Implicit Bias in the Criminal Justice System: An Economic Review

This project seeks to investigate implicit racial bias in the prosecution section of the criminal justice system and calculate its potential economic consequences. Combining past research and analyses of racial bias in other contexts with evaluations of legal rulings and precedents that hinder effective reform, potential areas for change and further study are identified. An experiment is designed to identify racial bias within the context of a drug offense where race and strength of evidence are isolated variables. Subsequent results are analyzed in the context of economic and social cost to both individuals and the United States as a whole

Racial profiling or racist policing? bounds tests in aggregate data

State-wide reports on police traffic stops and searches summarize very large populations, making them potentially powerful tools for identifying racial bias, particularly when statistics on search outcomes are included. But when the reported statistics conflate searches involving different levels of police discretion, standard tests for racial bias are not applicable. This paper develops a model of police search decisions that allows for non-discretionary searches and derives tests for racial bias in data that mixes different search types. Our tests reject unbiased policing as an explanation of the disparate impact of motor-vehicle searches on minorities in MissouriHouseholds ; Public policy

Study Protocol for Investigating Physician Communication Behaviours that Link Physician Implicit Racial Bias and Patient Outcomes in Black Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Using an Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Design

Introduction Patient-physician racial discordance is associated with Black patient reports of dissatisfaction and mistrust, which in turn are associated with poor adherence to treatment recommendations and underutilisation of healthcare. Research further has shown that patient dissatisfaction and mistrust are magnified particularly when physicians hold high levels of implicit racial bias. This suggests that physician implicit racial bias manifests in their communication behaviours during medical interactions. The overall goal of this research is to identify physician communication behaviours that link physician implicit racial bias and Black patient immediate (patient-reported satisfaction and trust) and long-term outcomes (eg, medication adherence, self-management and healthcare utilisation) as well as clinical indicators of diabetes control (eg, blood pressure, HbA1c and history of diabetes complication). Methods and analysis Using an exploratory sequential mixed methods research design, we will collect data from approximately 30 family medicine physicians and 300 Black patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The data sources will include one physician survey, three patient surveys, medical interaction videos, video elicitation interviews and medical chart reviews. Physician implicit racial bias will be assessed with the physician survey, and patient outcomes will be assessed with the patient surveys and medical chart reviews. In video elicitation interviews, a subset of patients (approximately 20–40) will watch their own interactions while being monitored physiologically to identify evocative physician behaviours. Information from the interview will determine which physician communication behaviours will be coded from medical interactions videos. Coding will be done independently by two trained coders. A series of statistical analyses (zero-order correlations, partial correlations, regressions) will be conducted to identify physician behaviours that are associated significantly with both physician implicit racial bias and patient outcomes

Post-Racial Ideology and Implicit Racial Bias

This study assesses college students from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and their attitudes and opinions toward people of color, specifically looking at racial/ethnic identity and campus social climate. With 362 respondents from the University of New Hampshire who answered our online survey, it looked at the participants’ post-racial ideologies and the participant’s racial/ethnic identity. This study finds that there is a correlation between racial identity and post-racial beliefs. The study found that 82 percent of the student respondents did not believe that we, as a society, lived in a post-racial America. It was also discovered that the student respondents who did believe we live in a post-racial society (eighteen percent) were almost primarily White participants. The research also shows that in comparison to students of color, White students are more likely to believe that there is little to no racial prejudice or discrimination on UNH’s campus. While this data gives important insight into the racial attitudes at UNH, having a more diverse demographic and a larger sample size would improve the research

Implicit Racial Biases in Prosecutorial Summations: Proposing an Integrated Response

Racial bias has evolved from the explicit racism of the Jim Crow era to amore subtle and difficult-to-detect form: implicit racial bias. Implicit racial biases exist unconsciously and include negative racial stereotypes andassociations. Everyone, including actors in the criminal justice system who believe themselves to be fair, possess these biases. Although inaccessible through introspection, implicit biases can easily be triggered through language. When trials involve Black defendants, prosecutors’ summations increasingly include racial themes that could trigger jurors’ implicit biases, lead to the perpetuation of unfair stereotypes, and contribute to racial injustice and disparate outcomes. This Note examines and critiques the current approaches that courts and disciplinary authorities use to address implicit racial biases in prosecutorial summations. Recognizing the inadequacy in these current methods, this Note proposes an integrated response, which involves lawyers, jurors, trial courts, and appellate courts. The proposed approach seeks to increase recognition of implicit racial bias use, deter prosecutors from using language that triggers implicit racial biases, and ensure that Black defendants’ equal protection rights are upheld

What\u27s age got to do with it? Examining how the age of stimulus faces affects children\u27s implicit racial bias

Discrepant results regarding the emergence of children\u27s implicit racial bias suggest additional research is needed to understand the developmental timeline of racial bias. Investigations using established explicit racial bias measures and the implicit association task with children demonstrate racial bias in young children (Aboud, 1988; Baron & Banjai, 2006). These findings do not corroborate the only known developmental use of the affective priming task (APT) to measure racial bias, which suggests implicit racial bias does not emerge until adolescence (Degner & Wentura, 2010). Variations in the task demands, the types of stimuli used to represent the construct of race, and child\u27s environment may be important factors to consider when investigating these discrepancies. The current study explored how same-age faces and adult faces influenced 6.5-, 10.5-, and 14.5-year-old children\u27s racial bias using the APT and whether cross-race interactions affected racial bias. Results indicated that children did not demonstrate significant racial bias at any age when viewing child or adult faces, though data from non-Hispanic Caucasian 6.5-year-olds suggested stronger racial bias to same-age faces. Cross-race interactions were positively correlated with 14.5 year-olds\u27 same-age racial bias. This effect occurred because greater cross-race interactions with peers predicted adolescents\u27 positive associations to Caucasian same-age faces but did not predict negative associations to African American same-age faces. The lack of significant racial bias observed in this sample suggests that children from racially diverse areas (i.e., Las Vegas, NV) may not have the same levels of implicit racial bias as samples collected in previous studies

The Relationship Between Valuing Diversity and Implicit Racial Bias: A Construct Validation Study

Two studies examined the construct validity of valuing diversity in relation to both explicit and implicit racial bias. In the first study, participants completed three measures: the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale to measure valuing diversity; the Implicit Association Test to assess implicit racial bias; and the Symbolic Racism 2000 Scale to assess explicit racial bias. Results indicated there was a significant relationship between the valuing diversity and implicit racial bias measures as well as between the valuing diversity and explicit racial bias measures. The explicit and implicit racial bias measures accounted for unique variance in the valuing diversity construct. There was not a significant relationship between explicit and implicit racial bias. The second study assessed how priming with counter-stereotypical exemplars affected responses to the same measures. Although it was expected that exposure to counter-stereotypical exemplars would produce decrements in implicit racial bias, the manipulation did not directly affect responses to any of the measures. Together these studies clarify the fundamental nature of valuing diversity and provide further insight into the relationship between explicit and implicit racial attitudes

Racial Bias Trends in the Text of US Legal Opinions

Although there is widespread recognition of racial bias in US law, it is unclear how such bias appears in the language of law, namely judicial opinions, and whether it varies across time period or region. Building upon approaches for measuring implicit racial bias in large-scale corpora, we approximate GloVe word embeddings for over 6 million US federal and state court cases from 1860 to 2009. We find strong evidence of racial bias across nearly all regions and time periods, as traditionally Black names are more closely associated with pre-classified "unpleasant" terms whereas traditionally White names are more closely associated with pre-classified "pleasant" terms. We also test whether legal opinions before 1950 exhibit more implicit racial bias than those after 1950, as well as whether opinions from Southern states exhibit less change in racial bias than those from Northeastern states. We do not find evidence of elevated bias in legal opinions before 1950, or evidence that legal opinions from Northeastern states show greater change in racial bias over time compared to Southern states. These results motivate further research into institutionalized racial bias

Motivation Predicts Self-Control of Racial Bias After Viewing Alcohol Advertisements

Exerting self-control shifts motivation toward rewarding cues (i.e., approach motivation) and impairs control of racial bias. However, whether approach motivation predicts deficits in control of racial bias is unknown. Exertion of self-control is also related to alcohol use, but whether exerting self-control shifts motivation toward alcohol-related cues is not established. Similar to exerting self-control, viewing alcohol-related cues shifts motivation and promotes racial bias. The current study examined the interaction between exerting self-control and viewing alcohol-related cues on approach motivation and its influence on racial bias. Participants (N = 71) exerted (or did not exert) self-control and then viewed neutral (e.g., water) and alcohol advertisements. To assess shifts toward rewarding cues, neurophysiological indices of approach motivation (LPP, cortical asymmetries) were assessed while participants viewed advertisements. Participants then completed a measure of racial bias assessing behavioral and neurophysiological indices of self-control (ERN, N2). No differences in approach motivation emerged between those who exerted or did not exert self-control. However, alcohol-related individual differences (alcohol identity, coping drinking motives, and alcohol sensitivity) predicted greater approach motivation (i.e., cortical asymmetries) while viewing alcohol advertisements among those who exerted self-control. Participants who exerted self-control also exhibited lower behavioral control of racial bias and impaired error detection (i.e., ERN). Greater approach motivation predicted lower behavioral control of racial bias and error detection, suggesting approach motivation is a mechanism for impaired self-control. Results support motivational theories on self-control and provide insight on the relations among alcohol advertising, self-control, and racial bias