This paper reports on an impact evaluation of an anti-bias training intervention, performed at a diverse municipal police agency, on police-community interactions and public perceptions of discrimination.
The authors evaluated the impact of an anti-bias training intervention for improving police behavior during interactions with community members and public perceptions of discrimination. Their research design and methodology involved 50 patrol officers from a diverse municipal agency who were randomly selected to participate in an anti-bias intervention. Before and after the intervention, a random selection of Body Worn Camera (BWC) videos from the intervention group as well as from a control group of officers was coded using a validated tool for coding police “performance” during interactions with the public. Discrimination-based community member complaints were also collected before and after the intervention for treatment and control group officers. The authors found that the treatment group had a small but significant increase in performance scores compared to control group officers. They also had a small but significantly reduced number of discrimination-based complaints compared to control group officers. These results suggest that anti-bias training could have an impact on officer behaviors during interactions with the public, and perceptions of discrimination. Although these results are from a single municipal police department, this is the first study to suggest that anti-bias trainings may have a positive behavioral impact on police officers as well as the first to illustrate the potential for their impact on community members' perceptions of biased treatment by officers. Publisher Abstract Provided