Politics or prejudice? Separating the influence of political affiliation and prejudicial attitudes in determining support for hate crime law.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 29(2), May 2023, 182-195; doi:10.1037/law0000350Hate crime legislation is a divisive issue in America. While many Americans agree that hate crime laws are necessary, roughly one-third of Americans do not support such legislation. Some research suggests that one reason for this variation in support may be differences in political attitudes. Other research suggests that variation in support may be attributable to differences in prejudicial attitudes toward those minority groups that hate crime laws are intended to protect. Importantly, however, prior research has also indicated a relat...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
A window of opportunity: Examining the potential impact of mandatory sexual assault kit (SAK) testing legislation on crime prevention.
In this study, we tracked a sample of previously unsubmitted SAKs collected in Detroit, MI to explore what crimes might have been prevented, based on mandates in the Michigan Sexual Assault Evidence Submission Act (2014). For our first research question (Did the rate of offending increase from before to after a SAK could have been tested?), the analyses revealed significant escalation in criminal activity over time. These offenders committed five additional crimes (on average) after their earliest-known SAK could have been tested (range 0–49 crimes), including other sexual assaults, physical assaults, and homicides. For ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
A first look at the reentry experiences of juvenile lifers released in Philadelphia.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 28(3), Aug 2022, 400-413; doi:10.1037/law0000344In 2012, when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished mandatory sentences of life without parole for persons who committed homicide offenses as juveniles, over 2,000 individuals across the United States were serving the sentence. To date, more than 800 juvenile lifers have been released. To better understand the experiences and needs of this population, we surveyed 112 Philadelphia-based juvenile lifers about their early-life experiences, the periods of their incarceration, and their release and reentry experiences. The majority of respondents...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
A window of opportunity: Examining the potential impact of mandatory sexual assault kit (SAK) testing legislation on crime prevention.
In this study, we tracked a sample of previously unsubmitted SAKs collected in Detroit, MI to explore what crimes might have been prevented, based on mandates in the Michigan Sexual Assault Evidence Submission Act (2014). For our first research question (Did the rate of offending increase from before to after a SAK could have been tested?), the analyses revealed significant escalation in criminal activity over time. These offenders committed five additional crimes (on average) after their earliest-known SAK could have been tested (range 0–49 crimes), including other sexual assaults, physical assaults, and homicides. For ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
A first look at the reentry experiences of juvenile lifers released in Philadelphia.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 28(3), Aug 2022, 400-413; doi:10.1037/law0000344In 2012, when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished mandatory sentences of life without parole for persons who committed homicide offenses as juveniles, over 2,000 individuals across the United States were serving the sentence. To date, more than 800 juvenile lifers have been released. To better understand the experiences and needs of this population, we surveyed 112 Philadelphia-based juvenile lifers about their early-life experiences, the periods of their incarceration, and their release and reentry experiences. The majority of respondents...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
A window of opportunity: Examining the potential impact of mandatory sexual assault kit (SAK) testing legislation on crime prevention.
In this study, we tracked a sample of previously unsubmitted SAKs collected in Detroit, MI to explore what crimes might have been prevented, based on mandates in the Michigan Sexual Assault Evidence Submission Act (2014). For our first research question (Did the rate of offending increase from before to after a SAK could have been tested?), the analyses revealed significant escalation in criminal activity over time. These offenders committed five additional crimes (on average) after their earliest-known SAK could have been tested (range 0–49 crimes), including other sexual assaults, physical assaults, and homicides. For ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
A first look at the reentry experiences of juvenile lifers released in Philadelphia.
In 2012, when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished mandatory sentences of life without parole for persons who committed homicide offenses as juveniles, over 2,000 individuals across the United States were serving the sentence. To date, more than 800 juvenile lifers have been released. To better understand the experiences and needs of this population, we surveyed 112 Philadelphia-based juvenile lifers about their early-life experiences, the periods of their incarceration, and their release and reentry experiences. The majority of respondents reported relatively successful reentry experiences as measured by objective indicators ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Defining coercion: An application in interrogation and plea negotiation contexts.
Confessions and guilty pleas carry significant weight in the criminal justice system, and it is legally required that these admissions of guilt be made voluntarily (Boykin v. Alabama, 1969; Haynes v. Washington, 1963). Despite these legal requirements, however, no clear understanding of voluntariness and its antithesis, coercion, exists in the literature. For example, the legal requirements for plea voluntariness have been described as “exceedingly ambiguous” (Becker, 1987; Davis, 1972; Enker, 1967). Additionally, the Supreme Court’s definition for the voluntariness of confessions has been criticized for being “vag...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Guiding jurors’ damage award decisions: Experimental investigations of approaches based on theory and practice.
Theory and practitioner “scaling” advice informed hypotheses that guidance to mock jurors should (a) increase validity (vertical equity), decrease variability (reliability), and improve coherence in awards; (b) improve subjective experience of jurors’ decision-making (rated helpfulness, confidence, and difficulty); and (c) have the greatest impact when it includes both verbal and numerical benchmarks. Three mock juror experiments (N = 197 students, N = 476 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, and N = 391 students) tested novel scaling approaches and predictions from the Hans-Reyna model of damage award decision-making. Ju...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Identification and incidence of child maltreatment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic raised serious concerns about child maltreatment, which is known to increase in frequency and severity during times of high stress. The present study used diverse data sets to concurrently examine changes in identification and medical evaluation of maltreatment allegations from before to during COVID-19. Four sources of data were collected from two counties for the months of March through December, 2019 and 2020, including reports to social services and child maltreatment evaluation center medical evaluations (CMECs). The number of reports, number of children reported, and rate of children reported we...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 21, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
The influence of transition prompt wording on response informativeness and rapidity of disclosure in child forensic interviews.
Investigators hope to elicit disclosure or other case-related (informative) responses quickly when transitioning to the substantive phase of forensic interviews. Interviewing protocols suggest directly asking the child about the purpose of the interview to obtain early disclosure. However, interviewers sometimes rephrase scripted transition prompts, which has unknown consequences. The present study examined the effects that the first transition prompt phrasing and case-related variables have on the informativeness and rapidity of disclosure among a sample of 328 allegedly abused children who ultimately disclosed during a p...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - March 21, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Parents’ interrogation knowledge and situational decision-making in hypothetical juvenile interrogations.
This study tested a geographically diverse sample of parents’ (N = 515) knowledge about youths’ interrogation rights, their awareness of police interrogation practices, and their advisements to youth regarding Miranda waiver across three different custodial contexts using vignettes about custodial questioning of a presumably guilty adolescent. The study experimentally manipulated the nature of the police encounter (i.e., police contact originating as a street stop, with parents facilitating interrogation, or with arrest) as well as the target youth’s age (13, 15, or 17 years). Parent interrogation knowledge differed ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Risk-tinted spectacles: What influences evaluator decision making in sexually violent persons examinations.
This article consists of two studies designed to assess individual differences and potential evaluator bias in sexually violent persons (SVP) evaluations. The first study examines evaluators’ assessments of sexual recidivism risk and their likelihood to recommend commitment in hypothetical case vignettes. The vignettes varied the presence/absence of distressing case details, a sexual sadism diagnosis, and level of psychopathic traits, while holding constant other details such as actuarial score, victim type, dynamic risk factors, and offense history. We examined the extent to which the presence or absence of these detail...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - February 7, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Proxy assessments and early pretrial release: Effects on criminal case and recidivism outcomes.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 28(3), Aug 2022, 374-386; doi:10.1037/law0000341Despite growing evidence on the harmful effects of pretrial detention on individuals’ criminal case processing and community integration, there has been limited empirical investigation of strategies to facilitate early release from detention. We conducted a retrospective cohort study to examine the effects of risk assessment-informed early release decisions on case processing and recidivism outcomes. Participants were 1,327 individuals who were booked into a U.S. midwestern jail and assessed using a proxy risk assessment over a 1-year...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - January 24, 2022 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
