Thanks to activists' efforts, the idea of reshaping the police force is gaining momentum. One reform often proposed is to train cops to recognize their own biases. This idea gets pushed in the business world too, which is facing its own reckoning over racism. But there's a problem: There's plenty of research showing that implicit bias training doesn't actually work. And there's a recent real-world example: Police in San Jose, California, shot a Black man who works as an implicit bias trainer for their department with a rubber bullet at a protest.
So why does implicit bias training keep getting talked up in efforts to reform police? Michael Hobbes, a HuffPost senior reporter, dug into the topic.
As your story explains, implicit bias training is often mentioned as a good strategy to stop racism and police brutality. How did you come up with the idea to dig into it further?
My first clue was the fact that police departments seem to like it. Whenever activists are calling for meaningful accountability and strong checks on the power of an institution, it should be a red flag when those institutions suggest reforms.
And sure enough, it turns out that not only do police departments like implicit bias training, but many of them are already using it. The fact that the New York Police Department has one of the nation’s largest implicit bias training programs, combined with the footage we saw last week of NYPD officers beating protesters, should be a sign that they’re not exactly solving the problem of police bias single-handedly.
You first lay out the subconscious racism that studies have proven exists even in people who don't voice explicit racism. Were you surprised at what you found in that research?
Social attitudes on race have shifted radically over the last few decades and even in the last four years. This is good news. But whenever we see big shifts on social issues, we should always ask how these shifts are being measured. When it comes to race, bias is often measured with surveys that ask people whether they agree with statements like “I would be disappointed if my child married someone of another race” or “Over the past years, minorities have gotten more than they deserve.”
These are important measures to track, but they only really measure whether people admit to racist views, not whether they hold them. People may be opposed to interracial marriage but also savvy enough not to admit it unless they know they’re in a place where those views will be reinforced.
Implicit bias tests are researchers’ attempt to get around this problem. By measuring subconscious associations and reaction times to ambiguous situations, psychologists can measure how easily people’s brains link, say, “men” and “science” or “Black” and “criminal.”
You also explain the many studies that show implicit bias training doesn't work. Why do you think it's so consistently pushed, given those limitations?
I think it gets pushed because it doesn’t impose any real burden on police officers, department chiefs or politicians. Law enforcement officers already attend trainings as a part of their jobs. Adding one more doesn’t require any changes in structure or, importantly, anyone to give up anything. It’s just another day of box-ticking.
By contrast, almost all of the things that we know would actually reduce bias in policing — more accountability for officers, more community control — require a significant rethink of the institution. For many social problems, we tend to favor “solutions” that are easy rather than those that are effective.
The studies paint a pretty depressing picture: Even training people not to hold implicit biases isn't enough to stop them. But you do note there are other ways, though complex, to deal with police brutality. Can you explain more?
It’s clear that we need to change the culture of policing in America. It’s my belief — and I could be wrong! — that cultures tend to form around incentives. Denmark has a “culture” of bicycling because there’s bike lanes everywhere and gas costs $10 per gallon. America has a “culture” of gun ownership because they’re trivially easy to purchase.
Right now, American policing has a culture of militarization, racial bias and impunity because those outcomes are systematically encouraged. If we want to reduce racialized violence by police, we have to install systems to find it and punish it. This means investigating incidents of force and firing problem officers — no exceptions. We need to start tracking data on racial disparities in policing and make high-level officers accountable for them.
And importantly, we need to give communities more say in how they’re policed. I also cover the housing crisis for HuffPost, and it’s striking to me that building a homeless shelter in a community requires years of process and dozens of community hearings. The tactics, weapons and accountability mechanisms of the officers that police that same neighborhood, however, receive no community input whatsoever.
This is just a small sample and there’s lots I’m leaving out, but you can’t change American policing without fundamentally rethinking how officers are held accountable for their actions.
P.S. We’re excited to host an Instagram Live chat with D. Watkins, author of the Highline piece “Only a Mile and a Big World Separated Us,” and editor Baynard Woods on race and policing in America. Join us Tuesday, June 16, 7 p.m. ET on HuffPost’s Instagram account. | 
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