Jury diversity in the age of mass incarceration: an exploratory mock jury experiment examining felon-jurors’ potential impacts on deliberations

Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System: Prevalence, Causes, and a Search for Solutions

“…The exclusion of those with a felony conviction from jury service is one way in which diversity on juries is decreased. Rationalizations for excluding convicted felons from serving on juries even after they have served their sentence include that they are unfit to serve because they will be biased toward the defense and that their lack of integrity will damage the deliberative process (Binnall, ). However, a jury simulation study found that ex‐felon participants brought up more novel case facts during deliberations and did so more accurately than did nonfelon participants (Binnall, ), suggesting that ex‐felons may even improve the deliberation process.…”

“…Rationalizations for excluding convicted felons from serving on juries even after they have served their sentence include that they are unfit to serve because they will be biased toward the defense and that their lack of integrity will damage the deliberative process (Binnall, ). However, a jury simulation study found that ex‐felon participants brought up more novel case facts during deliberations and did so more accurately than did nonfelon participants (Binnall, ), suggesting that ex‐felons may even improve the deliberation process. Similarly, racially diverse juries show signs of higher quality deliberations than racially homogenous juries, deliberating longer, discussing more evidence, and making fewer errors in their discussions of the evidence (Sommers, ).…”

Public perceptions of felon-juror exclusion: An exploratory study

“…For many, convicted felons' supposed criminal loyalties and presumed collective hatred for the state makes felon-juror exclusion "feel" logical, and perhaps even inevitable. However, recent studies not only show that the presumed bias of convicted felons is dramatically overstated (Binnall, 2014) and that the character of citizens with a felony criminal conviction does not diminish their fitness for jury service (Binnall, 2018a), but that felon-juror inclusion might, in fact, add to deliberation quality and help facilitate successful reintegration/criminal desistance (Binnall, 2019(Binnall, , 2018b(Binnall, , 2018c.…”

“…Multiple scholars have exposed the racialized origins of the practice (Holloway, 2013), questioned the professed rationales for excluding convicted felons from the electorate (Manza and Uggen, 2008), and highlighted the lasting impact of felon-voter disenfranchisement statutes by recalculating past election results to include excluded voters with felony criminal convictions (Chambers, 2001;Miles, 2004;Uggen and Manza, 2002). In contrast, the exclusion of convicted felons from jury service has received considerably less scholarly attention (Binnall, 2009), with only a handful of studies examining the topic to date (for a review, see Binnall, 2019). Those few studies demonstrate that, like felon-voter disenfranchisement, felon-juror exclusion racially homogenizes a democratic institution (Wheelock, 2011), rests on tenuous justifications (Binnall, 2014), might negatively influence the reintegration of former offenders (Binnall, 2018a;2018b), and can promote the "othering" of citizens with a felony criminal record (Binnall, 2018c).…”

Organizational and Demographic Level Diversity Practices and Employees Performance

“…Management of diversity, without a doubt, is willing to adopt quality decisions between discrepancies and similarities (Roberson et al, 2003). Diversity management practices contribute to improved organizational structure and individual effective and efficient performance (Binnall, 2019;Richter et al, 2012). Much earlier literature supports diversity management towards understanding, some other (Binnall, 2019;Richter et al, 2012;Aydan, 2016;Cox et al, 1991;Bassett-Jones, 2005) believes diversity management supports the creativity of individuals (Daver & Demirel, 2012) Considering increased interest in diversity management, it has been shown that successful diversity management is a critical indicator toward positive employee outcomes; for instance, greater job satisfaction leads to higher results (Rainey, 2009).…”