In Class Blog: Context

Kimberly Maclin is a Psychology professor at the University of Northern Iowa who specializes in research about Criminal Stereoypes.  In her article "The Criminal Stereotype" Maclin talks about two studies that she conducted in which she asked students to list the first 10 things that come to mind when they hear the word "criminal." She then used that information to create a questionnaire that she used in her second study that she gave to a new group of subjects in El Paso, Texas.  From these two studies Maclin derived that "Because criminal stereotypes may interfere with fair treatment and fair allowance of opportunities towards those individuals who fit our criminal stereotypes, being aware of criminal stereotypes and understanding what they consist of has important implications for the criminal justice system." This effectively portrays my argument that it is wrong to assume the stereotype that criminals are immoral because , as Dr. Maclin said, those criminal stereotypes interfere with the fair treatment and the fair allowance of opportunities.  When we judge a criminal based on a stereotype, we have already put them in a hole before we have even heard what they have to say.  By us throwing them into a category before actually finding out where they fit is unfair to them.  If all of us were to predetermine what we think of a person we would eliminate opportunities that person may have before we even hear what they have to say, and that is extremely unfair to that person.