Cultural Competence in the Criminal Justice System - Essay Example

In Race and Ethnicity, Mental Health Services and Cultural Competence in the Criminal Justice System: Are We Ready to Change?, the authors examine disparities that exist in the judicial system. They call for action from all agencies that have a stake in solving these problems. There are glaring racial and cultural disparities in the system which are augmented by inadequate mental health services.

Disparities specific to race and culture exist in the judicial system. Non-whites still feel racially profiled, and each contact with the system is an opportunity for disparities to flourish and be multiplied in corrections. Non-white populations are subject to worse charges, fewer early releases, higher conviction rates, and harsher sentences throughout the system. Constitutional amendments have forbidden such institutionalization of discrimination between whites and non-whites, but disparities still exist in many social areas.

About 20% of people in prison or jail or on probation for violent crimes have a mental illness, but only about 13% of the total correctional workforce is appropriately trained counsellors, psychologists, medical staff, chaplains, or social workers. Thus, there is a lack of appropriate such services in corrections, a deficiency that will continue so long as there are unreliable means of evaluating clinical effectiveness. Furthermore, the lack of such services in the community at large places people at greater risk for behaviours that beg the scrutiny of the judicial system.

Based on the importance of cultural awareness, the study recommends certain public policy changes to address these problems. Not only do The Eight and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution legally guarantee certain provisions for people in custody or engaged in due process but also there is an ethical imperative to provide necessary medical care for incarcerated people. Only empirically-based methods may provide any measure of certainty in alleviating the lack of cultural competence in the judicial system. Furthermore, for the changes to be truly meaningful in life, they must address a wide range of behaviours and attitudes that lean toward disproportionately confining people of colour. The impetus for such changes must come from a variety of sources including social services, education, employment, and faith-based operations. Communities, individuals, and leadership at all levels must be committed to bringing about these broad changes.