Implicit Biases in the Justice Delivery System, Social Injustice and Social Inequality

Two people commit similar offences. On paper, the law treats them identically. In practice, one gets bail easily and the other does not, one is treated respectfully by the police and the other is not. None of the officials involved may consciously intend to discriminate — and that is exactly what makes implicit bias harder to fix than open prejudice.

In two minutes

Implicit bias refers to unconscious attitudes that can influence how police, prosecutors and courts treat people differently based on group membership — caste, class, religion, gender — even without any deliberate intention to discriminate, and its cumulative effect is a justice system whose outcomes track existing social inequality more closely than they track actual guilt or the seriousness of the offence.

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