doled out by a male or a female police officer. The findings provide support for the invariance thesis.     

Creating Suspects in Police Interviews1

In 3 studies, the idea was tested that an increase in a police officer's movements in an interview will lead to an increase in movements made by the suspect. This increase in movements may then be interpreted by the police officer as suspicious behavior. In Study 1, interviewees were interviewed by 1 male police officer who either made some movements or no movements at all. The movements made by the suspects were investigated. In Studies 2 and 3, police officers were asked to judge the credibility of interviewees who were interviewed by a lively or a nonlively interviewer. The results supported the process described.     

Police officers' credibility judgments: Accuracy and estimated ability

A study was conducted to examine Spanish police officers' and nonofficers' lie‐ and truth‐detection accuracy, as well as their estimated detection ability. The participants were 121 police officers and 146 undergraduates who watched videotaped truthful and deceptive statements. They had to indicate: (1) whether each statement was truthful or deceptive, and (2) how good police officers were, in comparison with the general population, at detecting the truthfulness or deceptiveness of a statement. Results indicate that police officers' accuracy was not higher than that of nonofficers, rather, while the officers reached an accuracy rate close to chance probability, the undergraduates surpassed that probability. Officers had a very strong tendency to judge the statements as deceptive; this made them less accurate than the students in judging the truthful accounts, while both groups reached a similar accuracy when judging the deceptive ones. Both occupational samples considered that the police are more capable of identifying truths and lies than the general population. However, this belief was stronger among the officers themselves than among the nonofficers. No significant correlation between estimated ability and accuracy was found for either sample. The results are explained in terms of the participants' wrong beliefs about the cues to deceit and the socialization process that police officers undergo, which would increase their confidence and perceived ability while hindering their learning of the actual indicators of deceit. The need for officers to receive training is emphasized, and some directions are given on how this training should be carried out.     

Police endorsement of color‐blind racial beliefs and propensity to interact with youth of color

The beliefs of police, as the point of first contact with the justice system, may help to explain disproportionate minority contact between police and young people. Color‐blind racial beliefs, a form of implicit racism in which racial differences are denied, are more strongly endorsed by police than by laypeople. Using a 2 (youth race) × 3 (offense severity) experimental design, 339 officers participated in an online study examining the influence of youth race, offense severity, and officers' color‐blind racial beliefs on officers' reported likelihood of interacting with young people. Officers with lower levels of color‐blind beliefs reported they would be less likely to interact with Black youth. Additionally, attrition analyses indicated that officers assigned to the Black youth condition were more likely to drop out when asked to complete the measure of color‐blind beliefs. Policy and practice implications are discussed, with a focus on promoting greater discussion of color‐blind ideologies in multicultural trainings for police officers and increasing frank discussions about race and racial issues.     

Job Stress and Dyadic Synchrony in Police Marriages: A Preliminary Investigation

Despite reports documenting adverse effects of stress on police marriages, few empirical studies focus on actual emotional behaviors of officers and spouses. In this preliminary investigation, 17 male police officers and their nonpolice wives completed daily stress diaries for 1 week and then participated in a laboratory‐based discussion about their respective days. Conversations were video‐recorded and coded for specific emotional behaviors reflecting hostility and affection, which are strong predictors of marital outcomes. We examined associations between officers' job stress (per diaries and the Police Stress Survey) and couples' emotional behavior (mean levels and behavioral synchrony) using a dyadic repeated measures design capitalizing on the large number of observations available for each couple (1020 observations). When officers reported more job stress, they showed less hostility, less synchrony with their wives' hostility, and more synchrony with their wives' affection; their wives showed greater synchrony with officers' hostility and less synchrony with officers' affection. Therefore, for officers, greater job stress was associated with less behavioral negativity, potentially less attunement to wives' negativity, but potentially greater attunement to wives' affection—perhaps a compensatory strategy or attempt to buffer their marriage from stress. These attempts may be less effective, however, if, as our synchrony findings may suggest, wives are focusing on officers' hostility rather than affection. Although it will be important to replicate these results given the small sample, our findings reveal that patterns of behavioral synchrony may be a key means to better understand how job stress exacts a toll on police marriages.     

“To serve and protect” when expecting to be seen negatively: The relation between police officers' contact with citizens,meta‐stereotyping,and work‐related well‐being

We examined the relationship between contact of police officers with citizens, their (meta‐)stereotypes about citizens, and their work‐related well‐being. Ninety‐three police officers from 4 police stations in low‐ and high‐crime regions in France completed the questionnaire. As expected, negative well‐being of police officers is predicted by negative contact with citizens and their belief that police officers are stereotyped negatively by citizens. Moreover, the relationship between negative contact and negative well‐being was mediated by police officers' beliefs that police officers are perceived negatively by citizens, whereas their perceptions of citizens did not mediate this relationship. Interestingly, level of crime did not influence these relationships. Together, this research shows the important role of beliefs about how one's group is stereotyped when in contact with another group as it may have consequences for people's well‐being.     

Personality and cognitive processes in life and death decision making: An exploration into the source of judgment errors by police special squads

This study sought to understand judgment errors by special police units such as those documented after the assault by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas. The study examined the relation between personality traits, the cognitive organization of safety and survival skills, and past deadly force encounters in 131 tactical and command officers of Violent Crimes and Fugitives Task Forces, and as they executed live high‐risk arrest warrants in an all‐inclusive decision‐making simulation environment. Logistic regressions showed that getting shot on the job was related to very low neuroticism and low sensation (experience) seeking among officers. Getting shot in a deadly force encounter during a simulated team entry was also related to low neuroticism and low experience seeking. Making safety and survival errors in a simulated entry was positively related to toughmindedness in Task Force tactical officers but negatively related to toughmindedness in Task Force leaders. Principle components factor analysis of 27 self‐reported safety and survival competencies showed that, generally, TF leaders reasoned with higher cognitive processes of analysis and deliberation while tactical personnel reasoned more in terms of reactive and procedural knowledge. Getting shot during a simulated dangerous encounter was more likely to occur when there was a mismatch between task demands and an officer's preference of one knowledge system over another. It was speculated that the poor judgment by command staff at Waco might have been related to their use of a procedural knowledge system when higher cognitive processes were needed. Greater experience with executing arrest warrants would have triggered the recognition of a serious anomaly, which would have primed the use of higher cognitive processes.     

Weapons and Eye Contact as Instigators or Inhibitors of Aggressive Arousal in Police-Citizen Interaction1

A field experiment was conducted with police officers during the normal course of their traffic patrol duties. The purpose was to determine whether the presence of holstered weapons and mirror sunglasses affected the degree of aggressiveness expressed nonverbally, and reported on a mood scale by citizens halted for an information check (neutral condition) or in order to be given a traffic ticket (negative condition). Results indicated that subjects in the negative condition both expressed and reported more aggressivity when the police officer wore a weapon than when no weapon was visible. The use of sunglasses had no effect on aggressivity but resulted in the officer's being perceived more negatively, though he was not perceived more negatively when he wore a weapon. No sex differences in expressed or reported aggressivity were obtained, although some sex differences on measures of secondary interest did occur. The implications of these findings for research on the “weapons effect” and on policy regarding the visibility of police weapons and the wearing of sunglasses by police officers are discussed.     

‘Who's the Thief?’ The Influence of Knowledge and Experience on Early Detection of Criminal Intentions

Our study investigates if people are able to recognize thieves based on their nonverbal behavior prior to committing the crime. We implemented authentic closed‐circuit television footage from thefts committed at an international airport into a computer‐based test. Five groups of participants (students, police recruits, inexperienced police officers, experienced police officers, and criminal investigators) were studied. The results show that criminals display nonverbal behavior that can be used by observers for early recognition of criminal intentions. In addition, early recognition seems to benefit from knowledge about the criminals' modi operandi (criminal investigators performed best), which renders early recognition teachable and trainable. Further, all participants seem to be biased towards innocence, but this bias was less pronounced in police officers than in students. These findings are discussed in relation to the well‐documented truth‐bias and investigator‐bias in lie detection research as well as taking our measurement method into account.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Working in a violent environment: The accuracy of police officers' reports about shooting incidents

The occupational stress of chronic working conditions in police organizations has been examined in the past, but the effects of acute stressful events are much more difficult to study systematically. Experienced police officers' memories for elements of a simulated stressful crime scene involving an on‐duty shooting incident were examined. Officers were exposed to one of three situations varying in stress. In a 3 × 2 factorial design, some officers reviewed their memories by answering questions immediately after the shooting, while others did not. Twelve weeks later, officers' long‐term memories were better for all elements of the crime scene if they had rehearsed. Under some conditions, officers tended to remember the most important elements better (i.e. the number of armed people present) and the least important elements worse (i.e. irrelevant objects). In addition, their confidence in their memories had little or no relationship to their memories' accuracy and there was a threat focus in which objects physically closest to the points of threat were remembered better. There are strong implications for two elements of job performance: writing police reports and testifying in court.     

Police-Public Interactions: The Impact of Conflict Resolution Tactics1

Following Hammock and Richardson (1992), it was hypothesized that a preference among some police officers for confrontational rather than conciliatory tactics when dealing with the public may serve to escalate a conflict and thereby explain the documented individual differences in reports of officer assaults. In order to test this possibility, preferred conflict tactics and officers' recent experiences of citizen compliance (and non-compliance) were measured for a sample of 115 English police and 48 Australian police. The results supported the hypothesized relationship by indicating a significant correlation between preferences for specific confrontational and coercive tactics and experiences of noncompliance from the public.     

Why do officers support community policing? A cross‐departmental and cross‐temporal comparison

Community policing is often seen as a way to repair fractured relationships between law enforcement and the public. Despite its relationship‐building promise and widespread department‐level adoption, individual officers show varying levels of support for community policing which can harm policy implementation. Why are some officers more supportive of community policing than others? Prior research suggests that demographic factors such as the officer's gender, race, age, and education can explain this variance. Across these studies, however, there are several contradicting or non‐replicating findings. Conflicting findings may result from differences by department or differences in methodology or temporal variance – but most policing studies focus on a single department. We begin to adjudicate between the possible explanations for conflicting findings using roll‐call survey data from 741 officers across three neighboring police departments in 2016 and then a replication with 452 officers from one of the original departments in 2019. We find that experience with community policing consistently influences support for the practice while officer gender, age, and education consistently do not. Other results do not replicate across department or time, although we do find non‐replicating significant factors associated with officer support for community policing. Our findings also suggest that departmental and temporal aspects help to explain why policing studies often do not replicate or generalize to other places or contexts.     

Workers' compensation for law enforcement related post traumatic stress disorder

The questions of how Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) manifests itself among police officers and their eligibility to receive workers' compensation for PTSD are explored. The nature of the police officer's occupation, the prevalence of stress-related disorders among police personnel, and the relationship of the police personality to the dynamics of the way stress is manifested are considered. The extent to which workers' compensation statutes in various states cover mental injuries is also examined, and the variables that may affect the outcome of an officer's receiving compensation for PTSD are discussed. Finally, implications for mental health professionals who testify as expert witnesses in cases dealing with police stress, as well as those who work in the assessment and treatment ofpolice personnel, are explored.     

Full House of Fears: Evidence That People High in Attachment Anxiety Are More Accurate in Detecting Deceit

Lying is deep‐rooted in our nature, as over 90% of all people lie. Laypeople, however, do only slightly better than chance when detecting lies and deceptions. Recently, attachment anxiety was linked with people's hypervigilance toward threat‐related cues. Accordingly, we tested whether attachment anxiety predicts people's ability to detect deceit and to play poker—a game that is based on players' ability to detect cheating. In Study 1, 202 participants watched a series of interpersonal interactions that comprised subtle clues to the honesty or dishonesty of the speakers. In Study 2, 58 participants watched clips in which such cues were absent. Participants were asked to decide whether the main characters were honest or dishonest. In Study 3, we asked 35 semiprofessional poker players to participate in a poker tournament, and then we predicted the amount of money won during the game. Results indicated that attachment anxiety, but not other types of anxiety, predicted more accurate detection of deceitful statements (Studies 1–2) and a greater amount of money won during a game of poker (Study 3). Results are discussed in relation to the possible adaptive functions of certain personality characteristics, such as attachment anxiety, often viewed as undesirable.     

Undercover probes of police corruption: risk factors in proactive internal affairs investigations

The targeting of selected police officers for proactive undercover investigations is being championed by Internal Affairs (IA) who see it as an innovative corruption prevention program. A critical look at this program suggests that IA's discretionary powers and lack of decisionmaking guidelines for initiating administrative undercover investigations risk adverse legal, social, and ethical consequences. The role of cognitive and organizational factors on police managers' decisions to initiate internal undercover investigations was studied empirically. Three cases of police misconduct involving a shake-down of drug dealers, of extracting sexual favors from a female, and of minor misconduct involving an officer's suspicious acceptance of free meals at a restaurant were reviewed by 217 mid- to upper-level police managers. While 90% of the managers endorsed an undercover investigation in cases of serious misconduct, 45% also supported an undercover probe to see what might be behind an officer accepting free meals. Endorsing an undercover probe for minor misconduct was associated with a police manager's Machiavellian and Bureaucratic attitudes, and was unrelated to familiarity with IA or criminal undercover investigations. Preemptive undercover inquiries to identify problem officers could reduce corruption in an organization, but the present study suggests that the absence of guidelines for establishing when these probes are unacceptable may lead some dedicated IA investigators to stretch the legal and ethical envelopes, and risk going too far with undercover stings. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Social Power of a Uniform1

The degree and basis of social power of uniformed figures was investigated in two field experiments. In the first experiment, subjects were stopped in the street by an experimenter dressed in one of three ways: a civilian, a milkman, or a guard. They were asked to pick up a paper bag, or to give a dime to a stranger, or to move away from a bus stop. The results indicated that the subjects complied more with the guard than with the civilian or milkman. In the second field experiment, designed to examine the basis of the guard's power, subjects were asked to give a dime to a stranger under conditions of either surveillance or nonsurveillance. The guard's power was not affected by the surveillance manipulation. A logical analysis of social power indicated that the guard's power was most likely based on legitimacy. Two questionnaire studies indicated, however, that college students did not perceive the guard as having either more. power or more legitimacy than the milkman or civilian. The nature and importance of understanding legitimacy was discussed.     

Police Attitudes in England to Return Interviews,in Repeat Missing Person Cases

The aim of this article is to examine the attitudes of English police officers to return interviews of people who are reported missing repeatedly (e.g. three times or more). In addition to a brief police ‘Safe & Well Check’ a return interview is also carried out by a police officer and seeks to find out where people went and why, in order to identify potential risks to their safety and whether they experienced harm whilst they were missing. A mixed‐methods survey of 50 constables from one police force in England ran in March 2014, using quantitative and open qualitative questions. Key themes that emerged were individual frustration at repetition, negativity around usefulness of the interviews, a challenge to involve third sector partners, and development areas in training. Statistical significance was found in variables relating to officer experience and gender, against views on interviewing missing people. The article looks at the limited existing literature and makes recommendations about best practice with return interviews, advocating a multi‐agency approach to improve interventions, and better training to improve positivity towards missing people. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.