LPRC - (Re-Release) CrimeScience Episode 60 – Visual Perception of Police ft. Dr. Rylan Simpson (Simon Fraser University)

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

(Re-Release) In this episode of LPRC CrimeScience, Dr. Rylan Simpson, Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University, joins Dr. Read Hayes to discuss his criminological background, how people receive, process, and interpret visual information about police officers, how these visible cues set expectations, research methods, his police ride-along experience, and much more. Dr. Rylan Simpson received his Ph.D. in Criminology, Law and Society from the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Prior to receiving his Ph.D., he received his B.A. in Sociology and Psychology from the University of British Columbia and his M.A. in Social Ecology from UCI. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his policing scholarship and engagement with policing officials. He is also an executive counselor for the American Society of Criminology’s Division of Experimental Criminology, a member of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police’s Research Advisory Committee, and a mentor for the Canadian Society of Evidence-Based Policing’s Virtual Scholar Program. The post CrimeScience Episode 60 – Visual Perception of Police ft. Dr. Rylan Simpson (Simon Fraser University) appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi everyone, welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we aim to explore the science of crime and the practical application of the science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Take advantage of the advanced video capabilities offered by Bosch to help reduce your shrink risk.

Integrate video recordings with point-of-sale data for visual verification of transactions and exception reporting. Use video analytics for immediate notification of important AP-related events and leverage analytics metadata for fast forensic searches for evidence and to improve merchandising and operations. Learn more about extending your video system beyond simple surveillance in zones one through four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch online at boschsecurity.com. Welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science Podcast.

And today I'm excited to be joined by Dr. Ryland Simpson of Simon Fraser University and our producer, Kevin Tran. And Ryland, congratulations on your role. A lot of your research is not only underway, but already published. And you and I started talking probably two or three years ago, never got to talk as much as I would have liked based on the crush of projects that we had going. But the topic and a major part of your research focus play very, very well, I think, into what we're trying to do and, of course, what's relevant

out there today in society at large. So welcome to the podcast, Ryland, and we appreciate having you on here. Thank you so much. I appreciate the invitation. I look forward to our discussion. Excellent. So, you know, I think where we start is what we're going to talk about is how an individual, somebody that's there to safeguard vulnerable people, somebody that's there to protect us, whether it's in our primary environment, which you know, Ryland, is a retail settings, the office, the corporate offices, the distribution or fulfillment centers, of course, the store environments, and so on, are primarily but also shopping, strip centers, malls, and those venues. And then that block that neighborhood and outward from there. We've got truck transport and so on. So there are a lot of venues involved in our major play here, and that's retail. But it's the perception of those that we're trying to protect and those that we're trying to protect and safeguard the vulnerable from that also play

into this. And so while most of us criminologists have a lot of sociological background, at the end of the day, I think a lot of it is psychological. And I know that where we are as experimental criminologists here is we're kind of on that psychological side. It's all about stimulus and response. And what we're trying to do is convince some people to do X, Y, or Z and others not to do something else while they're here. But every little thing can come into play. So many factors, so many elements. And so what I love so much about what you do and what you've been working on, and that is the perception side, the perception of those that we're trying to protect, those that we're trying to protect them from, their demeanor, their appearance, their enabling tools,

and not just what they do, but how they do it, how they appear, how they handle themselves, how they interact, and how they manage their emotions and all this apply to really all of us in life, but particularly to those in authority that are there to safeguard us. So let me kind of go over to you, Ryland, talk a little bit, if we could maybe start with human perception. And what are some examples about, let's say, people that we're trying to protect and how they might perceive a law enforcement officer, a security officer, somebody in authority, that place manager,

and how the would-be offenders might perceive them. But how does perception play into that? It's a great question. And I think, as you mentioned, one that's really important as we think about moving forward into this new era of policing and law enforcement more broadly. But as you mentioned, I think in any of these kinds of discussions, it's important to first sort of step back and look down from above at what we're essentially dealing with. And that right now is perception. Studying perception involves understanding how we as humans process and interpret information. That information can come in all shapes and forms, from sights to sounds to smells. We do this all the time, from the judgments that we make while

we're driving to work, while we're shopping, while we're eating, while we're socializing, oftentimes even without awareness that we're actually doing it. Now, in the case of my work, I'm interested in how people receive, process, and interpret visual information about police, particularly in the absence of any formal contact or contextual information. So the example I like to give to my students or those who I'm sharing my research with regards the kind of interaction you might have with a police officer while driving. Imagine you're driving down the street and you observe a police officer standing on the sidewalk. Think about the kinds of judgments you might make about that officer. You might find yourself asking yourself, what is that officer doing? Why might that officer be doing that? What is the officer wearing? Why might they be wearing that? Do I think they look friendly? How about aggressive? If I approach them, do I think

that they'd be respectful to me? All these kinds of questions that we can find ourselves asking are ultimately questions about perception. Just in this case, they're in the applied context of policing. It's about trying to understand how visual information, which we can receive, can then change the way we might think about what we're looking at or what we're perceiving, and then the implications of that for what it might mean for if and when we were to engage with the person, and if so, what we would engage with them about. So I think it's a really important question and one that really warrants more attention as we move forward, thinking about some strategies that we might use to try and enhance perceptions of law enforcement and anybody really in a position of

authority or power. You know, let me ask another thing that, you know, a lot of what's under review now and really has been for decades, and that is, you know, generalizing that we know that from science and through the evolutionary biology of the brain and as humans and mind and survival instinct and so on, that probably in part what happens with any entity is that in order to survive, to keep going, to propagate, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to survive, to happens with any entity is that in order to survive, to keep going, to propagate your gene code, whatever we might be here for, we're going to have to take in all the information, as you were talking about, consciously or not, and make some sense of it and make the call, you know, make some inferences, generalize, and maybe govern ourselves accordingly before we wander into a strange village or up to a strange person or whatever. But I think the point is, we all know that we have to, though, as modern humans, understand and try and govern that, that we don't want to infer something, and we know about the atomistic and ecological fallacies, but from one individual

to the group or from a group to an individual. But how these play into, we don't want to racially discriminate. We don't want to, from an age standpoint, from a gender standpoint or whatever it might be. But it does, we do see that we tend to probably as humans to do that. And maybe it is grounded in survival instinct and maybe not. But in the case of law enforcement officers, we do see also that I think this is what's so critical. And the same thing with a security officer, that when an individual, what they look like to us or how they interact with us, we not only label them with that, but we might generalize that to all law enforcement officers, for example, in the way that we don't want them to do to us. So it seems to me that a lot of what you're researching goes into that to say, look, you're representing yourself, you're representing all law enforcement in a way, rightly or wrongly, but that's the fact on the ground. How does that general inference, that generalization play into this? And how can

law enforcement officers, how can all of us take this to heart, learn, and improve on how we interact. Again, another really great point that you mentioned, and it brings us back to the discussion about the psychological literature regarding perception, and particularly the use of cognitive schema. As you mentioned, we tend to rely upon these overgeneralizations to make sense of our world, to make sense of the kinds of things we see, hear, smell, touch, and so on. And so absolutely that kind of mechanism is at play in the context of policing. But I think where it makes it really important is to then understand what the implications of appearance of officers might then be for things like perceptions of police. Visual cues are really important in the

context of policing. And as I said earlier, I think a lot of that's because most people don't have much formal contact with the police, yet they still observe the police, at least on a semi-regular basis. The example of seeing a police officer on your drive to work is much more typical for most people than actually having a police officer come to your house and have a formal engagement with you. officer come to your house and have a formal engagement with you. That then creates this really interesting opportunity for perceptions about police to be derived from what people see in or on officers as opposed to what the officer actually does during a formal engagement. This can then make it really important for understanding why people may choose to engage or not engage with people like police officers. So for example, if someone sees a police officer but thinks that the officer looks aggressive, unapproachable, or unfriendly, it's very likely that that person may choose not to engage with the officer based upon the

perception they've derived from them, depending on their appearance. This could mean that then not only an opportunity for positive public dialogue is lost, but could also mean that the negative stereotypes about police then continue to exist. And I think where some of this conversation has been headed recently is in this context of different policing philosophies, the ideas of warrior versus guardian mentalities. And as I started to suggest in some of my more recent research, sometimes the appearance of officers can serve as a proxy for these sorts of philosophies. When you're dressed as if you're going into combat, it's likely that people may perceive

you as having a role that's consistent with that activity. But if that's not the kind of role that the police agency or the security department or whoever it is that's actually employing these officers wants the public to have, then they need to think really critically about how they might be influencing those perceptions through their strategic use of equipment. So the same can be said in all these different contexts, including cooperation with police. People may be less likely to assist and work with police to the extent that they think police are unapproachable, incompetent, unaccountable, aggressive, and so on. Now, the good thing that I think with all this sort of research and the implied implications is that it's quite easy to actually change these potentially negative

perceptions. As I've shown in my own experimental work, I've consistently found that even subtle manipulations to police appearance can enhance perceptions of police officers. Changing up the uniform by a donning and accruement like a high visibly vest can really enhance perceptions of police officers, even when you hold everything else about the officer's presentation constant. The same can be said about different patrol strategies. Getting officers out of their cars and onto bicycles, or even just out onto a foot patrol, can breed positive perceptions, as can removing some of these perceptually negative accoutrements

like sunglasses and black gloves. So in these cases, we can change these perceptions. We can change the ideologies that the public may infer about police based on their appearance by manipulating the appearance of officers. But I think it really takes some conversation and some thought on behalf of the practitioner to carefully consider what the perception that their equipment might be inducing and if that perception aligns with their goal. Because in many cases, I hear from practitioners that they want their officers to look approachable, to look friendly, so that the general public will come up to them and ask for help and engage with them, but yet they're dressing

their officers in such a way that they're actually intimidating the public from ever wanting to have any contact with them. So it's helpful to think of these different types of equipment as signals. They elicit a different perception, and then understanding those perceptions helps us to understand how we can make functionality and perception be complementary as opposed to just mutually exclusive. So it's a really exciting area of work for me, not just for research, but I think also for practice.

And it's exciting to see that other folks are also joining in on this movement and really seeing the value in asking some of these perceptual-based questions. That's excellent. So let's kind of go into that a little bit, Ryland. Let's talk about some of the symbols. You saw one of my questions where there's a protective versus a functional utility. And then, of course, there's a processional side. So there's always these different competing or at least coexisting factors in play there. And so what are some of the, you mentioned in your work a lot about accoutrements and the clothing and the equipment. Maybe describe some of those for the non-law enforcement listener. What are some of those symbols, those tools, and so on? And what do they stand for?

What are they here for? And what are some options? Sure. So as I've argued in my existing research, there's a couple of symbols that stand out as particularly important for identifying police and thus important for establishing their perceived legitimacy. And one of those symbols is the uniform. I would argue the uniform is probably one of the most important pieces of police equipment. It's what identifies a person as a police officer. It's what affords them the legitimacy that they require in order to effectively conduct their duties. forwards them the legitimacy that they require in order to effectively conduct their duties. We know from related literature that most cooperation, most engagement, and most compliance with police comes from perception. It's the belief that people have that they ought to obey that

person because of their legitimacy. And so the uniform helps to establish that. Simply by wearing a uniform can breed those kinds of outcomes. And we've seen research that's been published in psychology that demonstrates people are more likely to follow a non-police officer dressed in a uniform than an actual police officer dressed in plain clothes. In this case, they're really using that actual article of clothing to make some pretty serious judgments about the legitimacy of the officer, and they're then allowing that legitimacy to drive behavior. So we can think about that in other contexts as well. This is not unique to policing. The same could be said for the airline industry. We can think of how pilots dress in order to convey their legitimacy to fly aircrafts. We can think of postal workers.

We can think of doctors. We can think of white coats, we can think of lab coats and these sorts of clothing items that too infer the same kinds of legitimacy, but just in different occupational contexts. What we're dealing with in policing is transforming a person into an officer, and oftentimes adorning the uniform in the locker room is the very means by which they do that. A similar logic and a similar symbol can be applied to the marked police vehicle. Just like how that uniform transforms a person into an officer, the markings on a vehicle, sometimes what's termed deliveries, transform a vehicle into a police vehicle. So now given modern policing's dependence on motorized patrol, that becomes then very important.

Most observations we as people have of police are when police are in cars. It's the primary means by which police get from point A to point B. For many agencies, it's the mobile workstation of most officers. It's a transport vehicle and it's the lunchroom. And therefore, they're very widely used and very heavily used. And so understanding the implications of the markings of those cars gives us insight into how the public might then think about police. When we see a police car, most of our reactions is typically to do things like check our speed, our seatbelt, and if it's a cell phone in a rural state, probably to get off your cell phone. The fact that simply seeing the car is enough to change your behavior and to cause you to actually induce those checks speaks to the power of the car.

At that point, you don't even know if it's a confirmed police vehicle. You don't know if it's a confirmed police officer driving that vehicle or if the officer's interested in what you're doing, yet simply seeing it has now caused behavioral change on part of the driver. That speaks really clearly to the power of the car. The symbolism of that car induces behavioral change in and of itself, absent any formal contact with the actual officer driving the car. So that, to me, is, again, another really important symbol of policing, and that gets magnified by the fact that oftentimes the officers who are occupying marked cars are uniformed. So you've got a uniformed officer inside a marked police vehicle. So you've got a uniformed officer inside a marked police vehicle. That's sort of the mecca of police legitimacy, and it's probably fair to assume that most people,

if they were to be stopped by such a duo, would probably pull over and follow the commands of the officer given that they would assume the officer is legitimate. And so that's how we should be thinking about symbols is the kinds of tools, equipment, and so on that can induce behavioral change even in the absence of any other formal contact or proof of the officer's legitimacy. We typically don't want to see a badge

if we've got a marked car and a uniform at play, but yet the same can't be said in an unmarked car with a non-uniformed officer. So it's a really important symbol of legitimacy. Getting to your second question, though, we can also think about the variation that exists within these broad categories. So not all vehicles look the same, nor do all uniforms look the same. And particular items and accoutrements on the uniform can further manipulate the perceived legitimacy of the officer, as well as the associated perceptions that people might derive about that officer. So it's important we remain mindful of how these particular accruements or vehicle types can impact these outcomes because everything does have a purpose

and although we identify the perceptual implications of equipment and often make judgments about whether that equipment should or maybe shouldn't be used based on those consequences, we must not forget that police do use and carry these equipment for reasons and those reasons should be considered as part of the evaluations of the equipment. So, for example, I find sunglasses are perceptually problematic. They inhibit the eye contact between the officer or the security officer, whoever the case may be, and the observing party, which tends to result in these perceptions of threat suspicion, which oftentimes result in negative perceptual outcomes. One person could take that finding and make the argument, well, police in negative perceptual outcomes. One person could take that

finding and make the argument, well, police officers shouldn't wear sunglasses. But to do so is to make an illogical argument because sunglasses have a function. They have a purpose. One of those is to ensure that the officer can actually see what they're looking at. And I think all of us should agree that in the context of a sunny climate where sunglasses are necessary, we want our officers to be able to see what they're potentially pointing a firearm at. There's also the health issue that's apparent in this. We know sunglasses protect the health of our eyes. So to take the sunglasses out of the policing equation would be to make a poor decision. That said, we can think about how we might strategically use or not use sunglasses

in order to ensure that we can maintain favorable perceptions. So you can think about how we might strategically use or not use sunglasses in order to ensure that we can maintain favorable perceptions. So you can think here of taking a victim statement. Once an officer has deemed a scene safe such that there's no immediate safety risk presented to them perhaps they can reposition themselves to an environment where they can remove the sunglasses to take the statement from the person. Or if you're doing a neighborhood video canvas, going door to door, after you knock on the door, if it's safe for you to do so, lift your sunglasses up for your conversation. When you walk away, put them back down. A same logic can be made for gloves. Gloves have a purpose. They protect against transmission of

bodily fluids as well as disease. They minimize injuries to the wearer's hands. That function is legitimate, but do the gloves always need to be black in color as they historically have been? Again, I would say no. Officers can achieve the same health and safety benefits with different colors of gloves, and therefore they might be able to find a nice nexus where they can meet functionality with perception by picking a different color glove. So there's all these sorts of questions that I think we can ask. This isn't a zero-sum game where it's about either you can or can't have equipment, but what I think is more fruitful is to have the conversation about when and where might that equipment be appropriate. And by having that dialogue, I think we have more room to gain in terms of perception.

Great, great points are right. And I appreciate that. And that's a big part of the of research, I think, and what you're trying to do, and what we're all trying to do, hopefully, and is criminologists supporting better guardianship. And that is, okay, let's understand the logic, the function. And now let's look at options and and i mean the gloves are just a great example where okay sharps you know needles razor blades scissors ice picks and things like that box cutters can be present and we understand there's a reason for protective gloves but they don't have to be shiny black. There are things that we could do. I'm not, I wouldn't say soften, but they're probably better things. I'll tell you that back in the day I was in the U.S. Army and I was a scout and the battalion I was in after I had left

went to over to Iraq for another tour. And the company commander a company commander was told that that the the men needed to renew their helmets that they were too aggressive they were guarding a campus a college campus and shortly thereafter um uh an individual um a local shot and killed that soldier by shooting him in the head. And you can imagine that set back some of the ideas about softening the soldier's look. But to understand, look, there's a function, there's a protective function in this case to the helmet. Now, is there something else we could do? Is there another way? We get the point, but we have to, like you're saying, take into account the reality on the ground and that, you know, the world can be a dangerous neighborhood. And, and that means there are

people that mean to do us harm. And, and so we want to take that into account. But, but that's what I really, really appreciate about your research is let's take all these, these perspectives in. Now let's conduct some dosing research, you know, dose ranging research like you did with the pharmaceuticals. So let's talk a little bit about the vehicle appearance and have you started down that road very much on your research, what the vehicle should look like given the accoutrements, the technology, the equipment there. Yes, absolutely. So I published some research in 2019 looking at police vehicles and particularly the effects of vehicle aesthetics

on different perceptions of officers who occupy those vehicles. And I think this was a really exciting paper for me given what I said earlier about the prevalence of vehicles. They're such a huge part of modern policing, and yet for so long they had gone pretty much unstudied. And so to be able to contribute to that literature was for me a really exciting opportunity. What I did as part of that study was tested the effect of three different categories of police vehicles, and then within the one category, two different aesthetic types. So the three categories regarded a marked police vehicle, an unmarked police vehicle of the same three categories regarded a marked police vehicle,

an unmarked police vehicle of the same make and model as the marked vehicle, so in this case a Ford Crown Victoria, and then a civilian or what I termed unrelated vehicle, which was still a Ford, but a Ford Escape, so something that's not traditionally used for any sort of frontline patrol practice. And then within the marked category, I looked particularly at a predominantly white and blue color scheme. So the vehicle was largely white with a blue stripe, and then the black and white, more traditional type color scheme that had the police writing written in the white door panels. And I tested the effect that these different vehicle types and aesthetics could have on perceptions of officers, and I found some really interesting results. So consistent with this logic of predatory type policing, deceptive policing, I found that out of the three vehicle categories, the unmarked vehicle was consistently perceived as least favorable. People really didn't

like to see officers in the unmarked vehicle, even though everything about the actual make and model were consistent with the marked car, taking the markings off of it that would identify it as a police vehicle translated into some really negative perceptions of the officers, even more negative than that Ford Escape, which would be considered, again, civilian or unrelated to frontline policing. On the other hand, I found that the marked vehicles were perceived generally quite favorably. People like to see police officers in the marked cars, and that was very clear with a lot of the findings with regards to their police officers in the marked cars, and that was very clear with a lot of the findings with regards to their perceived approachability, respectability, accountability, and so on. And then I found this interesting finding about color schemes of marked

vehicles, and that it wasn't just whether or not the officer occupied a marked vehicle, but the type of color the marked vehicle presented. And so counter to actually what my hypothesis at the time was, I found that officers occupying the black and white marked vehicle were actually generally perceived more favorably than those that occupied that white and blue vehicle, a finding which I've now attributed back up to that legitimacy theory that I discussed earlier in our interview, such that the black and white car is more obviously associated with police, and it would appear from the findings that it may be that very fact that's driving why people

were perceiving them more favorably. It's very easy to identify a black and white car as police. Most police cars in North America have historically been that color scheme, at least in recent times, and therefore the association between that car aesthetic and the legitimacy of the police is potentially stronger than the predominantly white car, which would often cause participants to have to pay more attention to figure out if it indeed is actually a police car or some other type of branded commercial vehicle. So that was a really interesting set of findings and ones that have been implemented by several police agencies since publication. several police agencies since publication. So one of my partner police agencies who collaborated with me on the experiment has since actually transformed their cars from the white and blue scheme

to a black and white one. And so it was a great example of how research can drive practice. In this case, the agency set aside its pre-existing assumption that white cars should be more guardianship-orientated and actually transform their cars into the black and white markings. But just speaks again to the power of the visual cue. This is nothing more than a manipulation now to the color that's presented on a car, yet just even variation in that color is enough to induce significant perceptual variation. Fantastic. Another example of translational criminology,

grounding it in logic, collecting evidence, and then reporting that evidence in a usable way, in an accessible manner. So I love that. So let's talk a little bit about even, I guess, kind of dialing it in even more, and that's facial expression, demeanor, body language, things like that. We talked about the physical appearance of the equipment, the technology, the uniform, and things like that. And you touched on a little bit with sunglasses and how they might occlude some of the connection and interaction and the transmission of one human to another in that type of engagement. What about facial expressions? into another in that type of engagement. What about facial expressions? So facial expressions are these really interesting and powerful signals that can communicate all kinds of information to observing parties. Like with some of the accruement and other

appearance-related research, a large body of psychological literature has documented the relevance of facial expressions in all sorts of different social situations and interactions. And it was really reading some of that psychological literature that got me interested in trying to understand how might facial expressions work in a specific context of policing. It's a unique environment where officers are often taught to be very neutral, in some cases almost robotic. So how might people perceive officers who exhibit different kinds of expressions? As part of my recent experimental work, then, I systematically tested the effect of smiling versus neutral expressions on perceptions of officers along a whole array of different outcomes, from aggressiveness to friendliness to accountability to competency.

And what I found is that across the board, exhibiting a smile consistently elicited positive perceptions of officers, both officers who identified as male and female. Particularly, I found that the smile magnified the positive effects of perceptually favorable accoutrements, like high visibility vests, and minimized a lot of the negative effects of some less favorable perceptually accoutrements, like gloves and sunglasses. So, for example, an officer wearing a high visibility vest was generally perceived more favorably relative to when not wearing the vest. But when I paired that vest then with a facial expression like a smile, the positive effects of the vest were even further magnified. In contrast with things like sunglasses, which as I mentioned before, tend to be

perceived quite negatively, when I paired the sunglasses with the facial expression, the extent of that negative perception diminished quite substantially, such that sunglasses were not nearly as problematic when worn in combination with the smile than what they were when worn in combination with the neutral expression. So that really gets at this question again of that intersection between functionality and perception. These equipment have functions, oftentimes very legitimate functions. It would be nearly impossible

to take some of this equipment away from modern law enforcement, given the reasons and rationales for why they use and carry it. But what the facial expression research suggests is that even when you must carry these equipment, when you must wear it, there are steps that you can take to try and reduce the negative perception that you might be inducing by simply having that presence of that equipment on you. And one of those steps might be doing things like smiling. And I think that's really great and exciting because facial expression manipulation at the end of the day requires no funding. It's free to smile. It doesn't require training. Most of us should all know how to do it. And it can be implemented by officers from agencies of all sizes and all places. It's not specific to big city versus small city or west coast versus east coast.

They can be manipulated in all environments. You can smile at a traffic stop just like you can smile at a welfare check to while you're at a community event. So it's a really helpful way to try and mitigate some of the negative perceptions that might otherwise be induced by equipment that the police carry, and also a really beneficial way to amplify the positive effects of other equipment and other techniques already known to establish positive perceptions. No, thanks, Ryland. Another great example, because I know that some research and others have done, I know with our offender

interviews, and we've done several hundred over the years, a big part of situational crime prevention really is capability. And that's an individual assessing a potential target or an option that may be an array of potential targets. and then why would this maybe provide more benefit, of course, versus I might get caught or there's much more likely here the probability, the risk for me of severe sanction and so on is higher here. needs to be shown, well, you don't have to give up the capability appearance. If we're driving a black and white vehicle, but it's beat up, you know, it's got a donut tire on it, it's probably not very capable. That may look like more of an opportunity to be less respectful or to evade and so forth in a pursuit situation. Likewise, an officer who is, does it look like they have terrible posture, maybe they don't have, look like they have the right equipment, whatever it might be. But you're not talking about that. You're talking about, look, we want to maintain the

capability and we want to look capable to the would-be offender and to those we're protecting, that we are a capable guardian for them. But we can soften that without diminishing the capability by simple color changes, whether it be a glove or a vehicle, as well as expressions. And a sincere smile, adopting that, where we've got a resting smile face, if you will, that when we engage with people, we're engaging with people. And we're trying to solve a problem here. We're not trying to put somebody in jail. Absolutely. And I think the interesting finding as well that came from that research was that people even perceived the officers as more competent when they exhibited

a smile on many of the different appearance combinations that I presented to them. And so I don't necessarily think that this is a trade-off or a zero-sum game. Although I couldn't test the question in the context of an offender specifically because I didn't necessarily have one, that sample, nor two, did I ask about that sort of intention. But you can imagine how you have to cater your aesthetics, your appearance, your presence to all kinds of different audiences. And the majority of people coming through the establishment engaging with police are not necessarily ones who are thinking about whether or not they're going to commit crime. And therefore, something like a smile could help to breed a safer sense of security amongst that population,

which is largely probably your majority population. that population, which is largely probably your majority population, and in doing so, help to instill other positive values that then may help to reduce the presence and opportunity of crime at that establishment. And so I think even amongst the variable of competency, we see positive advancement when officers smile. And so there's a lot of probably fruit to be picked from that particular domain. And I think it ultimately comes back to the logic that police officers at the end of the day are human and that people expect oftentimes that they see human in police officers. And so the logic of the neutral expression and being almost robotic in your approach to managing the public, I think is one of the past. People expect

more from their police than that level of service. And one way in which they can demonstrate the interpersonal dynamics that people often expect from their police officers is by displaying things like expressions. And so I think it's a really interesting area for work to continue being pursued and to really understand how this might implicate itself in the sorts of specific examples you're mentioning with populations like offenders. Excellent. So let me ask you a little bit about research methods and what you're doing to learn to form hypotheses and then go out and collect your data, your evidence. How are you doing that, Ryland? And I know a big part of that's the ride-along, and maybe you could touch a little bit on your overall methods, including your ride along, which is pretty fascinating. So I've largely described myself as an experimental criminologist. I like to use

experimental methods to try and get insight into the kinds of questions that you've heard me talk about thus far during our conversation. And so you'll often see me building paradigms using experimental software like Inquisit that allows me to tease apart some of the effects of these different items of appearance on perceptions of police officers. I've also had some other related work that hasn't necessarily used laboratory frameworks, but more field frameworks to try and understand how different behaviors and practices might actually change behavior in the real world as opposed to the laboratory environment. But overall, my thought has always been to use the best methods that are most carefully matched to the research question to try and produce really rigorous results that could eventually inform policy, inform practice, and contribute to that broader evidence-based policing movement. As you mentioned, ride-alongs have been a really interesting part of my research

trajectory. Those who follow me on social media will know that I've always been a huge advocate for ride-alongs. I think that they provide real important and raw insight into the frontline operations of police. They allow researchers and citizens alike the opportunity to really see what happens in our communities and how different sorts of issues are managed from a very practical perspective. different sorts of issues are managed from a very practical perspective. And I think that this kind of learning is really invaluable when you're thinking about studying an occupation as diverse as policing. Now, from a research perspective, I think that ride-alongs also provide this awesome opportunity to both observe research and practice, but also identify some exciting areas for potential new research. Much of my own work that I've discussed came from conversations

with officers that I had in the front seat of a patrol car during ride-alongs or observations that I made of officers who were engaging with citizens during those ride-alongs. And so for that, I'm very grateful for all those agencies and officers from at this point across the world who've let me join them on their patrols because I feel like I'm a better researcher because of it. I feel as if I can complement their work as opposed to necessarily exclude them from it. And so that's been a really useful part of my research trajectory and one that continues to bleed into my practice. And so that's been something that I've worked really heavily on is trying to build engagement between the research and practitioner communities.

I've always found it really frustrating that they seem to exist in these silos, that police officers don't think researchers can necessarily help them do their job better, and that researchers don't think police officers have any information to provide at the table, because I think both of those are not true. We can learn through each other. We both have information that could potentially help make better research, help inform better policy. And so I think we do have to identify ways to be able to share the same table to address these really pressing issues. And sometimes something like a ride-along is a really helpful way to start that conversation, to build trust between the researcher

and the practitioner, to build ideas, to build dialogue, and to hopefully start a relationship that could eventually down the road result in some really important and collaborative work. So that's been a big part of my overall methods portfolio and something I continue to advocate for. I always tell my graduate students and my undergraduate students interested in this kind of work to get, if they can, the chance to get out in a police car to see what police do, because I really do think it complements their knowledge of what they know is going on in the research world by showing them how some of those findings might actually implicate themselves in frontline practice. Great, fantastic. And I'd ask you, from the

standpoint of the ride-alongs, you see law enforcement agencies, they've done it for a long time, but I'm seeing, or at least it appears to be, it's anecdotal, an increase in inviting community members, leaders, influencers, if you will, activists maybe, to spend time, go through some training, some of the de-escalation, the confrontational training with them, do ride-alongs with them to better understand policing, the split-second decision-making that has to occur that each and every day, each and every encounter you have with any citizen, you just really don't know exactly what's going to happen or when ever. You know, it's very difficult to predict human behavior, as we all know, especially individual behavior. So any thoughts on that? I mean, is that a possible avenue that some of us in criminology should take a look at? Does that engagement, like you're doing as a researcher, to better understand,

form better and better hypotheses, develop the research and provide some feedback loops, some ways to inform them, some evidence-based policing reality. But does that hold some promise or is that something we should look at as well, the engagement with community members? I think it's an excellent avenue to really help build understanding of what the police do, what their role is, and potentially ideas for what could be done differently. We've been given very little raw insight into the frontline work of police, and that's largely meant that we've then had to rely on these third-party sources to try and develop our understanding of what policing actually involves, whether it be through fictional

or non-fictional media, movies, television shows, things like Live PD or the show Cops. And the reality is that those very sources are quite problematic for a number of reasons. They often make policing much more glamorous and glorified than what the actual day-to-day duties of the occupation involve. And so it's not until you actually have the chance to sit in the police car and watch the police officer do what they typically do on any given day that you can really understand and appreciate how some of the policies, how some of the practices get implicated by your frontline officers. And so by inviting the public in, you're giving them the opportunity to see firsthand and to derive their own judgments about what policing involves, as opposed to asking them to

interpret it through somebody else's subjective assessment of their understanding of policing. So although there's risks involved, like with any type of activity, by putting the general public in police cars, I think there's a tremendous amount of gain that can be gained from both the police, but as well as the citizen perspective for how we might then be able to better build relationships between public and police and better craft research that can hopefully have important practical implications for how police might engage in their work moving forward. Fantastic. Thanks, Ryland. So let's kind of end with this. What was the origin of you being interested in criminology and criminal justice? And then how did you, what sort of, what was the transition, the pathway to start to become

interested in the area that you are specifically with your research agenda? So my interest in policing started when I was a very young child. I was always fascinated by the police. And I attribute much of that to my neighbor at the time, who was a police officer and used to show me his police car and his police equipment and so on. As I aged and grew up a little bit, I was lucky enough to eventually have the opportunity to ride with the police. I went on my first ride-along with our local police here at just 15 years of age. And then eventually, as I entered into my undergraduate degree, I actually began working for the police as a dispatcher. And so that gave me that opportunity to really see, once again, going back to the ride-along conversation, the frontline practices of police, the kinds of things people call police about, the kinds of ways in which we then deal with those issues.

And so the combination at this point of riding with police and working in the police dispatch center started to get me thinking about all kinds of different questions involving policing. I used to, as a dispatcher, hear this line all the time about don't send scary officers, or why do you have to look so intimidating, or can you send an unmarked car, or do you have to send somebody in uniform? And I started to think, why are all those questions being asked but not tested? And when I looked at the literature, what I found was that this area of police appearance and the perceptual implications of appearance was largely understudied. There was very few studies that had asked any of these kinds of empirical questions, and the studies that had were quite historically dated. And so I thought this could be a really interesting avenue for me to then pursue as I move into graduate education to try and understand and study so that I could then help establish a

bigger literature base about some of the issues that could then hopefully inform policy. So as my interest gravitated towards this domain, I eventually applied to graduate school and was accepted at the University of California, Irvine, which is where I pursued my PhD. And during my PhD, continued my collaborative work with police, building the experiment that I titled the Police Officer Perception Project, as well as a couple other projects that really tried to understand how these sorts of quick second observations where police are merely seen but not engaged could change perceptions and how I could change those perceptions based on what participants actually saw. And so that followed me all the way through my PhD until I graduated

and then was eventually hired as an assistant professor now at Simon Fraser University, where I continue to both work with and study police. So it's been this really nice marriage of research and practice. I've stayed very connected to the practitioner world. I continue to participate in regular ride-alongs. I also still continue to dispatch on occasion as an auxiliary dispatcher, and then, of course, continue to study police, and particularly questions regarding appearance. So it's been a really nice blending of these different worlds, these different interests, and I think it's really been helpful for me

in being able to connect and bridge these otherwise two seemingly different worlds and ways that I think hopefully helps make policing move forward. So it's been a fun process, a bit of an unusual one compared to some of the other academic trajectories, but nonetheless one that I'm incredibly thankful for. Excellent. Well, this has been great time well spent. A lot of parallels between policing and asset protection, loss prevention, people that are out there. It's all about guardianship, but we all know that who we're guarding, we are part of that group and that we're always looking for ways to bond, to engage, to enhance the protection that we're there to provide. But at the end of the day, we're there to create a much better experience for everybody,

a much safer, more secure experience. And by bonding, by positively engaging, and by leveraging the science that you're generating and others around, hey, what are some subtle cues? What are some things that we can do to better engage with what we call the green shopper, the person that we're there, that we want to spend a lot more time there with us because they work and shop there, for example, versus a red person that's there to create problems like theft, fraud and violence. But at the end of the day, who we are is critical. But what we appear to be and how we act and respond and engage are very important. And as part of our tool chest, our influential tool set.

So thanks so much, Ryland. And I appreciate your time today. So on behalf of Kevin Tran, our producer, on behalf of Dr. Ryland Simpson at Simon Fraser University, I want to thank you for your time. And everybody, please stay safe out there. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Stay safe.

Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more Crime Science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Office of Prevention Research Council.