Ethnicity and the Court: Perceptions of African-Born Court Monitors

• In Event: Procedural Justice and Views of the Court

Abstract

Court monitoring organizations are designed to function as a public watchdog to ensure justice in the courtroom. However, the authors of this study considered the fact that the demographics of the court monitors themselves might strongly influence their perceptions of court proceedings. With this in mind, the authors recruited African immigrants as volunteers to conduct court monitoring in spring 2014. The authors sought to (1) assess whether the volunteers’ knowledge of the court process improved after their court monitoring experience, and (2) to gain an overall understanding of the volunteers’ opinions of the court process, noting specific differences between U.S. courts and those in their country of origin. Through the use of pre and post-tests, court monitoring forms that included both quantitative and qualitative assessments of court proceedings, and follow-up focus groups, the authors hope that their findings from this exploratory study will help them to recommend monitoring practices that are more culturally inclusive, and pave the way for more systematic research concerning immigrants in the court system.

Authors

• Deborah Ann Eckberg, Metropolitan State University

• Anne Cross, Metropolitan State University