Law Commons^™

Reconceptualizing Prosecutorial Misconduct Through Moral Disengagement Theory: A Social Cognitive Approach, Lawton P. Cummings

Lawton P Cummings

This Article argues that certain key structural factors within the prosecutorial system in the United States lead to prosecutorial misconduct by systematically encouraging “moral disengagement” in prosecutors. “Moral disengagement” refers to the social cognition theory developed by Albert Bandura and others, which identifies the mechanisms that operate to disengage an individual’s moral self-sanctions that would otherwise inhibit the individual from engaging in injurious conduct. Empirical studies have shown that a person’s level of moral disengagement, as a dispositional trait, is an accurate predictor of the person’s level of aggression and anti-social behavior, and that an individual’s level of moral disengagement …