Possible to Get Good Public Service From Racists? Oakland Police Officers Speak More Respectfully to White Drivers

From [HERE] Police officers in Oakland, California speak more respectfully to white drivers than black drivers, according to a study of officer body-worn camera footage published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, covered by CNN. This study controlled for contextual factors such as the severity of the offense and the outcome of the stop. “This provides evidence for something that communities of color have reported, that this is a real phenomenon,” said Rob Voigt, lead author of the study, “Language from Police Body Camera Footage Shows Racial Disparities in Officer Respect.”

The study used 183 hours of body camera footage taken during 981 routine traffic stops in April 2014. The data were coded using research participants’ ratings of transcribed officer utterances and by developing computational linguistic models of respect and formality. Utterances connoting respect included those in which officers offered reassurances (“no problem”) or mentioned driver well-being (“drive safe”). Utterances connoting disrespect included those using informal titles (“my man”) and issuing commands (“keep your hands on the wheel”). White drivers were 57% more likely to hear officers say one of the most respectful utterances in the dataset, while black drivers were 61% more likely to hear one of the least respectful utterances.