DENVER—Denver Police are using a social psychologist to study whether the department is doing everything possible to rid itself of racial and gender bias.
Police Chief Gerry Whitman commissioned the study by a University of California at Los Angeles professor known as an expert in what scholars call “racism without racists.”
Professor Phillip Goff says the department wants to ensure that the officers they hire are most likely to engage in non-bias policing. Goff says he is doing the study for free.
The review has been under way for a year.
“This will get to the bottom of burning issues we’ve been looking at for decades,” said Tracie Keesee, police division chief of Research, Training and Technology Division. Whitman asked Keesee to spearhead the Denver review.
Denver police have been scrutinized in the past after allegations of excessive force against minorities. The city agreed last month to pay $885,000 to a 16-year-old Latino who says a white officer in the department’s gang-unit repeatedly jumped on his back.
The officer, Charles Porter, was suspended without pay after the incident and faces a felony charge of first-degree assault causing serious bodily injury. Porter has denied the allegations through his attorney.
Goff said Denver’s police department has been willing to be proactive to find solutions as he has shown them his work.
“When I bring them the findings, they talk about it immediately and say, ‘OK, this is real. How do we go about fixing it?'”
Goff said he plans to begin publishing his findings next year in academic journals.
Goff is also conducting brain scans of some officers and collect physiological tissue, such as blood or saliva, to see how officers react to images that may detect hidden biases.
Goff’s review has already produced some results. The department has created a mentoring program for female police recruits that has reduced the attrition rate.
Keesee said the study will also look at whether some tactics used during training boot camp for new officers is effective, such as yelling at them to prepare them for their street beats.
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Information from: The Denver Post,
