OBJECTIVE Building on recent suggestions that there are, thus far, unnoticed levels of increased polarization and decreased perceived legitimacy of the judiciary within the Netherlands, we studied the experiences of self-represented litigants in early stages of Dutch small claims procedures. Our objective was to assess by means of qualitative interviews (a) whether litigants would mention experiences

OBJECTIVE We developed and tested a chatbot for reporting information to police. We examined how chatbot communication styles impacted three outcomes: (a) report accuracy, (b) willingness to provide contact information, and (c) user trust in the chatbot system. HYPOTHESES In police-citizen interactions, people respond more positively when police officers use a combination of power and solidarity in

OBJECTIVE The complexity of tax laws makes manual preparation difficult, leading more taxpayers to use software or accountants. This study presents an experimental analysis comparing taxpayer perceptions of trust and procedural justice when filing with tax experts versus using tax software. The study addressed four questions: (1) How do perceptions of human tax experts compare to tax software? (2)

OBJECTIVE Beyond traditional in-person meetings, contemporary juvenile probation officers (JPOs) leverage modern technology to interact with youth via videoconferencing, phone calls, and text messaging. It is plausible that youth feel more-or less-supported by JPOs depending on the format of their interactions. Simultaneously, the procedural justice literature suggests that the quality of JPOs' interactions

OBJECTIVE We examined the evolution of statistical reporting practices within forensic psychology across two decades (2000-2020) to assess their adherence to recommended best practices. METHOD We conducted a comprehensive analysis of articles published in six prominent forensic psychology journals, including every empirical article published in each journal in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 (N =

OBJECTIVE This research examined how the cost of incarceration to the state and type of offense affect public support for different levels of sentence reductions (10%, 25%, 50%) via policies called "second chance" mechanisms that reduce incarcerated populations as well as whether political ideology or affiliation predicts such support. HYPOTHESES (a) Across different levels of sentence reductions,

OBJECTIVE To inform policies and practices that reflect the values and expectations of the communities that judges serve, we fielded a national survey of public perceptions regarding judicial roles and factors that could be considered in decision making. HYPOTHESES We had four questions: (1) What is public opinion on the importance of various judicial roles and considerations? (2) Can distinct groups

OBJECTIVE The Alford plea allows defendants to maintain innocence while pleading guilty, but this option is largely unknown to the public, and its effects are unknown to researchers and practitioners. Some legal scholars have argued that the Alford plea may attract innocent defendants who may not otherwise accept a plea, whereas others have asserted that it offers a beneficial alternative for those

OBJECTIVE We replicated research by ten Brinke and Porter (2012), who reported that a combination of four behavioral cues (word count, tentative words, upper face surprise, lower face happiness) could accurately discriminate deceptive murderers from genuinely distressed individuals, pleading for the return of a missing relative. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that each of the four behavioral cues identified

OBJECTIVE We examined whether U.S. college students across multiple disability types were at an increased risk for sexual victimization (compared with students without disability) and whether disability type or registration with the accessibility office was associated with odds of reporting sexual victimization experiences to any campus-designated program/resource. HYPOTHESES We predicted (a) students

We are grateful to prior Editorial Teams for being such outstanding stewards of Law and Human Behavior, and we are committed to maintaining the journal's high standards. We also appreciate the many contributions of the Editorial Board, ad hoc reviewers, Student Editorial Board reviewers, and participants in the Reviewer Mentoring Program for contributing their time and expertise to this journal. It

Law and Human Behavior's inaugural issue of 2025 begins with the publication of an official Scientific Review Paper (SRP) of the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS; Division 41 of the American Psychological Association). The article, "Police-Induced Confessions, 2.0: Risk Factors and Recommendations" (Kassin et al., 2025), was approved by a unanimous vote of the eligible AP-LS Executive Committee

OBJECTIVE Question-type classification is widely used as a measure of interview quality. However, question-type coding is a time-consuming process when performed by manual coders. Reliable automated question-type coding approaches would facilitate the assessment of the quality of forensic interviews and court testimony involving victims of child abuse. HYPOTHESES We expected that the reliability achieved

Bias is a pervasive aspect of human thought and behavior that influences how we perceive, interpret, and respond to the world around us. Although built on assumptions of fairness and equality, the justice and legal systems are not exempt from individual and structural biases, which contribute to differential outcomes and disproportionately affect individuals who are marginalized based on race, gender

OBJECTIVE Prior research suggests that jurors may commit the fundamental attribution error when evaluating confession evidence (i.e., failing to recognize the situational pressures inherent to coercive interrogations) and exhibit belief perseverance when presented with expert testimony or judicial instructions seeking to remediate juror knowledge. Given mixed findings regarding the use of safeguards

OBJECTIVE Myside bias-the tendency to evaluate and generate evidence as well as test hypotheses in a manner biased toward prior beliefs-causes disputants in litigation to harbor overconfident expectations of judicial awards and reduces odds of settlement. Two studies tested three interventions to suppress myside bias in civil litigation settings. HYPOTHESES I predicted that the participants in the

OBJECTIVE Malingering is a particularly stigmatizing forensic opinion that may be prone to racial bias, although scant research has investigated the possibility. We examined whether forensic evaluators are more likely to opine that Black defendants or White defendants are overstating mental health symptoms. HYPOTHESES Study 1 (a field study) was exploratory. Following Study 1 findings, in Study 2 (an

OBJECTIVE We aimed to review research on recidivism risk assessment tools with individuals convicted of child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) offenses and make recommendations for use in forensic, correctional, and legal settings. HYPOTHESES Multiple tools would be defensible to use with individuals convicted of CSEM offenses. METHOD We discuss a minimum threshold of predictive accuracy to justify

OBJECTIVE We conducted a survey to catalog the state of open science in the field of psychology and law. We addressed four major questions: (a) How do psycholegal researchers define open science? (b) How do psycholegal researchers perceive open science? (c) How often do psycholegal researchers use various open science practices? and (d) What barriers, if any, do psycholegal researchers face or expect

OBJECTIVE Despite the risks inherent to custodial police interrogation, criminal suspects may waive their Miranda rights and submit to police questioning in fear that exercising their rights or remaining silent will make them appear guilty. We tested whether such a Miranda penalty exists. HYPOTHESES We predicted that people would perceive suspects who invoke their Miranda rights or sit in silence during

OBJECTIVE There is an increasing recognition of the necessity to establish the predictive validity of risk assessment scores within specific population subgroups, particularly those (including Indigenous peoples) who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. I compared measures of discrimination and calibration of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) in Indigenous

OBJECTIVE There are documented gender disparities in the legal field. We examined whether gender representation on civil trial teams varied on the basis of (a) the degree of regional gender bias "in the air" and (b) time. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that women were underrepresented both on trial teams and in leadership roles within those teams. We predicted that these gender disparities were exacerbated

OBJECTIVE Some exonerees receive compensation and aid after being exonerated of their wrongful convictions, and some do not. Looking beyond differences in state statutes, we examined possible reasons for biases in receiving compensation (via statutes or civil claims) and other reintegration services. More specifically, we examined how two unique types of false admission of guilt (i.e., false confessions

OBJECTIVE Identification and implementation of effective methods for reducing racial/ethnic bias and disparities in legal settings are paramount in the United States and other countries. One procedure originally thought to reduce bias in legal decisions is the use of risk assessment instruments, which is now being heavily scrutinized. Measurement invariance, a latent trait technique, is a robust method

OBJECTIVE One concern about the use of risk assessment instruments in legal decisions is the potential for disparate impact by race or ethnicity. This means that one racial or ethnic group will experience harsher legal outcomes than another because of higher or biased risk estimates. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to synthesize research examining the real-world impact of juvenile

OBJECTIVE Defense attorneys sometimes suggest that social-cognitive difficulties render autistic individuals vulnerable to involvement in crime, often arguing that theory of mind (ToM) difficulties that undermine inferences about others' intentions underpin this vulnerability. We examined autistic adults' ability to respond adaptively to criminal intent during interactions and whether difficulties

OBJECTIVE Existing literature has yet to conceptualize and consolidate research on psychological essentialism and its relation to the criminal legal system, particularly in terms of explaining how individuals with justice involvement have been and could be differentially impacted across contexts. This article explores essentialism in the criminal legal system, including its potential consequences for

OBJECTIVE Researcher-based degrees of freedom have been shown to contribute to low replication rates in science. That is, researchers' options within the process of designing and conducting empirical tests may increase the probability of false positive findings. The aim of this study was to transfer the concept of degrees of freedom to the practice of forensic-psychological assessment as it may likewise

OBJECTIVE Racial biases exist in almost every aspect of the criminal legal system, resulting in disparities across all stages of legal procedures-before, during, and after a legal procedure. Building on expected utility theory, we propose an expected utility framework to organize and quantify racial disparities in legal procedures. HYPOTHESES Corresponding to the parameteres involved in estimating

OBJECTIVE Across two experiments, we examined three cognitive biases (order effects, context effects, confirmatory bias) in licensed psychologists' diagnostic reasoning. HYPOTHESES Our main prediction was that psychologist-participants would seek confirming versus disconfirming information after forming an initial diagnostic hypothesis, even given multiple opportunities to seek new information in the

OBJECTIVE Algorithmic decision making (ADM) takes on increasingly complex tasks in the criminal justice system. Whereas new developments in machine learning could help to improve the quality of judicial decisions, there are legal and ethical concerns that thwart the widespread use of algorithms. Against the backdrop of current efforts to promote the digitization of the German judicial system, this

OBJECTIVE When an officer places a suspect in an identification procedure and the witness identifies the suspect, it falls on attorneys to make decisions that reflect the strength of that identification. The factor that most affects the strength of identification evidence is the likelihood that the suspect is guilty before being subjected to the procedure, which scholars refer to as the prior probability

OBJECTIVE People who have been wrongly incarcerated report exceptionally poor mental health, and despite having been exonerated, they face discrimination similar to other formerly incarcerated people when seeking housing and employment opportunities. The current audit study was designed to test whether exonerees likewise face discrimination when seeking mental health treatment. HYPOTHESES Therapists

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to estimate the behavioral impacts of training police officers in implicit bias awareness and management. HYPOTHESES Training police in implicit bias reduces racial and ethnic disparities in stops, arrests, summonses, frisks, searches, and/or use of force. METHOD A cluster randomized controlled trial using the stepped wedge design was applied to 14,471 officers

OBJECTIVE Native Americans are vastly overrepresented in U.S. jails and people in rural communities face unique barriers (e.g., limited public transportation and services) that may impact how well pretrial risk assessments predict outcomes. Yet, these populations are understudied in the literature examining the predictive validity and, more importantly, the potential predictive bias of pretrial risk

OBJECTIVE Field research increasingly reveals that forensic evaluators are not interchangeable. Instead, they tend to differ in their patterns of forensic opinions, in ways that likely reflect something about themselves, not just the persons evaluated. This study used data from sexually violent predator (SVP) evaluations to examine whether evaluator differences in making intermediate decisions (e.g

OBJECTIVE This survey examined current law enforcement beliefs and practices about interviewing and interrogation to gauge whether they have evolved given the research and training developed over the past 20 years. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that police beliefs and practices would have evolved along with research findings over the past 20 years. METHOD We surveyed 526 law enforcement officers about

OBJECTIVE Competency to stand trial (CST) is foundational to the U.S. criminal legal system. Dementia is increasingly prevalent in the United States, and older adults are becoming involved with the U.S. criminal legal system at unprecedented rates, which carries significant implications for legal professionals and clinicians involved in CST cases. Unfortunately, CST research to date has largely excluded

OBJECTIVE This article reviews how training programs and professional organizations can work together to better prepare legal psychology graduate students and early career professionals (ECPs) for their first postgraduate careers. METHOD In 2019, the American Psychology-Law Society released a report exploring the unique needs of ECPs in the field of legal psychology. The surveyed ECPs overwhelmingly

OBJECTIVE This research applied emotion regulation to negative emotions felt toward a sex trafficking victim so that judgments were made to offer her services rather than to favor her arrest for prostitution. HYPOTHESES We predicted that participants would favor police not arresting a trafficking survivor for prostitution when she was vulnerable (Hypothesis 1) or she showed no sex work history (Hypothesis

OBJECTIVE Alford pleas allow defendants to profess innocence while simultaneously pleading guilty. In Study 1, we addressed two research questions: (1) Does the case processing length in Alford plea cases differ from traditional guilty plea cases? and (2) Do the sentencing outcomes (i.e., length of sentence, reduction in sentence, incarceration) in Alford plea cases differ from traditional guilty plea