Legal and Criminological Psychology最新文献

Berryessa et al. (2022) consider how prior experience as a criminal prosecutor may influence judicial behaviour, but their concerns about prior experience apply much more broadly in the case of American judges. In the United States, unlike many other countries, lawyers with experience as advocates comprise the great majority of persons selected to be judges (Volcansek, 2010; Wilets et al., 2022), and most American lawyers focus their practice on particular areas and particular client types, such as representing employers or employees in employment disputes. Specialized experience of any kind, whether as a prosecutor or corporate attorney—and both these types of lawyers have been over-represented among recent judicial nominees to the federal bench in the United States (Shepherd, 2021)—may lead to preconceptions, preferences and blind spots that influence how judges discharge their duties.

Berryessa et al. rightly question greater diversification of the bench as a solution because balancing biases across judges does nothing to protect the parties who must appear before the pro-prosecution, pro-business or pro-plaintiff judge. Furthermore, given the many prior advocacy roles judges bring to the bench, it is unrealistic to expect sufficient experiential diversification to achieve balance in the aggregate. Berryessa et al. also rightly question the power of short-term training to produce long-term debiasing effects (see, e.g. Bezrukova et al., 2016; Greenwald et al., 2022). We should not despair, however, for American legal systems employ several measures that constrain judges' idiosyncratic beliefs and personal values to produce merits-based decision-making. In particular, the use of adversarial presentation of arguments and evidence, paired with structured decision-making taking place inside a strong accountability matrix, should promote impartial decision-making.

One of the most effective methods to reduce confirmation bias and biased assimilation of evidence involves considering opposing viewpoints and alternative possibilities (e.g. Lilienfeld et al., 2009; van Brussel et al., 2020). The adversarial presentation of evidence and arguments by parties with conflicting incentives, playing on a field levelled by procedures that reduce the significance of resource disparities, ensure that judges leaning to one side or the other are exposed to competing arguments and factual narratives. This process promotes individuation and perspective-taking that should disrupt preconceptions or stereotypes judges bring to a case (Devine et al., 2012).

Judges do not have free reign to admit evidence and make decisions as they see fit but rather must act according to extensive procedural and substantive laws that govern how judges should handle and decide cases, along with rules directing judges to recuse themselves from cases in wh

The present study aims to explore differences between lone, duo and 3+ group sexual aggressions by adult strangers from a Spanish sample based on victims' and offenders' socio-demographic characteristics and sexual offences. Additionally, the study aims to provide evidence of whether duo offences should be considered a different category that MPR and whether we can differentiate them from lone and 3+ group offenders. A sample of 400 sexual stranger offenders whose victims were women over 13 years of age has been analysed to find differences and predictive variables for lone (N = 298), duo (N = 43) and 3+ group (N = 59) sexual aggressions. Kruskal–Wallis tests and chi-squared analysis were used to compare the three groups and then multinomial logistic regression analysis were conducted to identify the predictive variables of group size. Results support previous studies comparing group sexual offences by its size; and that duos could be a singular category with more similarities with multiple perpetrator rape offences (age and ethnicity of offenders, similar violent control and sexual behaviour during the aggression). Some singularities have also been encountered, such as higher levels of alcohol and drug use of the perpetrators; severe consequences of their actions with more injuries to their victims; use of weapons; and less use of vehicles, which can be related to crime locations that are rarely outdoors.