Police shootings have become one of the most “visible and controversial” aspects of the criminal justice system . Yet, very little empirical effort has been devoted to understanding the underlying systemic vulnerabilities that likely contribute to these tragic outcomes. Using a randomized controlled experiment that incorporated a police firearms simulator and 306 active law enforcement officers, this study examined the effects of dispatch priming on an officer’s decision to use deadly force. The findings suggest that officers rely heavily on dispatched information in making the decision to pull the trigger when confronted with an ambiguously armed subject in a simulated environment. When the dispatched information was erroneous, it contributed to a significant increase in shooting errors. The results contribute to a broader understanding of officer decision-making within the context of police shootings and introduce the theoretical concepts of cognitive heuristics and human error to the research on police use of deadly force.

中文翻译：

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派遣启动和警察使用致命武力的决定

警察开枪已经成为刑事司法系统中最“明显和有争议的”方面之一。然而，很少有经验性的工作致力于了解可能导致这些悲剧性后果的潜在系统性脆弱性。该研究使用了一个随机对照实验，该实验包括一个警察枪械模拟器和306名现役执法人员，该研究检查了调度启动对官员使用致命武力的决定的影响。研究结果表明，当在模拟环境中遇到武装不明的主体时，军官在决定扣动扳机时会严重依赖派遣的信息。如果发送的信息有误，则会大大增加射击错误。