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Draper PD hosts training seminar on fair, impartial police work

Posted at 10:15 PM, Aug 27, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-28 00:15:30-04

DRAPER, Utah – Police in Draper are taking steps to provide fair and impartial police work, a goal they said is even more important in light of recent police shootings and protests in response.

The Draper City Police Department hosted a training seminar on fair and impartial policing recently, and one of the main focuses of the class was recognizing, understanding and dealing with biases.

"Everybody has biases, and the goal here is to have the officers and the staff learn and recognize those biases, and then to have controlled responses to those biases, so we can treat the public more fairly and impartially,” Chief Bryan Roberts said.

The curriculum for the course is based on research by Dr. Lorie Fridell of the University of Florida, a leading expert on bias.

“There’s gender biases, there's economic biases, there's racial biases, there's biases from just observing another person and coming to some sort of conclusions,” Roberts said.

The goal of the all-day course is to make officers and staff see the biases they have, so they don’t inject them into the things they say and the actions they take.

“I think we're in a unique area here in the state of Utah, where I think we have a very good relationship with the communities that we serve, but irregardless of that, I think we always have to be thinking and forward thinking and providing our staff with the best training and knowledge and skills that we can,” Roberts said.