Police training itself instills a ‘prejudice norm’ in recruits

Evidence

Researchers have also examined the possibility that police officers, on average, might be more prejudiced than the average person. For instance, Gatto and colleagues (2010) compared newly recruited police officers to a control population and found that police officer recruits scored higher on Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), a significant predictor of racial prejudice. The authors also found what they called a “socialization” effect, such that police officers were more likely to internalize a “prejudice norm” after being in training for one year. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 290

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s core interest in whether professed attitudes diverge from measured bias — RWA as predictor of prejudice here operates in an institutional context.
• SEED: Angle: police academies as institutional prejudice-manufacturing sites rather than mere filters selecting already- prejudiced recruits.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 290