Implicit Bias Is Evidential

Racially influenced decision making by police, prosecutors and judges should not be tolerated. There has been education, training and pronouncements but the disparities are still prevalent. The hurdles to prove racially motivated conduct by police and persuade a court to impose a remedy often have been insurmountable in the face of denials.

The New Jersey courts frequently have been in the forefront of social and criminal justice reforms. In 1996 a Superior Court judge in Gloucester County conducted a search and seizure suppression hearing involving automobile stops by the New Jersey State Police on the New Jersey Turnpike. The law was that a judge could not inquire about the motivation of police officers who stopped a vehicle for a traffic violation committed in their presence. Experts conducted traffic surveys and reviewed arrest records and then performed statistical analysis that demonstrated a substantial number of traffic stops were racially based. The judge concluded that there was at least a de facto policy in the area of the turnpike that was surveyed that targeted Blacks and that the State Police hierarchy failed to investigate and control many claims of discrimination which manifested an indifference or acceptance of improper conduct. The decision was controversial but led to the New Jersey attorney general directive in 2005 that established an official statewide policy defining and prohibiting the practice of racially influenced policing and further required the attorney general to develop a training program on the subject of racial influenced policing. Every police officer in the State was required to participate. The Assistant Attorney General and Director of Major Crimes of the Division of Criminal Justice, Ronald Susswein, prepared comprehensive course material and a practice guide on how police officers can prevent racially influenced policing. Empirical studies and surveys continued to demonstrate that African Americans and other minorities are more frequently arrested, prosecuted, incarcerated and sometimes even exonerated when proven to be actually innocent.