The Effect of Interviewer Gender on the Survey Response

We examined the existence of gender-of-interviewer effects in two local-area surveys in which male and female interviewers were randomly assigned to interview male and female respondents. Small but consistent gender-of-interviewer effects arose on questions related to the women's movement, women's issues, and gender equality, demonstrating that, as expected, respondents were more likely to provide feminist answers to female interviewers. Gender-of-interviewer effects were somewhat more pronounced and consistent on controversial political topics: the women's movement (feminists and political activism) and their policy agenda. There was mixed evidence on whether respondents were equally susceptible to gender-of-interviewer effects. In one of the surveys, gender-of-interviewer effects were more pronounced among less well-educated and younger respondents than among respondents who were better educated or older. This effect was not replicated in the second survey.     

Investigating perceptions of race and ethnic diversity among prospective police officers

Many have suggested police diversity will improve police-community relations, but research testing this hypothesis is inconclusive. We investigated perceptions of police race, ethnicity, and diversity in a heterogeneous sample of prospective police officers. Data are drawn from interviews with 42 criminal justice college students in the Southwestern United States, of which 15 were Hispanic, and who each wanted to become a police officer. Participants supported diversity in policing, and collectively expressed a belief that race plays a central role in policing today. Furthermore, participants expressed support for the ideals of both passive and active representative bureaucracy. Hispanics in the sample in particular anticipated they would positively affect police relations in Hispanic neighborhoods and encourage immigrants to cooperate with police.     

The ethical dilemma codification: equity?

For the past seven years, the governing council of the American Society for Public Administration and its subcommittee on Professional Standards and Ethics have tried to write a code of ethics. This paper suggests that when one explores the overlapping domains: professional ethics, which includes dilemmas of choice--social justice and administrative discretion with the merit system, larger questions should be raised. That is, is becoming a profession ethical? Will existing inequities be magnified? Can questions of political philosophy be ignored?     

Results from experimental trials testing participant responses to White, Hispanic and Black suspects in high-fidelity deadly force judgment and decision-making simulations

Objective

Advance the methodological techniques used to examine the influence of suspect race and ethnicity on participant decisions to shoot in an experimental setting.

Methods

After developing and testing a novel set of 60 realistic, high definition video deadly force scenarios based on 30 years of official data on officer-involved shootings in the United States, three separate experiments were conducted testing police (n?=?36), civilian (n=?72) and military (n?=?6) responses (n?=?1,812) to the scenarios in high-fidelity computerized training simulators. Participants’ responses to White, Black and Hispanic suspects in potentially deadly situations were analyzed using a multi-level mixed methods strategy. Key response variables were reaction time to shoot and shooting errors.

Results

In all three experiments using a more externally valid research method than previous studies, we found that participants took longer to shoot Black suspects than White or Hispanic suspects. In addition, where errors were made, participants across experiments were more likely to shoot unarmed White suspects than unarmed Black or Hispanic suspects, and were more likely to fail to shoot armed Black suspects than armed White or Hispanic suspects. In sum, this research found that participants displayed significant bias favoring Black suspects in their decisions to shoot.

Conclusions

The results of these three experiments challenge the results of less robust experimental designs and shed additional light on the broad issue of the role that status characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, play in the criminal justice system. Future research should explore the generalizability of these findings, determine whether bias favoring Black suspects is a consequence of administrative measures (e.g., education, training, policies, and laws), and identify the cognitive processes that underlie this phenomenon.