Skip to main content

You are a consultant hired by a police department to address a problem of discrimination by police officers toward minority citizens. Evidence...

The first step is to figure out exactly where the discrimination is occurring. Simply observing differences in outcomes doesn't tell us where the discrimination is happening---in some cases it's not even happening at the institutions we are looking at, but in society as a whole. More often, there are several layers of discrimination people are subjected to from multiple sources.

For example, only a small portion of the wage gap between men and women is explained by active discrimination in hiring practices; the majority is due to differences in societal gender roles that drive men and women into different professions and result in higher pay in male-dominated professions. Active discrimination creates a gap of about 4%, but gender roles and other factors make the total gap closer to 30%.

With this in mind, we would first need to make sure that our police officers actually are discriminating against racial minorities, and not simply responding to inequities created by society at large. Many policies that disproportionately affect racial minorities are actually race-blind policies, but have disproportionate impact due to the overall inequality of society. Some such policies can be reformed, but others are unavoidable; a certain racial disparity in arrests and imprisonments is going to exist as long as there is the same disparity in rates of poverty and crime, and it would be perverse for it not to. Ultimately we need to fight the disparity in poverty and crime.

But suppose we find evidence that the police are indeed actively discriminating; the next step is to figure out how they are discriminating---who is doing it to whom and why.

Some discrimination is intentional, committed by avowed racists; on the principle that "one bad apple spoils the bunch", the police have reason to find any such individuals and fire them unless they reform on a reasonable timetable. But a good deal of discrimination is not of this form, but instead involves much subtler subconscious biases that are harbored by almost everyone, even those of us who morally abhor racism.

These subconscious biases can't really be countered by conscious attempts at improving behavior. Instead what we must do is either make decisions race-blind so that subconscious biases can't even take hold (for example, when hiring new officers, remove all names and photos from resumes to avoid revealing race and gender), or else fight subconscious with subconscious, using psychological techniques to prime people with ideas that run counter to their subconscious stereotypes. If they view Black people as criminal, for example, show them images of Black people being upstanding, law-abiding citizens (and perhaps of non-Black people as criminals). If they view Black people as unintelligent, show them examples of highly intelligent Black people (Neil deGrasse Tyson, for instance). This kind of exposure is the best method we have for countering subconscious stereotypes, and probably part of the reason why rising exposure of a given group in the media is linked to better acceptance for that group by the public at large.

This could be done as part of a more comprehensive mandatory diversity and sensitivity training, where officers are taught to avoid using offensive language such as racial slurs and sexist jokes, and trained in techniques for interacting with people of different languages and cultures (particularly important for White officers in areas with large Hispanic populations). This training must absolutely be mandatory, because those who need it most are those who are most likely to try to avoid it. Nor may any excuses be accepted from those who try to defend the use of bigoted language as "just a joke" or "part of camaraderie"; this subtle bigotry reinforces the subconscious stereotypes that can have serious real effects on behavior.

These policies, combined with more general reforms such as community policing, decarceration, and demilitarization, would surely not eliminate racism in a community, but could substantially reduce the harm it causes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of the greeting "Sweet dreams".

Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What are the similarities between the relationships of the characters in The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet?

At first glance, it might appear as if the characters in  The Outsiders  by S. E. Hinton and  Romeo and Juliet  by William Shakespeare do not have much in common; however, when one isolates the core of the conflicts, it becomes clear that the relationships in both stories are rooted in rivalry and secrecy.  In both  The Outsiders  and  Romeo and Juliet , an overarching theme is rivalry. While   socioeconomic status separates the greasers from the Socs in The Outsiders , last names separates the Montagues from the Capulets, who appear to be relatively equal in terms of socioeconomic status. Due to these rivalries, there are instances of deadly interactions in both stories. In  The Outsiders , Johnny kills Bob (whether his actions were justified or not is debatable). In  Romeo and Juliet , Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. These deaths have profound effects on the main characters. In Ponyboy's case, the Johnny's death and other events in the novel inspire h...
Post a Comment
Read more