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BIAS IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Learning to Write in Criminal Justice: Adapting to the Use of Bias
Tyler Chadduck
Longwood University
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BIAS IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Introduction
In high school we are taught to write without bias, for example, teachers would mark
students off for using “I”. In fact, using “I” in a high school paper almost guaranteed a fail, but in
college it is desired that you put your ideas in the paper. This, of course, depends on the
particular assignment, teacher, and class in which you are writing for. I remember in high school
getting writer’s block because I could not use “I” and I would struggle to write many papers. In
university writing I have not had that problem, especially when doing research papers. With this
in mind, I wanted to identify not just writing in the university, but specifically writing with bias
in criminal justice. This study suggests writing with bias is part of what makes “good” writing in
Criminal Justice. In the beginning of a student’s academic career, their opinion does not matter,
but as they progress through their academic career, they gain knowledge and experience from
items such as tests and papers. The deeper into their academic career they go the more expertise
they gain in there discourse and the more the more weight their opinion begins to carry.
Literature Review
This study cannot truly show, based on the small samples, what the major effect of
writing with bias is in Criminal Justice, but we can understand how it begins to shape ideas and
papers in the major. “Criminal justice denotes the policies involving law enforcement, including
all legal measures designed to promote proper implementation, through impartial treatment, as
intended by society” (Staib, n.d.). My study looks at writing in Criminal Justice in university
writing, more specifically how bias affects these writings. To begin, students must know how to
write, and according to Pfeifer and Ferree (2006), “one of the most common complaints among
criminal justice educators is that students’ have very poor writing and research skills” (p.1).
These are both imperative to success in the discipline. For a criminal justice student to be able to
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understand how bias affects writing, they must first understand the basics of writing in Criminal
Justice. Writing in Criminal Justice is key to success as most careers are in Criminal Justice are
in the bureaucracies (Zimmerman, n.d.). The discourse community must be identified, so that we
understand what perspective we are coming from. A discourse community as, defined by Swales
(1990), must have six characteristics, but I have identified the three I feel are most apt to bias in
criminal justice: mechanisms of intercommunication, specific lexis, and membership with
varying levels of expertise (pp. 24-26).
The first of the three I identified is mechanisms of intercommunication, and this is
because the way members communicate can easily lead to biases. In Criminal Justice there are
many things for member to be bias about and if they can communicate with each other about
their biases, then this may lead to shared or new biases. The next characteristic I identified was
specific lexis, or vernacular that is only used in a certain discourse community. The terms used
by members of the discourse certainly lead to a bias. They can have terms that are demeaning
and otherwise rude. The third characteristic I saw that lead to biases was varying levels of
membership. This leads to bias in the discourse because ideas are passed down from the varying
levels of membership. This keeps ideas alive over time and with those ideas may come some
biases.
Every discourse community has its own views of the world and issues. These views will
affect the writing within each discourse. In turn, each discourse has different constraints that they
are bounded by. Grant-Davie (1997) defines constraints as “persons, events, objects, and
relations which are parts of the situation because they have the power to constrain decision and
action needed to modify the exigence” (p.271). An example of a constraint in the field of
Criminal Justice is the information you are allowed to release at a given point in time. He notes
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“Bitzer defines constraints more as aids to the rhetor than as handicaps” (p. 271). These
constraints or biases allow us as writers to “constrain” the audience to take a desired action or
point of view.
Data Collection
The data in this study includes an interview with an expert in the field of Sociology and
Criminal Justice and a previously written work by a student in Criminal Justice. I personally
conducted the interview with Dr. J. Milne who is the head of the Criminal Justice, Sociology,
and Anthropology department at Longwood University. I interviewed him due to his knowledge
and experience in the field as well as the university. Also, it gave me insight into what the
professors see or expect to see from the students. The previous student work I collected was from
a sophomore, majoring in Criminal Justice, at Longwood University. It was his freshman year
research paper for his Criminology 100 class. I used this because it allowed me to see how a first
year criminal justice students writes in comparison to what a professor expects.
Findings
In coding the data I decided to use two labels to explain writing with bias in Criminal
Justice. The first label is how to write, specifically in Criminal Justice. Before someone can
understand writing with bias in Criminal Justice, they must understand the basics of good writing
in Criminal Justice. This leads to my second label which is how to write with bias. This is where
research shows how and when to use bias in our writings in Criminal Justice.
How to write
One of the important qualities in knowing how to write in Criminal Justice is the “kiss
method that is keep it simple stupid” (J. Milne, personal communication, October 16, 2015). This
links to also being as “explicit as possible” (J. Milne, personal communication, October 16,
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2015). When writing in Criminal Justice we want to be as concise as we can be while still being
explicit about what we are talking about. We do not want to over explain and complicate our
papers, so we get straight to the point. As Dr. Milne puts it, “we need that explicitness”. It is very
important that we directly state what our paper or study is covering, but also that we keep it
concise and to the point. On a final note, Dr. Milne could not stress not enough how important
proof reading was, “proof read, proof read, proof read, proof read”. This was his response when I
asked if I had missed anything important. Proof reading is a very big issue as it saves us from
submitting papers with unintended thoughts or with spelling and/or grammar errors.
How to write with bias
Now we can move into a more complicated way of writing in Criminal Justice. This is
writing with bias. He says, “What our job is, is to be very reflective of that bias and say listen
here is why I chose this topic”. He continues on to say, “… is to try and minimize our own
personal bias or biases in our writing, but the reality is that is impossible.” We know that
everyone has some sort of bias, but it is how reflective we are of that bias that makes us good
writers. According to Dr. Milne, we need to be “explicit about what your perspective is” (He
uses perspectives instead of bias). That word explicit leads us back to good writing in general in
Criminal Justice. We see a connection that shows being explicit really is important in academic
Criminal Justice writing.
We all understand that we have biases and now we know that it is impossible to not have
bias in our writing. So then how do we limit biases or perspectives? As Dr. Milne told me, “I
don’t limit my own perspectives and my own biases. I think that part of good writing is making
your audience aware of the stance of which you’re coming from and knowing that”. He is saying
that the key is to not limit our perspectives, but to make sure the readers know what our
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perspective is. The key is in letting everyone know this is my perspective and this is what I have
to say. An example from the student’s work is when he writes, “It is [not] fair that a person
should be pulled over by an officer solely based off of the color of their skin”. This is a bias or
opinion as he is making a personal statement that some people may not agree with. According to
this study it is perfectly okay that he did state his opinion because he was explicit about what that
opinion was.
Discussion
The goal in Criminal Justice writing is to be as concise and explicit as possible. We do
not use a lot of descriptive adjectives. It is about being factual and objective as much as possible.
This is especially true for new students because your opinions do not really matter, yet. This is
from lack of experience and expertise in the subject. The idea is for everyone writing in Criminal
Justice to stay as limited as possible in our bias, but that is impossible. Our biases show up in
everywhere in our writings, from the topics we choose to the words we use in our writings. So,
rather than trying to limit ourselves, we write freely with our perspectives or biases. We make
sure that our audience knows what perspective we are coming from, and that really comes with
the explicitness. This way we let the audiences know that it is our perspective and then we can
write without worry. What really surprised me was how big of an issue proof reading is. I mean
we hear growing up that you should always proof read, and that really is the truth. It is a huge
deal to professors in college. This links to what Pfeifer and Ferree (2006) identified, that students
have poor writing and research skills. All of this is what makes “good” writing in Criminal
Justice, but focuses mainly on the use of bias. Using bias can be a key part to good writing in
Criminal Justice.
Implications
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Students should take some key points from this small study. One being that in Criminal
Justice we need to be explicit in everything we write, so that our writings are as clear as possible.
Two, always proof read your papers before turning them in. Last, but certainly not least, try to
use as much factual information as possible, especially if you are a newer student. There are
some things that professors should take from this as well. Professors keep in mind that writing in
a discourse is not general knowledge. Everybody must be taught how to write for a specific
discourse. This links back to Pfeifer and Ferree (2006) because the professors automatically
assume students will know how to write in the discourse. The reality is they do not because they
were never taught. Now for freshman composition classes, keep in mind that high school writing
is very different from academic writing. Freshman in college usually only have their writing
experience from high school, so professors do not expect them to know how to write in
university academic writing as soon as class starts.
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References
Grant-Davie, Keith. (1997). “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents.” Rhetoric Review
15.2.
Pfeifer, H., & Ferree, C. (n.d.). Tired of “Reeding” Bad Papers? Teaching Research and Writing
Skills to Criminal Justice Students*. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 17(1), 121142.
Staib, M. (n.d.). What is Criminal Justice? Retrieved October 25, 2015, from
http://www.ehow.com/about_5070188_criminal-justice.html
Swales, John (1990). The Concept of Discourse Community. Genre Analysis: English in
Academic and Research Settings. Boston, MA: Cambridge UP.
Zimmerman, C. (n.d.). Why Writing Matters. Retrieved October 25, 2015, from
http://www.svsu.edu/whywritingmatters/criminaljustice/