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Inequality threat increases laypeople's, but not judges', acceptance of algorithmic decision making in court. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-09-12 Jonas Ludwig,Paul-Michael Heineck,Marie-Theres Hess,Eleni Kremeti,Max Tauschhuber,Eric Hilgendorf,Roland Deutsch
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
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Suspect race affects defense attorney evaluations of preidentification evidence. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-29 Jacqueline Katzman,Margaret Bull Kovera
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
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An audit study of barriers to mental health treatment for wrongly incarcerated people. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-26 Jeff Kukucka,Kateryn Reyes-Fuentes,Christina M Dardis
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
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Implicit bias training for police: Evaluating impacts on enforcement disparities. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-12 Robert E Worden,Cynthia J Najdowski,Sarah J McLean,Kenan M Worden,Nicholas Corsaro,Hannah Cochran,Robin S Engel
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
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Predictive bias in pretrial risk assessment: Application of the Public Safety Assessment in a Native American population. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-12 Samantha A Zottola,Kamiya Stewart,Violette Cloud,Liz Hassett,Sarah L Desmarais
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
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Do risk measure scores and diagnoses predict evaluator opinions in sexually violent predator cases? It depends on the evaluator. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-12 Marcus T Boccaccini,Daniel C Murrie,Paige B Harris
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
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Interviewing and interrogation practices and beliefs, 20 years later: A national self-report survey of American police. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-08-05 Laure Brimbal,Sean Patrick Roche,M Hunter Martaindale
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
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How the risk principle reduces recidivism: The impact of legislative revisions on the release and reoffense rates of individuals convicted of sexual offenses. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-01 Martin Rettenberger,Reinhard Eher
OBJECTIVE The present study examined the relationship between legislative revisions regarding sexual offenses and the release decisions and recidivism rates of individuals convicted of sexual offenses. In 2008, the Austrian government passed a package of revised criminal laws aiming to decrease incarceration rates. At the same time, connecting recidivism risk to professional risk management efforts
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Court-reported competence to proceed data across the United States. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-01 Lauren E Kois,Haley Potts,Jennifer Cox,Patricia Zapf
OBJECTIVE Competence to proceed (CTP) is a constitutional protection intended to facilitate fairness and dignity of court proceedings. Researchers have estimated that between 60,000 and 94,000 defendants are evaluated for CTP each year. Yet no research has systematically identified the number of evaluations conducted each year, despite their critical role and many profound implications. We used large-scale
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The role of truth in victim-offender mediation: Victims of crime who feel they know the "whole" truth are more receptive to apologies. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-01 Blake Quinney,Michael Wenzel,Lydia Woodyatt
OBJECTIVE We conducted three preregistered studies to examine whether victims of crime are more receptive to apologies in victim-offender mediation if they feel they know the "whole" truth about a crime. HYPOTHESES We predicted that making salient the completeness (vs. incompleteness) of knowledge about a crime would lead victims to (a) have a greater sense of truth knowing and (b) view an apology
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The effect of confession evidence on jurors' verdict decisions: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-01 Amelia Mindthoff,Patricia A Ferreira,Christian A Meissner
OBJECTIVE Over the past 4 decades, discrepant research findings have emerged in the juror-confession literature, prompting the need for a systematic review and meta-analysis that assesses the effect of confession evidence (coerced or noncoerced) on conviction rates and the efficacy of trial safeguards. HYPOTHESES We did not predict any directional hypotheses. Some studies show increased convictions
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Rearrest is associated with heightened callous-unemotional traits: No moderating effect of maternal relationship quality. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-06-01 Emma Louise Rodgers,Jordan Beardslee,Elizabeth Cauffman,Paul J Frick,Laurence Steinberg
OBJECTIVE The presence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits in adolescence predisposes youth to negative behavioral and social outcomes and may be particularly damaging to youth involved in the justice system. Whereas research has shown that CU traits predict later arrest, it remains unknown whether rearrest predicts changes in CU traits and whether these associations may be modified by maternal relationship
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Prison or treatment? Gender, racial, and ethnic inequities in mental health care utilization and criminal justice history among incarcerated persons with borderline and antisocial personality disorders. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-01 Emily R Edwards,Gabriella Epshteyn,Caroline K Diehl,Danny Ruiz,Brettland Coolidge,Nicole H Weiss,Lynda Stein
OBJECTIVE Borderline and antisocial personality disorders are characterized by pervasive psychosocial impairment, disproportionate criminal justice involvement, and high mental health care utilization. Although some evidence suggests that systemic bias may contribute to demographic inequities in criminal justice and mental health care among persons experiencing these mental health conditions, no research
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The power of meaningful numbers: Attorney guidance and jury deliberation improve the reliability and gist validity of damage awards. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-01 Krystia Reed,Valerie P Hans,Vivian Rotenstein,Rebecca K Helm,Addison Rodriguez,Peter McKendall,Valerie F Reyna
OBJECTIVE A mock jury experiment tested the effects of attorney guidance and jury deliberation to mitigate the challenges that civil juries face in assessing damages. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that two types of attorney guidance (per diem, per diem + lump sum), theoretically based in the Hans-Reyna model of jury decision making, would improve jury decision making compared with no guidance against
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Justice involvement prediction as individuals age: An age-graded evaluation of the public safety assessment. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-01 Ian A Silver,Matthew DeMichele,Jenna L Dole,Ryan M Labrecque,Debbie Dawes
OBJECTIVE Some scholars have criticized pretrial assessments for perpetuating racial bias in the criminal legal system by offering biased predictions of future legal system outcomes. Although these critiques have some empirical support, the scholarship has yet to examine the predictive validity and differential prediction of pretrial assessments across individuals by their age. Following the guidance
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Comparing perceptions of individuals who sexually offend against children versus adults. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-01 Emily A Calobrisi,Raymond A Knight
OBJECTIVE We examined how the age of the victim influences the public's risk assessment and punishment attitudes for individuals who have sexually offended and whether actuarial feedback influences these ratings. HYPOTHESES (1) Risk ratings for child victim vignettes would be higher than ratings for adult victim vignettes. This effect would be driven by higher ratings for lower risk individuals. (2)
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Legal actors' and laypersons' utility judgments of eyewitness lineup procedures and outcomes. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-04-01 David M Zimmerman,Dario N Rodriguez
OBJECTIVE Recent attempts to model the relative performances of eyewitness lineup procedures necessarily include theoretical assumptions about the various costs/benefits, or utilities, of different identification outcomes. We collected data to incorporate empirically derived utilities into such modeling as well as data on various stakeholders' views of lineup procedures as tertiary objectives. HYPOTHESES
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Do inconclusive forensic decisions disadvantage the innocent? Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-01 Stephanie Madon,Kayla A Burd,Max Guyll
OBJECTIVE Two experiments examined the potential for inconclusive forensic decisions to disadvantage the innocent. HYPOTHESES Both experiments tested the hypothesis that inconclusive decisions produce more incriminating legal judgments than do clearly exculpatory forensic decisions. Experiment 2 also examined whether this hypothesized effect conformed to a confirmation bias, a communication error,
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Advancing the Shift-of-Strategy approach: Shifting suspects' strategies in extended interviews. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-01 Lina Nyström,Timothy J Luke,Pär Anders Granhag,Aziz-Kaan Dönmez,Malin Ekelund,Pär D Stern
OBJECTIVE Interviewers often face the challenge of obtaining information from suspects who are willing to speak but are motivated to conceal incriminating information. The Shift-of-Strategy (SoS) approach is an interviewing technique designed to obtain new information from such suspects. This study provides a robust empirical test of the SoS approach using more complex crime events and longer interviews
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Attorneys' experiences, perceptions, and plea recommendations in child sexual abuse cases. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-01 Melanie B Fessinger,Bradley D McAuliff,Eliana Aronson,Kelly McWilliams
OBJECTIVE We examined attorneys' experiences, perceptions, and decisions regarding plea recommendations in child sexual cases. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that characteristics of the child (age, relationship to alleged perpetrator) and the report (timing of disclosure, consistency across reports) would affect attorneys' perceptions of evidence strength, likelihood of conviction, and plea recommendations
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Assessing psychopathic traits with the MMPI-3: Findings from correctional, university, and community samples. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-02-01 Dustin B Wygant,Martin Sellbom
OBJECTIVE The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) instruments have a long history with respect to the assessment of psychopathic personality traits. The most recent version, the MMPI-3, should be in a good position to continue this tradition, and the aim of the current research was to evaluate its scales for this purpose. We examined, on the basis of previous research, how well conceptually
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Reexamining predictors of trial outcomes in New York State's sex offender civil management process. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2024-01-22 Nathan S Kemper,Marie L Reilly,Naomi J Freeman,Jeffrey C Sandler
OBJECTIVE In 2007, New York enacted the Sex Offender Management and Treatment Act, empowering the state to civilly manage individuals who have committed sexual offenses (respondents) and are deemed to have a mental abnormality (MA) that predisposes them to sexually recidivate after serving their criminal sentences. We sought to replicate and extend a previous study (Lu et al., 2015) to identify factors
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White mock jurors' moral emotional responses to viewing female victim photographs depend on the victim's race. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-01 Hannah J Phalen,Jessica M Salerno,Madison Adamoli,Janice Nadler
OBJECTIVE Jurors often see both premortem photographs of female murder victims before death and postmortem photographs after death. Postmortem photographs are often probative but might prejudicially heighten jurors' other-condemning emotions, such as anger and disgust. Premortem photographs are often not probative and might prejudicially heighten jurors' other-suffering emotions, such as sympathy and
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More than race? Intragroup differences by gender and age in perceptions of police among street-identified Black men and women. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-01 Brooklynn K Hitchens,Jeaneé C Miller,Yasser Arafat Payne,Ivan Y Sun,Isabella Castillo
OBJECTIVE Whereas studies have documented racial differences in attitudes toward police between White and Black Americans, relatively little is known about the intragroup, gender-based variations among urban Black residents involved in criminal activity (i.e., street-identified men and women). HYPOTHESES We hypothesized Black women would be more likely to believe in police legitimacy and positive intent
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An offer you cannot refuse: Plea offer size affects innocent but not guilty defendants' perceptions of voluntariness. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-01 Melanie B Fessinger,Margaret Bull Kovera
OBJECTIVE We examined whether various plea outcomes-including sentence reduction size (smaller, larger), type (traditional guilty plea, Alford plea), and frame (plea discount, trial penalty)-differentially affected innocent and guilty defendants' perceptions of the voluntariness of their guilty pleas. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized (1) guilty defendants would rate guilty pleas as more voluntary than would
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Universal mandatory reporting policies show null effects in a statewide college sample. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-01 Tara N Richards,Kathryn J Holland,Allison E Cipriano,Alyssa Nystrom
OBJECTIVE It is widely assumed that universal mandatory reporting policies (MRPs) for sexual misconduct are important for campus safety, but there is little evidence to support these assumptions. HYPOTHESES Given the exploratory nature of this research, no formal hypotheses were tested. We did not expect universal MRPs to be significantly associated with increased reporting or postreporting outcomes
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Cognitive-behavioral reciprocity: Testing the bidirectional relationship between antisocial cognition and delinquency. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-12-01 Glenn D Walters
OBJECTIVE Although reciprocity between variables is a topic of interest in the field of criminology, we cannot simply assume that all or even most criminological relationships are bidirectional without testing them empirically. The objective of the current investigation was to test whether delinquency and antisocial cognition are reciprocally or bidirectionally related. HYPOTHESES The hypotheses evaluated
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Cool under fire: Psychopathic personality traits and decision making in law-enforcement-oriented populations. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-01 Sean J McKinley,Edelyn Verona
OBJECTIVE Compared with other jobs, the law enforcement profession is a high-stakes occupation that has the potential to greatly impact public safety, and officers must face daily dangers not experienced in other professions. Previous research indicates that many law enforcement officers exhibit varying degrees of psychopathic traits, which suggests that it may be useful to examine police officer performance
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Disentangling the relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder, criminogenic risk, and criminal history among veterans. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-01 Daniel M Blonigen,Paige M Shaffer,Nicole Baldwin,David Smelson
OBJECTIVE Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is positively associated with involvement in the criminal justice system among veterans. Research that examines whether this association is confounded by risk factors ("criminogenic needs") from the risk-need-responsivity model of correctional rehabilitation can inform risk management with this population. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that (a) veterans with
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The prevalence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) among people impacted by the criminal legal system: An updated meta-analysis and subgroup analyses. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-10-01 Shelby Hunter,Lauren E Kois,Ashley T Peck,Eric B Elbogen,Casey LaDuke
OBJECTIVE Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant public health concern and has implications for people directly impacted by the criminal legal system during arrest, conviction, incarceration, and community supervision. This meta-analysis estimated the lifetime prevalence of TBI among people supervised by the criminal legal system across settings. HYPOTHESES Building on previous research, we
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ACUTE-2007 and STABLE-2007 predict recidivism for men adjudicated for child sexual exploitation material offending. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-24 Kelly M Babchishin,Ségolène Dibayula,Chiara McCulloch,R Karl Hanson,L Maaike Helmus
OBJECTIVE Risk assessment is essential to effective correctional practice. For individuals with contact sexual offenses, many risk tools are available. There are fewer options, however, for individuals whose sexual offending exclusively involves child sexual exploitation materials (CSEM; legally referred to in Canada and the United States as child pornography). HYPOTHESES The present study examined
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Improving juror assessments of forensic testimony and its effects on decision-making and evidence evaluation. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-21 Devon E LaBat,Deborah Goldfarb,Jacqueline R Evans,Nadja Schreiber Compo,Cassidy J Koolmees,Gerald LaPorte,Kevin Lothridge
OBJECTIVE We explored whether an educational forensic science informational (FSI) video either alone or with specialized jury instructions would assist mock jurors in evaluating forensic expert testimony. HYPOTHESES We predicted that the FSI video would help participants distinguish between low-quality and high-quality testimony, evidenced by lower ratings of the testimony and the expert when the testimonial
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Estimation of eyewitness error rates in fair and biased lineups. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Ryan J Fitzgerald,Colin G Tredoux,Stefana Juncu
OBJECTIVE The risk of mistaken identification for innocent suspects in lineups can be estimated by correcting the overall error rate by the number of people in the lineup. We compared this nominal size correction to a new effective size correction, which adjusts the error rate for the number of plausible lineup members. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that (a) increasing lineup bias would increase misidentifications
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Did George Floyd's murder shape the public's felt obligation to obey the police? Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-26 Allison R Cross,Kelsey E Tom,Danielle Wallace,Rick Trinkner,Adam D Fine
OBJECTIVE Our goal in the present study was to use longitudinal data to assess how normative (i.e., consensually motivated) and instrumental (i.e., coercively motivated) obligation to obey police changed after police murdered George Floyd and whether these changes differed by political ideology. HYPOTHESES Using procedural justice theory, we hypothesized that after Floyd's murder, participants would
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Dynamic risk and differential impacts of probation: Examining age, race, and gender as responsivity factors. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-22 Ashlee R Barnes-Lee,Marva V Goodson,Nordia A Scott
OBJECTIVE Juvenile courts that apply the risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model should periodically reassess youths and observe reductions in risk. There is a gap in knowledge concerning the reliable implementation of the specific responsivity principle of the RNR model, which emphasizes considering youths' unique characteristics to support rehabilitation success. In the present study, we aimed to identify
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The relationship between victim impact statements and judicial decision making: An archival analysis of sentencing outcomes. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-22 Gena K Dufour,Marguerite Ternes,Veronica Stinson
OBJECTIVE Victim impact statements (VISs) are testimonies that convey the emotional, physical, and financial harm that victims have suffered as the result of a crime. Although VISs are often presented to the court at sentencing, it is unclear whether they impact judicial decisions regarding sentencing. HYPOTHESES We did not have any formal a priori hypothesis but instead examined five research questions
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Racial/ethnic disparities of the pact in predicting recidivism and court dispositions for justice-involved youth. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-01 Nan Li,Sascha Hein,Diana Quintana,Matthew Shelton,Elena L Grigorenko
OBJECTIVE Responding to the concern about racial/ethnic disparities (R/ED) in the use of risk assessment instruments (RAIs) in justice systems, previous research has overwhelmingly tested the extent to which RAI scores consistently predict recidivism across race and ethnicity (predictive bias). However, little is known about R/ED in the association between RAI measures and court dispositions (disparate
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The influence of polygraphs on evaluators' decisions regarding sexually violent persons. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-01 Christopher T A Gillen,Alinna J Card,Jason W Smith,Gina Ambroziak,James C Mundt,Carlie Servais
OBJECTIVE This study examined the degree to which polygraph results affected evaluators' decisions regarding patients committed as sexually violent persons (SVPs) in Wisconsin. Specifically, we examined evaluators' opinions on patients' significant progress in treatment (SPT), suitability for supervised release, and suitability for discharge. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that having failed a polygraph
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Developing consensus for culturally informed forensic mental health assessment: Experts' opinions on best practices. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-01 Amanda M Fanniff,Taylor York,Renee Gutierrez
OBJECTIVE Individuals with minoritized identities are overrepresented in legal system contexts; thus, forensic mental health professionals conduct evaluations of examinees with a diversity of identities. Professional and ethical guidelines direct that these evaluations be completed in a culturally informed manner, yet many professionals still identify a need for specific guidance on how to do so. In
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Developing a model of guilty plea decision-making: Fuzzy-trace theory, gist, and categorical boundaries. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-06-01 Tina M Zottoli,Rebecca K Helm,Vanessa A Edkins,Michael T Bixter
OBJECTIVES To date, most research on plea bargaining has used some form of the shadow of the trial (SOT) model to frame defendant decisions. In this research, we proposed and tested a new conceptual model of plea decision-making, based on fuzzy-trace theory (FTT), for the context in which a nondetained, guilty defendant chooses between a guilty plea or trial, where both the plea and potential trial
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Moral appraisals guide intuitive legal determinations. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-04-01 Brian Flanagan,Guilherme F C F de Almeida,Noel Struchiner,Ivar R Hannikainen
OBJECTIVES We sought to understand how basic competencies in moral reasoning influence the application of private, institutional, and legal rules. HYPOTHESES We predicted that moral appraisals, implicating both outcome-based and mental state reasoning, would shape participants' interpretation of rules and statutes-and asked whether these effects arise differentially under intuitive and reflective reasoning
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An attribution theory-based content analysis of mock jurors' deliberations regarding coerced confessions. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-04-01 Margaret C Stevenson,Evan McCracken,Ar'Reon Watson,Taylor Petty,Tyler Plogher
OBJECTIVE Because confessions are sometimes unreliable, it is important to understand how jurors evaluate confession evidence. We conducted a content analysis testing an attribution theory model for mock jurors' discussion of coerced confession evidence in determining verdicts. HYPOTHESES We tested exploratory hypotheses regarding mock jurors' discussion of attributions and elements of the confession
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What's risk got to do with it: Judges' and probation officers' understanding and use of juvenile risk assessments in making residential placement decisions. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-04-01 Jeanne McPhee,Kirk Heilbrun,Denise Navarre Cubbon,Mark Soler,Naomi E Goldstein
OBJECTIVE This hypothetical vignette-based experiment was designed to better understand judges' and probation officers' interpretations and use of juvenile risk assessment tools in their decision-making around restrictive sanctions and confinement of youths on the basis of the youths' risk level and race. HYPOTHESES We expected that estimates of the probability of juvenile recidivism would significantly
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Counseling services leading to desistance by way of a change in certainty perceptions and cognitive agency beliefs. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-20 Glenn D Walters
OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine whether receiving counseling services reduced future offending in a group of seriously delinquent youths through a process of chaining. In this process, a youth's perceived certainty of punishment and an increase in their cognitive agency or control mediated the services-offending relationship. HYPOTHESIS The main hypothesis was that where perceptions
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Eyewitness confidence and decision time reflect identification accuracy in actual police lineups. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-09 Adele Quigley-McBride,Gary L Wells
OBJECTIVE Although there are many lab-based studies demonstrating the utility of confidence and decision time as indicators of eyewitness accuracy, there is almost no research on how well these variables function for lineups in the real world. In two experiments, we examined confidence and decision time associated with real lineups that had been conducted using research-based recommendations. HYPOTHESES
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Predictive accuracy of Static-99R across different racial/ethnic groups: A meta-analysis. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Simran Ahmed,Seung C Lee,L Maaike Helmus
OBJECTIVE The overrepresentation of numerous racial/ethnic groups in the criminal legal system warrants examination of the cross-cultural applicability of risk assessment tools. Static-99R is a tool used in diverse countries to assess sexual recidivism risk. We conducted a meta-analysis on the predictive accuracy of Static-99R across different racial/ethnic groups. HYPOTHESES No hypotheses were made
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Adapting assessment processes to consider cultural mistrust in forensic practices: An example with the MMPI instruments. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Janelle N Dixon,Tonneka M Caddell,Apryl A Alexander,Danielle Burchett,Jaime L Anderson,Ryan J Marek,David M Glassmire
OBJECTIVE Our first goal in this study was to identify cultural mistrust critical items (CMCIs) on two versions of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)-the MMPI-Second Edition-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) and MMPI-Third Edition (MMPI-3)-that might be endorsed by people of color because of cultural mistrust rather than clinical paranoia. Our second goal was to determine whether CMCIs
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Racial, ethnic, and sex differences in psychiatric diagnosis, mental health sequelae, and VHA service utilization among justice-involved veterans. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Alisha Desai,Ryan Holliday,Lauren M Borges
OBJECTIVE Intervening in the cycle of symptom exacerbation and recidivism among justice-involved veterans is critical given elevated rates of psychiatric diagnoses and mental health sequelae. To responsively and effectively address justice-involved veterans' needs, it is essential to examine distinct groups who are at heightened risk (e.g., marginalized communities). Although racial and ethnic disparities
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A test for implicit bias in discretionary criminal justice decisions. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Jessica Saunders,Greg Midgette
OBJECTIVE Our goal was to develop a framework to test for implicit racial bias in discretionary decisions made by community supervision agents in conditions with increasing information ambiguity. HYPOTHESES We reasoned that as in-person contact decreases, community supervision officers' specific knowledge of clients would be replaced by heuristics that lead to racially disproportionate outcomes in
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Taking the next step in Miranda evaluations: Considering racial trauma and the impact of prior police contact. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Antoinette Kavanaugh,Victoria Pietruszka,Danielle Rynczak,Dinisha Blanding
By law, before interrrogating a suspect who is in custody, the police should inform them of their Miranda rights-the rights against self-incrimination and to an attorney. When a suspect or defendant waives their Miranda rights, a judge ultimately determines whether the waiver was legal. In making this determination, the judge employs the totality of the circumstances (TOC) analysis, which includes
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An uncomfortable tension: Reconciling the principles of forensic psychology and cultural competency. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Jude Bergkamp,Katharine A McIntyre,Magen Hauser
OBJECTIVE State of Washington v. Sisouvanh (2012) was the first case in which an appellate court asserted the need for cultural competence in competency-to-stand-trial evaluations. A court reiterated this need in State of Washington v. Ortiz-Abrego (2017). Research in forensic psychology seldom addressed cultural considerations in pretrial evaluations until this past decade, but the growing body of
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The trial tax and the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, and age in criminal court sentencing. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Peter S Lehmann
OBJECTIVE Prior research consistently demonstrates that defendants convicted at trial are sentenced more harshly than those who plead guilty. Additionally, a vast literature has shown that Black and Hispanic defendants, and especially young minority males, are particularly disadvantaged in sentencing, though these effects may be conditional on various legal and case-processing factors. However, it
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Does "Jamal" receive a harsher sentence than "James"? First-name bias in the criminal sentencing of Black men. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Dushiyanthini Toni Kenthirarajah,Nicholas P Camp,Gregory M Walton,Aaron C Kay,Geoffrey L Cohen
OBJECTIVE Using archival and experimental methods, we tested the role that racial associations of first names play in criminal sentencing. HYPOTHESES We hypothesized that Black defendants with more stereotypically Black names (e.g., Jamal) would receive more punitive sentences than Black defendants with more stereotypically White names (e.g., James). METHOD In an archival study, we obtained a random
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The role of social desirability and establishing nonracist credentials on mock juror decisions about Black defendants. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Jessica M Salerno,Kylie Kulak,Laura Smalarz,Rose E Eerdmans,Megan L Lawrence,Tramanh Dao
OBJECTIVE Recently, experimental work on racial bias in legal settings has diverged from real-world field data demonstrating racial disparities, instead often producing null or potential overcorrection effects favoring Black individuals over White individuals. We explored the role of social desirability in these counterintuitive effects and tested whether allowing participants to establish nonracist
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The eye of the beholder: Increased likelihood of prison sentences for people perceived to have Hispanic ethnicity. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Erik J Girvan,Heather Marek
OBJECTIVES Hispanic individuals are a growing proportion of the general and carceral populations in the United States. This study examined the relationship between the type of sentences (prison, jail/probation) given to White, non-Hispanic individuals and to similarly situated individuals who were perceived to be Hispanic (any race) or perceived to be White but, based on validated estimates, self-identified
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Racial bias in jury selection hurts mock jurors, not just defendants: Testing one potential intervention. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Kate Abramowitz,Amy Bradfield Douglass
OBJECTIVES Prosecutors often use race as a basis for excluding Black jurors in cases with Black defendants. The current research tested whether this practice influences juror attitudes (Study 1). It also tested an intervention to prevent racially biased jury selection (Study 2). HYPOTHESES We predicted that participants exposed to the exclusion of Black prospective jurors would have more negative feelings
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Community crime, poverty, and proportion of Black residents influence police descriptions of adolescents. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Rebecca L Fix,Jeffrey Aaron,Sheldon Greenberg
OBJECTIVE Our study examined officers' attitudes and perceptions of adolescents in general (and challenges in policing adolescents) and the degree to which community variables affect those perceptions. HYPOTHESES Our examinations of officers' descriptions of adolescents and challenges in policing adolescents were exploratory. We hypothesized that community characteristics would significantly influence
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Racial differences in legal socialization models across adolescence and emerging adulthood. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Lindsey M Cole,Elizabeth A Moschella-Smith,Paul J Hennigan,Cesar J Rebellon,Karen T Van Gundy,Ellen S Cohn
OBJECTIVE White and non-White adolescents report different experiences in the legal system. This disparity impacts their evaluations of, and attitudes toward, legal authorities such that non-White and older adolescents tend to perceive the legal system more negatively. Yet, many researchers assume that the process of legal socialization, which involves internalizing norms and information about the
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Potential causes of racial disparities in wrongful convictions based on mistaken identifications: Own-race bias and differences in evidence-based suspicion. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Jacqueline Katzman,Margaret Bull Kovera
OBJECTIVE We explored whether racial disparities in evidence-based suspicion (i.e., evidence of guilt prior to placement in a lineup) provide a better explanation of racial disparities in exonerations based on eyewitness misidentification than the own-race bias in eyewitness identifications. HYPOTHESES We predicted that the own-race bias in identification accuracy would be insufficiently large to fully
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Centering race in procedural justice theory: Structural racism and the under- and overpolicing of Black communities. Law and Human Behavior (IF 2.4) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Jonathan Jackson,Tasseli McKay,Leonidas Cheliotis,Ben Bradford,Adam Fine,Rick Trinkner
OBJECTIVE We assessed the factors that legitimized the police in the United States at an important moment of history, just after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. We also evaluated one way of incorporating perceptions of systemic racism into procedural justice theory. HYPOTHESES We tested two primary hypotheses. The first hypothesis was that perceptions of police procedural justice, distributive