{"id":226,"date":"2017-10-04T16:18:24","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T23:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/updates\/?p=226"},"modified":"2017-10-04T16:18:24","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T23:18:24","slug":"cleveland-police-launching-anti-bias-training-developed-by-wsu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/2017\/10\/04\/cleveland-police-launching-anti-bias-training-developed-by-wsu\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland police launching anti-bias training developed by WSU"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Addy Hatch, WSU College of Nursing<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"James-Lois\"
Lois James<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SPOKANE, Wash. \u2013 Two hundred patrol officers in the Cleveland police department will undergo training to recognize their subconscious biases using a simulator developed by an assistant professor in the WSU College of Nursing.<\/span><\/p>\n

The large-scale training is part of a $750,000 research grant awarded to\u00a0Lois James<\/a>, Ph.D., by the National Institute of Justice, the research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lois James and her colleague Stephen James, Ph.D., assistant research professor in the WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, developed Counter Bias Training Simulation (CBTSim<\/a>), a portable simulator that presents officers with realistic scenarios in which they are required to make shoot-or-don\u2019t-shoot decisions. The scenarios are based on 30 years of data on police use of force, and repeatedly expose officers to simulations where the suspect\u2019s characteristics, such as age, gender or race, aren\u2019t predictably related to the outcome.<\/p>\n

No comparative evidence yet<\/strong><\/p>\n

Such training is a response to national concerns about bias in police decision-making that arose following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.<\/p>\n

\"Lois
Lois James, WSU Nursing, in front of bias testing simulator video<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Implicit-bias training has become common in law enforcement agencies nationwide. So far, however, there has been no evidence on whether simulation-based training, traditional classroom lectures, or a combination of the two is most effective in changing police behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cRigorous, randomized controlled trials such as the one proposed are desperately required to inform policy and practice at the national level,\u201d Lois James wrote in her grant application to the\u00a0National Institute of Justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Four participant groups<\/strong><\/p>\n

James\u2019 study will randomly assign 400 patrol officers with the Cleveland police department to one of four groups:<\/p>\n