News

April 1998

Racial bias and police selection

Dr Kenneth Byrne
Director of the Institute for Forensic Psychology - Australasia
based in Melbourne. Dr. Byrne has practiced as a clinical psychologist for twenty-five years. For the last fourteen years, he has been actively involved in research and practice in the selection of police applicants.

Introduction

Australia is a country of wide cultural diversity, and indications are that this trend will increase significantly in the future. There will be an increasing demand on police organisations to select recruits who are able to deal effectively with a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds in a fair and balanced manner. As police work by its nature attracts applicants with a great variety of personality types, the selection of appropriate candidates has been an on-going challenge for many years. Around the world psychological testing has been recognised as an important component in the screening procedure. This article describes established techniques for identifying applicants who demonstrate racial bias combined with other personality characteristics which foreshadow difficulties in undertaking police work in a fair and balanced manner.

Australian Concern with Racial Bias in Police Selection

Although the dilemma of screening out racially biased officers has been recognised for many years, the issue has gained particular prominence in Australia in the last decade.

The report of the National Inquiry into Racist Violence sets out amongst its recommendations the following:

"That appropriate screening procedures should be implemented to ensure that potential officers who will have contact with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their duty are not recruited or retained whilst holding racist views."¹
The governing principles of the National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau, which have been endorsed by all police jurisdictions in Australia, state that:
"Police jurisdictions in Australia will ensure that the principles outlined in this document are appropriately reflected in policing policies such as codes of ethics and administrative, operational, training and recruitment procedures."²

Another document of national significance recommends as one of its strategies that police organisations "encourage the use of appropriate psychometric screen procedures as part of entry processes, with the aim of screening out candidates with racial prejudice or bias."³

In a recent speech Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, Mr. Neil Comrie, stated that "the endorsement of police jurisdictions in Australia of recommendations made by the Bureau's National Survey of Police and Ethnic Issues for the introduction of psychological screening of applicants to uncover racial tendencies at the recruitment stage is a good example of our determination to tackle racism head on".⁴

The National Conference on Police Services in a Multicultural Australia included as one of its recommendations that, "The psychological screening of applicants be designed and administered in such a way as to eliminate candidates with racial and cultural prejudice or bias."⁵

The Psychology of Prejudice

Prejudice is essentially judging another person, or group of people, based on superficial characteristics such as ethnic origin or skin colour. This pre-judgment usually arises out of presumed ideas about how that person will behave, without any direct experience of actually interacting with that person.

Prejudice assumes that because an individual is a member of a group (usually a minority group), he or she will think and act in predictable (and presumably undesirable) ways.

Psychology has been concerned with the study of prejudice for over fifty years. There are several interacting variables which underly all prejudice. First, is scapegoating. Many people gain a feeling of security and comfort by feeling that they are a welcomed member of a group. However, some groups - to make their own membership feel more secure - have a need to find a scapegoat on to which they can vent the group's hostilities.

A second mechanism behind prejudice is finding negative features which are unacceptable in oneself, and instead attributing these to the members of a minority group. For example, it is common for minority groups around the world to be regarded as lazy and lacking a good work ethnic, despite any evidence to the contrary. This is best understood as a way of dealing with feelings of laziness or desire not to work hard, which a person finds difficult to accept in themselves. Instead of accepting these feelings, the person finds it more comfortable to find these traits in minority group members.

Finally, all prejudice has at its base the goal of making a person feel better - boosting their own self esteem by putting another person or group down.

The Impact of Racial Bias in Policing

Officers who demonstrate discriminatory behaviour based on racial prejudice erode the trust and confidence of citizens in their police force. The move toward partnership-policing suffers a significant setback, reinforcing the old "us against them" mentality. Although citizens may consider lodging a complaint, their confidence in receiving a fair hearing will be weakened.

In crisis situations, racially biased behaviour can inflame an already volatile situation, leading to potential violence. Such behaviour can endanger the safety of citizens, as well as other police members.

Personality Characteristics Associated with Racially Biased Behaviour

First it must be accepted that virtually everyone has some degree of prejudice. We are all hostages to our upbringing, social background, and early learning. We all tend to in some way prejudge others when we meet them. The police organisation is primarily concerned with detecting those people who have significant levels of prejudice and who are likely to act this out in a negative way in interactions with the public. Actual behaviour is always determined by the interaction of multiple personality factors, and it is these factors which must be identified in psychological screening.

In detecting such applicants, the core feature which must first be identified is attitudes of racial bias toward ethnic minorities. Once this has been evaluated other personality traits must be considered which would increase the chances that this applicant would behave in a racially biased way.

A rigid authoritarian approach to law enforcement is highly correlated with racial bias. People with such an approach are by nature inflexible, 'hard line', with a very narrow range of behavioural responses that they can rely on. Highly authoritarian people usually sense themselves as being smugly morally superior to those they dislike.

A candidate with limited insight into the motivation of others is also at high risk. People with this personality trait are limited to a very superficial analysis of interpersonal situations. Their judgment is naive, and therefore more likely to be shaped by their own emotional 'gut responses.'

A certain level of assertiveness is required to be an effective police officer. However, some candidates have an excessive need to dominate others. This is almost always a compensation for underlying feelings of inadequacy, and unfortunately, such people are often attracted to police work.

The candidate who is immature and impulsive is of considerable concern. Police work requires rapid judgements, often under situations of stress. The immature person is far more likely to respond with poor judgement, rather than a rational response which considers a variety of alternatives.

Police work is by its nature highly stressful. The applicant who is already under stress before joining the organisation is at risk of becoming a problem performer. Those who have poor stress tolerance and are also racially biased will be much more likely to unfairly discriminate against others.

These traits form the core 'warning signals.' Two others cause the index of suspicion to rise dramatically higher. First is a suspicious, paranoid approach to life. Unfortunately, a small number of applicants are attracted to police work because they feel that the uniform, weapons and training will provide important 'protection.' Such a person is far more likely to look for someone else as a scapegoat and to misperceive an ordinary interaction as a personal challenge.

Secondly, the police member who uses alcohol or drugs to excess will naturally be more inclined to have compromised judgment in their work.

Personality Traits Suggesting Racially Biased Behaviour in Operational Policing

Demonstrated prejudicial attitudes toward minority group members.
Rigid, authoritarian approach to law enforcement.
Limited insights into the motivation of others.
Excessive need to dominate others.
Immature personality, with poor stress tolerance.
Overly suspicious, paranoid beliefs.
Excessive use of drugs or alcohol.

Psychological Strategies for Detecting these Personality Traits in Police Recruits

A psychological test is a systematic method for gaining information about a person, allowing for comparison with a larger group of people. For example, an intelligence test allows for the measurement of the ability to learn new information. The score allows for the comparison of that person's ability with a large number of others on whom the test was developed. Psychological tests which measure personality variables strive to gain information about underlying traits such as assertiveness, interpersonal awareness, extroversion and so on. Some tests also focus on detecting pathology, such as paranoia, depression, or alcohol abuse.

None of the commonly used psychological tests for screening police applicants evaluate racial bias.

This includes the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI); the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF); the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire (CAQ); or the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI). Thus, there has been a widespread belief that psychological appraisal is unable to detect racial bias. Fortunately, this is not the case.

The Institute for Forensic Psychology has developed a system for selecting police officer applicants over the last 25 years. It is now being used by over 350 jurisdictions in the United States as well as the Northern Territory Police. The psychological testing component consists of a variety of tests which have been specifically developed for the purpose of screening police applicants. The procedure allows for an evaluation of racial bias, attitude toward law enforcement, alcohol and drug abuse, paranoia, maturity and impulsivity, insight into other people, and levels of aggression and dominance. Many other personality attributes necessary for police work are also evaluated. This system has multiple methods for detecting candidates who are "faking good", and has normative data for police candidates in Australia and the United States.

Since no one psychological test or batter of test is perfect, the system is complemented by a structured interview which has been developed and refined over many years. It includes specific techniques to place considerable pressure on an applicant to provide honest answers in the interview, and allows for multiple opportunities to use test responses for further probing of potentially racist attitudes.

Using such a system would considerably advance the capacity for any police organisation to detect racial bias and accompanying personality attributes which present a danger to the public at the recruitment phase. In some cases, the overall profile will suggest a degree of racial bias which can be dealt with by effective cross-cultural training. In other cases, where the bias is supplemented by many of the negative personality traits outlined above, these candidates can be eliminated, sparing the department the ongoing problems that may be caused by racially biased employees.

¹ Report of The National Inquiry into Racist Violence, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Australian Government Publishing Service, 1991
² The National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau, Melbourne, 1993.
³ "Recruitment from Ethnic Communities: National Statement of Principle", National Police Ethnic Advisory Bureau, 1990.
⁴ Mr. Comrie's speech was delivered to the Launch of Videos on Racist Violence and The Multicultural Guide held at the Victoria Police Centre, 10 November 1997.
⁵ National Conference on Police Services in a Multicultural Australia: Conference Report, 1991, Victoria Police and the Australian Bicentennial Multicultural Foundation.