track

Image 2. Examples of images used in video simulated shooter studies
Source: 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 (p. 1316).
When researchers conducted this study with a
predominantly white group of Denver-based police
officers, they found that the officers were less likely than
the general public to mistakenly shoot at black unarmed
suspects. 74 However, the officers more quickly shot at
armed black suspects than armed white suspects. The
researchers concluded that while these officers exhibited
bias in their speed to shoot, their training reduced bias
in their decision to shoot. Another study of police
officers from across the United States found that officers
exhibited similar reaction time bias towards Latinos
relative to whites and Asians. 75
The conflation of African Americans and Latinos with
criminality extends beyond perceptions of individuals: it
also shapes impressions of neighborhoods. Residents –
particularly whites but also blacks – of neighborhoods
with higher proportion of racial minorities are more
74 Correll, J., Park, B., Judd, C. M., Wittenbrink, B., Sadler, M. S., & Keesee, T. (2007). Across the Thin Blue Line: Police Officers and Racial Bias in the
Decision to Shoot. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1006–23.
75 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.
16 The Sentencing Project