A recent study by a team of Stanford psychologists and computer scientists analyzed audio transcripts taken from police body cameras in Oakland California in April 2014. Looking at the language used in the interactions, and comparing how the officers interacted with black and white drivers, this study of 981 traffic stops and over 36,000 utterances found that officers used more respectful language when interacting with white drivers: they were more likely to refer to them by their last names rather than by their first name or by a nickname, more likely to say “please,” less likely to use
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