It's called implicit bias training and comes on the heels of George Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
Tarleton State University criminologist Dr. Alex Del Carmen says it has to do with the notion that all of us carry biases that are essentially part of our upbringing. "So the idea of implicit bias training would be to simply allow for police officers to recognize what some of those implicit biases are, with the hope they not only recognize, but address them."Del Carmen says many police agencies in Texas already do this training, and now all will. He says he's been responsible for teaching many such sessions.
"I'll be curious to know how it's going to be done and administered and whether or not it's something that's going to be solely implicit bias or will be combined with another course. My advice to legislators would be to make it just to a course on implicit bias so they could focus on that concept alone."The idea for the mandatory training comes from Houston Democratic state representative Garnet Coleman.
