Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Policy and Administration

Advisor

Melanye V. Smith

Abstract

U.S. police administrators have embraced the implicit racial bias model to minimize the racial bias in their officers’ use-of-force decisions amid a public outcry on excessive police force and racism against African Americans. Although researchers have investigated whether officers have an implicit racial bias, they have not analyzed implicit bias from a police officer’s naturalistic perspective. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenology study was to describe what implicit racial bias perceptions emerged from a small sample of experienced officers when the officers were confronted with a use-of-force decision during an encounter with an African American man. The implicit racial bias model and street-level bureaucratic model served as the study’s conceptual framework. Semi-structured interviews, Implicit Association Tests, and Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations practicums were administered to 7 experienced police officers who worked at a local police department. The data from each technique were coded using directed content analysis and triangulated among the other techniques for an independent outcome. The findings revealed that although some participants had an implicit racial bias, perceptions from these biases did not emerge when the officers faced a simulated encounter with an uncooperative African American man. These findings demonstrate to researchers and police administrators that implicit racial bias might not be a plausible explanation for modern-day police brutality and that more naturalistic academic approaches should be used when examining this phenomenon. Incorporating these approaches may identify amenable solutions that may lead to reductions in racially motivated force and a strengthening of the relationship between the police and the public.

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