Dealing with Biased Jury Decision-Making

Dealing with Jury Bias
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Dealing with Jury Bias
The criminal justice system is critical to any society. The criminal justice system seeks to impose penalties on offenders according to the applicable laws (Maculan & Gil Gil, 2020). In other words, it is through it that offenders are identified and prosecuted. Individuals can either be pronounced guilty or innocent. The process is a rigorous one to ensure that innocent parties are not convicted while at the same time not freeing guilty individuals. This can be a delicate balance since it is not always easy to conclude. There is always a need to obtain credible information from different sources to enable the jury to decide. Social psychology entails analyzing human behavior and can provide a significant source of information to facilitate fairness in the criminal justice system (Stangor, Jhangiani & Tarry, 2014). Social psychology is needed to explain how personal characteristics can influence the decision of the jury or the judge.
An understanding of criminal behavior involves applying social psychology in the criminal justice system. Social psychologists can answer fundamental questions that can assist in the investigation (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2017). For instance, they could determine the situational factors that might have influenced the crime. Through social psychology, one can determine how the personal characteristics of the parties involved can influence the decisions made by the jury. The jurors are also members of society, and their decisions are expected to be impartial and in the best interests of the law. Despite the need for juries to remain objective, interactions of social psychology can be observed in the decision-making process.
The jury decision-making is affected by the interactions of the jury with society. Jury verdicts are given much weight because the co...