Metaphorically Framed Stereotypes, Victim Race, and Attitudes Toward Police: Factors Influencing Juror Cognition and Decision-Making in Police Force Cases

In addition to structural issues within the U.S. justice system, psychological factors contribute to the recent pattern of non-indictments of police officers tried for potential uses of excessive force against Black people. This paper examines the effects of metaphorically framed racial stereotypes and victim race on juror cognition, reasoning, and decision-making. A study was administered via Amazon Mechanical Turk to 420 White participants. The hypotheses were tested using a 3 (Black stereotype metaphors vs. non-stereotypical race-neutral dehumanizing metaphors vs. non-metaphoric semantically similar descriptors) x 2 (race of victim of police violence: White vs. Black) factorial design. While no significant effects of metaphor were found, the experiment identified significant main effects of race and general attitudes toward police as well as interactions between the two. When the case involved a Black victim as opposed to a White victim, participants were more likely to confidently vote against the indictment of the police officer and rate the actions of the police officer as more justified and use of lethal force as more necessary. The involvement of a Black victim also strengthened the relationship between favorable attitudes toward the police and pro-police ratings and decision-making

The Zero Suicide Model: Applying Evidence-Based Suicide Prevention Practices to Clinical Care

Suicide is reaching epidemic proportions, with over 44,000 deaths by suicide in the US, and 800,000 worldwide in 2015. This, despite research and development of evidence-based interventions that target suicidal behavior directly. Suicide prevention efforts need a comprehensive approach, and research must lead to effective implementation across public and mental health systems. A 10-year systematic review of evidence-based findings in suicide prevention summarized the areas necessary for translating research into practice. These include risk assessment, means restriction, evidence-based treatments, population screening combined with chain of care, monitoring, and follow-up. In this article, we review how suicide prevention research informs implementation in clinical settings where those most at risk present for care. Evidence-based and best practices address the fluctuating nature of suicide risk, which requires ongoing risk assessment, direct intervention and monitoring. In the US, the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention has put forth the Zero Suicide (ZS) Model, a framework to coordinate a multilevel approach to implementing evidence-based practices. We present the Assess, Intervene and Monitor for Suicide Prevention model (AIM-SP) as a guide for implementation of ZS evidence-based and best practices in clinical settings. Ten basic steps for clinical management model will be described and illustrated through case vignette. These steps are designed to be easily incorporated into standard clinical practice to enhance suicide risk assessment, brief interventions to increase safety and teach coping strategies and to improve ongoing contact and monitoring of high-risk individuals during transitions in care and high risk periods