Implicit Bias Training
(Sept. 18, 2021)
This is one of the subpages to the Criminal Justice Disparities page of jpscanlan.com. That page and it subpages principally address the mistaken belief, promoted by the U.S. government and countless organizations the purport to have expertise in the analysis of data on demographic differences, that generally reducing adverse criminal justice outcomes tend to reduce, (a) relative racial differences in rates of experiencing the outcome and (b) the proportion Blacks make up of persons experiencing the outcomes.). In fact, as explained more fully on the Criminal Justice Disparities page, the opposite is the case.
That is, as I have explained in scores of places with respect to any favorable or adverse outcome since 1987, when two groups differ in their susceptibility to an outcome, generally reducing the outcome, while tending to reduce relative differences in rates of avoiding the outcome (i.e., experiencing the opposite outcome), tends to increase relative difference in rates of experiencing the outcome itself. Correspondingly, reducing the outcome, while tending to increase the proportion the more susceptible group makes up of persons avoiding the outcome (thus reducing all measures of difference between the proportion the group makes up of the population and the proportion it makes up of persons avoiding the outcome), tends also to increase the proportion the group makes up of persons experiencing the outcome itself (thus increasing all measures of difference between the proportion the group makes up of the population and the proportion it makes up of persons experiencing the outcome).
But, to the extent that racial bias contributes to racial differences in favorable and corresponding adverse outcomes, reducing racial bias will reduce all measures of racial difference. Failing to understand how measures tend to be affected by the prevalence of an outcome, however, observers are incapable determining whether bias as increased or decreased.
In the case of implicit bias training, aspects of such training or activities conducted or policy changes implemented in conjunction with the training will commonly result in general reductions in adverse criminal justice outcomes, thus tending to increase (a) and (b) for the outcome. But even when bias is a contributor and the training in fact reduce the bias (thus reducing somewhat both (a) and (b)), that effect will commonly not be enough to fully counter the effect of the general reductions in the outcomes. And the greater is the general reduction in the outcome, the more likely it is that (a) and (b) will decrease even if bias has decreased.
Failure to understand these issues has caused researchers to puzzled about whether implicit bias training actually reduce bias and even to suggest that the training may increase bias in what has been termed a “rebound effect,” as summarized, for example, in a June 2021 study titled “An Investigation Into the Use of Force by the Fairfax County Police Department,” by Smith, Tilljer and Engel, at pages 16-17.
This example of the impossibility of soundly interpreting the effects of policies on differences in the circumstances of advantaged and disadvantaged group regarding adverse and corresponding favorable criminal justice may be compared to the situation regarding de-escalation training the Louisville Metro Police Department discussed the De-escalation Training subpage.