Criminal Justice Research Papers

Psychologists may become involved with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) through consultations with employers and workers or as an expert witness in litigation involving the act. In all these roles, the psychologist must gain an understanding of the many definitions in the act and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulations mandated by it. The ADA not only is a valuable tool for use by disabled people against discrimination but also an arena of practice for forensic psychologists. Although the ADA is a complex mixture of definitions and rules, the forensic practitioner may enter this arena using many of the skills developed in tort cases or in civil rights cases involving sex or race. This research paper describes the ADA, discusses the roles that psychologists may play in workplace consultations, and examines the use of psychological evaluations in litigation related to disability. Background of the Americans with Disabilities Act The ADA was signed into law in 1990 and came into effect 2 years later. The law was designed to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities. The statute (42 U.S.C. 12101, Section 2 b (1), 1992) enabled the development of regulations by the EEOC and has been shaped by a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The most obvious impact of the ADA is seen in its transformation of buildings, roads, sidewalks, buses, and restrooms into places where people with disabilities may function with fewer barriers. However, the advocates of disabled people who framed the ADA were more ambitious. The law intends to prevent individuals with disabilities from being discriminated against in hiring, training, compensation, and benefits. Under the ADA, it is illegal to classify an employee on the basis of disability or to participate in contracts that have the effect of discriminating against people with disabilities. The use of tests or other qualification standards that are not job related but result in screening out individuals with disabilities is also banned. Like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the ADA protects workers who file complaints with the EEOC or other agencies from retaliation by their employers. Under the ADA, employers are required to provide “reasonable accommodation” for workers with disabilities who could qualify for jobs with appropriate assistance. Mental Disabilities in the Americans with Disabilities Act Forensic psychologists working in cases involving the ADA must have an understanding of the specific definitions that shape how the act is used. An important definition in the act is the definition of disability: (1) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of an individual, (2) a record of such an impairment, or (3) being regarded as having such an impairment. A qualified individual with a disability is a person with a disability who has the basic qualifications for the job, including the skills, experience, education, and other job-related requirements required for the position the person either currently holds or wishes to obtain. In the context of the ADA, a qualified individual with a disability, […]

Amicus curiae literally means “friend of the court,” and the author of an amicus curiae brief is an entity who wishes to provide legal, scientific, or technical information to a court to aid its decision. An amicus is not a party to the case entitled to be heard as a matter of right but an individual or an organization granted discretionary leave to file a written brief to provide insight into an issue that the parties to the case may not be able to have because of lack of time, space, or expertise. Amicus curiae briefs have influenced the outcomes of many landmark legal cases. The American Psychological Association (APA) regularly seeks leave to file amicus briefs, as do a host of other individuals and organizations. Amicus Curiae Briefs Overview The U.S. adversarial legal system looks to the parties to present the information necessary for the judge or jury to decide the questions presented by a case. The amicus curiae brief is a vehicle for people or organizations, not joined as parties or otherwise entitled to be heard in the case, to provide the judiciary with insights or analysis that would otherwise be lacking in decisions of significant import. Amici lack important rights that parties enjoy. For example, amici have no right to settle or refuse to settle claims, to raise a claim or a defense that the parties did not, or even to join a person that the parties did not. There is no constitutional right to file an amicus brief. The opportunity to be heard as an amicus rests with the discretion of the court before whom the case is pending or, in federal court, the consent of the parties or permission of the court. Typically, amicus briefs are thought to address transcendent questions of law decided at the appellate stage of a case. But it is within the discretion of the court to accept an amicus brief at trial as well as on appeal, whether labeled a pure or a mixed question of law or fact. A Brief History of Amicus Curiae Briefs Authors such as Simpson and Vasaly have traced the roots of the amicus curiae brief to ancient Rome, where briefs were submitted to provide legal expertise directly to the judiciary at their discretion. Seventeenth-century England provides the first known occurrence of what is now understood as an amicus brief to aid judges in avoiding legal errors and maintaining judicial honor. The first known instance in the United States was when an amicus curiae brief was requested of House Speaker Henry Clay in 1812 by the Supreme Court to aid the Court in the application of law to a land dispute between two states. It was not long after this use of an amicus curiae brief that the practice of filing amicus briefs in appellate courts began in earnest. Although the core purpose of the amicus curiae brief has always been a non-partisan effort to educate the court and not to advance the interests of […]

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is characterized by a lifelong pattern of behavior that violates the law and other people’s rights. Its primary relevance to the field of psychology and law stems from its association with criminal and violent behavior, as well as its implications for attempting to reduce the risk thereof through treatment. This research paper reviews the diagnostic criteria for ASPD, its phenomenology (common attitudinal, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral features), assessment approaches, treatment issues, etiological factors, and current controversies. Antisocial Personality Disorder Description There are a number of definitional elements to personality disorder (PD) generally that apply to ASPD. A PD is a pattern of inflexible interpersonal relations, behavior, and internal experiences (emotional, cognitive, or attitudinal tendencies) that is stable across the life span and starts in adolescence (or early adulthood). It is inconsistent with cultural norms or expectations and involves distress or impairment to the individual. The core of ASPD involves consistently disregarding social norms or rules and violating other people’s rights. The official diagnostic criteria for ASPD, as with all PDs, are provided by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, currently in its fourth edition, which includes a textual revision (DSM-IV-TR), published by the American Psychiatric Association. To receive a diagnosis of ASPD, an individual must be at least 18 years old; there must be evidence of conduct disorder (CD) with an onset before the age of 15; antisocial behavior must not be limited in its occurrence solely within the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode; and there must be a pattern of violating or disregarding others’ rights since the individual was 15 years old. More specifically, an individual must meet three of seven diagnostic criteria—as specified in the DSM-IV-TR—since the age of 15. Paraphrasing, these include (1) repeated criminal behavior; (2) frequent lying or manipulation; (3) impulsive behavior; (4) aggression, including physical violence; (5) jeopardizing other people’s safety (e.g., driving while intoxicated); (6) being irresponsible (i.e., refusing to pay one’s bills or debts); and (7) not experiencing remorse for one’s harmful behaviors. In addition to meeting at least three of these seven criteria since age 15, an individual must also have shown evidence of CD prior to the age of 15. Although the DSM-IV-TR does not specify the number of CD symptoms required to satisfy this diagnostic criterion, some experts, and common assessment instruments (see below), have suggested that as few as 2 (of 15) CD symptoms would suffice. The 15 symptoms of CD include, among others, aggressive behaviors (e.g., stealing, fighting, using weapons, robbery, sexual assault), destroying property, lying, and other rule-breaking behavior (e.g., skipping school, running away from home). Antisocial Personality Disorder Phenomenology, Associated Features, and Correlates Attitudinally, individuals with ASPD may hold disparaging views of others and consider them to be avenues to fulfill their own needs (e.g., for money, sex, pleasure). They tend to have a hostile and distrustful view of the world, believing that others may be out to harm or deceive them and hence their own harmful […]

Prior to viewing a lineup, eyewitnesses to crimes are often given various instructions by lineup administrators. Among these is the appearance-change instruction, which is used to inform the eyewitness that the criminal’s appearance in the lineup may be different from his or her appearance at the time of the crime. Generally, this alteration in appearance would be the result of features that might have changed over time (such as head or facial hair). This instruction is especially likely to be given, and is presumed to be most beneficial, if a significant period of time has passed between the crime and the lineup or if the suspect’s appearance is somehow at odds with the witness’s description of the criminal. Although frequently administered in an attempt to increase identifications of the criminal, preliminary research suggests that the appearance-change instruction does not increase correct identifications but instead increases false identifications of innocent lineup members. Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement (a set of guidelines distributed to all law enforcement agencies across the United States) recommends that lineup administrators instruct a witness that “individuals present in the lineup may not appear exactly as they did on the date of the incident because features such as head and facial hair are subject to change” (p. 32). Although recommended, this instruction is not mandatory; consequently, various police departments and individual lineup administrators may word the instruction differently or may omit it altogether. The purpose of this instruction is to ensure that the witness does not fail to identify the criminal simply because the witness does not appreciate that the criminal’s appearance might have changed since the crime. Therefore, it is implicitly assumed that administering the appearance-change instruction will lower witnesses’ expectations that the criminal’s appearance in the lineup will exactly match his or her appearance at the time of the crime. This should, in turn, increase the probability of correctly identifying the actual criminal when the criminal is in fact in the lineup. Empirical research on the effects of the appearance-change instruction is scarce. Preliminary studies suggest, however, that the instruction may not be as beneficial as previously assumed. Although it has been shown experimentally that witnesses who receive an appearance-change instruction do make more lineup identifications, this did not result in an increased number of correct identifications. Instead, the appearance-change instruction was shown to increase the number of incorrect identifications of fillers (i.e., lineup members who are known to be innocent) without increasing the number of correct identifications of the criminal. Although it is uncertain whether these findings will be replicated by future studies, they do nonetheless challenge the basic assumption underlying the use of the appearance-change instruction. Such an increase in false identifications without a concomitant increase in correct identifications means that lineup identifications made following an appearance-change instruction were, as a whole, less accurate than identifications made without an appearance-change instruction. Additionally, the appearance-change instruction has been shown to increase the length of time it takes witnesses to make an identification and […]

Automatism is an excuse defense against criminal liability for defendants who committed a presumptively criminal act in a state of unconsciousness, semiconsciousness, or unawareness. Medically, the term automatism refers to motor behavior that is automatic, undirected, and not consciously controlled. The use of automatism as a legal defense is relatively rare and is typically claimed in cases where the defendant’s conscious awareness is compromised by epilepsy, brain injury, somnambulism (sleepwalking), or trauma. The automatism defense is recognized as a viable defense in U.S. and British courts, but the definitions and applications of the defense vary widely and are often inconsistent. The basis for the defense is that a defendant should not be held responsible for presumptively criminal actions because of the involuntary nature of the behaviors, leading to lack of criminal intent and voluntary criminal action. Excuses and Justifications In criminal law, there is a general rule that individuals are to be held legally responsible for their actions. Our fundamental and longstanding societal values and moral traditions allow for several exceptions in situations in which it would not be fair or just to hold persons criminally liable. These exceptions are discussed under the general heading of defenses, which, in turn, have been distinguished as justifications and excuses. Justifications seek to establish that even though the prosecution may have fulfilled its required burden to prove the basic facts of the offense, the act committed by the defendant was not criminal because, for example, it was done in defense of self, others, or property. Excuses essentially concede the wrongfulness of the act but seek to establish that the defendant is not criminally responsible because the act took place, for example, under conditions of duress or compulsion, immaturity, or insanity. Automatism is an excuse defense that has been characterized as similar to the excuse of ignorance. That is, an automatism can be defined as an action taken without any knowledge of acting or without consciousness of what is being done. Automatism, however, is not simply a matter of acting out of ignorance. In the case of ignorance, a defendant may be acting based on an erroneous belief (e.g., the defendant believes that he or she is administering first aid but is, rather, exacerbating a medical condition of the victim), but in the case of automatism, the defendant is unaware that he or she is acting at all. Actus Reus and Mens Rea Except in cases of strict liability, any crime contains two elements: the actus reus (“guilty act”) and mens rea (“guilty mind”). The automatism defense seeks to prove that the defendant made physical actions (automatisms) that led to a bad outcome but did not perform a guilty act. As such, the automatism defense is the only excuse defense that is based on the actus reus element rather being purely a mens rea excuse defense (e.g., insanity). In an insanity defense, the defense acknowledges the guilty act but claims that the defendant should not be held blameworthy due to the lack of a […]

The bail-setting decision is one of the early court decisions made in a case, and it has attracted attention from researchers studying legal decision making. When a case is adjourned (postponed), the court must decide what to do with the defendant until the next hearing of the case—basically, should the defendant be released on bail or not? The main goal of the bail decision is to ensure that the defendant appears at court for the next hearing. The bail decision also can affect later decisions in a case. Although laws govern the bail decision-making process, they are typically vague and ill defined, thus allowing courts considerable discretion. Past research on bail decision making has mostly been conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom; researchers have aimed to describe how courts make bail decisions as well as to evaluate efforts to improve bail decision making. Because it arises each time a case is adjourned for trial, sentence, or appeal, the bail decision is one of the most frequent legal decisions made by the criminal courts. The primary goal is to ensure that the defendant surrenders to the court at the next hearing of the case and so does not abscond. A secondary goal is that the defendant does not threaten community safety (e.g., offend) while released on bail. In the United States, the court sets a monetary amount of bail. A defendant may either be required to provide a security (deposit the amount with the court) before release, which is forfeited if he or she fails to appear in court, or be released on recognizance, which is a promise to appear, so the amount is paid only if he or she fails to appear. (For a fee, bail bondsmen can act as a surety, a third party who agrees to pay the forfeited amount to the court.) Nonfinancial conditions, such as curfew and surrendering firearms, may also be applied to bail. In the United Kingdom, defendants can be bailed (released) unconditionally; bailed with nonfinancial conditions or financial conditions, such as surety or security; or denied bail and remanded into custody. Whereas in the United States the bail decision is commonly measured on a continuous scale reflecting the monetary amount at which bail is set, in the United Kingdom the decision is typically measured as categorical because financial bail is uncommon. In most jurisdictions, bail jumping (skipping bail or absconding) is an offense. The bail decision-making process is often governed by legislation, which is periodically revised. For instance, in the United States, currently there is the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1984 (state laws vary); in the United Kingdom, there is the Bail Act of 1976. It has often been recommended that the practice of bail decision making should adhere to the principles of due process rather than crime control. Thus, there is typically a general right to bail or pretrial liberty. However, there are exceptions if the court decides that the defendant may pose a risk of absconding or […]

Battered woman syndrome (BWS), first proposed in the 1970s after research demonstrated the psychological impact from domestic violence on the victim, has undergone further clarification since its inception. This research paper reviews the historical issues concerning domestic violence and its victims in the criminal justice system (including the criminal and family courts), describes psychological theories about domestic violence victims and the BWS, and discusses the application of the BWS in legal context. History of Domestic Violence and the Law Domestic violence is defined as the physical, sexual, and/or psychological abuse by one person (mostly men) of another person (mostly women) with whom there is an intimate relationship, in order to get that person to do what the abuser wants without regard for that person’s rights. Domestic violence is also called intimate partner violence by some, while the term family violence encompasses child and elder abuse as well as intimate partner abuse. Some have suggested that the family and monogamous relationships originated to protect women and children from physically and sexually aggressive nomadic men. Unfortunately, the family has not been a safe haven for some women and children. Laws condoning the practice of wife beating were common in the United States and other countries until very recently. Since men were given the legal responsibility of protecting their wives and children, they also had the right to discipline them. When women demanded their own legal and social rights during the renewed women’s movement that began in the early 1970s in the United States, they also began to demand that the laws better protect them from men’s physical and sexual violence. Battered Women in the Criminal Justice System The first area that received attention was the need for law enforcement to better protect women who were being abused by intimate partners. Typical reports were that the man would batter the woman and leave the scene if the police were called. Even if he was still present, the police would hesitate to intervene and make an arrest in what was said to be a family matter and instead would typically take the man for a walk around the block in an attempt to calm him down. Women told of how this rarely worked and that they would be beaten even worse after the law enforcement officers left. Police officers complained that prosecutors didn’t take these cases seriously; but prosecutors claimed that women dropped the charges and refused to cooperate and judges didn’t know how to handle these domestic matters. Two areas for reform became clear. First, domestic assaults should be prosecuted just like any other assault, without placing the burden on the woman to file or drop charges. Second, women needed protection from further abuse from all legal, social, and medical institutions and agencies. The barriers that women faced in all society’s institutions became more visible as cases began to be heard in courts around the world. It became clear that it would require cooperation from all levels of society to better protect women […]

The most common form of syndrome testimony that has been introduced in the courtroom is battered woman syndrome testimony. For the most part, this testimony has been offered in homicide trials of battered women who have killed their abusers. Most often, the expert witness, typically a clinical psychologist, offers the testimony on behalf of the defense, with the testimony being of relevance to jurors’ evaluation of the woman’s claim of self-defense. The courts have been quite receptive to this form of expert testimony, and it has now been admitted with some frequency in not only courtrooms across the United States but also in courtrooms in Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Battered woman syndrome evidence has been used in other contexts as well (e.g., duress defenses, sentencing, civil actions), but the research examining its impact on jurors is confined primarily to cases involving battered women who have killed their abusers. This research suggests that the introduction of battered woman syndrome evidence is associated with positive effects for a battered woman on trial, but findings also point to some shortcomings of its use. The term battered woman syndrome was first coined in the late 1970s by Dr. Lenore Walker, who pioneered much of the research on the topic. The syndrome describes the pattern of violence found in abusive relationships and the psychological impact that this violence can have on a woman. Drawing on her clinical work, as well as on interviews she conducted with hundreds of battered women, Walker identified a repetitive three-phase cycle that characterizes the battering relationship. The first phase, referred to as the tension-building phase, is characterized by “minor” abusive incidents (e.g., outbursts, verbal threats). These more minor incidents of abuse, however, eventually build up to the second, acute battering phase, which is then followed by the third, loving contrition phase. It is in this final phase that the abuser professes his love, promising never to harm the woman again. Believing his promises, the woman is provided some hope that the violence will cease. Eventually, however, the cycle repeats itself. Alongside the cycle of violence theory, Walker proposed a psychological rationale to explain how battered women can become psychologically trapped in an abusive relationship. Given the repetitive, yet unpredictable nature of the violence and the impending imminence of harm that it presents to the woman, she is eventually reduced to a state of psychological helplessness, perceiving that there is little she can do to alter the situation. In her more recent writings, Walker characterizes the battered woman syndrome as a subcategory of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a clinical diagnostic disorder included in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-TV. Since its inception in the psychological literature in the late 1970s, psychologists have been asked to provide expert testimony pertaining to battered woman syndrome in homicide trials of battered women who have killed their abusers. As the content of the testimony suggests, battered woman syndrome testimony speaks of the woman’s mental state and provides a context for understanding why […]

The behavior analysis interview (BAI) is a set of 15 predetermined standardized questions designed to elicit differential responses from innocent and guilty suspects at the outset of a police interview. Police investigators who are reasonably certain of a suspect’s guilt may submit the suspect to persuasive interrogation techniques meant to break down the suspect’s resistance; because such interrogation techniques may lead to false confessions, it is important not to submit innocent suspects to these techniques. For this reason, BAI forms an important first step in police interviewing. Some evidence, however, refutes the basic assumptions of the BAI that guilty suspects will feel less comfortable and be less helpful than innocent suspects. This raises doubts about the ability of the BAI protocol to determine successfully which suspect is guilty and which suspect is innocent. The BAI starts with the question “What is your understanding of the purpose of this interview?” followed by questions such as “Did you commit the crime?” or “Do you know who committed the crime?” or “Who would have had the best opportunity to commit the crime if they had wanted to?” and “Once we complete our entire investigation, what do you think the results will be with respect to your involvement in the crime?” Despite its name, behavior analysis interview, the BAI predicts that guilty and innocent suspects will differ in their nonverbal behavior and also in their verbal responses. Regarding the nonverbal responses, it is assumed that liars feel more uncomfortable than truth tellers in police interviews. Guilty suspects should therefore show more nervous behaviors, such as crossing their legs, shifting about in their chairs, performing grooming behaviors, or looking away from the investigator while answering questions such as “Did you commit the crime?” Regarding the verbal responses, it is assumed that compared with guilty suspects, innocent suspects expect to be exonerated and therefore should be more inclined to offer helpful information. Thus, truth tellers should be less evasive in describing the purpose of the interview, more helpful in naming possible suspects when asked who they think may have committed the crime, and more likely to divulge who had an opportunity to commit the crime, and they should express more confidence in being exonerated when asked what they believe the outcome of the investigation will be. Investigators who use the BAI protocol acknowledge that not every response to a BAI question will consistently match the descriptions presented for guilty and innocent suspects. Consequently, investigators should evaluate the responses to the entire BAI rather than to the 15 questions individually. There is only one study with real-life suspects that used the BAI protocol successfully. When only conclusive decisions were scored, 91% of the deceptive suspects and 80% of the innocent suspects were classified correctly. Although these results appear impressive, the authors themselves noted an important limitation of the study: They could not establish with certainty that the guilty suspects were truly guilty and the innocent suspects were truly innocent. The BAI assumption that guilty suspects will feel […]

Bias crime represents the nadir of intergroup relationships and contact. Prejudice and bigotry give rise to bias crime, and bigotry accompanies bias offenses. Protected categories of victims according to the bias crime statutes include ethnic, racial, religious, and sexual minorities as well as those with mental or physical disability status. Although debate about the criminalization of bias motives abounds, most of those who study bias crime agree that combating these types of offenses is important. This is because bias crime is different from similarly egregious crimes; the effects of bias crime extend well beyond the initial victim. There are physical, psychological, financial, and societal costs associated with this from of criminal activity. Most people have a sense of what is meant by prejudice, and social scientists use the term to refer to a negative attitude that occurs when people prejudge disliked others. Those who are the targets of prejudice are disliked and perceived to be members of a particular social group. The term bigotry refers to extreme, and often blatant, forms of prejudice. Although both terms refer to a bias in the perception of others, prejudice can in rare cases refer to positive attitudes and reactions, whereas bigotry is exclusively reserved for negative attitudes. It is the latter set of reactions to a disliked individual or group of individuals (i.e., bigotry) that is most likely to spawn bias crimes. Bias crimes involve a unique form of illegal, antisocial (and sometimes aggressive) behavior perpetrated primarily because of what the intended target represents. Definitions of bias crime vary, but definitions such as that of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL) tend to focus on the motivation of the offender as well as the group status of the targeted victim. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the U.S. Department of Justice, a bias crime is “a criminal act that targets a person, property, or society and is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.” Bias crimes “are traditional offenses motivated by the offender’s bias.” The negative sentiment that drives bias crime offenders is so central and distinguishing a feature that the term hate crime is often used to describe these actions. Hate crime puts the extreme negative emotion (i.e., the affective state) front and center. Although most people can readily identify with an offense characterized as a hate crime because of an almost visceral familiarity with that very negative emotion, some scholars debate the accuracy of this label. They argue that it is not always the case that the sentiment that motivates bias crime offenders is hate. Indeed, as the specialists James Jacobs and colleagues contend, hate crime is less about “hate” per se and more about bias or prejudice. To be sure, the problem of bias crime is real, and because of the inherently social aspect of these offenses, they must be viewed within a particular context. According to Gregory Herek and colleagues, bias offenses […]