Philly Police Training To Battle Implicit Biases
By Cherri Gregg
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The Philadelphia Police department is hoping to improve its community policing efforts by rolling out an innovative form of training. The goal: to teach officers how to combat stereotypes and misperceptions while on the streets.
Susan Boyle shocked the crowd when she sang on Britain's got talent six years ago. It was largely because she was middle-aged and her look was more librarian than singer. But her case became a funny, yet poignant example of how everyday people, including police, possess inherent biases about others.
"We used to believe that only racist, ill-intentioned police officers produced biased behavior," says Anna Lazlo, managing partner at Fair and Impartial Policing LLC. "But the new science tells us all human beings have biases that are both explicit and implicit, and it's the implicit biases -- the ones just below the consciousness level -- that influences our behavior."
Lazlo and her four-member team are using videos and role-playing exercises to first illustrate that bias -- the things people think about others without thinking -- exists and show the officers how to deal with them.
"You may have your implicit biases, but you don't have to let them control what you do," she says.
The group of 25 Philadelphia police supervisors will learn various techniques during the three-day course on how to train others to control presumptions based on race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, language ability and more.
"It shows how we as human beings makes snap judgments and then later on say-- whoops that's a mistake," says Sgt. Thomas Cairns of the First District.
He says he'll take what he learned and show others:
"We just need to slow down and not trust every little thought or impulse that comes to our own mind."
Deputy Commissioner Kristine Coulter says Commissioner Charles Ramsey began organizing the training months ago, before the Department of Justice issued its report on the department earlier this year. She says the training is voluntary, but will satisfy DOJ recommendations.
Coulter says it also ensures that Philadelphia does not become another Ferguson or Baltimore:
"It gives our officers additional tools, a different way of building that equity in the community before something happens, so that way we have an understanding so that we will be given the benefit of the doubt until an investigation can happen."
The training will roll out to the 6,300 member department beginning in October and could take up to a year to be implemented.