To be honest
with you, I believe this bull about Eric Holder believing cops are affected by
an “unconscious bias” goes a little too far over the blurred lines but it does
give us some food to think about. The Attorney General feels police officers in
the case of Eric Garner’s death need to be examined for this type of bias
inside their heads because he feels they are infected with a decision making
process that may predict poor police interactions that are associated with race
and social class biases as well as the traditional lines of police work in
general.
One has to be
aware that with some level of certainly, this kind of a bias may appear to be
true in some cases but keeping it in content and context, so that these
assessments are not skewed or taken out of context. This value of unconscious
biases has been underrated and overrated by many studies and must be kept in
the parameters and environments that are real and within logical and rational
expectations and desired outcomes.
If such studies
do not take into account community demographics, culture, training and roles
provided, it can lead someone down the wrong path and draw the wrong
conclusions. It has been said that police have better results and less violence
in their interactions with those of a higher social class than those belonging
to a middle or lower social class.
Perhaps there
is a preference for cops to work in good neighborhood rather than working in
poor neighborhoods. It does seem to affect their perception to a degree. If this
perception guides their decision making, then what can be said about
correctional officers working in a criminal element and putting their own
conscious biases towards those they manage or supervise and what does that do
to institutional enforcement levels and use of force situations? The questions
are real but rarely assessed or researched.
We know there
is a distinct preference what custody levels officers prefer to work or engage
in with convicted felons. There is also reasonable grounds to believe officers
would rather work with those of a higher intelligence and better communication
skills than those who are slow at mental processing and speech. Their patience
wears thin and often results in frustration.
It may not be
based on race or other inequalities but it could trigger a modal response that
is hard to deny to exist and create a conflict in actions and interactions
based on their own perceptions and preferences. Thus it is reasonable to
suggest that a conscious bias may impair or place an effective barrier to the
desire to produce effective and safer solutions especially when some of these inequalities
are misunderstood.
Recent and past
work experiences have shown that implicit biases also exist among police
officers and correctional officers and are associated with perceptions and
beliefs about persons considered to be suspected criminals or convicted criminals.
One just has to inject a bias towards the nature of crime committed or accused
of to change the perception or outcome.
Together, such
a finding may suggest that the relationship between law and criminal may be an
important contributing factor to racial and social disparities in law
enforcement either on the streets or inside a jail or prison.
Additionally,
there are reasonable conclusions drawn from anecdotal experiences such biases
may be generated or reinforced during formal, informal, on the job training as well as educational resources and
may enable the design of interventions to address disparities in such
enforcement of law and rules.
No comments:
Post a Comment