Geoffrey P. Alpert

Explaining Police Bias A Theory of Social Conditioning and Illusory Correlation

Although recent empirical research has shown that Blacks and Hispanics are consistently overrepresented among police stops, searches, and arrests, few criminologists have attempted to provide a theoretical explanation for the disparities reported in the research literature. This article proposes a theory of individual police behavior that is grounded in social— psychological research on stereotype formation and that assumes a nonmotivational but biased response to minority citizens by the police. Accordingly, stereotype formation and its consequences are largely unintentional and are driven by social conditioning and the illusory correlation phenomenon, which results in the overestimation of negative behaviors associated with minority group members. After specifying the theory, the article presents a research agenda for empirically testing and verifying its propositions.

Sex and Occupational Socialization among Prison Guards A Longitudinal Study

The degree and direction of attitudinal change among prison guards across their careers is a question relevant to both prison theory and policy. This study reports how punitive and aggressive attitudes of male and female prison guards changed over the first critical six months on the job. Male guards became more, and female guards became less, punitive and aggressive. Explanations for these divergent trends are presented.

Interactive Police-Citizen Encounters that Result in Force

The behavior of officers and suspects during encounters is influenced by the actions, comments, and demeanor of the other actor. The present study looks at the interactive context of police-citizen encounters that result in the use of force. The results of the study show that police-citizen encounters are not only interactive but also asymmetrical with respect to authority. Police use- offorce interactions with civilians are more likely to involve greater levels of force by the police relative to the level of suspect resistance when a suspect appears to have less authority relative to the police officer. During an encounter, police and citizens interpret and decide how to respond to each other. This interpretive process can shape the outcome of an encounter and is an important link to the understanding of police behavior.

Searching for direction: Courts, social science, and the adjudication of racial profiling claims

As an issue of contemporary legal and social concern, racial profiling has become part of the national discourse. As claims of racial profiling proliferate, courts are struggling to adjudicate them without sound social science research on law enforcement stop practices. This article reviews the methodological and analytical weaknesses inherent in most of the research on racial profiling and illustrates how these weaknesses have caused problems for courts in deciding racial profiling claims. It also presents a methodological strategy for curing many of the defects in previous racial profiling studies, thereby providing courts with a sound basis for deciding equal protection-based claims that often rely on statistical evidence.

The impact of conducted energy devices and other types of force and resistance on officer and suspect injuries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of police use of conducted energy devices (CEDs) on officer and suspect injuries while controlling for other types of force and resistance and other factors.Design/methodology/approach – Data on 1,645 use‐of‐force incidents occurring between January 1, 2002 and July 2006 were obtained from two different law enforcement agencies. Logistic and generalized ordered logistic regressions are used to model the odds of injury and severity of injury.Findings – The use of CEDs was associated with reduced odds of officer and suspect injury and the severity of suspect injury in one agency. In the other agency CED use was unrelated to the odds of injury; however, the use of pepper spray was associated with reduced odds of suspect injury. Among other findings, in both agencies the use of hands‐on tactics by police was associated with increased odds of officer and suspect injury, while the use of canines was associated with increased odds of suspect injury.Res...

Differential Suspicion: Theory Specification and Gender Effects in the Traffic Stop Context

Drawing on script theory and related research from cognitive social psychology, this paper suggests that police may develop unconscious, cognitive schemas that make them more likely to be suspicious of population subgroups that they repeatedly encounter in street‐level situations involving crime and violence. Drawing on more than 66,000 traffic stop records from the Miami‐Dade County Police Department, this article presents an initial test of this theory using gender as the principal variable of interest. Police were found to be significantly more suspicious of men than of women in traffic‐stop encounters, and suspicion was strongly associated with the decision to arrest. Consistent with the specified theory, suspicion had a modest, attenuating affect on the relationship between gender and arrest. However, gender remained a statistically significant predictor of arrest even after controlling for suspicion, suggesting that other factors associated with gender continue to operate and drive police decision‐making.

A Contextual Study of Racial Profiling Assessing the Theoretical Rationale for the Study of Racial Profiling at the Local Level

In this article, the authors argue for the importance of a contextualized examination of racial profiling. Although the study of racial profiling has only begun, existing studies have typically examined this phenomenon at the state level and based on total population information gathered from high-patrol agencies. The authors argue that racial profiling is best understood within the spatial context of local areas rather than large geographical areas. The purpose of this article is to explore some theoretical avenues to investigating racial profiling within the community context by linking racial profiling to theoretical perspectives that highlight community-level processes. That is, the authors apply theories such as social disorganization, urban disadvantage/deprivation, and Sampson’s community development and spatial diffusion arguments to the incident of racial profiling. The authors then illustrate the utility of exploring these linkages by providing information on crimes and structural dimensions in Miami-Dade County neighborhoods.

A Management Tool for Evaluating Police Use of Force: An Application of the Force Factor

Collecting and using data on police use of force is a complex issue. The process the authors suggest applies the force factor methodology to understanding police use of force relative to suspect resistance in interactive and sequential encounters. Agencies that adopt the force factor approach will learn about their officers, supervisors, and encounters with the public they serve. Although this process is fairly complex and may be difficult to implement, it will provide important information to agencies and the public.

A Bird's Eye View of Civilians Killed by Police in 2015: Further Evidence of Implicit Bias

Research Summary We analyzed 990 police fatal shootings using data compiled by The Washington Post in 2015. After first providing a basic descriptive analysis of these shootings, we then examined the data for evidence of implicit bias by using multivariate regression models that predict two indicators of threat perception failure: (1) whether the civilian was not attacking the officer(s) or other civilians just before being fatally shot and (2) whether the civilian was unarmed when fatally shot. The results indicated civilians from “other” minority groups were significantly more likely than Whites to have not been attacking the officer(s) or other civilians and that Black civilians were more than twice as likely as White civilians to have been unarmed. Policy Implications We implore the U.S. government to move forward with its publication of a national police use-of-force database, including as much information about the officers involved as possible. We further suggest police departments use training programs and community activities to minimize implicit bias among their officers.

Police use of force: examining the relationship between calls for service and the balance of police force and suspect resistance

Abstract Over the past decade, the use of force by the police has become an important public policy concern and topic of social science research. A number of researchers hypothesized about the factors that explain the amount of force used by police officers. Prior research focused almost exclusively on the highest level of force used in police–citizen interactions and neglected to examine the relative amount of forced used by the police compared to that used by suspects. To address this shortcoming, this study analyzed data from three years of official use-of-force reports in the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD). Contrary to studies that examine only the use of force by the police, this study found that the relative amount of force used by the police was greatest in the less threatening types of offenses. The implications of this study for research and policy are discussed.