The Psychology and Law of Criminal Justice Processes
The Psychology and Law of Criminal Justice Processes

Author: Roger J. R. Levesque

Publisher: Nova Publishers

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 746

ISBN-13: 9781594543128

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Psychological science now reveals much about the law's response to crime. This is the first text to bridge both fields as it presents psychological research and theory relevant to each phase of criminal justice processes. The materials are divided into three parts that follow a comprehensive introduction. The introduction analyses the major legal themes and values that guide criminal justice processes and points to the many psychological issues they raise. Part I examines how the legal system investigates and apprehends criminal suspects. Topics range from the identification, searching and seizing to the questioning of suspects. Part II focuses on how the legal system establishes guilt. To do so, it centres on the process of bargaining and pleading cases, assembling juries, providing expert witnesses, and considering defendants' mental states. Part III focuses on the disposition of cases. Namely, that part highlights the process of sentencing defendants, predicting criminal tendencies, treating and controlling offenders, and determining eligibility for such extreme punishments as the death penalty. The format seeks to give readers a feeling for the entire criminal justice process and for the role psychological science has and can play in it.

In Doubt
In Doubt

Author: Dan Simon

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-06-30

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0674065115

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Criminal justice is unavoidably human. Detectives, witnesses, suspects, and victims shape investigations; prosecutors, defense attorneys, jurors, and judges affect the outcome of adjudication. Simon shows how flawed investigations produce erroneous evidence and why well-meaning juries send innocent people to prison and set the guilty free.

Advances in Psychology and Law
Advances in Psychology and Law

Author: Monica K. Miller

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-11

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 3319758594

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The latest entry in this noteworthy series continues its focus on psychological issues relating to legal and judicial matters, with sound recommendations for situational and system-wide improvement. Salient concerns are described both in areas where their existence is frequently acknowledged (juror impartiality, the juvenile justice system) and where they are rarely considered (Miranda warnings, forensic mental health experts). Authors describe differences between professional and lay concepts of justice principles--and the resulting disconnect between community sentiment and the law. Throughout these chapters, psychological nuances and their legal implications are made clear as they relate to lawyers, jurors, suspects, and victims. Included among the topics: · From the headlines to the jury room: an examination of the impact of pretrial publicity on jurors and juries. · Victim impact statements in capital sentencing: 25 years post-Payne. · Psychology and the Fourth Amendment. · Examining the presenting characteristics, short-term effects, and long-term outcomes associated with system-involved youths. · Indigenous youth crime: an international perspective. · An empirical analysis of law-psychology journals: who’s publishing and on what? As with the others in the series, this third volume of Advances in Psychology and Law will interest researchers in legal psychology and related disciplines (e.g., criminal justice) as well as practicing attorneys, trial consultants, and clinical psychologists.

In Doubt
In Doubt

Author: Dan Simon

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-06-20

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0674070216

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The criminal justice process is unavoidably human. Police detectives, witnesses, suspects, and victims shape the course of investigations, while prosecutors, defense attorneys, jurors, and judges affect the outcome of adjudication. In this sweeping review of psychological research, Dan Simon shows how flawed investigations can produce erroneous evidence and why well-meaning juries send innocent people to prison and set the guilty free. The investigator’s task is genuinely difficult and prone to bias. This often leads investigators to draw faulty conclusions, assess suspects’ truthfulness incorrectly, and conduct coercive interrogations that can lead to false confessions. Eyewitnesses’ identification of perpetrators and detailed recollections of criminal events rely on cognitive processes that are often mistaken and can easily be skewed by the investigative procedures used. In the courtroom, jurors and judges are ill-equipped to assess the accuracy of testimony, especially in the face of the heavy-handed rhetoric and strong emotions that crimes arouse. Simon offers an array of feasible ways to improve the accuracy of criminal investigations and trials. While the limitations of human cognition will always be an obstacle, these reforms can enhance the criminal justice system’s ability to decide correctly whom to release and whom to punish.

Applying Psychology to Criminal Justice
Applying Psychology to Criminal Justice

Author: David Carson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2007-08-20

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780470059623

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Few things should go together better than psychology and law - and few things are getting together less successfully. Edited by four psychologists and a lawyer, and drawing on contributions from Europe, the USA and Australia, Applying Psychology to Criminal Justice argues that psychology should be applied more widely within the criminal justice system. Contributors develop the case for successfully applying psychology to justice by providing a rich range of applicable examples for development now and in the future. Readers are encouraged to challenge the limited ambition and imagination of psychology and law by examining how insights in areas such as offender cognition and decision-making under pressure might inform future investigation and analysis.

Psychology and Law
Psychology and Law

Author: Neil Brewer

Publisher: Guilford Publications

Published: 2017-02-13

Total Pages: 529

ISBN-13: 1462532349

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From the initial investigation of a crime to the sentencing of an offender, many everyday practices within the criminal justice system involve complex psychological processes. This volume analyzes the processes involved in such tasks as interviewing witnesses, detecting deception, and eliciting eyewitness reports and identification from adults and children. Factors that influence decision making by jurors and judges are examined as well. Throughout, findings from experimental research are translated into clear recommendations for improving the quality of evidence and the fairness of investigative and legal proceedings. The book also addresses salient methodological questions and identifies key directions for future investigation.

The Psychology of Criminal Justice
The Psychology of Criminal Justice

Author: Geoffrey Stephenson

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Published: 1992-04-08

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780631145479

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The Psychology of Criminal Justice integrates aspects of psychology's contributions to criminology and to socio-legal studies within a single narrative framework. It does this by describing the interpersonal and group dynamics of decision-making at key stages in the processing of accused persons from the time an alleged offence is committed to the moment sentence is passed. The book bears directly on many current debates concerning the ability of the criminal justice system to deliver reliable verdicts. It recognizes the interdependence of decision makers in the system and addresses questions at an appropriately social-psychological level. The book examines systematically and critically the dynamics of criminal decision-making, the response of victims, the assumptions, attitudes and behavior of police officers, the conduct of court proceedings, the performance of witnesses, the strengths and weaknesses of juries, and the sentencing of magistrates and judges. Discussions of law and morality, the attribution of blame in court and in everyday life, and the achievement of justice in interpersonal and organizational contexts, provide a definitive account of the social psychology of law in the context of criminal justice. Problems with our adversarial system of justice have led to the establishment of a Royal Commission on Criminal Justice. It is commonplace to seek a scapegoat in the behavior of one or other protagonist in the system - especially the police. It will become clear to readers of this book that breakdowns of the system are a product of persuasive interpersonal and intergroup processes of organization, reaching well beyond the behavior of any one agent.