Essentialism and the criminal legal system.

IF 2.4 2区社会学 Q1 LAW Law and Human Behavior Pub Date : 2024-09-23 DOI:10.1037/lhb0000576

Madeleine Millar, Colleen M Berryessa, Cynthia Willis-Esqueda, Jason A Cantone, Deborah Goldfarb, Melissa de Vel-Palumbo, Anthony D Perillo, Terrill O Taylor, Laurie T Becker

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Abstract

Objective: Existing literature has yet to conceptualize and consolidate research on psychological essentialism and its relation to the criminal legal system, particularly in terms of explaining how individuals with justice involvement have been and could be differentially impacted across contexts. This article explores essentialism in the criminal legal system, including its potential consequences for inequity.

Method: We review research on essentialism as a psychological construct, its common applications to different social categorizations, and its trickle-down effects within the criminal legal system.

Results: Empirical work suggests that biases stemming from essentialism have the potential to severely affect individuals within the criminal legal system. Beyond assigning immutable properties across social groups, essentialism can give rise to biased attributions of responsibility and blame and affect decisions and behavior within three core domains of the criminal legal system: jury decision making, sentencing decisions, and public support for punitive policies.

Conclusions: We propose future policy recommendations to mitigate the adverse effects of essentialism in the criminal legal system, focusing especially on how using and adopting person-first language (focusing on people before characteristics) across society and policy can help to combat bias across criminal legal domains. Future research is needed on how to best address the adverse effects of essentialism and its biasing effects in the criminal legal system, as well as to examine the effects of essentialism in different legal contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

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本质论与刑事法律制度。

目的：现有文献尚未对心理本质主义及其与刑事法律体系的关系进行概念化和整合研究，尤其是在解释司法参与个体在不同环境下如何受到和可能受到不同影响方面。本文探讨了刑事法律体系中的本质主义，包括其对不公平的潜在后果：我们回顾了本质主义作为一种心理结构的研究、其在不同社会分类中的常见应用，以及其在刑事法律体系中的涓滴效应：实证研究表明，本质主义产生的偏见有可能严重影响刑事法律体系中的个人。除了在不同社会群体之间分配不可改变的属性之外，本质主义还可能导致有偏见的责任和指责归因，并影响刑事法律体系三个核心领域内的决策和行为：陪审团决策、量刑决策以及公众对惩罚性政策的支持：我们提出了未来的政策建议，以减轻本质主义在刑事法律体系中的不利影响，尤其关注如何在整个社会和政策中使用和采用以人为本的语言（先关注人，后关注特征）来帮助消除刑事法律领域中的偏见。未来需要研究如何最有效地解决本质主义的负面影响及其在刑事法律体系中的偏见效应，并研究本质主义在不同法律环境中的影响。(PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved）。

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来源期刊

Law and Human Behavior Multiple-

CiteScore

4.50

自引率

8.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Law and Human Behavior, the official journal of the American Psychology-Law Society/Division 41 of the American Psychological Association, is a multidisciplinary forum for the publication of articles and discussions of issues arising out of the relationships between human behavior and the law, our legal system, and the legal process. This journal publishes original research, reviews of past research, and theoretical studies from professionals in criminal justice, law, psychology, sociology, psychiatry, political science, education, communication, and other areas germane to the field.