The Fair and Impartial Policing© training curriculum applies the modern science of bias to public safety; it trains officers on the effect of implicit bias and gives them the information and skills they need to reduce and manage their biases. The curricula address, not just racial/ethnic bias, but biases based on other factors, such as gender, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic status and so forth. The curricula address various biases and their implications for law enforcement, including implicit associations, attentional bias, confirmation bias, and we/they bias and dehumanization.
These curricula are founded on the following fundamental principles:
- All people, even well-intentioned people, have biases
- Having biases is normal to human functioning
- Biases are often unconscious or “implicit,” thus influencing choices and actions without conscious thinking or decision-making
- Actions based on biases or stereotypes are unsafe, ineffective and unjust.
- Fairness and impartiality are the cornerstones of procedural justice and important for the achievement of agency legitimacy.
- Officers can learn skills to reduce and manage their own biases.
- Supervisors can learn skills to identify biased behavior in their direct reports and take corrective actions when they detect biased decision-making
Supervisors can learn skills to identify biased behavior in their direct reports and take corrective actions when they detect biased decision-making
There are five Fair and Impartial Policing curricula. The curricula, all based on the science of bias, are customized for these audiences:
- Patrol Officers (the Patrol Officers’ curricula may also be used to train Academy Recruits with specialized exercises designed specifically for recruits)
- First-Line Supervisor
- Mid-Managers
- Command-level Personnel (or Command Personnel and Community Leaders)
- Trainers
These five training programs fill a significant gap in resources for agencies that are attempting to address the national problem of biased policing. The project to develop these curricula greatly benefited from the expertise of a distinguished national Curriculum Design Team (CDT) comprised of experts in the area of biased policing, police executives, first-line supervisors, officers, and community stakeholders. Additionally, and importantly, social psychologists from around the nation who conduct the research on human biases were members of this team.
All five training programs have been implemented with the target audiences (recruits/patrol officers, first line supervisors, mid-level managers, command staff and law enforcement trainers) in multiple and diverse training environments. These programs can also be customized to meet the needs of individual agencies.
Curricula in development, and coming soon, include EMS/Fire, Private Security, Loss Prevention, Expanded Procedural Justice, and Community.
Courses
