A recent study among a sample of American police officers suggests that color-blind racial ideology may influence officers’ decisions to interact with minority youth. The findings were published in Behavioral Science and the Law.
“Police possess a wide range of discretion over decisions to stop, question, search, and, ultimately, arrest youth, which may lead to differential treatment. Thus, the interactions between police and young people that lead to detainment and arrest have become a recent focus of research on disproportionate minority contact (DMC),” study authors Keisha April and colleagues say.
Colorblindness may be especially relevant in the context of police decision-making, the researchers say, because “critical race scholars suggest that color-blind racial attitudes inform the set of beliefs that justice system practitioners (e.g., judges, lawyers, police) use when making decisions.”
April and her team conducted an experiment among 128 police officers between the ages of 23-62, who had been in the force for an average of 16 years. Forty-six percent were White, 23% were Black or African American, 12% were Hispanic or Latino, 2% were multi-racial, 0.8% were Asian, and 6% identified as other. Seventy-four percent of the police officers were male.
The officers were presented with one of six vignettes that each described a scenario where a youth is seen engaging in a suspicious activity that is either minor, moderate, or severe. Each vignette was also accompanied by a photo of the supposed youth in question, who was either Black or White. Each officer then completed a survey where they rated their likelihood of stopping, questioning, patting down or arresting the youth. They also completed the Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Scale which measured “unawareness of racial privilege, unawareness of institutional discrimination, and unawareness of blatant racial issues.”
The results showed that as color-blind racial attitudes increased, officers rated themselves less likely to intervene in a suspicious scenario when the youth was White. While there was no significant relationship between officers’ colorblindness and their likelihood of intervening when the youth was Black, officers who scored particularly low in colorblindness (1 standard deviation below the average score), rated themselves less likely to intervene when the youth was Black.
The authors address that selection bias likely affected their data. An unprecedented 123 officers out of an original sample of 339 opted not to complete the colorblindness measure. Interestingly, the officers who were shown the Black youth vignette were more likely to drop out when asked to complete the colorblindness assessment. “Seeing a Black youth – but not a White youth – may have primed officers that the study would target race issues, even before racially related questions were asked,” the authors suggest. These officers may have chosen to opt out of the colorblindness survey out of discomfort or to avoid impacting the reputation of their police department. Because of this, color-blind attitudes may have been under-represented in the study.
As April and colleagues express, officers’ hesitation to participate in their study highlights the difficulties with conducting research on racial issues in the judicial system. Still, their findings demonstrate that future research is needed to explore how the belief systems of criminal justice practitioners may lead to decisions that affect youth outcomes.
The study, “Police endorsement of color-blind racial beliefs and propensity to interact with youth of color”, was authored by Keisha April, Lindsey M. Cole, and Naomi E.S. Goldstein.
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