article here<\/a>).*\u00a0 Am I missing something, isn\u2019t the purpose of the selection process to discriminate good and bad employees, people who earn a job versus people whose record indicates they could be involved in corruption, breaking the law or a become a problem later.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t past behavior the best predictor of future behavior?\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The inmates would literally be running the asylum.\u00a0 Now is that a bad idea?<\/span><\/p>\nIn 1966, Phillippe de Broca released a French film call King of Hearts<\/em><\/strong> which explored the topics of the inmates running an asylum, in fact it was a town being run by an asylum.\u00a0 In World War I, a town had a bomb planted by the departing Germans that threatened to blow up the whole town.\u00a0 The townspeople evacuated and they sent in a Scottish soldier to defuse the bomb.\u00a0 The town had a large mental asylum on the outskirts and the someone left the asylum doors open and the inmates inhabited the town and took on the roles of the town folks. \u00a0What transpired was an absolutely hilarious situation comedy as the inmates would do things that were completely against convention and lived life to have fun, not accomplish things like when the town was inhabited by the regular residents.\u00a0 They held parades, had ill-conceived romances, wore outlandish clothing, all in an attempt to make life fun.\u00a0 Could we exist this way?\u00a0 Could our lives use\u00a0 reduction of convention?\u00a0 Can we learn to laugh at ourselves again?<\/span><\/p>\nThe answer is probably no, not until we get very old, and just don\u2019t care anymore. Bias, prejudice and discrimination are probably at fault.\u00a0 We must understand how these concepts function before we have any hope of laughing at ourselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nWhat Does It Mean<\/h2>\n
The opposite of bias is ignorance.\u00a0 You are biased every day by things that happen in your life.\u00a0 Call it experience, protective radar and it doesn\u2019t sound as bad, call it bias and you bring great criticism to yourself.\u00a0 If I am shopping for ![\"radar\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/radar.png?resize=188%2C190\")
fruit in a grocery store and find bananas with spots don\u2019t last as long before they get mushy or my mama tells me they don\u2019t last as long when I am young, I become biased against bananas with brown spots.\u00a0 It is how we overcome ignorance and how we make ourselves safe in this world. \u00a0Prejudice is the act of taking the education and experience from the resulting biases, and putting them to work.\u00a0 So bias and prejudice are related in a way.<\/span><\/p>\nIf you are a cop, and you find a neighborhood often has dangerous activity, by the principles of bias you should avoid that neighborhood or at least be on high alert when patrolling there.\u00a0 You would be considered prejudiced by your previous knowledge of the neighborhood.\u00a0 And in fact, you are, and you do avoid and increase you carefulness when you enter the neighborhood.\u00a0 Your experience and everything you were taught in the academy and field training tells you to look for certain crimes there.\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t you would be a total dolt, ignorant and na\u00efve.\u00a0 \u00a0Then you could be a politician (had to take my jab).<\/span><\/p>\nDiscrimination is determining the differences in things or people and deciding how to proceed based on those differences. All knowledge and experience is based on the ability to discriminate \u2013 which plants to eat, which people to associate with, were to place your savings.\u00a0 You are dead meat if you cannot discriminate between a poisonous plant and a plant you can eat.\u00a0 Discriminating things is natural.\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t discriminate things you would go through the world and see all things the same.<\/span><\/p>\nMaking a Good Term Bad<\/h2>\n
Now let\u2019s do what society has done and turn these words bad.\u00a0 Society has said that you are showing bias if you consider a person\u2019s skin color, gender, religious orientation or sex important in your decision making of what to do with a perp.\u00a0 Further an act on that distinction is an act of prejudice, and you should never use gender, race or sex as a discriminator.\u00a0 Further, if all acts of terrorism in the country are with people who are of a certain ethical group, you are not allowed to be alerted that the next person you meet of that ethical group may be a terrorist.\u00a0 Essentially, you must throw out experience and education when you work as a cop.\u00a0 Your radar that protects you must be short-circuited.\u00a0 Therein lies the problem.\u00a0 We are not going to short-circuit this almost instinctual reaction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIn psychology, we control bias by the ordering of tasks and the purposeful ignorance of some data.\u00a0 For example, we never write a report in forensic case until we are paid so payment doesn\u2019t bias our words.\u00a0\u00a0 We may not look at the data until all data points are collected.\u00a0 You may not talk to the victim or the cops before you hear the story from the perpetrator.\u00a0 It is done on a case by case decision, but you can reduce different sources of the bias with a variety of methods.<\/span><\/p>\nIn policing, it is very similar.\u00a0 Cops who control bias may look at the way a person dresses first or the whether the person is cooperating.\u00a0 Again order is very important and that need to be known.\u00a0 A lack of cooperation will definitely bias a situation, keeping the hands where they can be seen help reduce bias in a situation.\u00a0 The presence of a gun is a bad prejudice for a situation, but again not the only prejudice.\u00a0 Race, gender, etc. will also prejudice a situation depending on your experience, but make sure you put things in the right order when you talk about it or defend you actions.\u00a0 This is not explained to people very well.\u00a0 People accused of bias usually say I am not biased, and that doesn\u2019t work.<\/span><\/p>\nIn Defense of the Terms<\/h2>\n
I was once asked about bias in court when defending a shooting situation on a civil case and I used the line \u201cof course they were biased and prejudiced.\u00a0 I am very biased and prejudice.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHow could they not be? \u00a0The opposite of bias is ignorance.\u201d\u00a0 The plaintiff\u2019s attorney loved hearing that.\u00a0 The judge asked me to explain.\u00a0 So, I started to explain, much to the chagrin of the plaintiff\u2019s attorney who was objecting every two seconds.\u00a0 The judge told him to sit down and instructed the jury to listen carefully because this was the basis of the whole case.\u00a0 I went on to explain good and bad bias and how we control bad bias in science, but that the basis of science was to create good bias in the future.\u00a0 I must have talked for five to seven minutes without a peep in the courtroom.\u00a0 There were no more questions from the attorney and they settled after a short recess.\u00a0 There is power when you understand the meaning of words and put perspective on it.<\/span><\/p>\nBias is not inherently bad, in fact it protects you and those around you.\u00a0 You must discriminate people.\u00a0 You must live with some prejudice or you will be ignorant and put yourself in danger.\u00a0 So, the next person that accuses you of being biased, say \u201chell yea!\u201d\u00a0 Say yes to discrimination and say yes to prejudice because the opposite is ignorance and stupidity, and \u201cyou don\u2019t want to be ignorant and naive in the situations cops are in.\u201d\u00a0 Then explain.<\/span><\/p>\nThere was no political correctness in the movie the King of Hearts<\/u><\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Let us not fear the conventions that restrict our happiness and sense of fun.\u00a0 Embrace the fun, and put the convention in proper perspective and that will go a lot further than your think.<\/span><\/p>\n*The actual justice department report is not quite as bad as the Judicial Watch article would suggest.<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D. ABPP<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nPlease share this article from down below.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nPlease join the email list on the top of the sidebar and you can get these sent to your email.\u00a0 Also follow me on Twitter for other articles and ideas, and YouTube.
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nFeel free to donate if you like the site.<\/span><\/p>\nSave<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police Psychology:\u00a0 Are You Biased, Of Course\u2026 By Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.\u00a0 ABPP \u00a0 Just when you thought all the stupidity in the world was surrounding the election this year, I thought I would tell you some more bad news. Judicial Watch just released an article that states that police departments can no longer stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17168884],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motives"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":709,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=709","url_meta":{"origin":4673,"position":0},"title":"Police Psychology | Those Damn Cameras","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"September 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Those Damn Cameras \u00a0 Body cameras are the latest \u201cbig thing\u201d in policing, and thus those in the field of police psychology needs to explore how that affects the job. \u00a0Although people argue that body cameras are a good thing, they can also impose an incredible amount\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rank and Leadership"","block_context":{"text":"Rank and Leadership","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168887"},"img":{"alt_text":"Psychology | camera","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Camera-1-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3991,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=3991","url_meta":{"origin":4673,"position":1},"title":"Police Psychology | Managing Your Inner Zombie","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"September 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Managing Your Inner Zombie by Doug Gentz, Ph.D. All of us have a complex, pervasive, extensive network of habits that we might as well think of as our \u201cInner Zombie.\u201d It\u2019s responsible for most of our behavior. That turns out to be a good thing because most\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Motives and Opportunity"","block_context":{"text":"Motives and Opportunity","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168884"},"img":{"alt_text":"zombie","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/zombie-300x272.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6229,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=6229","url_meta":{"origin":4673,"position":2},"title":"Police Psychology Interview: Intelligence and Counterintelligence","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"July 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology Interview: \u00a0Intelligence and Counterintelligence with James Turner, Ph.D. \u00a0 Some of the earliest use of psychology in operational policing\u00a0was by the military. \u00a0I remember reading stories of how B. F. Skinner invented a pigeon-controlled missile which were much more accurate than the guidance systems available at the time.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Public Information Bureau"","block_context":{"text":"Public Information Bureau","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168888"},"img":{"alt_text":"Police psychology: counterintelligence","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/turner.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":386,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=386","url_meta":{"origin":4673,"position":3},"title":"Police Psychology | The Police Candidate Interpretive Report","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"June 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Police Candidate Interpretive Report \u00a0 I had one of the first cell phones for public consumption.\u00a0 It fit in a bag.\u00a0 The battery lasted minutes not hours, and it was essentially a car phone that could be moved around.\u00a0 But visions of Dick Tracy\u2019s watch and Agent 86\u2019s shoe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tests"","block_context":{"text":"Tests","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168877"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":549,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=549","url_meta":{"origin":4673,"position":4},"title":"Police Psychology | You Change Your Underwear, Don\u2019t You","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"August 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | You Change Your Underwear, Don\u2019t You \u00a0 Police psychology is about change (and police stress\u00a0is often about dealing with change). It could be changing an officer\u2019s life, changing the behavior of a perpetrator, or choosing the officer who will go into an academy and have to deal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Change"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Change","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168881"},"img":{"alt_text":"Police Psychology Change 2","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Police-Psychology-Change-2-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2725,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=2725","url_meta":{"origin":4673,"position":5},"title":"Police Psychology | Managing Differences in a Healthy Marriage","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"June 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Managing Differences in a Healthy Marriage by Doug Gentz, Ph.D. - Tulsa, Oklahoma \u00a0 All marriages start, and in some cases, end in court houses. This is because the state of\ufb01cially recognizes marriage as a legal business partnership. The partners in a marriage, just like in any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Emotions"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Emotions","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17165629"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/hands-shaking.jpg?fit=384%2C242&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p60sbO-1dn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4701,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4673\/revisions\/4701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}