Rushi Patel

Independent Research GT

Period: 2

March, 4 2019

Annotated Bib:

Clemons explores the ways in which implicit racial bias plays a role in the representation

of minorities in the justice system. Clemons initially discusses the current racial imbalance in the

criminal justice system. Statistically speaking, it is six times more likely that a African American

man will get imprisoned than a white would. In other terms, it is saying that one in three black

men get incarcerated in their lifetime. Additionally, Clemons makes a comparison of how much

of a difference there is between the amount of African Americans under correctional control now

than in 1850. Additionally, black Americans tend to have a higher arrest rate than White

Americans, even though both had committed similar crimes. He later explains that the term to

define this racial imbalance is “implicit racial bias.” The author goes further to talk about how

implicit associations with race can taint the decision making of criminal justice actors. Clemons

then summarizes how implicit racial bias can affect the different components of the justice

system: Law Enforcement, Prosecutors, Public Defenders, Judges, and Juries. Additionally,

implicit racial bias makes it so black individuals are more likely to be arrested and charged with

harsher sentences. Furthermore, the journalist goes on to summarize Supreme Court’s precedents

when racial disparity was in discussion. The author includes a real-life scenario where implicit

bias occurred; a stop and frisk policy was initiated by the New York Police department. The stop

and frisk policy is where police makes investigatory stops, this is similar to the concept of
“reasonable suspicion.” Likewise, many minorities were disgruntled with this policy because

over four-fifths of these investigatory stops would be on African Americans and Hispanics.

Clemons concludes the academic journal with a new way in an attempt to eliminate the racial

disparity. That is to try and create new criminal justice policies that would be both effective and

truly race-neutral.

The author of this article attempts to show the audience of how implicit racial bias plays

into the courtroom. These methods are supported by corroboration with articles such as Ziegert

supports Clemons claim through his own research: Minorities tend to be convicted more often

than white Americans, and further goes on to discuss the different ways implicit bias plays a role

into the different components of the courtroom. This article incorporates great coverage because

the author is not biased and it is effective for lawyers and lawmakers. The article is not biased

because it admits that implicit racial bias does not happen all the time and states that implicit

racial bias tends to occur in some African Americans. The author is not swaying the audience to

believe what the author intends but provides statistical data to have the reader to come to their

own conclusions. The author, John Tyler Clemons, is an associate the U.S Department of

Education, part of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Institute for Public

Representation. Also, Clemons retrieved his law degree, from one the most prestigious Law

school in America, Georgetown. This research was conducted in 2014, making the information

current to today’s time on the topic. Finally, this source has a narrow, specific source of

information, which is reasonable because lawyers and lawmakers specifically, will be looking

into a very specific topic, implicit racial bias. This article goes into extreme detail about how

implicit racial bias plays a role in the verdict of a trial, how it affects different minority groups
and the effects on the different components of the justice system. Finally, the article provides

examples of where implicit racial bias was played into the court.