Joe Cesario on Police Decision Making and Racial Bias in Deadly Force Decisions – Episode #11

Corey and Steve talk with Joe Cesario about his recent work showing that, contrary to many activist claims and media reports, there is no widespread racial bias in police shootings. Joe discusses his analysis of national criminal justice data and his experimental studies with police officers in a specially designed realistic simulator. He maintains that evidence suggests that racial bias does exist in other uses force of force such as tasering but that the decision to shoot is fundamentally different and driven by facts about criminal context in which officers find themselves rather than race.

Resources

• Example of officer completing shooting simulator
• A new look at racial disparities in police use of deadly force
• Is There Evidence of Racial Disparity in Police Use of Deadly Force? Analyses of Officer-Involved Fatal Shootings in 2015–2016
• Overview of Current Research on Officer-Involved Shootings
• Joseph Cesario’s Lab
• Transcript