LEWISTON — Harvard professor and economist Roland Fryer Jr. presented his ongoing research on racial bias in a talk titled “Understanding Racial Differences in Police Use of Force” at Bates College on Sunday evening.

Nearly every seat in the Olin Arts Center was filled with an excited student or faculty member who was eager to hear the prolific speaker.

Fryer is a tenured professor at Harvard University with multiple outstanding awards and research projects under his belt. He has taken an interest in racial biases in many different forms, including academic settings. This has led him to his current research project on racial bias in police use of force.

Fryer prefaced his presentation by stating that the specific data is preliminary and incomplete, as it focuses on only certain areas currently, but that it sheds light on certain question regarding racial bias.

Bates College President Spencer Clayton introduced the speaker with praise. “It is an honor to have someone of his stature here to speak,” she said. “And what I love about him is that he gets his hands dirty.”

That is in reference to the fact that Fryer is incredibly hands-on with all of his research. He talked about his experience doing ride-alongs and spending entire days with on-duty police officers. He explained that he wanted an authentic, behind-the-scenes look.

“We’re delving into a difficult, emotionally charged subject.” Fryer said. “There has been renewed interest in the topic, but the problem is not new.”

He cited the recent issue of police use of force in places like Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, Md., as a catalyst for this research project. He wanted to understand the facts.

As an economist, he found it incredibly important to have an argument based on a lot of data. He and a team of research assistants delved into thousands of pages of police reports, trying to understand the correlation between race and police force.

What Fryer has found so far is that there is an incredible and inexplicable number of white vs. non-white people in cases of lower-level use of force. 

“We talk a lot about office-involved shootings,” Fryer explained, but “we don’t talk about things like putting your hands on someone or pushing them around or on the ground. As the use of force goes up, the racial bias appears to go down.”

One shocking and poignant data set had to do with what happens in the weeks following a police officer being shot. What he found is that it doesn’t matter whether the shooter was white or black — “the amount of stops and frisks for whites stays constant and black goes way up.”

Fryer explained that there are no disincentives toward lower-level uses of force, unlike using a firearm or a stun gun on someone, which is a possible reason for the shift in racial bias. But it isn’t a definitive answer, it’s not a solution. He believes there is still a lot of research and understanding that needs to be done.

“This project has been an enormous puzzle for me,” he said.

The confusion lies in the fact that there are no variations in officer-involved shooting based on race, but there is still evidence of racial bias when it comes to experiences with police.

“Something is happening that we should take note of.” 

Fryer plans on continuing and expanding his research on racial bias and hopes to work toward finding a solution to end it. 

“It’s not about beating the odds,” he said. “It’s about changing the odds.”