A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology concludes that people “tended to pull the trigger faster when confronted by armed white [criminal] suspects.”
Reason.com reports on the Washington State University study’s findings (emphasis added):
Participants in an innovative Washington State University study of deadly force were more likely to feel threatened in scenarios involving black people. But when it came time to shoot, participants were biased in favor of black suspects, taking longer to pull the trigger against them than against armed white or Hispanic suspects…
[WSU researcher Lois] James’ study is a follow-up to one in which she found active police officers, military personnel and the general public took longer to shoot black suspects than white or Hispanic suspects. Participants were also more likely to shoot unarmed white suspects than black or Hispanic ones and more likely to fail to fire at armed black suspects.
“In other words,” wrote James and her co-authors, “there was significant bias favoring blacks where decisions to shoot were concerned.”
The average time to fire at a white suspect was 1.37 seconds, compared to 1.61 seconds for a black suspect. While seemingly an insignificant amount of time, “it’s enough to be fatal in a shooting,” the study notes.
WSU researcher Lois James and her team speculate that this (racial) difference may be due to fear of legal consequences of “shooting a member of a historically oppressed racial or ethnic group.”
Read the full article here.
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