Lonnie Jones

Cuddy

14 March 2019

English 102

How Police Bias Kills

The subject of police brutality against minorities due to biases has become a country

wide discussion. In my research paper, I will discuss how police biases affect the actions of

police officers in the field and how these actions have affected and will continue to affect the

American society today. This topic clearly relates to my major, which is criminal justice because

it not only talks about the law enforcement system but I will also be discussing the injustices that

minorities seem to be suffering on a daily basis due to these biases. My interest in justice and

my close relation to the minority community has driven me to choose this topic. My thesis

statement will be focused around the fact that the implicit biases of officers dangerously affects

their actions on the field for the worse.

The topic of this research paper is supposed to be a topic of interest that relates to my

major, so this topic was perfect for me. Research papers can be time consuming and require a

lot of reading up on your topic, so because this topic is so interesting to me the research and

writing process won’t feel so tedious. I actually began my preliminary research already and I

have received a strong baseline of information to base my thesis off of and to begin planning

and building my paper. For example I have found that implicit biases are a primitive function of

almost all brains. ​(Price and Payton 674) ​Because the brain picks up on patterns, the behavioral

patterns of specific social groups tend to allow people to jump to conclusions about people,
which is where stereotypes and implicit biases come into play. I have also found that due to

these biases a large amount of police officers are prone to treat minorities differently just based

off of examples and instances we all see in the news or instances that they have witnessed in

the field.​ (Price and Payton 678)​ I found these statistics and facts on a database called

EBSCOhost in a scholarly journal called “​Implicit Racial Bias and Police Use of Lethal Force:

Justifiable Homicide or Potential Discrimination?”​. ​In an article called, “​Killing Fields:

Explaining Police Violence Against Persons of Color”, I found out that​ the Washington Post

documented that there were 94 accounts of fatal shootings of unarmed civilians and of the 94

people, forty percent were black; which happens to be seven times the rate of white men.(Jones

875). I also found a newspaper that spoke about the tragic murder of Eric Garner in 2014.

(Kanno-Youngs) ​I will continue looking for scholarly journals, news papers and articles on

databases to keep building up my argument on police bias against minorities.

My topic and the arguments that I have chosen are relevant because police biases are a

danger to all minorities. Police biases are the reason why we have famous tragedies that are

known nation wide like Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Police biases are the reason why

minority parents need to train their kids to fear, look out for, or act uncharacteristically when they

encounter cops. Police bias has been the cause of countless instances of abuse or murder of

innocent minority civilians, and it must be recognized before it can be stopped.

Bibliography

Haag, Mathew. “Pittsburgh Officer Who Killed Unarmed Black Teenager Is Charged” ​New York

Times, ​Jun 2018, p. A20. ​EBSCOhost.

Hafner, Josh. “2 YEARS LATER, ​MICHAEL​ ​BROWN'S​ DEATH REMAINS A

MOVEMENT THAT SPARKED A MOVEMENT” ​USA Today,​ Aug 2016, p. 08a.

EBSCOhost.

Jones, James M. “Killing Fields: Explaining Police Violence Against Persons of Color”, ​Vol. 73

Issue 4,​ ​0022-4537, Dec 2017, p872-883. ​EBSCOhost, ​doi:​10.1111/josi.12252.

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