Let’s say you’re a judge, and you know that the county’s Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) officer is going to be monitoring all your decisions for a racial bias. If, for example — once everything is averaged together — you set bail higher for one group than for another, you’re going to have some explaining to do.
You know that every case is different — that you take lots of factors into account, and that race has nothing to do with your decisions. But you also know that the brain-dead DIE officer is going to assess all your decisions through that one lens.
You do everything you can to be fair, but it just so happens that in your jurisdiction, the people who come before you from Group A are more trouble than the people from Group B. They’re more likely to get arrested. They’re more likely to skip bail. They usually have priors. They’re often in gangs. They often don’t have jobs, and most of them are drug addicts. Consequently, the average bail you set for people in Group A is always higher than the average bail you set for people in Group B. It has nothing to do with the group they’re in. It has to do with their individual cases.
This is a looming crisis for you, and you know it.
Then somebody from Group B comes before you. The evidence against him is questionable. He has a job. He has no priors. He should get a very minimal bail.
But if you stick it to him — if you give him an unreasonably high bail — that makes your numbers look better.
I have no doubt this kind of thinking is in the back of every judge’s mind, and this is one of many reasons that “diversity” is BS.