Stanford University, Department of Psychology

The Social Psychological Answers to Real-World Questions Center (SPARQ) at Stanford University is designed to bring researchers and practitioners in government, business, and nonprofits together to craft solutions to communities’ most pressing problems. Over the past several years, SPARQ has developed relationships with police departments and the State Attorney General in California with the goal of understanding police-community relationships and using the knowledge to address racial disparities in policing. This award renews support for the continued development of innovative technology and computational tools to analyze police officer interactions with community members captured on body-worn camera footage, which in turn is used to develop and evaluate training programs and other interventions to improve police-community relationships. The project is designed to produce tools that can be used by police departments and other agencies to examine broad patterns in police-community interactions, identify racial disparities in policing practices and behavior, and provide the performance measures for validating the effectiveness of training interventions to reduce disparities and unnecessary jail incarceration. The proposed grant builds upon progress in developing the technology and training to date and expands the work to include community stakeholders, additional police departments, and a consortium of academic researchers . 

The Social Psychological Answers to Real-World Questions Center (SPARQ) at Stanford University is designed to bring researchers and practitioners in government, business, and nonprofits together to craft solutions to communities’ most pressing problems. Over the past five years, SPARQ has developed relationships with law enforcement agencies in California and around the country with the goal of understanding police-community relationships and using the knowledge and information to address racial disparities in policing. This award supports the continued development and refinement of computational tools to analyze police officer interactions with community members captured on body-worn camera footage, which will in turn be used to develop and evaluate training programs to improve police-community relationships. The project is designed to leverage the initial proof-of-concept computational tools to further study and improve police-community interactions by linking technology and training to improve policing practices, reduce disparities, and expand the work with other major law enforcement agencies in an effort to spark industry-wide change.

The Social Psychological Answers to Real-World Questions Center (SPARQ) at Stanford University is designed to bring researchers and practitioners in government, business, and nonprofits together to craft solutions to communities’ most pressing problems. Over the past five years, SPARQ has developed relationships with police departments and the State Attorney General in California with the goal of understanding police-community relationships and using the knowledge and information to address racial disparities in policing. This award supports the development of computational tools to analyze police officer interactions with community members captured on body-worn camera footage, which will in turn be used to develop and evaluate training programs to improve police-community relationships. The project is designed to produce tools that can be used by police departments and other agencies to examine broad patterns in police-community interactions, test whether disparities in treatment exist, and provide the performance measures for validating the effectiveness of training interventions to reduce disparities and unnecessary jail incarceration.

To support the project Blending Quantitative and Qualitative Data in the Study of Well-Being.