Can police officers be trained to discard their racial biases?
After a white police officer killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, there were months of protest across the country, including Seattle. New attention focused on how the police interact with black people.
Now, police departments are considering whether special training can help their officers overcome their own biases.
One idea comes from Washington State University. Assistant professor Lois James developed the Counter Bias Training program.
She talks with KUOW's Kim Malcolm about what an officer will experience in the simulation.
The program has been tried in some smaller police forces in Oregon. Starting in January, it will get a bigger test with the Cleveland police department.
Are you curious about your own biases? You can take a test on a Harvard University website: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
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Kim Malcolm
Afternoon News Host
Kim is the local news host of KUOW's All Things Considered, airing from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. weekdays. Kim covers breaking and developing daily news, both local and regional, as part of NPR's afternoon drive time programming.
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Katherine Banwell
Announcer
Katherine is the local host on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Prior to coming to KUOW, she worked at KPLU (now KNKX) as a fill-in host on All Things Considered and host of Weekend Morning Edition. She's also the voice of many telephone on-hold messages for businesses across the country and loves to act in her spare time.
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