Cultural competence is a person’s ability to understand, relate, and communicate well with people from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Cultural competence entails being aware of the different cultures with society, forming a positive attitude towards the cultures of other people, and understanding diverse culture which exists within society ( Newburn, 2012) . Lack of cultural competence is among the key issues affecting the criminal justice system in the world. Police officers develop stereotypes founded on their cultural beliefs that last lead to implicit bias, which might impact them in making critical decisions. A lack of cultural competence has a significant impact on policing, in both individual and systematic biases. As a result of cultural incompetence, police officers tend to be biased against citizens based on their race, religion, color, and ethnicity. Consequently, lack of cultural competence results in over-policing of specific ethnicities or races. For instance, due to cultural incompetence in some regions of the United States, law enforcement agencies tend to over-police African Americans ( Cross, 2013) . This over-policing is mainly based on the implicit bias and stereotypes the police have against African-Americans as being criminals and law-breakers. Generally, police officers tend towards believing that black communities have higher rates of crimes than others. This leads to implicit bias and stereotyping, which affects the policing activities of police officers. Another element that portrays cultural incompetence is the militarization of police within law enforcement institutions. Various police departments are managed like quasi-military institutions that have little or no consideration for human rights. Some police agencies tend to deploy excess force when dealing with civilians, such as when arresting them. Various cases in the US have been reported recently in the US, where police have used excessive force, even resulting in the death of civilians. Besides, lack of cultural competence often results in discrimination of the LGBT community members by some police, leading to their unwarranted arrest or failure of the police to help the members when they need their help. Similarly, cultural incompetence also impacts the courts. An excellent example of how cultural incompetence affects courts is the case of Sharanda Jones, who was imprisoned for a lifetime on one drug conspiracy, even though it was her first arrest. However, the main reason why she received life imprisonment was that she was too poor to afford a good lawyer ( Martyn, 2019) . The case of Jones shows that cultural incompetence hinders the people from the low socioeconomic status from getting proper justice, thus being convicted for minor crimes or crimes they have not committed, while the rich quickly get bailed out, leading to unnecessary incarceration. Also, cultural incompetence leads to people of low socioeconomic status who commit drug crimes being subjected to harsher sentences and being denied bails because they cannot get good lawyers to defend them in courts. Thus, even for minor crimes, the poor can received death sentences. Likewise, cultural incompetence also affects corrections, where correctional officers may engage in discriminative practices in correctional facilities. When correctional officers are not culturally competent, the lack of effectiveness in managing and supervising inmates who come from diverse cultures. In some cases, correctional officers become discriminative and biased because the inmates come from a particular region, or they are males of females ( Cross, 2013) . This results in cases where male officers are put in female prisons and male officers in female prisons, and this hinders the effectiveness of correctional facilities. Cultural incompetence also results in the mistreatment of mentally ill, pregnant, and disabled prisoners because correctional officers cannot communicate and understand these people properly. Overall, there is a need for diversity in the hiring of criminal justice professionals. Social and cultural diversity will help in reducing cultural bias, primarily based on ethnicity, gender, and race. Today, the police force is becoming more culturally diverse. A diverse police force and criminal justice system are crucial for ensuring gender equity, and mirroring society because society is comprised of diverse cultural, social, and economic dimensions.
References
Cross, T. L. (2013). Cultural competence. In Encyclopedia of social work .
Martyn, A. (2019, October 23). New reforms bypass Dallas inmate sentenced to life for first drug arrest . Dallas Observer. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/new-reforms-bypass- dallas-inmate-sentenced-to-life-for-first-drug-arrest-7680480
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Newburn, T. (Ed.). (2012). Handbook of policing . Routledge.
