What Do Police Recruits Identify as Strategies to
Deal with Their Triggers/Biases to Deliver Fair and
Impartial Policing?

RELEVANT
FOCUSED
READY

Md Asif Hossain
Introduction
Police officers have an obligation to ensure their investigations are fair
and impartial; to do so they must be aware of their own implicit biases
and develop strategies to mitigate their effect. This study examined the
responses to scenario debrief questions from one class of police recruits at
the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) Police Academy. The
main objective of this project is to learn how police recruits identify their
biases and what strategies they utilize to deal with such biases and
triggers to ensure their investigations are fair and impartial in this
scenario-based training environment.

Background
In 2016, the JIBC Police Academy moved away from the traditional
lecture based curriculum delivery model and adopted a new competency
based education model. Under the new curriculum the recruits learn
concepts and skills through case based real-life scenarios in order to move
towards professional competence. Case based learning helps the recruits
utilize theoretical information in real life situations and build concrete
knowledge about the subject matter (JIBC Police Academy, ca. 2015).
Following application through case based learning the recruits apply their
new knowledge in practical scenarios. These scenarios, though artificial,
can trigger bias that have the potential to impact recruit behaviour and
performance. Following each scenario, recruits are asked to debrief and
examine their actions and reactions.

Research Design and Data Analysis
A qualitative research method was used for this study to analyze
the recruits’ responses to the questions related to bias and strategies
for fair and impartial policing. The study examined the training
material from one class of 48 police recruits in Block I of recruit
training. This class was the first class to train in the fully
redesigned new delivery model. The data was obtained from the
debrief forms that recruits filled out after each scenario. The
debrief forms are used by recruits to self-evaluate their
performance as impartial and bias free. Using grounded theory as a
method of discovery, this study analyzed the recruit responses from
their scenario debrief forms. The answers to questions “What
strategies did you use, or could you have used, to ensure your
investigations were fair, impartial, and bias free?” and “Is there
anything that the subjects did/said that caused you to react
negatively to them (what are your triggers)?” were analyzed and
compared across Weeks 1 to 4 and Week 11 of Block 1. The data
was redacted by the Police Academy staff and it met the JIBC
Research Ethics Board standards.

Results/Findings

Physical
actions
Subject
actions

Hands inside
pockets
Aggressive behaviour (Eg.
kicking chairs)

Building
rapport
Respect

Dismissive
Lying
Verbal
actions

Recruits’
triggers

Subject
characteristics

Strategies to
fair and
impartial
investigations

Raised
voice
Flirtation

Subject
size

Mocking

Assertiveness
Professionalism
Open mindset
Focus on
investigation
objective

Subject
intoxicated

Call characteristics

Staying
calm

Impaired driving
(using cellphone
while driving)
Domestic
violence

Discussion

Conclusions or Recommendations

The intent of this study was to understand what recruits identify as their
triggers/biases in scenario training and what strategies they identify to
deliver fair and impartial policing. The literature review provided context
for the discussion on implicit bias in a broad policing context, however the
literature only focused on racial aspects of bias. The majority of the
literature comes from the U.S. where the racially-based tensions are
different than those in Canada. Block I recruits, however, did not identify
any racially based biases from their scenarios. Recruits focused on subject
actions, subject characteristics and call characteristics as the source of their
triggers. Some of this difference is likely due to the artificial nature of
scenario training. The scenarios at the JIBC involve the recruits acting for
each other, as a result the diversity in subjects encountered is limited to the
diversity in the class. The literature focus also lacks a comprehensive view
of implicit bias. Implicit biases are not limited only to racial friction
between officers and subjects. The literature does not identify other sources
of bias such as subject behaviour or call characteristics, that can be
important, particularly in developing a police recruit. Therefore, there is a
gap in the literature as it did not recognize other types of implicit bias that
are essential for police officers to recognize in order to deliver fair and
impartial police services.

Recommendations for future research include expanding the study by
involving Block III recruits to find additional themes for triggers, bias or
strategies to mitigate such issues. There is also potential for further
research by utilizing the Implicit Association Test (IAT) by Harvard
University with the recruit cohorts to determine the cognitive processes of
the recruits outside their awareness and estimate their implicit association
more directly (James, 2018). The results could then be compared to this
study. There is also the possibility to follow up with the recruits who have
graduated from the JIBC Police Academy and are working in the field.
The follow up research with recruits who have graduated could be used to
examine whether the self-reflection practice at the Police Academy did, or
did not, actually build the reflective practice in the real world.

Bachelor of Law Enforcement Studies

References
James, L. (2018). The stability of implicit racial bias in police
officers. Police Quarterly, 21(1), 30-52. doi:
10.1177/1098611117732974
Justice Institute of British Columbia Police Academy. (ca. 2015).
Aligning recruit training with principles of competency based
education. New Westminster, BC: Author

Justice Institute of British Columbia

April 2018