Culural Competence | Cultural Competence in the Criminal Justice System

Culture determines people's experiences of their world. It is important in the reception and delivery of services. Cultural competence starts with knowing your cultural practices and beliefs, and recognizing the different practices and values of people from different cultures. This goes beyond speaking a different language, or just acknowledging a different group's cultural icons. Cultural competence involves changing your biases or prejudgments on a different people's cultural traditions or beliefs (Continuing Education Online, 2002-2016).

Cultural competence, therefore, can be described as a group of attitudes and behavior within a culture. These attitudes and behavior are incorporated into the methods of practice of an agency, system or its experts, and helps them work productively under cross-cultural circumstances. To successfully achieve cultural competency, knowledge about groups and individuals must be incorporated and translated into certain practices and rules applied in suitable cultural settings. Professionals with cultural competence build positive helping interactions, involve their customers and provide higher quality services (Continuing Education Online, 2002-2016).

The Value of Cultural Competence

Cultural competence involves validation, openness and respect towards a person with whom you have different cultural and social expectations and perceptions. People are usually "ethnocentric." They think their culture is better than all other cultures. Some people are even defensive about, or threatened by the existence of differences in culture. To be culturally competent in the delivery of services, there are conditions that need to be met. One is having knowledge of different cultures, and how they affect behavior and attitudes. Secondly, one needs to be understanding, non-judgmental, respectful and sensitive when dealing with different cultures. In addition, one must be skillful and flexible when adapting and reacting to diverse cultural settings and situations. Cultural competence also involves acknowledging that everyone has a different experience in acculturation. This does not only involve different rates for different families of one culture. It also involves different rates that are within one family (Continuing Education Online, 2002-2016).

Cultural competent practices are guided by an ethic. Professionals who observe cultural competence in their operations help enhance suitable programs for serving people who are of different cultures. Every person needs to have the most significant capacities of empathy, genuineness and warmth. Professionals need to be respectful and compassionate...

This will help practitioners learn the behavior that is appropriate for cultural competence to be achieved. It is not enough, however, to only learn the appropriate behavior. Behavior must be topped up by some attitudinal moral responsibility and behavior skills. What matters is the fundamental attitude influencing behavior. Behavior itself does not matter. People who inherently respect, care for and appreciate others are able to show genuineness, empathy and warmth. This way, they are able to possess attitudes and behavior that are culturally congruent. The three essentials, when they interact, can help achieve cultural competence through acknowledgement of different values and affirmation of their clients' cultural diversity (Continuing Education Online, 2002-2016).
The Elements included in a Cultural Competence Assessment of a Criminal Justice Agency

The Center for Treatment of Substance Abuse (1998) states that cultural competence involves five elements. The elements mostly apply in a system of criminal justice. These elements include; cultural self-evaluation, understanding the changes brought by cultures interacting, valuing diversity, and adapting practices with regard to diversity and valuation of diversity. Professionals within the system of criminal justice need to have the certain characteristics. They include ability for self-awareness, ability for identifying diversity as a subject, ability for accepting others, ability for perceiving clients not merely as group members, but as individuals, and the will to defend and be able to culturally comprehend the specific reactions to different problems.

Professionals within the system of criminal justice need to either speak a foreign language that is commonly spoken in their region or be able to refer those who do not speak English to a person who speaks their language. They also need to know the factors that may inhibit the participation of minorities. For example, lawyers may experience cases where their clients are traumatized. Hence, in some cases, the clients may not want to share their experiences. In other cases, those lawyers who work for huge corporate firms may have to deal with international clients. This increases the chance of such clients sticking to various regulations in their dealings, despite their experience with lawyers. Such cultural expectations and values may inhibit the relationship between the client and the lawyer. This could be as bad as language barriers. It is important for the professional to sensitively handle the differences in culture. They must also find the resources that match the individual's cultural values.…