The Role of Empathy in Bias towards Mental Illness among Prospective Law Enforcement Officers

The criminalization hypothesis states that due to the deinstitutionalization of mental health patients and lack of available care, law enforcement officers (LEO) are interacting with people with mental illness (PWMI) more often. However, there is a lack of research regarding LEO attitudes towards PWMI. This study measures implicit and explicit bias along with levels of empathy prospective LEO hold towards mental illness. Participants completed the Go-No-Go Association Task and a survey. Results suggested that participants viewed PWMI as unpredictable, but did not hold fear/avoidance, malevolence, or authoritarian views towards PWMI. Participants did not hold negative implicit bias towards PWMI, nor did implicit bias scores predict explicit bias scores. Empathy, however, was significantly negatively correlated with explicit bias scores, and was a significant predictor of explicit bias. Participants who scored lower on empathy scored higher on explicit bias, while participants with higher empathy scores scored lower on explicit bias.