Interesting Podcast

I’ve been getting frustrated and discouraged with the news, which is biased in both directions (depending on the source) and getting increasingly contentious.

I like to learn things and find out things, but I want information that is more than just “fact checked” because fact checking does not remove bias, it just removes outright lies. I want information that includes various angles being carefully analyzed without an agenda (to the extent possible).

Laura recently recommended this site, https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs

These are podcasts that look at a variety of topics and what scientific research has to say about the topics.

I listened to my first podcast today, which happened to be this one, https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/kwh2g9/police-shootings-the-data-and-the-damage

It was far more interesting than I expected. It was half an hour long, and included detail about the research studies that were cited, without being boring at all. The results were very interesting.

I’m reluctant to try and paraphrase the podcast, because the podcast was much better than I could summarize. But I will briefly mention their conclusions.

They concluded that police do treat black people differently (and less respectfully) than white people, even when the studies controlled for other possible factors, such as neighborhood, time of day, etc. They are fairly sure that the reason for this difference isn’t outright racism, but implicit bias.

Implicit bias is when we have expectations and assumptions based on past experiences. If we’ve seen a lot of movies or news reports where black men are depicted as dangerous, we’re going to tense up more around a strange black man than a strange white man, even though we don’t consider ourselves racist. And we will behave differently in our tone and manner even if we don’t realize we’re doing it or mean to do it.

Because of the recent recognition of the importance of implicit bias, a lot of police departments are now doing implicit bias training. Unfortunately it’s not helping much. That’s probably because these biases aren’t intentional, they are automatic. They don’t magically go away just because we know they exist.

Also, unfortunately, body cams don’t seem to be helping much either. Again, that’s probably because the police really do believe they are doing the right thing in that moment of time. Most police are not deliberately targeting blacks, even though later when people look at the footage, it’s hard to believe the police thought they were doing the right thing at the time.

What appears to be happening is when there’s too much adrenaline, such as after a foot chase, or in a very dangerous situation, the police are not able to think straight and are simply reacting – and that’s when their biases show up. So a camera isn’t going to change their behavior since they are already acting in good faith.

The solution? What appears to be helping is de escalation rules and policies that limit which situations police are allowed to use certain kinds of force. These rules and policies add structure and processes into the situations, to help the police know automatically what to do, even when their judgment may be clouded with fear and adrenaline.