OBJECTIVE Existing literature has yet to conceptualize and consolidate research on psychological essentialism and its relation to the criminal legal system, particularly in terms of explaining how individuals with justice involvement have been and could be differentially impacted across contexts. This article explores essentialism in the criminal legal system, including its potential consequences for inequity. METHOD We review research on essentialism as a psychological construct, its common applications to different social categorizations, and its trickle-down effects within the criminal legal system. RESULTS Empirical work suggests that biases stemming from essentialism have the potential to severely affect individuals within the criminal legal system. Beyond assigning immutable properties across social groups, essentialism can give rise to biased attributions of responsibility and blame and affect decisions and behavior within three core domains of the criminal legal system: jury decision making, sentencing decisions, and public support for punitive policies. CONCLUSIONS We propose future policy recommendations to mitigate the adverse effects of essentialism in the criminal legal system, focusing especially on how using and adopting person-first language (focusing on people before characteristics) across society and policy can help to combat bias across criminal legal domains. Future research is needed on how to best address the adverse effects of essentialism and its biasing effects in the criminal legal system, as well as to examine the effects of essentialism in different legal contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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本质主义和刑事法律制度。


目的 现有文献尚未概念化和巩固对心理本质主义及其与刑事法律体系的关系的研究，特别是在解释参与司法的个人如何在不同背景下受到和可能受到不同影响方面。本文探讨了刑事法律体系中的本质主义，包括其对不平等的潜在后果。方法 我们回顾了本质主义作为一种心理建构的研究、它在不同社会分类中的常见应用，以及它在刑事法律体系中的渗透效应。结果 实证研究表明，本质主义产生的偏见有可能严重影响刑事法律体系内的个人。除了在社会群体之间分配不变的属性之外，本质主义还可能导致责任和指责的偏见归因，并影响刑事法律体系三个核心领域内的决策和行为：陪审团决策、量刑决定和公众对惩罚性政策的支持。结论 我们提出了未来的政策建议，以减轻刑事法律体系中本质主义的不利影响，特别关注如何在整个社会和政策中使用和采用以人为本的语言（先关注人，再关注特征），以帮助消除刑事法律领域的偏见。未来需要研究如何最好地解决本质主义的不利影响及其在刑事法律体系中的偏见影响，以及审查本质主义在不同法律背景下的影响。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。