The Impacts of Implicit Bias Awareness Training in the NYPD
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The Impacts of Implicit Bias Awareness Training in the NYPD July, 2020 Robert E. Worden Sarah J. McLean Robin S. Engel Hannah Cochran Nicholas Corsaro Danielle Reynolds Cynthia J. Najdowski Gabrielle T. Isaza Table of Contents Chapter Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... iv Executive Summary .......................................................................................... v About the Authors ............................................................................................ vii 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 Implicit Bias in Policing ..................................................................... 2 Implicit Bias Training .......................................................................... 8 Our Study of the NYPD ..................................................................... 11 2 Implicit Bias Training for Police ................................................................... 13 Training Curricula ................................................................................ 13 Outcomes of Implicit Bias Training ............................................... 25 Organizational Context .................................................................... 33 Extant Evaluation Evidence .............................................................. 35 Insights from Social Psychology ................................................... 36 FIP in a Nutshell ................................................................................... 49 3 The NYPD Context .......................................................................................... 51 New York City ....................................................................................... 51 The NYPD ............................................................................................... 52 Contemporaneous Reforms ........................................................... 55 Summary ................................................................................................ 64 4 Evaluation Design ............................................................................................ 65 Training-Day Survey ........................................................................... 66 Follow-up Survey ................................................................................ 68 Supervisor Survey................................................................................ 70 Interviews ............................................................................................... 71 Enforcement .......................................................................................... 71 Summary ............................................................................................... 82 ii Chapter 5 Impacts on Officers’ Beliefs and Attitudes ............................................. 83 Measures of Officers’ Beliefs and Attitudes ............................... 83 Influences on Beliefs and Attitudes .............................................. 93 Immediate Training Impacts on Beliefs and Attitudes .......... 95 Anticipated Application of FIP Strategies ................................... 102 Officers’ Perceptions of the Training ........................................... 103 Longer-Term Impacts on Beliefs ................................................... 105 Conclusions ........................................................................................... 109 6 Organizational Reinforcement: Supervisors’ Role and Practices .... 110 Role Conception .................................................................................. 111 Role Enactment .................................................................................... 112 Application of the FIP Training....................................................... 118 Conclusions ........................................................................................... 123 7 Impacts on Enforcement Disparities ......................................................... 124 Officers’ Use of FIP Strategies ........................................................ 124 Pre- and Post-FIP Disparities in Enforcement ........................... 127 Training Impacts .................................................................................. 135 Conclusions ........................................................................................... 155 8 Summary and Implications .......................................................................... 156 Appendix A.......................................................................................................... 162 Appendix B .......................................................................................................... 164 iii Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the helpful suggestions of Lorie Fridell and Anna Laszlo, of Fair and Impartial Policing, LLC, and those of the NYPD Monitor, Peter Zimroth, and the Monitor’s experts: Jennifer Eberhardt, John MacDonald, and Anthony Braga. Special thanks go to Tanya Meisenholder, Deputy Commissioner at the NYPD, for her help in making a rigorous evaluation design feasible, and to Lt. Tara Coffey, Lt. Daniel Weadock, and Sergeant Stephen Ward. Thanks also to Kenan M. Worden for assistance with the statistical analysis. Finally, we are grateful for the funding provided by Arnold Ventures (formerly the Laura and John Arnold Foundation) to conduct this research. This research was commissioned by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) / University of Cincinnati (UC) Center for Police Research and Policy, and funded by Arnold Ventures (formerly the Laura and John Arnold Foundation). The findings, conclusions, and opinions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the IACP, Arnold Ventures, or the New York City Police Department. Please direct questions or comments regarding this report to Robert E. Worden, The John F. Finn Institute, 421 New Karner Road, Suite 12, Albany, NY 12205, 518-456-6323 ext. 308, [email protected]. iv Executive Summary In February of 2018, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) began in- service training on implicit bias for its 36,000 sworn personnel, using the Fair and Impartial Policing (FIP) curriculum. A team of researchers from the John Finn Institute for Public Safety and the IACP/UC Center for Police Research and Policy partnered with the NYPD to conduct evaluation research on the impacts of the training. The evaluation concentrated on the effects of the training among patrol officers assigned to commands in the Patrol Services Bureau, Transit Bureau, and Housing Bureau, whose training commenced in May, 2018 and concluded in April, 2019. We assessed the immediate effects of the training on officers’ beliefs and attitudes: their knowledge about the science of implicit bias and the potential implications for policing, and their attitudes about the salience of bias and discrimination as a social problem, and the importance of policing without prejudice. A survey was administered on the day of FIP training, either prior to or following the training on alternating days. We drew inferences about immediate training effects from the differences in pre- and post-training survey responses. The effect of the training on officers’ knowledge about implicit bias was of moderate magnitude, though many officers’ comprehension of the science of bias was limited. The effects of the training on officers’ attitudes toward discrimination, and their motivation to act without prejudice, were fairly small, though prior to the training, most officers considered discrimination a social problem and felt individually motivated to act without bias. Officers regarded the training as beneficial: 70 percent reportedly gained a better understanding of implicit bias and more than two-thirds reportedly learned new strategies and skills that they expected to apply to their work. Nearly half rated the likelihood of using all five bias- management strategies as either a 6 or 7 on a 7-point scale anchored at 7 as ‘very likely.’ We conducted a follow-up survey about officers’ beliefs and attitudes and their actual utilization of FIP strategies, which was administered from June through August of 2019, ranging from 2 to 13 months following the training. Asked whether they attempted “to apply the FIP training in your duties over the last month,” 42 percent said they had not, 31 percent said they attempted to use the bias-management strategies sometimes, and 27 percent said they attempted using them frequently. Comparing the follow-up survey responses to those on the days of training, we also detected some decay in the immediate effects of the training on officers’ comprehension of the science of implicit bias. The impact of police training is likely to be greater when it is supported by other organizational forces, of which immediate supervisors may be the most important. We surveyed sergeants post-training. We found that most sergeants view monitoring for bias as one of their responsibilities, and that they are willing to intervene as needed with v individual officers. One-quarter reported that they had intervened with an officer whose performance warranted intervention. Slightly more than half of the sergeants reportedly address issues of implicit bias during roll calls,