It seems like common sense that if you want someone to do something for you, you would simply ask or tell that individual what you need to be accomplished. It would seem that this strategy of simply telling people what you need, is a better strategy than expecting people to intuitively know or read subtle hints about what you need. Unfortunately, there is evidence to suggest that leaders in law enforcement agencies, especially first-line supervisors, rarely give their team members clear instructions about what needs to be done.

One study, for example, involved observers attending 251 roll call briefings and ride-alongs with patrol officers on the Baltimore Police Department. The observers found that in only 4% of the shifts did supervisors give their officers any sort of directives or tasks. Even when tasks or directives were given, they were often stated in a vague way, such as “There has been an increase in burglaries in the Hampden neighborhood, so let’s give that neighborhood some extra attention.”¹

In another study, 955 patrol officers from four mid-sized city police departments were surveyed about how often their immediate supervisors gave them a specific task or directive. Of the officers surveyed, 20% answered sometimes, 32% said rarely, and 39% responded never. Only 9% of these officers indicated their immediate supervisors often gave them a specific task or directive.²

Perhaps one of the reasons first-line supervisors are reluctant to assign tasks and give directives is that they are unsure of what the command staff above them wants or expects. One study, involving the patrol divisions of three city police departments, illustrates this point. In each of the three departments, the commander of the patrol division was given a list of 20 potential priorities for patrol officers. The patrol commanders (all captains) were directed to pick the three most important priorities for his or her patrol officers. Then the lieutenants and sergeants within the patrol divisions were given the same list of 20 priorities and asked to identify the three priorities their captain had picked. Of the 7 lieutenants in the study, none of them correctly identified all 3 of their captain’s top priorities, and only 4 lieutenants (57%) correctly identified one of the priorities their captain selected. Of the 24 sergeants surveyed, all failed to identify all 3 of their captain’s priorities for patrol officers. In fact, only 14 sergeants (58%) correctly identified at least one of the priorities their captain selected.³

Effectively Communicating Expectations

These studies suggest that, at least among some agencies, patrol officers (and field supervisors) are not receiving clear messages from their supervisors about work priorities and expectations. One survey of a sample of patrol officers tried to tap into what officers want when it comes to communicating expectations. Given a list of a number of ways supervisors could communicate work performance expectations, these patrol officers were asked to select the methods they wished their supervisors would use to communicate performance expectations. The five most selected responses, in order of popularity, were as follows:

1. Reward good performance
2. Provide verbal feedback on performance
3. Model expected performance
4. Put directives and instructions in writing, such as in a memo or email
5. Address or discipline poor performance

There were no differences in these choices between male and female officers, officers with a college education and less-educated officers, and officers of different races. Veteran officers, however, emphasized the first three – rewards, verbal feedback, and modeling behavior – more strongly than rookie officers who emphasized all five.⁴

Conclusion

Street-level policing is a very complex job. Patrol officers are often the youngest and least experienced members of our organization, yet are faced with the most diverse and complex responsibilities. They need guidance and direction from their leaders to ensure they are doing their jobs right and meeting the expectations of their respective agencies. It appears, however, that many patrol officers are not getting the guidance they need from their supervisors, and many supervisors do not have a firm grasp of the priorities held by their command staff. There are five important techniques leaders at all levels of the organization can take to correct these weaknesses.

Leaders can use informal rewards, such as assigning an officer to his or her preferred beat or vehicle, to reward good performance and signal that good things come to those who perform in desirable ways. Providing verbal feedback is also effective, as it is easier just to say what you want rather than just vaguely hint at what you need. Modeling proper behavior demonstrates to your officers – with real examples – what it is you expect of them. Like with verbal feedback, clearly putting what you need in writing through a memo or email is better than hinting at your expectations, or expecting officers to read your mind. Finally, confronting improper performance signals to officers what behaviors are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

All of these methods of communicating expectations and holding officers accountable require fundamental proactivity on the part of front-line supervisors. This means supervisors need to be leaders who routinely engage with their officers. They need to be in the field to check up on their officers and observe them at work. They need to pursue clarification from the command staff about their unit’s priorities and clearly communicate these priorities to their team. In essence, it means being a Street Sergeant.

 

References
¹ Famega, C. N., Frank, J., Mazerolle, L. (2005). Managing police patrol time: the role of
supervisor directives. Justice Quarterly, 22(4), 540-559.
² As yet unpublished data gathered by the author from surveys in Akron and Columbus, Ohio,
Louisville Kentucky, and Knoxville, Tennessee, from 2010-2012.
³ Johnson, R. R. (2010). Goal diffusion and miscommunication across rank levels. Law
Enforcement Executive Forum, 11(3), 53-63.
⁴ Johnson, R. R. (2008). Effectively communicating performance expectations to subordinates:
patrol officer perceptions. Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 9(5), 103-113.

A number of sources have claimed that public employees are influenced by implicit biases. The U.S. Department of Justice, the Police Executive Research Forum, and the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, for example, have suggested that law enforcement officers hold unconscious, implicit biases against people of color.¹ It has been argued that these implicit biases cause police officers to enforce the law in ways that discriminate against members of racial minority groups. Similar claims have been made against prosecutors, judges, and probation officers as an explanation for the disproportionate representation of racial minorities in our prisons and jails. Allegations have also been leveled against teachers and school administrators, suggesting that they treat white students preferentially over minority students, and that they do so as a result of these same unconscious, implicit biases.²

One of the remedies often suggested to address implicit bias is some form of implicit bias training.³ Are these claims supported by the available evidence? The purpose of this brief is the factual examination of the empirical evidence surrounding the concept of implicit bias, implicit bias tests, and the relationship between implicit bias test scores and actual discriminatory behavior.

What is Implicit Bias?

In recent years the concept of implicit bias has received a great deal of attention in the United States. Implicit bias is an idea suggesting that, regardless of our conscious thoughts and feelings, we each hold biased judgements in our subconscious against people that are different. For example, it has been argued that Caucasian people who make a concerted effort to avoid discriminating against African-Americans still hold untrue racist stereotypes and opinions about AfricanAmericans in their subconscious minds.⁴ It has even been asserted that individuals often hold negative implicit bias attitudes toward members of their own racial or gender group. In other words, African-American teachers may be more punitive toward African-American students because society has imbedded into their subconscious false stereotypes about African-Americans as poorly performing students.⁵

It has been asserted that these hidden, unconscious biases cause individuals to act in discriminatory ways toward others, even though individuals do not consciously intend to do so. Advocates of the concept of implicit bias suggest that these unconscious biases result in many instances of discrimination against women and members of racial minority groups. These instances of discrimination include hiring, promotion, and assignment discrimination in the workplace, grade and punishment discrimination within schools, and diagnostic and treatment decisions within hospitals and doctors’ offices.⁶ Accusations have been made that implicit bias is affecting the decisions of those who work within the criminal justice system. Police officers, prosecutors, judges, corrections officers, and probation / parole officers have been accused of making decisions biased against African-Americans due to implicit biases.⁷

The concept of implicit bias, first developed by sociologists during the 1960s, has led to the creation of psychological tests in the 1990s that purport to measure one’s unconscious, hidden biases.⁸ Training workshops have sprouted up in the 2010s that are designed to help individuals discover and confront their implicit biases.⁹

How do Implicit Bias Tests Work?

The first step in addressing implicit bias is to determine if one suffers from it. As mentioned above, in the 1990s some psychologists began attempting to design tests that could measure one’s implicit bias. Today there are a variety of tests that purport to measure implicit bias with regard to a number
of biases, such as racist biases, sexist biases, homophobic biases, socioeconomic biases, and biases against persons with disabilities.¹⁰ Because there are a number of tests, created by various researchers, designed to test for different types of biases, it is difficult to address every one of these tests. This report, therefore, will focus primarily on the most commonly used test, known as the Implied Association Test (IAT). The IAT has variations designed to test for different types of biases (i.e., racial versus gender biases), but all of the IAT tests use a similar methodology.¹¹

An IAT generally operates in the following manner. First, the test-taker is required to complete a sorting task on a computer. The test-taker is presented with one category on the right side of the screen, and a second category on the left side of the screen. Words will appear in the center of the screen and the test-taker must assign the word to one of the two categories by hitting a corresponding key on either the right or left side of the computer’s keyboard. For example, the categories into which things must be sorted might be “good” and “bad.” The test-taker is given meaning-laden words such as “despicable,” “ethical,” or “evil” that must be assigned to one category or the other (“good” or “bad”). The test-taker is encouraged to answer as quickly as possible and respond to the first impulse that comes to mind. Next, the test-taker completes another categorization exercise, this time categorizing photos of faces of whites and blacks into categories labelled as “black” or “white.” The test-taker must then sort the photos into the two categories, again using the computer keys and with encouragement to continue to answer swiftly.

As the test continues, the test then begins to use categories that pair the previous categories encountered. For example, the test-taker may have to sort into the categories “black / good” and “white / bad.” When a photo of an African-American face appears, the test-taker should assign the photo to the “black / good” category because that is where the black face belongs (i.e., because of the “black” category, not the “good” category). When the test-taker encounters a word like “wicked,” it should be assigned to the category “white / bad” because that is where words denoting “bad” belong (not because of any association with the category “white”). The test-taker must rapidly assign a quick succession of both faces and good / bad attribute words. As the test goes on, the categories will switch pairings (i.e., “white / bad” will become “white / good” and vice versa) and the category pairings will also switch sides of the screen as the test-taker has to quickly keep categorizing names and attribute words appropriately for several minutes.

What the test is measuring is how often the test-taker associates the bias category – racial bias against African-Americans in this example – with the two different attribute categories. For example, does the test-taker, while rapidly trying to categorize words into categories that quickly change titles and positions on the screen, assign more of the negative attribute words to one race group than the other? In our example here, we would be measuring if the test-taker assigns (correctly or incorrectly) more words associated with “bad” to the “black” category and more words associated with “good” to the “white” category. The degree these words are not equally assigned to both race categories is supposed to indicate the degree of racial implicit bias the test-taker holds.¹²

As this is how implicit bias is purportedly measured, obvious flaws appear to be evident in the detection of implicit biases. First, the fact that in study after study, almost all individuals test positive for some level of implicit bias, even against their own racial and gender group, has caused many researchers to suggest that this is evidence these tests lack validity. Women who consider themselves to be very liberal and strongly identify with feminist ideals still test positive for implicit sexist biases against women. Likewise, African-American individuals who identify themselves to be very liberal and consider themselves to be conscious of race issues can also test positive for biases against blacks. This has led many scientists to question the validity of these tests.¹³ Imagine someone developed a test to detect stomach cancer. What if, during clinical trials with people with and without cancer, 100% of those who took the test tested positive for stomach cancer? The researchers involved would question the test’s validity. The same thinking should apply here.

Another flaw is that there are no middle-ground options to the test-taker. The test-taker may think neither whites nor blacks should be associated with words like “good” or “bad,” yet the test-taker is forced to make a categorization one way or the other. In cases like this, the test does not measure the test-taker’s real attitude, only his or her forced response to contrived categorization exercises designed to force the test-taker to answer in a biased manner toward one group or another. Perhaps this explains why people who no one would ever suspect of being biased
– especially against their own group – still can test high for implicit bias.

A third issue with IAT test methods is that while they claim to be measuring stereotypes about certain groups, they are sometimes actually measuring statistical realities. On some racial bias IAT tests, for example, other categorizations are used. These tests require the test-taker to categorize whites and blacks by attributes that include wealth or crime involvement. In these cases, is a person truly racist if he or she, under the stress of time and moving categories, categorizes “poor” as a black trait and “rich” as a white trait? After all, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 27% of African-Americans live in poverty while only 10% of non-Hispanic whites live in poverty.¹⁴ African-Americans, therefore, are 170% more likely than are whites to live in poverty. This is why the government and nonprofit organizations have poverty relief programs dedicated to African-American communities. When discussing generalities, African-Americans are generally less financially wealthy than are whites. Again, this is statistical reality rather than an implicit bias. Also remember that this is a forced choice, and the test-taker must choose one of the two categories with no “neither” option.

Implicit Bias Tests and Actual Biased Behavior

If IATs actually measure implicit biases, and these unconscious biases affect our behaviors, then there should be a direct correlation between a person’s implicit bias test score and the degree of bias in that person’s behaviors. Numerous empirical research studies have now been conducted to examine whether this correlation actually exists.

Many individual studies have examined whether the IAT, or other implicit bias tests, can predict actual biased behaviors. There have been numerous individual studies, examining different types of biases, using varying sample sizes, and various measures of biased behavior. These studies have produced a mixture of findings that have often conflicted, in part because the individual differences between tests in how they were conducted differed so markedly. Several teams of researchers, however, have tried to decipher if any trends have appeared across these studies.

In 2009, the research team that originally created the IAT tests conducted a review of the existing studies at the time. After reviewing 122 studies of various IAT test types (racial test, gender test, etc.), this team concluded that there was evidence implicit bias test scores predicted peoples’ biased judgements and behaviors, though the influence was small.¹⁵

Additional major reviews in 2009 and 2013 conducted by large, neutral, independent teams of researchers from numerous major universities across the U.S. have found different results. These teams of scientists came from such prestigious institutions as the University of California at Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, University of Connecticut, Texas A&M University, New York University, Rice University, City University of New York, and Florida International University. Because there were so few studies examining other types of bias, these researchers only examined studies that evaluated the racism IAT and excluded studies that examined other types of bias, such gender bias, or sexual-orientation biases.¹⁶

These teams examined 46 published studies that involved 5,600 total persons tested. All of these studies involved college students who were given the racial bias IAT test before participating in laboratory experiments designed to measure biased behaviors. The experiments involved such activities as rating the academic ability of students of various races, engaging in board games that required varying levels of cooperation with partners of different races, and conducting mock job interviews of job applicants of various races. The examination of all 46 studies in existence at the time of the investigation revealed that racial bias IAT test scores showed no significant relationship with biased behaviors observed during these experiments. Study after study showed either no association between IAT scores and biased behavior, or only a very weak association.¹⁷

The research teams also noted that only some of the studies tried to control for overt racist attitudes when measuring implicit bias. In other words, did people that openly expressed racist attitudes also score high in implicit bias? The research team found that people who openly espouse racist beliefs generally were no more or less likely to have a high implicit bias score, but those who were openly racist did demonstrate more racially biased behaviors during the experiments. After removing those who were openly racist, the researchers found that the implicit bias test scores of the test subjects that remained had no correlation with racially biased behaviors in the experiments. In other words, openly biased attitudes seemed to predict racially biased behaviors rather than individuals with some hidden, deeply unconscious psychological bias.¹⁸

These findings were published in many prominent psychology research journals and additional studies are continually produced today that question the validity of implicitly biased behaviors. Here are just a few criminal justice system examples.

One study involved a sample of law students who were given the sexism IAT as well as a test to measure their openly sexist attitudes toward women. The sample of law students was almost equally divided between men and women. After completing their IAT, these future lawyers were then put through several tasks, such as judging the attributes of several persons being considered for appointment to positions as judges, and proposing budget cuts to the university by eliminating organizations, services, and programs that might impact men and women differently.¹⁹

This study found that most of the law students, regardless of sex, showed some level of implicit bias against women on the IAT test. No relationship was found between the implicit bias scores and the scores on the openly sexist test. This shows that even some who are openly sexist score low on implicit sexist bias, and vice versa. The participants’ implicit bias test scores were also found to be completely unrelated to any gender bias they displayed in the two exercises they were given – rating the judicial appointees and making the budget cuts. In fact, very little gender bias was shown by any of the participants in these two tasks.²⁰

Another study involved a sample of 80 experienced police officers who completed the IAT test for implicit racism. After completing the implicit bias test, each officer engaged in 24 very realistic use of lethal force training scenarios over the course of four days. The officers encountered “shoot / don’t shoot” video scenarios in a firearms training simulator (FATS) machine that required the officers to decide, under stress, whether or not it was legally appropriate to shoot a potential criminal suspect visually displayed in an interactive video scenario. If the suspect’s behavior required the officer to use lethal force, the officer was expected to draw and fire his or her weapon at the suspect. Computerized laser technology measured how quickly the officer drew the weapon, fired the weapon, and whether or not the officer’s aim would have resulted in a bullet accurately hitting the suspect. In each of these high-stress scenarios the race of the suspect was manipulated so that in some scenarios the suspect was black, and in others the suspect was white. The circumstances of the scenarios were also altered so that in some scenarios lethal force would have been justified, but not in others.²¹

The researchers measured if the officers were more likely to shoot the suspect in error (when not legally justified to do so) if the suspect was black as opposed to white. The researchers also looked for race differences between white and black suspects in how quickly the officers drew and fired their weapons, and how accurately they shot. The findings revealed that the officers were generally slower to shoot armed black suspects posing a lethal threat than they were to shoot armed white suspects, suggesting a bias toward shooting whites rather than blacks. The officers rarely shot a suspect when not legally justified to do so, but when errors did occur, whites were more likely to be shot incorrectly. Shooting accuracy did not appear to differ by suspect race. Importantly, the officers’ implicit bias test scores were completely unrelated to their shooting decision behaviors. Neither a high, nor a low, implicit bias score resulted in biased shooting behavior against either black or white suspects.²²

Implicit Bias Training

Supporters of the implicit bias idea have asserted that training is needed to reveal to individuals their implicit biases, and help these individuals to overcome their hidden biases when they act within the workplace. Implicit bias training seminars are widespread and government entities and businesses across the nation are requiring their employees to undergo implicit bias training. For example, numerous school districts are requiring staff to complete this training, as are law enforcement agencies, courts, and hospitals.²³

At present there are no published studies that have evaluated the ability of these implicit bias training courses to reduce implicit bias attitudes or behaviors.²⁴ This is surprising since all one needs to do is have the participants complete an IAT test before the training and then repeat the test after the training to see if the participants’ implicit bias test scores when down. Unfortunately, because no evidence exists to determine the effectiveness of these implicit bias training courses, we can only speculate as to their effectiveness by comparing this training to the effectiveness of racial diversity training.

Even though racial diversity training has been conducted for decades, there is little published research on this topic with regards to whether or not this training has any effect on attitudes or behaviors. Reviews of the 30 or so existing studies have evaluated the influence of multicultural education on racial attitudes among grade school students, college students, and police officers. These studies have consistently revealed no lasting influence on participants’ racial attitudes, especially attitudes toward African-Americans.²⁵ As it is safe to say that there is no evidence that traditional multicultural or racial diversity training has any significant positive influence on people’s attitudes or behavior, how much less likely is implicit bias training to have an effect on attitudes and behaviors?

Proponents of the implicit bias concept suggest that implicit biases are deeply ingrained in our unconscious mind. Assuming this was true, how could attending a training session be expected to have any impact on one’s subconscious thoughts and motives? It would seem more plausible that such a condition could only be corrected through many months or years of intensive therapy. Currently, the only psychological therapies used to address unconscious beliefs involve hypnosis and sedative-hypnotic drugs.²⁶

Therefore, if implicit biases actually exist, it is doubtful that mandating training is likely to impact it. If, on the other hand, implicit bias does not really exist, such implicit bias training only serves to insult and harm the attendees by trying to convince them they possess biases that they do not.

Conclusions

The empirical research evidence reviewed here leads to four major conclusions. First, implicit bias test scores may lack validity, simply by their construction alone. The forced choice nature of the categorization tasks they require compel people to associate politically charged words with one group or another, and do not permit the test-taker to suggest the words are equally associated with both groups. Test responses are judged to be prejudicial even when they are statistically more accurate generalities of the group described (i.e., whites generally wealthier than blacks). Even people who outwardly show no signs of bias can score high in bias on these tests, and research has repeatedly revealed no association between implicit bias test scores and openly biased attitudes. These facts call the validity of implicit bias tests into question.

The second major conclusion is that there is no significant link between implicit bias test scores and actual biased behaviors. No matter whether one is examining games and role-playing exercises between undergraduate college students in psychology labs, or realistic lethal force
decision-making scenarios with experienced police officers, time and again implicit bias test scores fail to predict any actual biased behaviors.

A third conclusion is that implicit bias, if it exists, is unlikely to be corrected or transformed by any interventions that short-term group training can offer. If such biases exist at the deeply subconscious level, the social or psychological processes that created them must have been significant and accumulated over some length of time. As a result, it seems irrational to believe that simply taking a training course would reverse their influences. If these biases operate at the deeply unconscious level, it would seem unreasonable to believe that simply being aware that these biases exist would be enough to overcome them. There seems to be no available evidence indicating that implicit biases are corrected or transformed by training.

The final conclusion that can be reached from this report is the clear evidence that holding explicit, open biases do result in biased behaviors. If an individual holds openly racist views against African-Americans, that person is likely to act in ways that discriminate against AfricanAmericans. If a person is openly sexist and hostile towards women, then that person is very likely to act prejudicially against women. While the research supporting implicit bias and its alleged effects is very weak, there is little doubt about the effects of overt, openly biased attitudes on behavior.

The public policy implications of these conclusions appear clear. First, it would be counterintuitive for organizations such as schools, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, courts, and businesses to utilize finite training resources to address a perceived hidden bias problem for which there is little credible evidence. Perhaps the money and time spent on training and testing regarding implicit biases could be put to better use elsewhere. Second, it would seem counterproductive to try to improve race and gender relations by falsely accusing employees of being subconscious racists or chauvinists. These inflammatory assertions are being made without significant proof.

The final clear policy implication is that those who are openly biased toward other groups should be prevented from holding positions of authority. People who are openly racist should never hold life-and-death power over other people, such as in the role of a police officer or judge. People who are openly sexist should never be given the opportunity to decide who gets hired into an organization or promoted within the organization. The evidence suggests that people who are openly biased in word are openly biased in deed. The evidence also suggests that those who do not hold consciously biased views do not have to worry that they are actually, deep down in their subconscious, bigots.

 

References
¹ Edwards, J. (June 27, 2016). Justice Department mandates implicit bias training for agents, lawyers. Reuters. Downloaded from: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-justice-biasexclusive-idUSKCN0ZD251; Fridell, L. (June, 2014). Psychological research has changed how
we approach the issue of biased policing. Subject to Debate, 4-5; President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015). President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Final Report. Washington, DC: Office of the U.S. President.

² Staats, C. (2016). Understanding implicit bias: what educators should know. American Educator, 39(4), 29-43.

³ Parascandola, R. (July 15, 2016). NYPD to develop training curriculum based on noted academic Dr. Phillip Goff’s analysis of implicit bias. New York Daily News. Downloaded from: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/exclusive-nypd-develop-implicit-bias-trainingcurriculum-article-1.2713332

⁴ Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102, 4–27.

⁵ Anderson, M. D. (September 28, 2016). Even black preschool teachers are biased. The Atlantic. Downloaded from: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09/the-highstandard-set-by-black-teachers-for-black-students/501989/

⁶ Jost, J. T., Rudman, L. A., Blair, I. V., Camey, D. R., Dasgupta, N., Glaser, J., & Hardin, C. D. (2009). The existence of implicit bias is beyond reasonable doubt: a refutation of ideological and methodological objections and executive summary of ten studies that no manager should ignore. Research in Organizational Behavior, 29, 39-69.

⁷ Edwards, J. (June, 2016).

⁸ Greenwald & Banaji (1995); Jost et al. (2009).

⁹ Flannery, M. E. (September 9, 2015). When implicit bias shapes teacher expectations. NEA Today, Downloaded from: http://neatoday.org/2015/09/09/when-implicit-bias-shapes-teacherexpectations/; Fridell, L. (2016). Fair and Impartial Policing: A Science-Based Approach. New York, NY: Springer Publishing.

¹⁰ Greenwald, A. G., & Krieger, L. H. (2006). Implicit bias: scientific foundations. California Law Review, 94(4), 945-967.

¹¹ Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480.

¹² Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz (1998); Nosek, B. A., Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (2007). The Implicit Association Test at age 7: A methodological and conceptual review (pp. 265–292). In J. A. Bargh (Ed.), Automatic Processes in Social Thinking and Behavior. New
York, NY: Psychology Press.

¹³ Blanton, H., & Jaccard, J. (2015). Not so fast: ten challenges to importing implicit attitude measures to media psychology. Media Psychology, 18(3), 338-369; Oswald, F., Mitchell, G., Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., & Tetlock, P. (2015). Using the IAT to predict ethnic and racial discrimination: small effect sizes of unknown societal significance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Studies, 108(4), 562-571.

¹⁴ U.S. Census Bureau (2016). Income and Poverty in the United States: 2015. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

¹⁵ Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. L., & Banaji, M. R. (2009). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test II: Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(1), 17-41.

¹⁶ Blanton, H., & Jaccard, J. (2015). Not so fast: ten challenges to importing implicit attitude measures to media psychology. Media Psychology, 18(3), 338-369; Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., & Burrows, C. N. (2015). Implications of the implicit association test D-transformation for psychological assessment. Assessment, 22(4), 429-440; Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., Klick, J., Mellers, B., Mitchell, G., & Tetlock, P. E. (2009). Strong claims and weak evidence: reassessing the predictive validity of the IAT. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(3), 567-582; Landy, F. J. (2008). Stereotypes, bias, and personnel decisions: strange and stranger. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1(4), 379-392; Oswald, F., Mitchell, G., Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., & Tetlock, P. (2013). Predicting ethnic and racial discrimination: a meta-analysis of IAT criterion studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Studies, 105(2), 171-192; Oswald, F., Mitchell, G., Blanton, H., Jaccard, J., & Tetlock, P. (2015). Using the IAT to predict ethnic and racial discrimination: small effect sizes of unknown societal significance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Studies, 108(4), 562-571.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Levinson, J. D., & Young, D. (2010). Implicit gender bias in the legal profession: an empirical study. Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, 18(1), 1-44.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ James, L., James, S. M., & Vila, B. J. (2016). The reverse racism effect: Are cops more hesitant to shoot black than white suspects? Criminology and Public Policy, 15(2), 457-479; James, L., Klinger, D. A., & Villa, B. J. (2014). Racial and ethnic bias in decisions to shoot seen through a stronger lens: experimental results from high-fidelity laboratory simulations. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10(3), 323-340.

²² Ibid.

²³ Edwards, (2016); Fridell, L. (2016). Fair and Impartial Policing: A Science-Based Approach. New York, NY: Springer Publishing; President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015); Staats, (2016).

²⁴ See Zarya, V. (November 10, 2015). I failed this test on racism and sexism – and so will you. Fortune. Downloaded from: http://fortune.com/2015/11/10/test-racism-sexism-unconscious-bias/

²⁵ Bigler, R. C. (1999). The use of multicultural curricula and materials to counter racism in children. Journal of Social Issues, 55(4), 687-705; Paluck, E. L. (2006). Diversity training and intergroup contact: a call for action research. Journal of Social Issues, 62(3), 577-595; Paluck, E. L., & Green, D. P. (2009). Prejudice reduction What works?: a review and assessment of research and practice. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 339-367; Pendry, L. F., Driscoll, D. M., & Field, S. (2007). Diversity training: putting theory into practice. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 80(1), 27-50; Stewart, T. L., LaDuke, J. R., Bracht, C., Sweet, B., & Gamarel, K. E. (2003). Do the ‘eyes” have it? A program evaluation of Jane Elliott’s “blue eyes / brown eyes” diversity training exercise. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(9), 1898-

²⁶ Garson, L. (2006). Surviving Babylon: A Journey through Repressed Memories of Sexual Abuse. New York, NY: Alexander Griffin Co.; Spiegel, D. (1997). Repressed Memories. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.

Leadership in law enforcement, especially at the street level, is extremely important at a time when there is evidence of de-policing in certain neighborhoods and communities across the country, contributing to rising crime levels in those areas._ⁱ There is a strong temptation for many officers, in light of a barrage of negative media attention and other demoralizing influences, to engage in less pro-active policing.

Even more concerning is the temptation on the part of supervisors to concede that forces outside of their control—such as negative media coverage, political leadership and agency administrators—render them powerless to motivate their people to actively engage on patrol rather than simply answering calls for service.

But the available research suggests that front-line leaders have the ability to take the lead in a given precinct, district or department to overcome this temptation to “kill time” in between calls for service. This research indicates that the actions of front-line law enforcement leaders can have a substantial influence on officer morale and officer work productivity._ⁱⁱ The idea underlying this influence is a simple but vital one: leading by example.

Leadership by Example: The Evidence

A number of studies have revealed the power of leadership by example among patrol supervisors within law enforcement agencies. One study examined computer-aided dispatch (CAD) data from two suburban law enforcement agencies, one in Wisconsin and the other in Massachusetts. Proactive activities recorded in the CAD were tracked for 11 field supervisors (sergeants and lieutenants) and 68 patrol officers over 320 shifts. The proactive investigative activities of the patrol supervisors – such as vehicle stops, pedestrian stops, business walk-throughs, or after-hours building security checks – were compared to the same proactive activities of the patrol officers working on the same shift. This examination revealed that when the patrol supervisors engaged in proactive investigative activities, their patrol officers responded exponentially with proactive activities of their own. ⁱⁱⁱ

In both departments (separated by a thousand miles), the same results occurred. On shifts where the supervisor never left the station, most of the patrol officers failed to engage in any proactive activities at all. On shifts when a supervisor went out on patrol, but never engaged in any proactive activity, the patrol officers averaged a little less than one proactive activity each. On shifts where the field supervisor engaged in self-initiated activity, the amount of proactive activities by the patrol officers also increased. In other words, simply leaving the station resulted in an increase in proactivity and supervisors personally engaging in proactivity correlated with a substantial increase on the part of the officers.^_iv

The Effects of Supervisor Proactive Activity on Total Shift Proactive Activity

Another study, conducted by Criminologist Robin Engel, observed 79 field supervisors (sergeants and lieutenants) in Indianapolis, Indiana and St. Petersburg, Florida. The shift activities of these supervisors were then matched with the work activities of the patrol officers they supervised during the shift. The results revealed that supervisors who were routinely out in the field, proactively showing up at calls and making stops of their own, had the greatest influence over the work behaviors of the patrol officers on the shift. Officers working on a shift with a proactive sergeant in the field were more likely to make vehicle and pedestrian stops, make criminal arrests, and engage in problem-oriented policing activities.^_v

Another study surveyed 64 road patrol duties with a sheriff department in Ohio. The deputies were asked the following question. “If you were faced with a new situation that you were unsure about how to handle, in which of the following ways would you be most likely to handle it?” Only 5% of the deputies indicated they would make up a new solution on their own, and 35% indicated they would handle the situation like they thought their peers would handle it. However, 60% said they would handle the situation like they think their immediate supervisor would handle it. These deputies acknowledged that they watch and imitate their supervisors.^_vi

Finally, a study of the influence that field supervisors have on the amount of time patrol officers spend on personal business while on duty. On-duty personal activities include such things as taking extended meal breaks, visiting a family member or any other activities completely unrelated to their patrol duties. Data for this study were gathered from the observation of 906 patrol officers, and 27 field supervisors, from 24 municipal police departments in Florida, New York, and Missouri.^_vii

The number of minutes each patrol officer spent on breaks and personal business activities was compared with the number of minutes the shift supervisor engaged in breaks and personal activities. The number of calls for service handled by each officer was the strongest predictor of time spent on personal business – the more calls handled by the officer, the less time the officer had to spend on personal business. After controlling for the number of calls handled by each officer, the next greatest predictor of time on personal business was the number of minutes the supervisor also spent shirking. For every minute the supervisor spent on personal business, all of the officers on that shift also spent more time on personal activities.^_viii

The converse was also true. The less time field supervisors spent on personal activities while on duty, the less time their patrol officers spent on personal activities. Supervisors were also found to influence patrol officer shirking in one other way. For every face-to-face contact the officer had with a supervisor while in the field, the amount of time the officer spent on personal activities was reduced. Radio or phone contact with officers, and face-to-face contact at the station, did not have this effect. Only face-to-face contact in the field reduced patrol officer shirking.^_ix

Conclusion

The available evidence appears to refute the idea that front-line supervisors are limited in their ability to impact officer proactivity due to influences beyond their control. This evidence consistently shows what many seasoned leaders know to be true: that patrol supervisors “leading from the front” can have a substantial influence on the work activities of the subordinates on their shift. When field supervisors mostly stay in the station house, and primarily engage in personal business activities when they do venture out, their patrol officers are more likely to avoid proactive investigative or crime-prevention activities, try to avoid taking reports or making arrests, and frequently engage in personal activities while on-duty.

On the other hand, supervisors who act as “street sergeants”—leading from the front rather than waiting to be called upon—lead much more productive and motivated officers. Street sergeants spend time in the field, proactively backing up their officers on calls and stops, occasionally engaging in proactive activity of their own, and not engaging in personal business beyond the time allotted for their breaks. Street sergeants are more likely to have officers who engage in proactive investigative and crime-preventing activity, engage in problem-oriented policing strategies, take reports, make arrests, and avoid on-duty shirking.

The most effective way to increase your officers’ engagement in vehicle stops, pedestrian stops, business walk-throughs and other pro-active “out of car experiences” on patrol may well be to practice what you preach.

Your officers are watching. Which kind of supervisor do you want to be?

 

^_i MacDonald, H. (2016). The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe. New York, NY: Encounter Books; Oliver, W. M. (2015). Depolicing: rhetoric or reality? Criminal Justice Policy Review, online first, 1-25; Pyrooz, D. C., Decker, S. D., Wolfe, S., E., & Shjarback, J. A. (2016). Was there a Ferguson effect on crime rates in large U.S. cities. Journal of Criminal Justice, 46(1), 1-8; Wolfe, S. E., & Nix, J. (2016). The alleged “Ferguson Effect” and police willingness to engage in community partnership. Law and Human Behavior, 40(1), 1-10.

^_ii Johnson, R. R. (2012). Police officer job satisfaction: a multidimensional analysis. Police Quarterly, 15(2), 157-176; Johnson, R. R. (2015). Police organizational commitment: the influence of supervisor feedback and support. Crime and Delinquency, 61(9), 1155-1180; Nix, J. & Wolfe, S. E. (2016). Sensitivity to the Ferguson Effect: The role of managerial organizational justice. Journal of Criminal Justice, 47(1), 12-20.
^_iii Johnson, R. R. (2015). Leading by example: supervisor modeling and officer-initiated activities. Police Quarterly, 18(3), 223-243.
^_iv Ibid.
^_v Engel, R. S. (2000). The effects of supervisor styles on patrol officer behavior. Police Quarterly, 3(3), 262-293.
^_vi Johnson, R. R. (2008). Effectively communicating performance expectations to subordinates: patrol officer perceptions. Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 9(5), 103-113.
^_vii Johnson, R. R. (2008). Field supervisor behavior and officer on-duty personal business. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 10(3), 339-348.
^_viii Ibid.
^_ix Ibid.

In the wake of a significant increase in officer deaths from violent attacks and unceasing criticism by media outlets, political figures and other groups in 2016, citizen satisfaction and confidence in the police in America has actually rebounded from a pattern of decline that has been going on since the early 1970s. In 1968, Gallup Poll data showed 78% of Americans had “a great deal” of confidence and satisfaction with their local police. Since that year, confidence and satisfaction in the police has declined, bottoming out at 47% satisfaction in 2015. In the latter half of 2016, however, citizen satisfaction and confidence in the police rebounded, with 76% of Americans indicating that they had “a great deal” of confidence in the police as of October, 2016.¹

A national disconnect continues to exist, however, between the law enforcement profession and members of racial and ethnic minority groups. The recent Gallup poll data continues to reveal that African-Americans and Hispanics express less satisfaction or confidence in the police than do Whites. Nationwide, non-whites are still 20% to 40% less likely than whites to have confidence in the police. In fact, less than 50% of African-Americans surveyed by Gallup in 2016 had confidence that police officers would treat them fairly.²

Think about that. One out of every two African-Americans has a mistrust of law enforcement. This is a national problem in law enforcement that needs to be addressed. But how do we address it?

The most common recommendations from civil rights leaders, politicians, and other policy makers is multicultural training for law enforcement officers. In fact, it was a major recommendation in the Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. In this report, under Pillar Five – Training and Education, the Task Force stated that police officer training should include, “implicit bias, fair and impartial policing, historical trauma, and other topics that address capacity to build trust and legitimacy in diverse communities.”³ Many individual states and communities have recently formed commissions that have made similar recommendations.

Is there research evidence that requiring officers to go through multicultural of implicit bias training has any effect on the attitudes and behaviors of officers, or the attitudes and behaviors of citizens? Is there any evidence that these things will “improve understanding and effectiveness in dealing with all communities” as the President’s Task Force has claimed?⁴ After all, similar recommendations have been made by many commissions on law enforcement over the last half century, yet relations between the law enforcement profession and minority communities, especially the African-American community, still remain strained.

Multicultural Awareness Training

The underlying theory behind multicultural awareness training (also known as cultural diversity training) is that if law enforcement officers have greater knowledge of the experiences, histories, and cultural norms of groups other than white males of European descent, they will become “enlightened,” more sensitive to the experiences and cultural norms of others, hold fewer prejudiced opinions, and behave in a less prejudicial manner toward citizens they encounter that are not white males of European descent.⁵ These types of training experiences often involve a combination of video clips, lectures, discussions, and field trips that seek to educate officers. More recently, training in “implicit bias” has arisen. This training informs officers about the prevalence of their unconscious biases and their unconscious racist actions.⁶

Unfortunately, even though such training has been going on for decades, the published research provides no evidence that this sort of training has any effect on attitudes or behaviors of the attendees. The majority of the existing research on police multicultural training simply discusses the amount or type of training conducted, or how the training was perceived by the officers.⁷ Mostly this training is perceived negatively by law enforcement officers and recruits, even among officers who are members of racial minority groups.⁸ Only three studies could be found that examined the effects of this sort of training on officer prejudicial attitudes.

The first study, conducted in 1975 in three police academy classes of the Detroit Police Department, involved diversity training in which white and African-American recruits discussed problems associated with human relationships and responded to role-play scenarios regarding issues of racial diversity.⁹ Compared to control groups of academy cadets who did not receive the training, white recruits who completed the training exhibited more prejudiced attitudes toward African-Americans, but African-American recruits developed more positive attitudes toward whites. More recently, a 2013 study was conducted among police academy recruits in Illinois who completed a block of training on multicultural diversity.¹⁰ Attitude surveys of the recruits before and after the training revealed that the training had no influence on the racial attitudes of the recruits. After learning the results of the study, this police academy changed their multicultural diversity training curriculum, but a second study still found that the new training still had no influence on recruit racial attitudes.¹¹ While the research is limited to only three studies, all three of these studies agree that police multicultural diversity training has no positive influence on officer attitudes.

These findings are also consistent with the research on multicultural training more broadly. One article reviewed 13 studies that evaluated the influence of multicultural education on attitudes among grade school students. Eight of the studies (62%) showed the education had no influence at all on student racial attitudes, and the remaining five only showed limited results, such as only improving attitudes about Asians or Jewish persons, but not African-American or Hispanics.¹² Even among the studies showing limited results, surveys 6 months after the program showed the students’ attitudes had returned to the same levels as before the training. Many more recent studies continue to demonstrate the same results, that multicultural training has no impact on attitudes or behavior.¹³ It is safe to say that there is no evidence that traditional multicultural training has any significant positive influence on attitudes or behavior.

What Actually Breaks Down Racial Barriers?

Princeton University Psychologist Elizabeth Paluck has recommended that multicultural education and training be dropped as the method for reducing prejudice, and replaced with programs that foster intergroup contact. Her research has revealed that when people of different backgrounds (be it a difference in race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, etc.) are required to work cooperatively on a project, or engage in leisure activities together, the biased attitudes of all involved decline. Furthermore, the decline remains consistent for long periods after the experience.¹⁴

Dr. Paluck and her team of researchers at Princeton University have conducted numerous experiments in which research subjects of various races are brought together in small groups and given tasks to work on as a group. These tasks, ranging from party games to sports to complex puzzles, all require the team members to cooperate with one another in order to successfully complete the task. Each of the participants in these experiments also consented to complete surveys on their conscious racial biases before the experiments. After participating in many hours of these tasks, these research subjects were tested again about their conscious racial biases. Time after time, in experiment after experiment, it has been revealed that many months after the experiment, participants still show reduced levels of racial animus against people of other races. They also tend to reveal greater racial diversity among their actual friends and friends on Facebook. Some studies even revealed physiological differences, such a lower heart and respiration rate, when around people of other races after the experiments.

In fact, psychologists Thomas Pettigrew of the University of California, and Linda Tropp of Boston College, examined 515 separate research studies on inter-group contact experiments and found overwhelming support for the argument that these experiences consistently reduce prejudicial attitudes and behaviors, with the effects lasting for months or years.¹⁵ This evidence clearly reveals that situations that cause people of differing groups – blacks and whites, men and women, gay and straight – to cooperatively work together on a common cause, decreases biased attitudes between members of these groups. As people spend quality time with members of different groups, they begin to develop empathy toward one another and they are confronted with experiences that contradict some of the false stereotypes they may have been holding.

Out-of-Car Experiences

These research studies have consistently revealed effectiveness in helping reduce biases between members of different groups, so it makes sense that law enforcement officers and minority citizens interacting in partnership to solve a specific problem can reduce bias and animosity on both sides. Consider, for example, community meetings with African-American residents of a particular apartment complex dealing with a crime problem where the meetings involve breaking into groups consisting of 4-8 citizens and one officer per group, for the purposes of collaboratively developing a response to the crime problem. Based on the research discussed above, it is likely that such an activity requiring officers and citizens to work together will see some preconceived prejudices reduced on both sides. The officers will likely develop a greater understanding of the citizens, and the citizens will develop a greater appreciation for the officers. In fact, research has revealed this type of activity actually does increase citizen satisfaction with the police.

One study, conducted in three neighborhoods in Baltimore, involved officers conducting targeted community problem-solving meetings with neighborhood residents to address crime and disorder. This study surveyed neighborhood residents before these meetings occurred, and then again six months after the meets started occurring. The study revealed that citizen fear of crime had decreased, and citizen satisfaction with the police had increased, after these working meetings began occurring between officers and citizens.¹⁶ Similarly, another study within several neighborhoods of Chicago found that when these types of collaborative community meetings took place, overall citizen satisfaction with the police increased within these neighborhoods.¹⁷

There is extensive evidence that when officers get out of their patrol cars and intentionally focus on getting to know minority citizens on their beats, these informal interactions can also reduce biases for both the officers and the citizens. A review of 13 studies of foot patrols in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia found in every case that foot patrols reduced fear of crime and increased satisfaction with the police among the residents in the neighborhoods where the foot patrols were deployed.¹⁸

Likewise, another article reviewed 6 studies where patrol officers were required to engage in intentional, non-enforcement contact with average citizens on their beat. While conducting routine motor patrol, officers were required to stop during their shifts to meet residents at their homes, or business people at their stores or offices. During these contacts the officers were expected to introduce themselves, and say the purpose of the visit was simply to get acquainted or learn whether there were any problems in the area the citizen felt the police should know about. In all 6 studies, these types of contacts increased overall citizen satisfaction with the police among the residents of the neighborhoods targeted.¹⁹ The Princeton University research on breaking down racial and other barriers suggests that when officers are out of their cars, experiencing life with the people of color in their beats on a daily basis, it will help break down cultural barriers between the police and African-American and Hispanic communities.

Conclusion

The research evidence suggests that multicultural awareness or diversity training generally has no lasting impact on people’s racial attitudes. The research evidence is clear that biases and stereotypes are reduced in people when they spend quality time cooperating on a project with people of different groups. There is also substantial evidence that when police officers work closely with citizens on their beat in community problem-solving meetings, and through informal contacts with average citizens on the beat, overall citizen satisfaction with the police increases. Therefore, perhaps the best way to improve police-minority relations is not to send officers to multicultural or implicit bias training, but rather to send them out to engage in activities that bring them into close contact with average citizens in neighborhoods populated by members of racial minority groups. The available research evidence indicates that law enforcement resources would be put to better use engaging in intentional activities that bring officers and minority citizens in closer contact for the purposes of getting to know each other and working together to solve neighborhood problems.

 

References
¹ Gallup (2014). Urban Blacks in U.S. have Little Confidence in the Police. Omaha, NE: Gallup; Gallup (2016). Americans’ Respect for Police Surges. Omaha, NE: Gallup.

² Gallup (2016).

³ President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015). Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Washington, DC: Department of Justice.

⁴ President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015).

⁵ Schlosser, M. D. (2013). Racial attitudes of police recruits in the United States Midwest police academy: a quantitative examination. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, 8(2), 215-224.

⁶ Paluck, E. L. (2006). Diversity training and intergroup contact: a call for action research. Journal of Social Issues, 62(3), 577-595.

⁷ Blakemore, J. L., Barlow, D., & Padgett, D. L. (1995). From the classroom to the community: introducing process in police diversity training. Police Studies, 18(1), 71-90; Zimny, K. (2015). Racial attitudes of police recruits at the United States Midwest police academy: a second examination. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, 10(1), 91-101.

⁸ Bolton, K., & Feagin, J. (2004). Black in Blue: African-American Police Officers and Racism. New York, NY: Routledge; Cashmore, E. (2002). Behind the window dressing: ethnic minority police perspectives on cultural diversity. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 28(2), 327-341.

⁹ Teahan, J. E. (1975). Role playing and group experience to facilitate attitude and value changes among black and white police officers. Journal of Social Issues, 31(1), 35-45.

¹⁰ Schlosser (2013).

¹¹ Zimny (2015).

¹² Bigler, R. C. (1999). The use of multicultural curricula and materials to counter racism in children. Journal of Social Issues, 55(4), 687-705.

¹³ Paluck, E. L. (2006). Diversity training and intergroup contact: a call for action research. Journal of Social Issues, 62(3), 577-595; Paluck, E. L., & Green, D. P. (2009). Prejudice reduction What works?: a review and assessment of research and practice. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 339-367; Pendry, L. F., Driscoll, D. M., & Field, S. (2007). Diversity training: putting theory into practice. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 80(1), 27-50; Stewart, T. L., LaDuke, J. R., Bracht, C., Sweet, B., & Gamarel, K. E. (2003). Do the ‘eyes” have it? A program evaluation of Jane Elliott’s “blue eyes / brown eyes” diversity training exercise. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(9), 1898-1921.

¹⁴ Paluck (2016).

¹⁵ Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751-783.

¹⁶ Gordner, G. W. (1986). Fear of crime and the police: an evaluation of a fear-reducing strategy. Journal of Police Science & Administration, 14(2), 223-233.

¹⁷ Skogan, W. G., & Hartnett, M. G. (1997). Community Policing: Chicago Style. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

¹⁸ Zhao, J., Scheider, M., & Thurman, Q. (2002). The effect of police presence on public fear reduction and satisfaction: a review of the literature. The Justice Professional, 15(3), 273-299.

¹⁹ Zhao, Scheider, & Thurman, (2002).

Have you ever tried to suspend or terminate an employee for a serious act of misconduct, only to have this discipline reversed by a judge or grievance arbitrator? If so, you are not alone. Current research reveals that 5 out of 10 public employees are successful in having their discipline overturned when challenging their employers at arbitration or in court.

To address this issue, the Dolan Consulting Group recently conducted an analysis of more than 500 cases of public employee suspensions and terminations that went on to review by some form of outside arbitrator. These cases came from police departments, fire departments, sheriff departments, transportation departments, public works departments, county highways departments, airports, prisons, and parks & recreation departments. In approximately 50% of the cases, the outside arbitrator reversed or reduced the employer’s discipline, reinstating the employee back to work. In our analysis, we examined the justifications these arbitrators gave for their decisions, finding that arbitrators often gave multiple reasons for overturning an employer’s discipline. The most common reason the arbitrators cited for overturning a public employee’s suspension or termination was inconsistent discipline.

Inconsistent Discipline

Inconsistent discipline occurs when two employees, who have similar past work records, commit similar acts of employee misconduct but receive significantly different sentences. Consider, for example, two individuals who each have no prior disciplinary record. Both of these employees are found to be falsifying their time sheets. One employee receives a 1-day suspension, and the other is terminated from employment. This would be an example of inconsistent discipline. According to our study, in 55% of the cases in which the grievance arbitrator overturned the employee discipline, the arbitrator pointed to evidence of inconsistent discipline.

One example was a case involving a firefighter who received a multiple-day suspension for being above his maximum acceptable weight on two consecutive weigh-in occasions. The firefighter filed a grievance appealing his suspension. The arbitrator overturned the firefighter’s suspension, and awarded him back pay. This reversal was based on the fact that another firefighter and three fire department supervisors were also found to be overweight two consecutive times, but these three individuals only received letters of reprimand.

Another example was a case involving three police officers who were found to have been repeatedly repositioning a security camera at the police station, even after the police chief issued a memo indicating that the camera was not to be moved without his expressed permission. During the resulting investigation of the moving of the camera, two of the accused officers admitted to moving the camera to watch a woman sunbathing in a nearby backyard. The third officer, however, invoked his right to have his union steward present, thus causing the interview to be rescheduled. The first two officers waived their right to a pre-disciplinary hearing and said they would accept the discipline the city’s public safety commission imposed. The third officer, however, exercised all of his rights to a pre-disciplinary hearing, brought an attorney to the proceeding, challenged the evidence presented by the department, and presented rebuttal evidence.

The public safety commission found all three officers guilty of the same offense and all three officers had similar prior disciplinary records. The members of the commission sentenced the first two officers to a letter of reprimand, but the third officer – who had exercised his legal rights – was terminated. After reviewing the facts of the case, and learning that the most severe discipline the commission had ever previously given an officer was a 5-day suspension, a grievance arbitrator overturned the officer’s termination, converting it to a suspension. The arbitrator indicated that the case involved inconsistent discipline for identical acts of misconduct committed by employees with similar prior discipline records.

A third example involved a police officer who was arrested for domestic battery against her boyfriend, but later pled guilty to a lesser, non-violent offense. She was terminated from her employment by the city, but both an arbitrator and a civil court ordered that she be re-hired and convert her discipline to a lengthy suspension without pay. The reason for this decision was that in the previous ten years the same police department had dealt with seven other employees who had been arrested for domestic battery and pled guilty to a lesser offense. All of these other seven officers (all of whom were male) were allowed to keep their jobs for essentially committing the same act of misconduct. While the arbitrator and the judges felt that all eight officers should have lost their jobs, they ruled that it was unfair that only one officer (who differed by gender) received that discipline.

These are just three examples of many cases found in our study in which one employee received a very different discipline outcome when compared to another employee for engaging in similar misconduct. While there is very little research on this topic, there are a few studies that show inconsistent discipline may be common, at least within law enforcement agencies. The Rampart Report that examined misconduct within the Los Angeles Police Department in the late 1990s found that disciplinary actions handed down for the same acts of misconduct varied widely.¹ Three social science research studies later found the same phenomenon within multiple police departments in the Northeastern and Southwestern United States.²

Causes and Consequences of Inconsistent Discipline

There are many reasons for similar employees receiving different discipline outcomes for essentially the same misconduct. One study by criminologists Paul Reynolds and Jeremiah Hicks surveyed a sample of law enforcement officers from various departments in the Southwest, finding that most believed discipline within their organization was applied inconsistently. These officers suggested the reason for the inconsistent treatment of officers was primarily inter-organizational politics. These officers suggested different discipline outcomes sometimes resulted when accused officers had personal relationships with influential people inside or outside of the organization. Other times, public outcry and media coverage of the misconduct brought harsher than normal penalties. These officers also suggested that female and minority officers are sometimes treated differently than male and white officers, being treated either more harshly or more leniently.³

A study conducted by criminologist Jon Shane involved over 300 hours of observation of the disciplinary board within the Newark Police Department. This study revealed additional reasons for inconsistent discipline. Knowledge about institutional history was lacking as members of the board did not know what discipline employees received in years past for the same offenses presented today. The board members were sometimes influenced by the first case of the day, dispersing their anger or opinions about the first case onto other cases reviewed on the same day. There were also instances when manpower issues influenced punishment decisions. Board members were reluctant to suspend or terminate officers from units that were already low on manpower.⁴

Regardless of the reasons for inconsistent discipline, what impact might inconsistent discipline have on employee behavior? One study, conducted by criminologists Chris Harris and Robert Worden, examined the impact that severity of discipline had on future misconduct by police officers. When comparing police officers disciplined for similar first offenses of misconduct, the more severely the officer was disciplined for their first offense, the more likely that officer was to incur additional misconduct violations over his or her career. If the officer was disciplined less severely, the officer was less likely to engage in future misconduct.⁵

In a study of 1,219 employees from a sample of hospitals, another research team found that employee work performance was highest when employees perceived that their hospital’s disciplinary processes and outcomes were fair and consistent. Perceptions of fair discipline were also associated with greater employee commitment to the organization and greater willingness to take on extra work responsibilities.⁶ A third study surveyed 373 state government employees and found that the more the employees perceived discipline in their unit was dispensed fairly and consistently, the higher the employees’ morale and the less likely they were to take extended breaks and waste office resources.⁷ Clearly, fair and consistent discipline produces positive benefits for the efficient operation of the organization.

Avoiding Inconsistent Discipline

In order for discipline to be dispensed in a fair and consistent manner, employees found to have committed similar acts of misconduct should be given similar discipline. Only legitimate aggravating or mitigating circumstances – such as the employee’s prior disciplinary record or the severity of the harm caused by the misconduct – should be considered as a basis for increasing or decreasing the usual discipline. Such factors as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, assignment, tenure length, veteran status, disability status, personal connections, or exercising one’s due process rights should never be considered when assigning discipline for employee misconduct.

One way to avoid inconsistent discipline is to adopt a discipline matrix.⁸ Discipline matrices are modeled from criminal court sentencing guidelines. They consist of a grid of cells with types of common misconduct offenses along the left column, and number of prior offenses across the top row. Within each cell of the matrix grid is a narrow range of possible disciplinary actions for that specific act of misconduct, considering the number of prior acts of misconduct the employee has accrued up to that point in time. Inside that narrow range of disciplinary options, aggravating and mitigating circumstances can be used to select the most appropriate discipline for that specific situation.

Little research has yet been conducted regarding the use of discipline matrices, but one study conducted by the Washington State Patrol found that after a simple discipline matrix was instituted in that organization, employee grievances declined, as did citizen complaints about officer misconduct behaviors.⁹ The use of sentencing guidelines by the criminal courts has reduced racial disparities in the length of prison sentences.¹⁰ It also makes intuitive sense that using such a tool would reduce dramatic inconsistencies in discipline for similar acts of misconduct, giving employees a sense of procedural justice in the disciplinary process.

Conclusion

When a public employee contests a suspension or termination through grievance arbitration or a civil suit, the employee tends to succeed approximately 50% of the time. The most common reason arbitrators give for overturning the suspension or termination is inconsistent discipline, where other employees committed similar acts of misconduct but received less severe discipline outcomes. The delivery of inconsistent disciplinary actions is found to occur often in public employment and potentially contributes to lower morale, lower productivity, and further employee misconduct. One way to reduce the likelihood of inconsistent discipline is to implement a discipline matrix tool.

The complete findings of the Dolan Consulting Group study mentioned in this report are delivered in our course, Making Discipline Stick. In this course we explain and discuss the five greatest predictors that the discipline dispensed by a public organization will be overturned in a grievance arbitration or civil court hearing. This course also provides evidence-based guidance on how to protect against these five major weaknesses when your organization has to discipline an employee.

When inconsistent discipline occurs within an agency, the available research indicates that morale suffers and the legitimacy of leadership decisions are undermined by the widespread belief that leaders are making decisions based, not on the merits, but on political considerations or other factors irrelevant to the agency mission. When these decisions are overturned at arbitration or in court, it further undermines the leadership and can prove extremely costly financially. Addressing misconduct in an even-handed manner is not only the common sense approach for agency leaders, but it can often minimize liability risks to the agency when facing challenges in arbitration or in court.

 

References

¹ Los Angeles Police Department (2000). Board of Inquiry into the Rampart Area Corruption Incident: Public Report. Los Angeles, CA: City of Los Angeles.

² Harris, C. J., & Worden, R. E. (2014). The effects of sanctions on police misconduct. Crime & Delinquency, 60(8), 1258-1288; Reynolds, P., & Hicks, J. (2015). There is no justice in a police department: a phenomenological study of police experiences. Police Practice and Research, 16(6), 469-484; Shane, J. M. (2012). Police employee disciplinary matrix: an emerging concept. Police Quarterly, 15(1), 62-91.

³ Reynolds & Hicks (2015).

⁴ Shane (2012).

⁵ Harris & Worden (2014).

⁶ Tremblay, M., Cloutier, J., Simard, G., Chenevert, D., & Vandenberghe, C. (2010). The role of HRM practices, procedural justice, organizational support, and trust in organizational commitment and in-role and extra-role performance. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(3), 405-433.

⁷ Tepper, B. J., & Taylor, E. C. (2003). Relationships among supervisors’ and subordinates’ procedural justice perceptions and organizational citizenship behaviors. Academy of Management Journal, 46(1), 97-105.

⁸ Shane (2012).

⁹ Serpas, R. W., Olson, J. W., & Jones, B. D. (2003). An employee discipline system that makes sense. Police Chief, 70(9), x-xx.

¹⁰ Kramer, J. H., & Ulmer, J. T. (1996). Sentence disparity and departures from guidelines. Justice Quarterly, 13(1), 81-106.