Racial and ethnic bias in decisions to shoot seen through a stronger lens: experimental results from high-fidelity laboratory simulations

Background

Research on racial bias in the United States includes findings that Americans tend to view blacks as more dangerous than whites. Some have argued that this bias provides a likely explanation for the disproportionate number of ethnic and racial minorities shot by police. One piece of evidence for this proposition comes from experimental work in which research participants push “shoot” or “don’t shoot” buttons when still images of people and objects that may or may not be weapons are presented in rapid succession. These studies have established that participants tend to subconsciously pair black individuals with weapons and white individuals with neutral objects. However, it is not clear from these studies that the subconscious racial bias identified by researchers affects actual decisions to shoot, perhaps because the techniques used to assess the bias-shooting link bear so little resemblance to real-world shootings.

Methods

This paper reports on the results of a novel laboratory experiment designed to overcome this critical limitation by using high-fidelity deadly force judgment and decision-making simulators to assess both subconscious and behavioral bias among 48 research participants, recruited from the general population.

Results

Study results suggest that subconscious associations between race and threat exhibited by participants are not linked to their shooting behavior.

Conclusions

The implications of this finding for understanding how race and ethnicity affect decisions to shoot, and for conducting empirical research on this important topic, are discussed.     

Public Value Governance: Moving Beyond Traditional Public Administration and the New Public Management

A new public administration movement is emerging to move beyond traditional public administration and New Public Management. The new movement is a response to the challenges of a networked, multisector, no‐one‐wholly‐in‐charge world and to the shortcomings of previous public administration approaches. In the new approach, values beyond efficiency and effectiveness—and especially democratic values—are prominent. Government has a special role to play as a guarantor of public values, but citizens as well as businesses and nonprofit organizations are also important as active public problem solvers. The article highlights value‐related issues in the new approach and presents an agenda for research and action to be pursued if the new approach is to fulfill its promise.     

Boycott,Resistance and the Law: Cause Lawyering in Conflict and Authoritarianism

This article examines the role of cause lawyers in conflicted or authoritarian contexts where the chances of legal victory are often minimal. Drawing upon the literature on resistance, performance, memory studies, legal consciousness and the sociology of lawyers, the paper examines how cause lawyers challenge and subvert power. The paper first explores the tactics and strategies of cause lawyers who boycott legal proceedings and the relationship between such boycotts and broader political struggles, legitimacy and law. It then examines why and how cause lawyers engage in fairly hopeless legal struggles as acts of instrumental resistance (the ‘sand in the cogs’), transforming courts into sites of symbolic resistance, and using law as a form of memory work. The paper argues that boycott of and resistance through the courts can counter the use of law as an instrument of wickedness and a tool of denial and preserves a ‘stubborn optimism’ in the rule of law.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Abstract

A Handbook for Cultural Trustees: A Guide to the Role, Responsibilities and Functions of Boards of Trustees of Cultural Organizations in Canada , Marion Paquet, with Rory Ralston and Donna Cardinal. Waterloo, Ont.: University of Waterloo Press, 1987. 75 pages, $22.95. Reviewed by Brann J. Wry.

Bureaucratizing the Muse: Public Funds and the Culture Worker , Steven C. Dubin. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987. 226 pages, index. Reviewed by George C. Koch and Joan Jeffri.     

The view from city hall: Local perceptions of intergovernmental fiscal relations in the Czech Republic

This article analyzes perceptions of inter-governmental fiscal relations as held by local officials of the Czech Republic. The field study probes local perceptions of progress toward fiscal decentralization in the Czech Republic. A statistical analysis is based on a scaling of cities according to size and according to a generalized, multi-part measure of fiscal autonomy. This measure is effective in discriminating high and low autonomy cities by size, types of expenditures, and funding sources. Cities of diverse sizes are divided into groups reflecting perceptions of greater or lesser autonomy. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Does providing inmates with education improve postrelease outcomes? A meta-analysis of correctional education programs in the United States

Objectives

Our study addresses the question: Does providing inmates with education while incarcerated reduce their chances of recidivism and improve their postrelease employment prospects?

Methods

We aggregated 37 years of research (1980–2017) on correctional education and applied meta-analytic techniques. As the basis for our meta-analysis, we identified a total of 57 studies that used recidivism as an outcome and 21 studies that used employment as an outcome. We then applied random-effects regression across the effect sizes abstracted from each of these studies.

Findings

When focusing on studies with the highest caliber research designs, we found that inmates participating in correctional education programs were 28% less likely to recidivate when compared with inmates who did not participate in correctional education programs. However, we found that inmates receiving correctional education were as likely to obtain postrelease employment as inmates not receiving correctional education.

Conclusion

Our meta-analysis demonstrates the value in providing inmates with educational opportunities while they serve their sentences if the goal of the program is to reduce recidivism.