Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Lonnie Jones
Cuddy
18 March 2019
English 102
In today’s society, police brutality against minorities has become an increasingly popular
topic of discussion. As time goes by it seems to feel like more and more innocent black and
minority lives are being taken and wrongly mistreated. A large amount of these instances happen
because these officers have implicit biases. In simple terms, implicit bias is when an individual
associates certain attributes and traits with a person because of the social group that they are
associated with. However, when it comes to minorities most of these biases can be negative and
cause poor choices to be made in the field, which result in tragic consequences. Because of this,
recently there has truly been a split between the average minority citizen and law enforcement.
As a criminal justice major, this split between these two groups of individuals who are meant to
work as one and benefit each other, is interesting and important to me. After all, the focus of
criminal justice is to create a safe and just environment, and as of right now law enforcement is
failing at that job because of these biases that these officers are dealing with. The implicit biases
that are held by these law enforcement officers are a true danger to minorities all around the
country. By using and reviewing statistics taken from law enforcement field work, results from
training exercises done by cops and tragedies like Eric Garner and Michael Brown that have
taken place on the field due to these biases, the audience will finally be able to understand how
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serious and dangerous implicit biases can be in law enforcement and how badly change is
needed.
understand implicit biases and how they affect police officers’ actions, many people try to tie it
into racism, but that just isn’t true. Implying that a majority of cops are racist is the last thing that
I would do because that just isn’t true. However, they definitely have biases, almost all humans
have biases. An article by John Worrall described implicit bias as, “subconscious aspects of
perception, interpretation, and judgment that occur during the decision-making process.”
(Worrall 1176) Another article named “Implicit Racial Bias and Police Use of Lethal Force:
universal primitive function of all brains. Police officers have been found to have near universal
implicit bias against racial and ethnic minorities.” (Price and Payton 674) So even minorities
have biases against other minorities. It’s drilled into all of our heads since birth through the
media. Every time you turn on the news they are showing a new black or hispanic person
committing a crime, or in all of the childhood cartoons the “bad guy” would usually be a large
character who has a darker complexion or wears dark clothes. Either way, our whole lives,
danger, and evil have been associated with darkness through the media and it's coming back to
These implicit biases that these law enforcement officers struggle with, is what is truly
responsible for these poor choices in the field that cause all these casualties. The implicit biases
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that these officers hold are usually negative when it comes to minorities and especially blacks. A
majority of the time minorities are seen as more likely to do certain illegal actions because of
these biases, which results in officers assuming they are more dangerous. Because these officers
subconsciously view minorities as more dangerous, their actions can be rushed and since these
officers hold so much social and firepower when their actions are rushed only bad things can
happen. One of the articles that I researched stated that “The vast majority of prior work
(especially early work in this area) reports that force is applied more often against minorities
than Whites” (Worrall 1174). This isn’t due to a larger sum of minorities committing crimes or
being hostile, it’s due to these dangerous biases that these officers hold. The same source also
said, “They also found that approximately 80% of people shot by police were minorities. Similar
findings were observed in the work of Fyfe (1982a). Interestingly, Fyfe (1982a) also found that
people” (p. 721). No officer would admit to shooting solely based on race, but that is not to say
shooting decisions are not still biased.” (Worrall 1175) This quote only supports my point that
these biases that these officers carry are a true danger to the minority community. It is
understandable and tolerable for regular civilians to have biases because it is a natural and
primitive action of the brain but once you become an officer you must be able to keep these
biases from affecting your actions. Officers are held on a pedestal of power in today’s society, as
they should because they risk their own lives to protect ours. However, once they have that much
power they should not be held to the same standards and expectations as the average civilian.
What is acceptable for a regular person is unacceptable for an officer of the law because in the
Society as a whole has been pulled into this police brutality discussion because of famous
deaths of innocent people at the hand law enforcement officers. These cases have been heard and
grieved nationwide. The loss of the innocent has brought outrage and anger to the minority
community and has inspired the creation of groups such as the movement black lives matter.
Arguably the most well-known case is the murder of Michael Brown. Michael Brown was
tragically murdered at the age of eighteen by a Ferguson police officer named Darren Wilson.
Michael stole a few items from a convenience store and then officer Wilson tried to stop him in
the middle of the street. They ended up getting into a little tussle and Wilson pulled a gun and
shot Michael Brown dead in the middle of the street. The death of Michael Brown arguably
became the fuel for black lives matter to be where it is today. The newspaper, USA today stated,
“Since police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown two years
ago Tuesday in Ferguson, Mo., the words "black lives matter" have morphed from a public
outcry into a national movement.” (Hafner 08a) Another known case is the murder of Eric
Garner. Eric was murdered in NYC in 2014. He was selling untaxed cigarettes on the street when
a group of police officers tried arresting him. Even though he was complying and wasn’t putting
up much of a fight one of the officers put him in a chokehold. The words “I can’t breathe”
uttered from his mouth just before he died of suffocation. These words are what continued to fuel
the next generation of protestors and black lives matter supporters. But cases like these aren’t
just old news, they are happening to this day. A perfect example is the death of Antwon Rose in
2018. He was riding in a car that was suspected to be in a part of a driveby when the cops pulled
the car over and began to put the driver in handcuffs he started to flee the scene. As he was
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running away, a police officer named Michael Rosfeld pulled his gun and fired at Rose, hitting
Rose in the back, elbow, and face. Antwon Rose was only seventeen when he died. Sadly
Rosfeld ended up being arraigned and released after an hour of jail time because he posted a
$250,000 bail. The New York Times stated that “Prosecutors argued in court on Wednesday that
Officer Rosfeld should be denied bail, but they were overruled. S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer
representing Antwon's family, said it was ''wholly inappropriate'' that the officer was released.”
(Haag A20) Not only was an innocent life lost, but no justice was served. These biases are
ruining the justice system not only because they cause the killings but they also have a part in
Police bias has always been around because bias has always been around. This isn’t new
to our country, it is just gaining more recognition and attention because of the power of social
media. Police bias has been the reason why minority parents need to train their kids to fear, look
out for, or act uncharacteristically when they encounter cops. It has also been the cause of
countless instances of abuse and murder of innocent minority civilians. The profession of law
enforcement used to be looked at as a noble profession, but the blood of the innocent has tainted
its reputation. Police officers used to be seen as selfless and brave heroes who were trustworthy
and loyal to the public’s safety, but the cries and screams from the mourning parents, siblings,
friends, protestors, and supporters has stripped them of their respectable title, leaving the public
to view them in fear and hatred. Police bias has been a problem ever since the beginning but it
must not stay a problem until the end. It must be solved. However, it must be recognized before
it can be stopped.
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Bibliography
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