Study: People Faster to Shoot White Suspects than Black Suspects

A new study in the Journal of Experimental
Criminology finds in an experiment measuring the reactions of
participants to various threatening situations that people tended
to pull the trigger faster when confronted by armed white suspects.
This sounds counterintuitive to most people (including me). A 2001
Bureau of Justice Statistics report (latest
available) analyzed justifiable homicides and noted:

Felons justifiably killed by police represent a tiny fraction of
the total population. Of the 183 million whites in 1998, police
killed 225; of the 27 million blacks, police killed 127. While the
rate (per million population) at which blacks were killed by police
in 1998 was about 4 times that of whites, the difference used to be
much wider: the black rate in 1978 was 8 times the white rate.

The BJS study also found that black suspects were also as likely
to shoot at police as be shot at.

In the deadly force experiments participants (85 percent white)
face a life-sized HD video screen on which the stance, clothing,
hand motions, objects being held, and race of suspects can all be
modified. The subjects are hooked up to brain wave measuring
devices and can respond using a laser gun. The
press materials from Washington State University detailing the
results report:

Participants in an innovative Washington State University study
of deadly force were more likely to feel threatened in scenarios
involving black people. But when it came time to shoot,
participants were biased in favor of black suspects, taking longer
to pull the trigger against them than against armed white or
Hispanic suspects…

[WSU researcher Lois] James’ study is a follow-up to one in
which she found active police officers, military personnel and the
general public took longer to shoot black suspects than white or
Hispanic suspects. Participants were also more likely to shoot
unarmed white suspects than black or Hispanic ones and more likely
to fail to fire at armed black suspects.

“In other words,” wrote James and her co-authors, “there was
significant bias favoring blacks where decisions to shoot were
concerned.”

When confronted by an armed white person, participants took an
average of 1.37 seconds to fire back. Confronted by an armed black
person, they took 1.61 seconds to fire and were less likely to fire
in error. The 24-millisecond difference may seem small, but it’s
enough to be fatal in a shooting.

This hesitation occurred even though the electroencephalograph
generally identified brain wave patterns indicating significantly
greater threat responses against black suspects than white or
Hispanic suspects. So then why the difference?

James and her team speculate:

This behavioral ‘counter-bias’ might be rooted in people’s
concerns about the social and legal consequences of shooting a
member of a historically oppressed racial or ethnic group.

Sometimes a social science study turns up something
interesting.