Pros And Cons Of Implicit Bias

Wrongful convictions are a disturbing threat to the criminal justice system. Concerned authorities must get to the causes behind and this trend, and put adequate measures in place to ensure the trend is reversed. The legal process must be beyond reproach, and police officres, prosecutors, counsel, and the jury must work in hearmony to ensure efficient and effective discharge of justice. The amount of money lost because of these convictions is

Implicit bias is bias in one’s judgment or behavior that results from one’s unconscious associations. In order to thoroughly discuss implicit bias, implicit associations must first be examined. Implicit associations refer to one’s unconscious associations between a group and how one feels about said group. For example, a person may subconsciously associate straight people as “normal” and homosexuals as “wrong”. They may have this unconscious association even if they do not express this opinion

As behavior is manifested daily in classrooms, teachers are frequently asked to make quick judgements while under tremendous stress. Teachers who feel prepared and confident will have already prepared their myriad of responses for the complexities of student behavior, especially from students who show the greatest diversity, and rely on objective reasoning when making behavioral decisions. (Bryan, Day-Vines, Griffin, & Moore-Thomas, 2012). Conversely, teachers who are overwhelmed and have feelings of inadequacy will fuel their decision making and behavioral judgements form a source of anxiety, fear, and control, and quickly turn to subjective reasoning when making behavioral decisions (Bryan et al., 2012). In addition, subjective reasoning can draw on and fuel implicit biases and manifest itself inappropriately to minor behavior (Forsyth, Biggar, Forsyth, & Howat, 2015).

Implicit bias plays a significant role in today’s society, whether the members realize it or not. The online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says,” ‘Implicit bias’ is a term of art referring to a relatively unconscious and relatively automatic features of prejudiced judgement and social behavior” (Brownstein 2015). Implicit biases are often based on stereotypes. Stereotypes, as defined by OpenStax, are “oversimplified ideas about groups of people” (OpenStax College 2015:248). Implicit biases can be problematic for many reasons. One way implicit biases are troublesome is due to the fact that it is unconscious, so it is usually out of a person’s control. People are often unaware of their own and how they use it. A very common way implicit biases are seen in society is through discrimination. Discrimination is defined as “prejudiced action against a group of people” (OpenStax College 2015:248). If a man and a woman are considered as potentials for being hired, the employer may have an implicit bias either towards or against men or women influencing them to hire one over the other based on their gender. This exemplifies a modern concern of gender discrimination as well. Implicit biases can come in many forms from gender, race, weight, sexuality, and many more. These factors can influence an individual’s treatment of others if they have significant bias. In society, these implicit biases can negatively influence minority and other groups and lead to inequality.

Implicit bias is an individual’s internal beliefs regarding others and influences how people conduct themselves in various settings and situations and may result in injustices such as stereotyping or racial profiling. The National Center for States Courts defines implicit bias as “judgement or behavior that results from subtle cognitive processes.” This behavior is difficult to identify, because people typically respond and behave in ways that seem appropriate and protect their own interests. Furthermore, these beliefs are more often subconscious than overt. Some groups are working to deter implicit bias and promote diversity.

Wrongful conviction is an issue that has plagued the Canadian Justice System since it came to be. It is an issue that is hard to sort out between horrific crimes and society’s desire to find truth and justice. Incidences of wrongful conviction hit close to home right here in Saskatchewan as well as across the entire nation. Experts claim “each miscarriage of justice, however, deals a blow to society’s confidence in the legal justice system” (Schmalleger, Volk, 2014, 131). Professionals in the criminal justice field such as police, forensic analyst, and prosecutors must all be held accountable for their implications in wrongful convictions. There are several reasons for wrongful convictions such as racial bias, false confessions, jailhouse

During recent studies from several researchers it has been concluded that there is a fault within our criminal justice system. Researchers discovered there is a high wrongful conviction rate within the United States judicial system. After, extensive research, it was found that wrongful convictions are caused by eyewitness error, false confessions, flawed forensic science, an informant, bad lawyering, and government misconduct. Without a doubt, this issue has shocked society, due to the fact we rely on the system for pure justice. Within my findings, it is apparent that victims of wrongful convictions suffer numerous affects when

When thinking of a jury, there is a belief that everyone is fair when it comes to making the decision of whether the person being accused of the crime is guilty or not guilty because of the person’s race. What if this belief is not necessarily correct? There have been many instances in whether race has been a factor when the jury makes a decision. According to Baskin, Goldstein, and Sommers (2014), there has been enough evidence to show that racial biases influences the decisions of a jury. In this paper, the articles will show how jury decision-making is influenced by the offender’s race.

Almost every day, we hear about justice being served upon criminals and we, as a society, feel a sense of relief that another threat to the public has been sentenced to a term in prison, where they will no longer pose a risk to the world at large. However, there are very rare occasions where the integrity of the justice system gets skewed and people who should not have been convicted are made to serve heavy prison sentences. When word of this judicial misstep reaches the public, there is social outcry, and we begin to question the judicial system for committing such a serious faux pas.

The book Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court written by Amy Bach reflects upon “ordinary injustice” that members of society fall victim to by the American criminal justice system. In short, the phrase “ordinary injustice” comes from the improper acts that have become second nature to court officials but has yet to be explained and resolved by other actors in the court. It is noted in the text that “ordinary injustice results when a community of legal professionals becomes so accustomed to a pattern of lapses that they can no longer see their role in them” (Bach 2). This recurring pattern has been easy to identify by outsiders but difficult to handle by insiders of the court. Bach supports this idea by making clear that, “proving mistakes, both visible and invisible, [is] very difficult in the criminal justice system, even for those who are insiders” (258).

For a society that is greatly influenced by Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Minds and Bones, a confession of the offender is seen as an ultimate checkmate of the case because it implies the guilt of the confessor. Thus, a confession, especially the ones with detailed account and perfect representation of emotions (Leo, 2008), outweighs the evidences of innocence and stirs the case against the accused (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985). People believe that they are open-minded about the possibility of false confession but in reality, the public, law enforcers and justice officials have biases that often infer guilt to the suspect instead of investigating for the truth, which leads to wrongful conviction. According to Leo and Drizin (2004), false confession is the primary cause of law miscarriage (Leo and Drizzin, 2004). False confessors lived many years in jail before being exonerated while others remain imprisoned (Leo and Drizzin, 2004).

Define implicit bias and give an example. The definition of implicit refers to something that is suggested or implied but never clearly said. An example of implicit is when the wife gives her husband a dirty look when she drops the husband's socks on the floor. Implicit Bias is also known as implicit social cognition; implicit bias refers to the attitudes of the people or the stereotypes that tend to affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unaware situation (Ohio State University, 2015). An example of implicit bias is when some doctors had become shown a patient history and where asked to decide about heart disease. The doctors were more likely to recommend cardiac cauterization an effective procedure to help the patients to

Jurors' understanding of the law is typically undeveloped, and therefore their schemas for legal concepts are often correspondingly incorrect or undeveloped. For this reason, existing jury instructions, which are typically given to jurors after the presentation of evidence, do little to counteract or correct jurors' undeveloped or misinformed schemas. Hence, when developing jury instructions, drafters should not only consider whether they are comprehensible, but also emphasize on whether they could provide guidance to help jurors navigate through the discrepancies between their own concepts and the proper definitions of the law. Based on findings from psychology studies, lawyers and judges should attempt to develop jurors' schemas for the relevant legal concepts to make them better organized and more accessible, allowing for more thoughtful judgment and more accurate decision-making. To accomplish this, jurors should be provided with both well-written jury instructions and pre-trial explanations of the applicable law, including examples of how the law applies and to which they can analogize the facts of the present case. Judges could also help jurors to overcome schema perseverance by asking them to consider the evidence from both sides and to attempt to create plausible explanations for both sides of a case. These steps might help counteract inappropriate preexisting schemas, activate legally appropriate schemas, and result in better decision-making by jurors. Last but not least, the above recommendations for combating biased schemas need to be thoroughly tested and confirmed by empirical studies before they could be

Since 1923, when Judge Learned Hand said that the American judicial system “has always been haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted,” the issue of wrongful conviction has been acknowledged to man (Halstead, 1992; Huff, Rattner, Sagarin, & MacNamara, 1986). After the judge made his innocuous statements, serious study of this phenomenon began. Contrary to the statement the judge made, time and technology have revealed that an unquantifiable number of wrongfully convicted persons have served prison terms and even been executed for crimes they did not commit and some that did not even occur. Research into wrongful conviction was virtually nonexistent until Professor Edward Brochard of Yale University published his book Convicting the Innocent in 1932. This book documented 65 such cases, addressed the legal causes of miscarriage, and offered suggestions to reform. Subsequently, numerous other researchers began conducting case studies and publishing findings that affirmed that wrongful conviction represents a systematic problem within the American judicial process (Huff, 2002).

Evidently, because of the presence of bias and human error, an innocent person has reason to fear the justice system. This statement is even more logical considering the overwhelming examples in the media of the imprisonment of innocent minorities. Additionally, the recurring problem of human error only makes the entire judicial system appear nerve-wracking to an even greater extent. As mentioned previously, Samuel Gross, along with other employees of the National Registry of Exonerations, speculate how many innocent prisoners have gone unnoticed. Hopefully, if more people are aware of the countless individuals who are punished for crimes they have never committed, people will recognize the substantial reason there is to fear the justice system.