Personal prejudices are likely to negatively influence criminal justice professionals’ decisions base on the analogy of intersectionality. Intersectionality is the kind of discrimination or prejudices that subconsciously builds up in people’s minds. Therefore, they may not know that they are carrying out such prejudices in the first place (Krizsán, 2012). For instance, an officer may decide to warn and release a white teenager for a minor offense and arrest an African American of the same age and the same offense based on the notion that they are more likely to commit a crime.
It is not right for an officer to allow their decision to be based on their personal prejudices or negative perceptions of the society they are covering. It is expected of them to hold a higher standard of behavior and apply neutrality in any decision that is made by the law and their operations book (Pollock, 2019). If prejudice is applied in decision making, then mistakes are bound to be made like incarcerating the wrong person who would have castigating effects on the justice system. For instance, the court’s time would have been wasted, and if the conviction is jail time, incarceration resources would have been wasted. If the victim is later found not guilty and has to be released, they could file a class suit for damages which the justice system has to pay for. Therefore, depleting its financial resources that would have gone to better use.
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The criminal justice system can take several steps to limit the extent through which discretion can be utilized wrongly. One of the ways is through offering guidelines that should be public and act as a yardstick in the decision-making process (Whitaker et al., 1979) (Bronitt & Stenning, 2011). The subject of discretion should be revamped in law enforcement training as well as a refresher course to be available to them for mandatory participation periodically. Officers who use their choice wrongly should be punished based on the gravity of the discretion of the justice system.
Works Cited
Pollock, J. M. (2019). Ethical dilemmas and decisions in criminal justice . Cengage Learning.
Whitaker, G. P., Garmire, B. L., Fairchild, E. S., Muir, W. K., Manning, P. K., & Goldstein, H. (1979). Managing Discretion: A Central Dilemma of Police Administration. Public Administration Review , 39 (2), 190. https://doi.org/10.2307/3110478
Krizsán Andrea. (2012). Institutionalizing intersectionality: the changing nature of European equality regimes . Palgrave Macmillan.
Bronitt, S. & Stenning, P. (2011). Understanding Discretion in Modern Policing. Criminal Law Journal, 35 6: 319-332, 2011 ; University of Queensland TC Beirne School of Law Research Paper No. 15-30. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2611449
