> One needs to understand the psyche of people who work in the security services and special branch. They are very polarised in their beliefs and their opinions

> One needs to understand the psyche of people who work in the security services and special branch. They are very polarised in their beliefs and their opinions. They tend to be racist, xenophobic and have a tendency to group people in tidy mental boxes. They see the world in black and white. There is no grey. They are massively insular and have very much an "us and them mentality". They have comparatively a large amount of power, and enjoy using it. Are there any experiments and research on this subject that I can read about? Preferably published in a peer-reviewed journal. Anything that could be reproduced. Because if we want to make an informed decision about policies, we need more than personal anecdotes. Let's see how an example research would look like. Ideally, we would have a control group consisting of a random sample of the general population. Then we would compare them with the members of the security services and see if there are any differences in behavior. We could give both groups a questionnaire with dozens of statements and a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) or observe them in an interactive situation. If their answers have more 1s and 4s than the control group, then maybe they are more polarized. It's not perfect; there's a risk of self-reporting bias and the observer effect, but it's a start. Maybe there's public data like aggregated reports that would help eliminate said biases. If there's a difference in behavior between the security personnel and the public, we will have new questions. Is this behavior consistent across all representatives of the security industry? Are they equally racist, xenophobic, and insular in both private and public sector? What if we compare members of the security services in different countries? Are they just as racist in Canada as in the UK, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore, or Brazil? What if we compare it with the experience? Are people who work for over 10 years in the security services more insular than those who worked there less than a year? Do they become more insular as they work longer or is just the industry that attracts such individuals? Do they share similar characteristics with other groups who enjoy comparatively a large amount of power, like CEOs, politicians, or judges? The only experiment that comes to mind is the Stanford prison experiment. But that was more about authority than security services per se. And if my memory serves me right, there was nothing particular about racism or xenophobia. Plus, it has a fair share of controversy.