The document summarizes research on policing in the United States. It discusses: 1. Factors that affect police hiring standards and performance such as funding, education levels, age, and racial demographics of officers and communities. 2. Research showing higher rates of force complaints and shootings against minority groups, but also evidence of implicit bias causing officers to be less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects. 3. Training programs that aim to reduce injuries, use of force, and complaints by improving officers' decision making abilities, especially in high-stress situations.

1. Intro Slide
Slide 1
1. Growth complex is the idea that businesses and entities act in their own best interests to
survive
1a. Funding, hiring of officers, firing of officers, Public image
Thus the lower their standards of hiring officers, the higher likely hood of hiring officers to
compete with criminals which helps increase the rates they receive funding as results are
produced
2a. US citizenship, minimum age between 18 and 21, minimum high school diploma or a GED, a
valid driver’s license and passing a fitness requirement that varies per agency. The only
disqualifications: felony conviction, misdemeanors with domestic or sexual abuse, illegal drug
usage, DWI/DUI convictions and a poor credit history
2b. 16.30-21 minute 1.5-mile run depending on department, an obstacle course, a percentage
of your body weight during a bench press, 18-34 sit-ups in a minute depending on department,
20 pushups in a minute and sit/reach extensions
3. 17,895 law enforcement agencies existed in 2008, with 1.13 million full-time workers of
which 765,000 were sworn in, and 100,000 part-time employees of which 44,000 were sworn in
4. conflict theory deals with inequality in the systemby those who have the most power. Police
departments are a business, and therefore if they does not have enough funding to hire new
officers, get new equipment, etc. they are placed at a disadvantage when compared to
departments who have the funding to do those things, as well as being at a disadvantage when
facing crime, as they start lacking the resources to combat them
Slide 2
1. there are 51.8 incidents a year of officers involved in shooting fatalities.
40% of those shot are unarmed at the time of the encounter.
2. there was 26,000 complaints against officers for using use of force in 2002, of these 8% were
deemed to be credible complaints, 34% were not sustained, 25% were unfounded and 23%
were exonerated, and this related only to New York City
4861 reports of misconduct seems reasonable, with 23.8% of these complaints being about
excessive use of force
Slide 3
1. with a college degree police officers perform in the upper 25% of all categories in the police
academy 46% of the time compared to 24% of those without college education
that the vast majority of the cops that are terminated, had no upper education and those with
more college were frequent in promotions and opportunities for advancement

2. college educated officers are less likely to be involved in shootings than those who are non-
educated.
83% of police departments only require high school diplomas, 8% require some college and only
1% requires a college degree. This is a problem. Officers with college degrees use of force
percentage is at 58% while officers with no college degree use of force percentage is at 68%
2. Officers outperformed civilians when it comes to overall speed and accuracy in terms of
shootings, but training does not affect the speed in which officer stereotypes how incongruent
targets are processed, but they do affect the end decision of whether they shoot or not
Police who received Critical Incident Stress Debriefing begin to show reductions in anger levels
and greater use of adaptive coping strategies
3.
A. Age is another factor that affects police departments as they deal with retirement,
insurance and other issues that affect people of different age groups, thus affecting the
hiring process and the budget for that precinct. However, it also plays a part in officer
misconduct.
the risk of an officer shooting drops as an officer ages.
The average age for police officers in the United States is 39.6
Elite officers shoot more accurately and made fewer decision errors
Rookies are more prone to fire and focus on their own weapon, while the elites have longer eye
duration on the assailant’s weapon prior to firing.
B. whites make up 78% of the work force, while blacks make up 12% of this work force.
citizens set shooting criterion lower for blacks, however police don’t set this criterion so low
there is implicit bias against suspects, officers were slower to shoot black armed suspects than
armed white suspects and they were less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed
white suspects. However, the higher the percentage of non-whites in a community, the higher
the rates of police use of deadly force
60% of blacks were shot when carrying handguns, compared to 35% of whites. Blacks were
however, 12% of the population, but committed 43% of the felony killings of officers
the wariness increased about using deadly force against black suspects, because officers were
afraid of how it was going to be perceived and the associated consequences with the action
in deadly scenarios, 57% were white, while 56% were black and officers took on average 200 ms
longer to shoot armed blacks than armed whites. 96% of the participants in their study
associated blacks with images of weapons, and most officers showed levels of implicit bias of
taking longer to shoot armed blacks and being less likely to shoot unarmed blacks. This implicit
bias doesn’t result in racially motivated decisions to shoot, but instead showed a counter-bias,
reverse racismeffect.
black and white officers were likely to shot equally. However, the data given on the racial
breakdown on the victims is the following: 20% shot were white, 70% were black, and 10% were
Hispanics
the minority overrepresentation among police shooters is closely related to racial patterns of
assignment, socialization and residence, but this is only a spurious relationship.

3. 4. police start their careers in excellent physical health, but retire early and are likely to die from
job related stress. Some other results of this stress can be: digestive disorders, cardiovascular
diseases, alcoholism, domestic violence, PTSD, depression and suicide.
“The development of other jobs (boxers, soldiers, etc.) prove that maintaining one’s temper
under stressful and confrontational conditions is a skill that can be taught (Fyfe, 1991).”
suspect behavior/posture/demeanor are all important as is the presence of a weapon and the
suspect’s race, while others to consider are: use of foul language, proximity to participant,
clothing style, physical size, speed and subtlety of movement and location
lighting conditions and gun type.
90% of officers reported experiencing a dissociative response during the incident, 30% fell
under DSM IV (criterion B) and 19% of officers show memory impairment for details of the
incident.
officers who have a previous history of shooting, are 51% more likely to shoot again.
58% of officers that get shot are shot by civilians and 38% of them are shot by
themselves/colleagues.
Slide 4
5. the job growth is expected to be 5% over these 10 years
there has been court ordered hiring quotas in a lot of states, which has led to a 14% increase in
African Americans being hired
Slide 5
Well,letme give yousome solutions.
Slide 6
1. longer more interactive scenarios in a deadly force judgement and decision making
simulator seems reasonable to help the officers in situations where they are faced with the
option to shoot or not
2. avoid the split-second syndrome and to do this training needs to be designed to avert the
violence in both hostage and barricade situations. This requires a diagnosis of crises that
identify recurrent patterns and success requires communication and coordination amongst
authors. Thus, safety is required as an element of the training, and this has been neglected
previously
3. a five-day role playing training program (where officers participate in various suspect/officer
scenarios and take turns playing each role) has resulted in 30-50% reductions in injuries to
officers as well as the use of force used and citizen complaints.

4. 4. these kinds of training helps acclimatize shooting performance of ordinary police officers to
those situations with elevated pressure that may occur at work. Performance according to
Oudejans didn’t diminish
This is why improving training for officers are a must as it lowers: complaints, use of force
allegations, officer injuries and improves: officer performance under pressure and the safety of
everyone involved.
Slide 7
Hudgins argues that higher education: brings better behavioral and performance characteristics
of officers, fewer on job injuries/assaults, fewer disciplinary actions from use of force, a greater
acceptance of minorities, and a decrease in the dogmatism, authoritarianism, rigidity and
conservatism associated with police officers.
2. show that higher education doesn’t influence the probability of arrests or searches in police
and suspect encounters, however college education does significantly reduce the likelihood
of force occurring, as more discretion is acquired
3. officers with a four-year college degree receive fewer complaints than those who just have a
two-year college degree. A college degree according to Sanderson also relates to the number
of sick days an officer uses, which is beneficial to the department and to the safety of the
individuals it presides over.
Thus, improving college education amongst police officers, would be a good idea because it
saves money in terms of sick days, on-the-job injuries, complaint casework and allows a smarter
officer who is more tolerant of others and can critically think their way through a situation and
uses discretion to know when to act and when not to act.
Slide 8
1. New York added administrative shooting guidelines and shooting incident review
procedures that are higher than former justifications. This caused great decreases in
“fleeing felon” shootings, warning shots, injuries and deaths
2. California and Texas are the only two states who require mandatory reporting.
3. city crime rats appear unaffected by hiring quotas. Therefore, these quotas should either
match the population changes and hire officers to match the rise/fall in ethnicities, or
just be eliminated altogether, especially if they aren’t affecting crime rates.

5. 4. the most typical encounters leading to officer involved shootings are: domestic
disturbances, vehicle stops, robberies in progress and investigations of suspicious
persons/circumstances. Therefore, policies that affect how officers go about dealing with
these encounters and guidelines for these interactions may be necessary to help protect
both the officer and the suspect.
5. body cameras give the public assurance that police officers obey the law has well as
enforcing it, which brings about accountability. Body cameras record evidence in real
time, with high levels of accuracy, they quickly make and keep records with create rapid
resolutions for the court systems with guilty pleas, which allows the officers to have
more time on the streets, it reduces public order offenses, helps in domestic violence
cases and details reports for discharged firearms (Harris). Those are all a good use to
spend money on instead of hiring more officers for areas where they are not needed.
Slide 9
1. The best solution is improving the training and education of officers. It saves money for
the police department and thus the public taxpayers as well and provides the agency
with a more tolerant police officer who will help present a better image to the public
than one who is dogmatic and intolerant. It also lowers the risk of injuries and the
number of complaints, while improving the officer’s performance under pressure.
2. The problem with this however, according to Decker and Huckabee (2002), is that raising
the education levels may affect women and minorities getting hired. It will also lower
the application pool of potential new hirers as well as possibly requiring a raise in the
pay level associated with the entry level position to match their education. Also, it may
cause a stigmatismamongst the officers that were already hired before this
education/training is required and the newly hired officers, about which one is better
and may decrease cooperation and communication which could cause problems for
public safety.