Criminal Justice Research Papers

The science of psychology exists in a state of tension with the legal system in many ways (Ogloff & Finkelman, 1999). Fundamentally, the goals and processes of investigation in science differ substantially from those of investigation in the law. First, science is inductive. Researchers examine data from many field studies, correlational studies, and experiments and draw tentative, probabilistic conclusions. The law wants an answer that is, at least in criminal law, beyond a reasonable doubt. Second, scientific conclusions remain provisional and open to falsification, and conclusions change in light of new data, new methodologies, and new paradigms. Court decisions set precedents that remain resistant to change without consideration from state or federal supreme courts. In other words, science cannot provide certainty of conclusions for the future, but the law looks to past legal precedents to determine truth and direct future policy. Third, psychological science is nomothetic instead of ideographic. Researchers attempt to describe, predict, and explain the behavior of populations of organisms across a wide range of contexts in terms of probability—a researcher cannot predict the behavior of any particular individual with 100 percent accuracy. In contrast, judges and juries must evaluate the actions, intentions, accuracy, and other characteristics of each individual involved in a particular case. For example, researchers may predict that a population of highly confident eyewitnesses (i.e., those who are 95 percent certain of their memories) will make errors in approximately 15 to 30 percent of their claims (Wells, Memon, & Penrod, 2006), but researchers cannot determine whether a particular statement by a particular eyewitness is correct. The law, however, must evaluate the truthfulness of each statement by each eyewitness. Fourth, a courtroom brings together two opposing sides who argue for competing views of truth. A community of scientists conducts a wide variety of research endeavors and then tries to form one general view of a psychological topic. Although researchers may report conflicting findings and may challenge one another about methods, outcomes, or interpretations of research, science seeks to improve the general body of knowledge. However, science does not determine truth by having two adversaries challenge each other (Ogloff & Finkelman, 1999). Methodology Methodology in psychology and the law is as broad as the field itself. Some researchers observe behavior in natural settings or search archival data for existing trends in actual court cases. For example, in civil jury research, Chin and Peterson (1985) found evidence for the deep pockets hypothesis, the notion that wealthier corporate or government defendants are more likely to be found liable and to pay larger damages than are less wealthy individual defendants, but wealth and corporate identity remain confounded in the archival data. These approaches yield ecologically valid data, but they lack experimental control. Other researchers use correlational data to assess policies or other phenomena even though this approach does not allow them to make causal inferences. For example, scholars use correlational methods to study the predictive validity of eyewitness confidence for eyewitness accuracy (Wells et al., 2006). Still other researchers may […]

There are several general roles for psychologists in the legal system, and many specific careers exist in psychology in the law (Bottoms et al., 2004). More generally, psychological researchers can impact the law in a variety of ways. Basic researchers, scientists who seek general or basic knowledge for its own sake, and applied researchers, scientists who study practical problems, can significantly influence the legal system. Although these basic and applied approaches appear to be different, they exist as two ends of the same continuum. Basic researchers inform the legal system by increasing the available knowledge on topics such as memory, human cognition, and social influence. Although research on the effects of different retention intervals on the recall of word lists does not appear to address issues in psychology and the law, such research contributes to the general body of knowledge related to memory. Applied researchers approach specific problems in psychology and the law. For example, when critics argued that trained interrogators can analyze a suspect’s nonverbal behavior to determine whether a suspect is lying, Kassin and Fong (1999) acquired interrogator training materials, trained student observers to analyze behavior, and evaluated whether training caused observers to be more accurate. Although observers trained by Kassin and Fong (1999) were more confident and provided more reasons for their judgments, they were less accurate than untrained observers. Applied research topics abound in psychology and the law. Researchers have investigated the practical questions of whether sequential or simultaneous lineups lead to fewer errors (Steblay, Dysart, Fulero, & Lindsay, 2001), the effects of reading pretrial publicity before serving on a jury (Steblay, Besirevic, Fulero, & Jiminez-Lorente, 1999), and the potential impacts of expert testimony on jury decisions (Nietzel, McCarthy, & Kern, 1999). Psychologists also evaluate the success of various legal interventions or reforms. A large and growing number of local districts use drug courts as an alternative to traditional criminal courts to help defendants receive addiction-treatment counseling and intensive supervision instead of incarceration. Of course, lawmakers wonder whether drug courts, with their emphasis on treatment and supervision, work better than incarceration. Psychologists have evaluated the effectiveness of drug courts and concluded that they do not eliminate recidivism but that defendants who work with drug courts are less likely to be arrested for later drug violations than are defendants sentenced in the traditional criminal legal system (Winick, 2003). Psychologists also work in the legal system as advocates. For example, in 1954 psychologists joined other social scientists to advocate for desegregation in the landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education. More controversially, psychologists can act as trial consultants and work for one side in a court case. The Web site of the American Society of Trial Consultants (2007) lists several companies that engage in this work. The media spotlights consultants who engage in jury selection to help one side win a trial. Some researchers have argued that professional jury selection does not generate large advantages during trials (Fulero & Penrod, 1990), but these activities have continued to grow […]

Repression is a psychological construct with roots in Freudian ego defenses, and repression has existed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) through prior versions and into the current DSM-IV-TR in the diagnostic criteria for dissociative amnesia. Repression emerged into prominence in psychology and the law in the 1980s and 1990s with questions about repressed memories. Most notably, although researchers considered questions about misinformation and other factors that could negatively affect the accuracy of memories, Bass and Davis (1988) published The Courage to Heal. In this work, the authors guided readers through the processes by which readers who do not have memories of abuse can recover memories of childhood sexual abuse and learn to believe these memories. Bass and Davis (1988) sought to provide additional resources to aid the healing of survivors of these tragic abuses. The intense controversy through the 1990s and into the present centered on their claim that even for those individuals who do not remember abuse but “have a feeling that something abusive happened to [them], it probably did” (p. 21). In the early 1990s, these statements, along with a growing body of media stories and court cases involving repressed memory (see Loftus, 1993), inspired the eyewitness testimony field to include the study of the formation and modification of long-term autobiographical memories. Findings from this research instigated a controversy that continues into the present. Researchers investigating repressed memories shared concerns about the legal system. What if juries are convinced by testimony based on recovered memories? How can the law determine whether recovered memories are true? First, juries tend to believe that witnesses’ memories are true, even if they view recovered memories as slightly less credible (Loftus, 1993). Second, memories need not accurately reflect events as they occurred (Loftus, 1996). Third, researchers can implant completely false memories in laboratory participants that will cause participants to believe these memories and even to provide rich and convincing details from their memories of these events that never occurred (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995). Fourth, archival events provide convergent validity for these claims (Loftus, 1993). For example, during interviews with police and psychologists, Paul Ingram recalled that he had sexually abused his children (Loftus, 1993). He confessed to these behaviors, he believed his confession and his recovered memories of the abuse, and he added graphic details that police believed could have only come from Ingram’s memories of participation in the alleged abuse. The prosecution hired Richard Ofshe, a sociologist, as a consultant. Ofshe used similar interviewing techniques to prompt Ingram to confess to additional abusive acts that the police knew to be false. Ingram confessed to these false acts, wrote a three-page confession full of rich detail, and believed his own confession and recovered memories about the false abuse (Loftus, 1993). The academic disagreements over repressed memory extend to the interface between psychology and the law. At an American Psychology-Law Society convention in the 1990s, three sitting judges heard two teams, each consisting of a lawyer and a psychologist, […]

Questions regarding pretrial publicity center on the tension between two guaranteed rights in the United States. The First Amendment to the Constitution allows freedom of the press, and the Sixth Amendment provides each defendant the right to a speedy trial before an impartial jury. When the press publicizes details of an ongoing investigation (e.g., prior convictions of the defendant, particular pieces of evidence, or a confession), the media expose potential jurors to these details. Later, when jurors decide the case, they can be affected by media information even if these materials are not admissible in the actual trial. Psychologists have long been aware of the biasing effects of pretrial publicity. Psychologists have conducted pretrial publicity research in controlled experiments and in observational field studies involving actual cases. Both lines of research suggest that pretrial publicity poses serious threats to the fairness of the legal system. An extensive meta-analysis of experimental studies of pretrial publicity (Steblay, Besirevic, Fulero, & Jiminez-Lorente, 1999) revealed that pretrial publicity can affect jurors’ views of the defendant, their initial views of his or her guilt, and their final verdicts. Experimental work has demonstrated the effects of pretrial publicity on civil cases as well (Bornstein, Whisenhunt, Nemeth, & Dunaway, 2002). Field studies also justify concerns about the impacts of pretrial publicity on legal outcomes. Surveys investigating participants’ knowledge and views about well-known crimes or about local criminal cases suggest that people who recall more pretrial publicity know more about the case and are more likely to have reached conclusions regarding the case (Studebaker et al., 2002). Researchers distinguish between two types of pretrial publicity, specific and general (Greene & Wade, 1988). Most research addresses specific pretrial publicity or publicity about the case in question. Some research has been directed toward general pretrial publicity or publicity not about the case in question but about potentially relevant issues. For example, reading a newspaper article portraying a mistaken conviction can predispose jurors to be less likely to convict a defendant than are jurors who have read newspaper articles that are not trial related (Greene & Wade, 1988). Researchers have thoroughly documented the effects of pretrial publicity, but reducing the effects of pretrial publicity continues to present difficult problems. Many remedies have been suggested, but few are effective. Some early suggestions included extensive jury deliberation, judicial admonition (instructions from the judge to the jury to disregard all pretrial publicity), careful jury selection, and thorough voir dire, or questioning of the jury pool. A comprehensive study by Kramer, Kerr, and Carroll (1990) demonstrated that these remedies do not substantially reduce the effects of pretrial publicity. However, two other methods have shown promise. A change of venue to a location away from the crime, as in the Timothy McVeigh trial discussed previously, can result in a pool of potential jurors who have experienced less publicity about the case (Studebaker & Penrod, 1997). Additionally, continuance— a delay of the trial—can reduce the impact of some aspects of pretrial publicity. Over time, potential jurors may […]

The jury has been one of the most mysterious forces in United States law. Critics have leveled extensive allegations that juries are unpredictable, unrepresentative of the population of the United States, biased, and irresponsible. Research into jury decision making has shed light on many phenomena in criminal and civil legal systems, but many questions remain. Jurors face an immensely complex task. What if a professor presented his or her class to students as though the students were jurors in a criminal trial? First, if students have prior knowledge of the course content or have taken the prerequisites, these students cannot register for the class. Second, students do not know how long the course will last or when the final examination will be scheduled. Third, students do not have just one instructor—they have two or more instructors who present radically different versions of the same events, and students, who are unfamiliar with the topic yet not allowed to research the material themselves, must decide which of these experts is correct. Fourth, students in this class cannot take notes or ask questions. Fifth, the final examination is a group project that requires all group members to agree unanimously on the response to a true or false (i.e., guilty or not guilty) question. Finally, based on the students’ answer to the question, someone will be released, incarcerated, or, as in some cases, sentenced to die. How many students would register for this class? Juries must manage a vast quantity of information and use this information in accordance with intricate instructions presented in complex legal jargon. One of the central and most controversial questions in jury decision-making research is how to conduct the research. A majority of this research has incorporated undergraduate students acting as mock jurors who read, hear, or watch a condensed trial. Legal and psychological scholars have long expressed concerns regarding the ecological validity of these findings (e.g., Konecni & Ebbesen, 1979). Bornstein’s (1999) extensive review of methods and outcomes, however, suggests that undergraduate jurors do not systematically differ from jury-eligible community members. In a series of meta-analyses of studies of jury decision-making research, Nietzel, McCarthy, and Kern (1999) reported that variables caused larger effects in controlled experiments with undergraduates and simplistic stimuli and that the effects of manipulated variables were smaller when research involved community-eligible mock jurors or realistic trial simulations. These and other concerns led them to advise jury researchers to seek convergent validity from four sources: (a) archival research of actual cases, (b) follow-up questions with actual jurors, (c) well-controlled simulations with mock jurors, and (d) realistic simulations with real juries or jury-eligible community members (Nietzel et al., 1999). The composition of juries has raised questions about representativeness and fairness. Courts call jurors from voter registration lists and then seat juries from among the potential jurors who come to the courthouse. Not all United States citizens register to vote or are eligible to vote, and not all of the individuals who are called come to the courthouse. Judges […]

Interrogation rooms remain some of the most secretive locations in the United States legal system. Police undertake interrogation to discover the truth about a crime. Police, along with society at large, want guilty people to confess and innocent people to resist. The stakes are particularly high because a confession is even more powerful than eyewitness testimony in a criminal trial (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004). A confession increases the likelihood of guilty verdicts even when the confession is coerced through threats or promises and even when judges admonish (i.e., instruct) jurors to ignore the confession (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004). Given the severity of a mistaken verdict, psychologists have investigated the process of interrogation and the possibility of false confessions. Many factors increase the likelihood of true and false confessions. The physical structure of the room, a small, uncomfortable, soundproof space with an evident one-way mirror (see Kassin, 1997), interacts with the social influence exerted on the suspect by the interrogator to produce a situation in which confessions, both true and false, are likely. The interrogator initiates the process with a strong statement of the suspect’s guilt and then proceeds through a process that includes interrupting all denials, preventing the suspect from tuning out, and then showing sympathy and empathy for the suspect while encouraging the suspect to confess. These methods produce confessions, and researchers have argued that this high degree of social influence is necessary to ensure that guilty suspects confess, but the possibility of false confessions raises concerns (Kassin, 1997). The number of annual false confessions remains unknown. Estimates vary widely, and some scholars argue that these numbers cannot be known (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004). In interviews of convicted defendants, both guilty and innocent defendants often maintain that they are innocent, and it remains extremely difficult to evaluate guilt in any absolute sense. When biological evidence exists and points to innocence, a confession may be overturned. The Innocence Project (2007) reports that in just over a quarter of their cases, a defendant incriminated him- or herself, confessed, or pleaded guilty when he or she was innocent. Although it is hard to imagine why an innocent person might confess, researchers have delineated three possibilities. First, suspects may make voluntary false confessions. For example, in 1932 over 200 people confessed to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Second, innocent suspects may confess even though they know they are innocent; these coerced-compliant false confessions (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004) occur when participants believe that the benefits of confession outweigh the costs. For example, a coerced-compliant false confession could occur if the suspect believes that a conviction is inevitable and that a confession will lead to reduced punishment. Third, innocent suspects may confess and may truly believe that they are guilty. These coerced-internalized false confessions are most controversial and conceptually difficult (see Kassin, 1997). Suspects genuinely believe that they are guilty of crimes they did not commit, whether accusations are severe (e.g., the case of Paul Ingram) or minor, such as accidentally pressing an incorrect key during […]

In line with general psychological approaches across fields, psychologists who study psychology and the law emphasize the behavior, cognitions, emotions, and experiences of individuals involved in the legal system. Of course, all individuals within reach of the United States legal system are involved to some degree. The involvement appears evident for police officers, lawyers, judges, defendants, corrections officers, trial consultants, and others who work in or are assessed by the legal sys­tem. Some relationships within the legal system are less evident. All voters in the United States are participants in the legal system in that they can influence laws by vote, petition, or protest, and because voters, like other residents, can break or obey the law. Nonvoting citizens (e.g., individuals who are under the age of 18 or indi­viduals who have lost the right to vote through dishonor­able military discharge or other causes) have access to constitutional rights and due process under criminal law and have access to the civil legal system. Noncitizen residents of the United States may not be guaranteed these rights, but they live under United States laws. Even some noncitizen nonresidents are directly involved in the legal system as they petition for citizenship or in other ways. For example, as of the spring of 2007, some individuals are being denied the right to access legally the United States court system to challenge their indefi­nite incarceration at the Guantanamo Bay holding facil­ity. Additionally, laws regulate corporations as well as people. Although so many individuals and corporations are involved, this research paper focuses largely on the behav­ior, cognitions, emotions, and interactions of central actors in the legal system. This research paper focuses on the psychological study of individuals in the legal system, but other psychologists also work within the legal system, and psychology and the law in this research paper is distinct from forensic psychol­ogy. Forensic psychologists—psychologists who work within the system to address specific legal questions about specific defendants (Nicholson, 1999)—answer applied questions about individuals in legal settings. These activities include but are not limited to assessing (a) whether an individual is com­petent to be tried, (b) whether a juvenile should be tried as an adult, (c) the degree to which a victim is psycho­logically injured by a crime or other act, and (d) what treatments could be appropriate for a specific offender. Laws regulate human behavior across many contexts. For example, the law dictates and supports the speed at which people drive, the age at which they can vote, their safety in their homes, and their expectations not to risk injury from products they buy. The law protects citizens from violence and theft. When conflict arises between members of society, they turn to the law to resolve these issues. In all of these cases, the law defines and prescribes acceptable behavior among individuals and corporations. Despite the immense power the law and its repre­sentatives hold in society, the law, like United States culture, must continuously change in several ways. The law must update to incorporate new […]

Questions of potential interactions between psychology and the law existed long before the founding of the United States or the establishment of a separate United State legal system. For example, Francis Bacon (1857) expressed concerns that inappropriate psychological motives held by some actors in the legal system could compromise the system. He suggested that the law should consider natural human tendencies when he said “revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more Man’s nature runs to, the more ought the law to weed it out” (p. 46). Centuries passed between Bacon’s statement and the formal involvement of psychologists in the law. In 1843, Daniel M’Naughton attempted to assassinate the prime minister of England, but he erred and instead killed Edward Drummond, the secretary to the prime minister. The court invited nine medical experts to act as forensic psychologists (the court did not use this label at the time, but this term is used today to identify these sorts of individuals; Brigham & Grisso, 2003). Their recommendations led the jury to find M’Naughton not guilty by reason of insanity, and he spent the rest of his life in an institution. Louis D. Brandeis introduced social science into a legal decision in 1908 (Ogloff & Finkelman, 1999). The state of Oregon charged a laundry owner with violating gender-specific employment rules; the owner required his female employees to work more than 10 hours per day. The owner appealed his conviction, and Brandeis wrote an extensive brief on behalf of the state. Only a small portion of the Brandeis brief addressed legal arguments, and the rest of the brief presented data-based social science to demonstrate the negative effects of excessive work hours on women. Although Brandeis relied on beliefs about the general physical and psychological inferiority of women, and although the Brandeis brief employed what scholars today view as poor psychological science, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law limiting women’s working hours. The term “Brandeis brief remains in use “to describe any collection of nonlegal materials submitted in a court case” (Ogloff & Finkelman, 1999, p. 7). In 1954, the field of psychology and the law received a boost with the famous public school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education. A group of 35 social scientists, including many psychologists and psychiatrists, submitted a Brandeis brief to describe the negative impacts of school segregation on children (Brigham & Grisso, 2003). The long-term impact of Brown v. Board of Education is still being assessed, but it firmly established the legacy of psychologists influencing the law. In the last several decades, psychology and the law has emerged as one of the fastest-growing and most topically diverse areas in psychology. Eric Dreikurs and Jay Ziskin helped to galvanize the field by gathering psychologists to form the American Psychology-Law Society in 1969 (Pickren & Fowler, 2003), and the organization has grown rapidly since its inception. Ogloff and Finkelman (1999) argued that the accelerating status of the field can also be seen in the growing number […]

Across many topics, eyewitness testimony remains a vivacious research area. The American Psychology-Law Society lists more than 1,400 references on the topic from 1883 and 2006. Eyewitness testimony research estab­lished roots as a research area in psychology over 100 years ago in Germany. There existed a strong German interest in eyewitness testimony (Sporer, 2006), and German scientists were engaging in productive research (Sporer, 2006) and conducting compelling teaching demonstrations in their classes (Munsterberg, 1908). In 1902, students in von Liszt’s criminology class at the University of Berlin found themselves as witnesses to an unexpected argument culminating in a gunshot (Munsterberg, 1908). As expected, students’ memories conflicted and were extremely poor. In 1906, Hugo Munsterberg extended this demonstration to a scientific meeting in Gottingen of “jurists, psychologists, and physicians, all, therefore, men well trained in careful observation” (p. 51). An individual in a colorful clown suit suddenly burst into the meeting, followed by a black man. A struggle ensued, a shot was fired, and then both confederates ran from the room. Munsterberg (1908) then challenged the audience to report the events. He reported the high error rate, the large amounts of missing information in witness account of events, and the extensive inclusion of false details by the trained observers. Munsterberg’s views were widely read at this time and inspired increased student enrollment across psychology (Sporer, 2006). Unfortunately, social history interacted with academic history to decrease interest in eyewitness testimony research. Munsterberg strongly identified with his German heritage and was an outspoken critic of United States involvement in World War I (Sporer, 2006). Additionally, his influence waned within the psychological community, he did not have graduate students to continue his work at the end of his career, and he faced additional criticism of his testimony research in particular. Eyewitness testimony faded from the forefront of psychology and the law until a 1970s “renaissance” led by Elizabeth Loftus and many others (Sporer, 2006, p. i). Loftus inspired the reemergence of the field with studies on eyewitness errors and of the powerful effects of eyewitness testimony on juries. Her classic work, Eyewitness Testimony (1979/1996), defined the state of the field at that time and set the stage for productive decades of research. Unlike Munsterberg, Loftus had and continues to have a strong core of active students. She and her students inspired generations of researchers, who in turn helped to develop and continue a robust and consistent body of peer-reviewed investigation of eyewitness evidence (Wells et al., 2006). Eyewitness testimony is now a well-established research area in psychology, and the extensive body of work culminated in an empirically based 1999 set of U.S. Department of Justice guidelines for gathering eyewitness evidence. A major gain in credibility of research on eyewitness testimony came with the advent of DNA testing within the legal system. Mistaken eyewitness testimony has led to a high yet unknown quantity of wrongful convictions across the United States. Individual examples are tragic and provide motivation for researchers and expert witnesses who may testify […]