One of the most talked about topics in the news and throughout the public is, are police officers more hesitant to shoot minorities than they are to shoot white suspects. This is a great question in today’s society because America has the highest firearm to owner ratio in the world which means every police officer must be vigilant when confronting suspects. Also with the recent events, such as riots, looting and protesting, that have taken place due to the fact that police officers have shot and killed multiple African Americans within the last couple of years. Certain groups are stating that polices officers are out to kill individuals just because their skin is not white or that they may be from a minority group. The question that is still
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Race issues that have occurred throughout the United States are still, in some instances, relevant today and many people believe that these issues result in racial biased decisions to shoot. “Previous research has examined racial bias in police decisions by pressing “shoot” or “don’t-shoot” buttons in response to pictures of armed and unarmed suspects.” (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 457). This particular training is good for police offices but it does not transfer to problems in the field very effetely because people preform differently on tests than they do in real life. In the study for the reverse racism effect they “measured the impact of suspect race while holding other scenario variables constant.” (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 458). While conducting this test they used past analyzed data of incident reports and their control was a laboratory …show more content…
458). This also raised suspicion that “the higher the percentage of non-White community members in a city, the higher the rates of police use of deadly force.” (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 458). This means that the question is not new to the 21st century but has been going on about 45 years. In a recent study done by Fachner and Carter they concluded that it is not a lack of training done by police departments on shoot or don’t shoot, but police officers are shooting based off of threat perception failures. “TPFs are defined as “mistake-of-fact” shootings. That is to say, if the officer perceives that the suspect is armed when he or she is not, this might be a result of a (reasonable or not) misperception of an object or action” (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 458). Police officers are found to not show any racial bias in their decision to shoot or not but from the training they conduct shows that “officers may exert control over their behavior, possibly overriding the influence of racial stereotypes”. (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 460). The question is still is being asked, are police officers more likely to make a decision to shoot black suspects over white
Race issues that have occurred throughout the United States are still, in some instances, relevant today and many people believe that these issues result in racial biased decisions to shoot. “Previous research has examined racial bias in police decisions by pressing “shoot” or “don’t-shoot” buttons in response to pictures of armed and unarmed suspects.” (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 457). This particular training is good for police offices but it does not transfer to problems in the field very effetely because people preform differently on tests than they do in real life. In the study for the reverse racism effect they “measured the impact of suspect race while holding other scenario variables constant.” (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 458). While conducting this test they used past analyzed data of incident reports and their control was a laboratory …show more content…
458). This also raised suspicion that “the higher the percentage of non-White community members in a city, the higher the rates of police use of deadly force.” (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 458). This means that the question is not new to the 21st century but has been going on about 45 years. In a recent study done by Fachner and Carter they concluded that it is not a lack of training done by police departments on shoot or don’t shoot, but police officers are shooting based off of threat perception failures. “TPFs are defined as “mistake-of-fact” shootings. That is to say, if the officer perceives that the suspect is armed when he or she is not, this might be a result of a (reasonable or not) misperception of an object or action” (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 458). Police officers are found to not show any racial bias in their decision to shoot or not but from the training they conduct shows that “officers may exert control over their behavior, possibly overriding the influence of racial stereotypes”. (James, James, & Vila, 2016, p. 460). The question is still is being asked, are police officers more likely to make a decision to shoot black suspects over white