Beyond Skin Deep: Understanding Disproportionate Minority Contact through Ethnocultural Implicit Bias and the Decision-Making Process among Justice System Gatekeepers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52935/Abstract
Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) has been studied as a social phenomenon for decades. Despite the quality research done on this construct, efforts to reduce disproportionality across the justice system have been marginally successful. Historically, DMC has been viewed from a perspective that attributes a macro level construct (systemic minority overrepresentation) to micro level processes (individual decision-making), with the most of the research focusing on whether DMC exists and the scope of the problem, rather than why it exists. The present article offers a theoretical explanation of DMC through an expanded lens of implicit bias. While implicit bias is usually discussed from a racial context, the discretionary decisions of justice system gatekeepers are subject to implicit biases transcendent of race. These biases, which may be grounded in ethnocultural differences, present the risk for inequitable criminal justice decision-making and may be driving the overrepresentation of minority youth in the justice system. The tenets of this perspective, as well as applications and recommendations are discussed.
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