Bias In Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men
According to Martha Beck, “Good-looking individuals are treated better than homely ones in virtually every social situation, from dating to trial by jury”
This can be seen in Reginald Rose’s drama when the majority of the jury voted the accused guilty, without even thoroughly examining the evidence.
As the play opens we learn the accused is facing a murder charge, after allegedly stabbing his father in the chest with a knife. The accused is from a rough part of town, and lives in an apartment complex.
In Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men, the jury shows extreme bias, basing claims off of little to no evidence.
The jury makes assumptions about the accused’s character, which shows bias. The jury was discussing the accused’s past, what he may have
done earlier in his life, and how his father used to beat him.
They label the accused as a tough insensitive kid, saying, “It’s the kids. The way they are, you know? They don’t listen… I hate tough kids” (
I draw a connection to the modern world, where if there were two suspects for a crime, one was a nice looking, well dressed person, and the other was a rough looking, low income person, most people’s minds would automatically make the assumption the second suspect committed the crime, just because they are not accustomed to interacting with those kinds of people, and the only time they hear about them is when they have done something wrong.
Therefore, due to the jurors hatred for kids with tough upbringings, there is bias in the jury.
Another example of bias is when the jury makes generalizations about people from the slums.
As the story progresses, the jury becomes tired of negotiating, and begin to think it is a waste of their time, and laugh at the idea that people from the slums are entitled to a trial.
Trying to convince the other jurors into a conviction, one man says, “Look at the kind of people they are - you know them” (
I have a personal experience with this sort of assumption, when a friends parent forbid them to hang out with me, over a misunderstanding, where they just assumed I had been the one to commit the crime, just because one person had told them I had. They based their decision off of no evidence.
Generalizations and assumptions about one’s character due to their living circumstances shows extreme bias, and should be left out of the courtroom.
This can be seen in Reginald Rose’s drama when the majority of the jury voted the accused guilty, without even thoroughly examining the evidence.
As the play opens we learn the accused is facing a murder charge, after allegedly stabbing his father in the chest with a knife. The accused is from a rough part of town, and lives in an apartment complex.
In Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men, the jury shows extreme bias, basing claims off of little to no evidence.
The jury makes assumptions about the accused’s character, which shows bias. The jury was discussing the accused’s past, what he may have
done earlier in his life, and how his father used to beat him.
They label the accused as a tough insensitive kid, saying, “It’s the kids. The way they are, you know? They don’t listen… I hate tough kids” (
I draw a connection to the modern world, where if there were two suspects for a crime, one was a nice looking, well dressed person, and the other was a rough looking, low income person, most people’s minds would automatically make the assumption the second suspect committed the crime, just because they are not accustomed to interacting with those kinds of people, and the only time they hear about them is when they have done something wrong.
Therefore, due to the jurors hatred for kids with tough upbringings, there is bias in the jury.
Another example of bias is when the jury makes generalizations about people from the slums.
As the story progresses, the jury becomes tired of negotiating, and begin to think it is a waste of their time, and laugh at the idea that people from the slums are entitled to a trial.
Trying to convince the other jurors into a conviction, one man says, “Look at the kind of people they are - you know them” (
I have a personal experience with this sort of assumption, when a friends parent forbid them to hang out with me, over a misunderstanding, where they just assumed I had been the one to commit the crime, just because one person had told them I had. They based their decision off of no evidence.
Generalizations and assumptions about one’s character due to their living circumstances shows extreme bias, and should be left out of the courtroom.