Although her book focuses on the issue of mass incarceration and its effect on the African-American community, Michelle Alexander mentions the issue of police discrimination with the use of force multiple times throughout The New Jim Crow. She first references the use of force when she states, “Ultimately, these …show more content…
This type of bias is a category of statistical discrimination, which also includes racial profiling. Police officers who show signs of implicit-bias do not discriminate on purpose. Rather, their inclination to use more force with African-Americans is due to being exposed to various stereotypes about their race and its association with violent crime and being less valuable than whites. Even the most non-discriminatory police officer can show signs of implicit-bias, since this type of bias comes from one’s subconscious mind. As a result, it could be difficult to prevent police officers from using more force on African-Americans due to implicit-bias. Police officers can also engage in statistical discrimination due to differences in deployment. For example, some police officers patrol in predominately African-American neighborhoods. Therefore, the amount of African-Americans that they stop or use force on will likely be higher than police officers who patrol in other