Introduction

Abstract

Research indicates significant disparities in terms of the extent to which police intervene with various groups, including, but not limited to, groups defined by race and ethnicity. The two major explanations for these disparities are differential behavior (for instance, greater involvement of various groups in criminal behavior and/or resistance against police) and police bias. Bias in policing can take the form of explicit bias or implicit bias. The former is what one usually envisions when thinking about prejudice and bias. It is overt, deliberate, and conscious. Implicit biases, like explicit biases, can impact on a person’s perceptions and behavior, but these biases can manifest outside of conscious awareness, even in individuals who reject biases, prejudice, and stereotypes. The scientists who have studied implicit bias lament that discussions about, and interventions to address, biased behavior have focused only on explicit biases and have not recognized implicit biases. This is true for the policing realm as well; the focus only on explicit bias has had negative consequences for police-community relations, the police response to the issue of biased policing, and the interventions used to address it. The purpose of the book is to bring the modern science of bias to the profession of policing.

The profound implication of the discovery of implicit prejudice is that anybody is capable of prejudice, whether they know it or not, and of stereotyping, whether they want to or not.

(Hardin and Banaji, 2013, p. 23).