unit 1 Flashcards
anthropological
looks at comparisons between different cultures
sociological
focuses on specific society and how structures and institutions influence legal system
philosophical aspects
jurance prudence – how do laws get created?
Natural human law or Legal positivism
Natural human law
there is some objective morality that laws should reflect. True for all humans and not culturally dependent
Legal positivism
Laws are created by humans depending on their perspective and that there is not an objectively right law/action – psychology takes the second perspective
psychological
B= f(p,e) behavior is a function of the personality and the environment
Looking at individuals as a unit of analysis, individual people influence how the legal system operates (they affect the legal system and the legal system effects them), bidirectional relationship
First dilemma: rights of the individual Vs. Rights of the common good
Freedom vs. Security/ safety
Two models of the criminal justice system
- Due process model and crime control model
Due process model
“It is better for ten guilty to go free than one innocent man should suffer”
o We should be focused on due processed rights (the rights of the individual against abuses of those in power)
o Innocent till proven guilty
Crime control model
if there is enough evidence to go to trial then they’re probably guilty, the punishment needs to be sever that they will go away for a while/not do it
* Three- Strikes law (Lockyer v. Andrade)/ habitual criminal act
Lockyer v. Andrade
example of crime control model
convicted of 3 pretty crimes appealed by overturned because disproportionate to crime but supreme court said there is no guarantee to proportionality
Megan’s Law/ Sexual predator laws
o Little girl was raped and murdered by sex offender, after someone has served their maximum sentence if it’s a sexual offence then there are additional rules in place
o Falls under crime control model because it infringes on their lives because of where they live and privacy but its helping to ensure safety
Second Dilemma: equality Vs. Discretion
Should it be as equal as possible or should person events/situations be taken into account
Principle of equality
the law applies the same way to everyone
sentencing disparity
tendency of judges to administer different penalties for the same crime because of their circumstances.
When they can take circumstances into account they often do
Determinate sentencing
the offense determines the sentence; discretion is removed from the situation – creates a more equal punishment
Ronald Harmelin (Harmelin v. Michigan)
example of determinate sentencing. Got 25 years because, argued it was disproportionate to his crime because it wasn’t that extreme and that there shouldn’t be mandatory sentencing, but they said no 8th amendment doesn’t guarantee proportionality
3rd Dilemma: What is the purpose of a trial? - to discover the truth or to resolve conflict
‘Zealous representation’: lawyers should defend their client zealously – do whatever they can to get an output that’s favorable for them: but this goes against discovering the truth
Plea bargaining: plead guilty in a criminal case to reduce their punishment then if they had gone to trial and been guilty. Most criminal cases are resolved this way. It is much more convenient and able to plead guilty and not go jail then to do the trial that’s expensive and time consuming. Doesn’t’ discover the truth but resolves the conflict
- Rot Criner
Roy Criner
example of 3rd dilemma. Convicted of Killing Deanna Ogg. Later on they tested the sperm and the DNA evidence did not match and it was clearly not him so he appealed and they denied his appeal because he could have had consensual sex with her or she could have had it with someone else early in the day or he could have worn a condom so it didn’t prove he was innocent
Fourth dilemma: science versus the law as a source of decisions
Conflict of psychology as a social science and legal system approach to things
Empirical studies vs. stare decisis, experimental method vs. case method, probabilities vs. absolutes
Empirical studies vs. Stare decisis
psychology based their research on empirical studies that are across a lot of different people. On the other hand, the legal system uses case study and precedent and use cases that are used before them (stare decisis means let the decision stand) to decide the right course of action.
Experimental method vs. case method
psychologist use experiments while legal system uses case studies
Probabilities vs. Absolutes
psychologists talk about things in terms of likelihoods and probabilities when we try to predict things, but it’s rarely that something is 100%). Lawyers want a yes or no and talk in absolutes
Law conflicting with fourth dilemma
Lockhard v. McCree (1986) - Death qualification: If the death penalty is an option, any juror that hears the case has to be known as death qualifying (must be able to consider the death penalty). There were dozens of cases that those who were death qualifying were more likely to judge someone as guilty compared to those who are not death qualified and so created a Pro prosecution bias. This will shift things in favor of the person being found guilty. Tried to appeal it siting these studies and the APA agreed and filed a brief on it but it was denied by the supreme court because you are not guaranteed a jury based on attitudes
McClesky v. Kemp (1987) – death penalty based on race
Black man was convicted of killing a white man and there was a lot of psychology studies showing that people were more likely to give someone a death penalty if the victim was white. Appeal was based on systematic bias and so the death penalty punishment is unfair but supreme court did not agree because of case method vs. Experimental method and the bias shows up across a lot of people but the supreme court said in order for it to be overturned you’d have to prove that your jury was racist, it doesn’t matter that systematic racist is a thing.
Basic scientist
looking for pursuit of knowledge to further knowledge
need not lead to anything applicable at all
basic scientist knowledge/research can still be applied in legal system
Applied scientist
knowledge gained to solve real life problems
both could be expert witness
Dauber test and frye test are used to figure out if expert witness should testify
Policy evaluator
Looking at how well an intervention has worked
ex. D.A.R.E
Forensic evaluator
Evaluates individuals involved in civil and criminal cases, to report their findings to a judge, and at times, to testify about the results in court
consultant in litigation
Trial consultant
Like an attorney: advocating for a specific side
Use scientific jury selection procedures
Conduct community attitude surveys
Prepare witnesses to testify
Advise lawyers on their presentation strategies, and conduct mock trials
Ethics to consider as trial consultants and expert witnesses
Bad trial consultant is Dr. James Grigson as he would testify about people he never actually met
One concern is that expert witnesses are just hired guns
American society of trial consultants: try to hold people accountable
Ethics of clinical psychologist
Tanya Tarasoff (Tarasoff v. Regents of the university of California, 1976): case in which a clinical psychologist who had a child who was obsessed with Tanya and talked about kidnapping her and so he contacted police who ended up getting contact with the patient and he went in a mental hospital and when he was released, he killed Tanya. The parents sued the psychologist since he didn’t do enough. The case was decided in favor of the parents as the psychologist should have told Tanya. This was controversial due to client, patient privilege
o Ethical dilemmas of psychologists even when not In the legal system
Legailty vs. Morality
Inconsistent when don’t match social behavior
Jack Kevorkian: Assists terminally ill patients but didn’t actually kill them but gave them access to the machine and drugs. Charges were brought against him and dismissed 7 times, acquitted 4 times in trials, shown on 60 minutes giving pills and finally convicted for second-degree murder
* Hard to convict him because he was assisting those who were terminally ill in a fairy humane way and so juries were sympathetic to him
o Oregon’s death with dignity law
First assisted suicide law
Good Samaritan and Duty to Assist Laws
Good Samaritan laws: if you try to help someone and you end up doing harm, you can’t be sued
Duty to assist laws – ed. Minnesota, Wisconsin – Why is this not the prevailing standard?
It is illegal not to help - this is not the prevailing standard because it can sometimes put others at risk by helping, hard to collect evidence on if they helped, ability, etc.
No one prosecuted for them
Legal and psychological intent
Legal intent: deliberately, willfully and knowingly committed an action; mens rea (guilty mind)
- Attribution theories for intent
Internality (is the cause internal or external), stability (is this cause temporary or consistent), globalness (does this affect across situations or just this specific situation)
High in all of these = more intentional
o Fundamental attribution error: look at causes for behavior, people assume that internal things cause the behavior more then it really does, external factors play a bigger part then people think
Darley, sanderson, LaMantia1996
murder or robbery scenario with increase or decreasing steps to committing crime
o Crime (robbery or murder) X specifics (level of attempt) ANOVA
o Stronger sentence for murder
o Stronger sentence with more intent
There’s this gap because people think you could always change your mind
* Only distinction of the law is with attempted murder and murder, other then that punishments are the same
outcome justice
more accepting of decisions if outcomes seem just
procedural justice
process of decision is fair
Tyler and Huo
Found both procedural and outcome justice means more favorable = more satisfaction
Moral mandate
strong and absolute belief that something is right or wrong, moral or immoral
skitka, 2002
moral mandates, e.g. supreme court study (moral mandate about gay rights and asked them how fair the supreme court is and was rated as fair and they thought they would be unsatisfied even if they thought the procedural fairness was fair), abortion rights, gun rights.
Get the opposite that outcome is more important than procedural
Adversarial
two opposing sides
Could become too competitive
People generally say that the adversarial system is better because the adversarial system gives them the highest chance of getting the outcome they want
Inquisitorial
judge has more power and presents evidence and calls witness
No conflicting stories
More objective and neutral
Court system
- State court systems are typically divided into “lower” courts, trial courts, state court of appeals, state supreme court
- When is a case in federal jurisdiction?
o Diversity of citizenship: two sides are from different states
o Habeas corpus: someone says they have been unlawfully imprisoned
o Congress: has something to do with congress legislation - Where do appeals go from here?
o Federal appellate court - What is the supreme court supposed to hear?
o Cases about the constitution/federal laws and the federal appellate court
Judges
- Selection of state judges (changes depending on state: elected, picked, combination):
o Missouri plan: governor appoints judges and then you have retention election - Who sits on federal courts? How do they get there?
o Appointed by president and approved by congress
o Only way to get rid of them is to have them be impeached
- Davis, Haire, and Songer study (1993)
How a judge demographic can influence decisions made. Found there was no difference based on gender for procedural rights or obscenity but there was a gender difference on employment discrimination
* Female judges more likely to side in favor of plaintiff then male judges
Lau, et al., 1999
slander ads work both for and against the people who paid for them as it makes people feel more negative for the people they’re attacking but there’s also a backlash of not liking the people who made it
Legal formalism
judges apply legal rulings in a careful, rational , mechanical way (with little influence from political/social influence
Legal realism
judges’ decisions are influenced by psychological, social and political factors
o Psychological opinion
Lawyers
- Statistics: 70% of world’s lawyers in U.S.
- Legal education has changed because in the past lawyers were an apprentice but now there are formal schooling for it
- Statistica (2019): 5% black, 5% Latinx, 3% ashian, 36% women
Sweatt v. Painter 1950
painter applied to law school and was rejected because he was black. He sued saying they should consider his application and if they don’t it’s violating the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. This proposed law school for the black wouldn’t have the same law library or internship or faculty so it is violating the 14th amendment
Criticisms of Lawyers
o Indifference to middle class: not poor enough to get appointed and not rich enough to pay for a good one
Contingency fee: lawyer take a certain percentage if you win your lawsuit
o Unnecessarily complicated laws: we have the right to represent ourselves but it’s difficult to do so
o Frivolous lawsuits: we’re a sue happy country and sue for nonimportant reasons
Hot coffee case from McDonalds
some cases may seem frivolous but are actually important but the case was actually important because she got 3rd degree burns and McDonalds wouldn’t pay her hospital bills and had settled prior cases where they were burning people and their coffee was significantly hotter then all the others
Compensatory damages
paying medical bills
Punitive damages
punish those who are responsible
Lawyers’ work settings
- Firms: private practice
- Corporations
- Government
o State
o Federal
o Public defenders
Sheldon and Krieger (2004. 2007)
have found that attending law school tends to undermine students’ values, motivation, and mental health
o Pritchard & Mclntosh, 2003: data collected and beginning and end of year and in general negative emotions increase and positive emotions and illness increased.
Undergraduate GPA were more depressed because they found it harder and weren’t doing as well
Social support and coping style also influenced adjustment
* Emotion focused coping: if feeling stressed going to watch a movie, eat ice cream to help them feel better
* Action focused coping: if something is causing you stress you take action to address that. Directly trying to reduce the cause of stress
o Action focused coping works better and showed better adjustment
overconfidence bias
- People generally do tend to be more confident than correct (overconfidence bias). For lawyers, this means they are overly confident of their abilities, including their ability to predict and produce successful case outcomes
o Overconfidence bias: people tend to think they will be more right than they actually are
This can easily be counteracted by talking to another lawyer and become more accurate in their predictions
Offending in the U.S
- The rate of volent crime has been dropping since 1994
o When you get older you see the world as more hostile, social media: all play into older people saying that it was safer when they were kids
Classical school of criminology
Emphasis on individual: crime is based on person and punishment should fit and be proportionate to crime
Punishment should fit crime
Positivist
o We should look at factors that contribute to crime
o Punishment should fit criminal
Psy perspective
Sociological
causes of crime exist external to any individual and live in the structure of society (gov, public policy, ecologic system)
sociological structural
o Differential opportunity: crime comes about when different groups are exposed/ experience different opportunities
o Rational crime theory: criminal behavior is often rational: if low chance of getting caught and it gets them what they want then it’s rational to commit crimes
sociological subcultural
Subcultural: what are the norms of subcultures
o Theory of focal concerns: different groups have different concerns
Biological predictors of crime
- Genetic vulnerability (MAO-A) (breaks down neurotransmitters and this gene leads to more criminal behavior), neuropsychological abnormality, biochemical irregularities
o Heritable to a certain degree - Twin studies:
o Study twins to see what the concordance rate is in identical twins and compare it to fraternal twins
o Concordance rate: probability that if a factor appears in one person, it will appear in the other - Adoption studies
o Look at children’s behavior and what is the behavior in their adoptive parent vs. their biological parent - The influence of hereditary appears to be higher for aggressive types of antisocial behavior than nonviolent behavior
5 inheritable factors
- Physical statue: people who are bigger are more likely to be violent
- Neuropsychological (deficits in prefrontal cortex): don’t think things through
- ANS (autonomic nervous system): emotion regulation, impulsiveness
- Physiological: hormones, neurotransmitters, serotonin (lower level)
- Personality and temperament
Personality and temperament
o Intelligence: capacity to act purposefully, think rationally and deal effectively with the environment
Criminals tend to have lower intelligence
o Three personality dimensions have been proposed
Extroversion: more impulsive and aggressive
Neuroticism: high emotional instability
Psychopathy: high degrees of entitlement and impulsivity with low empathy and manipulative
* Characteristics and causes: caused by genetic, lower activity in autonomic nervous system and sensation seeking. Environmental effect: abuse
* Gender differences: 20-25% of male prison population, 10-15% of women prison population, women with psychopaths are more likely to target those they know while males are more likely to target strangers
* Measurement (parasitic lifestyle, pathological lying, conning, proneness to boredom, shallow emotions, lack of empathy, poor impulse control, promiscuity, irresponsibility, record of juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility)
Psychological theories
- Criminal thinking patterns: people have different styles of thinking
o Glen Walter – psychological inventory of criminal thinking styles (PICTS)
Mollification, cutoff, entitlement, power orientation, sentimentality super optimism, cognitive indolecence
Social psychological theories
How our thoughts/feelings and those around us influence our ability/chance of committing crime
Control theories
o Containment theory: largely external containment (i.e., social pressure and institutionalized rules) that controls crime
o Eysenck theory: heredity predisposed an individual to commit crime
Just because they are predisposed, it doesn’t mean they’re going to do it
Socialization practices then translate these innate tendencies into criminal acts.
People will respond to socialization based on personality
Learning theories
Differential association reinforcement theory: Criminal behavior learned in interactions with others
* Learned through operant and classical conditional: rewarding/ positive & negative things
* Taught like a skill
Social learning theory: we learn criminal behavior through modeling and observing other people
* Family, peer (bigger influence on adolescents then parents), symbolic (media)
multiple component learning theory
people’s ability to learn about gains and losses long term
o Can people determine long term gains/losses
o time discounting – delay of gratification: our ability to put off immediate rewards for long time rewards
People with low ability to delay gratification and can’t think about the future are more likely to commit crimes
Equity theory
component of fairness (usually equality) but another standard is equity: people get that they deserve
o Not everyone gets the same but based on inputs
o When people things like things are inequitable, they’re more likely to commit a crime
social labeling
not a learning theory but says that if you give someone a label, they will behave more in line with it
o racial profiling: treating someone as if they have done something wrong based on their race
School violence
- Crime has decreased
- Common characteristics identified in boys responsible for school-ground killings:
o Experience with firearms
o Isolation, rejection, or torment by classmates
o Preoccupied with various form of violent media
o Detailed plan - Possible school reforms?
o Meatle detector, scanning in, - “safe school” policies
- Mulvey, E.P., & Cauffman, E. (2001)
- Problems in prediction
o Rare event
o Social and transactional sequence of events
o Adolescents not fully developed: behavior changes more frequently - Possible prevention measures
o Risk management: identify high-risk students and monitor them
Best source of information about a student is another student and with zero tolerance policy they won’t rat out their friend
o Positive school environment
What does the public want in police officers?
- Incorruptible
- Well-adjusted
- People oriented
- Free of emotional reactions
- Dedicated
- Disciplined
- Logical
Omadu dialo case
- Immigrant living in NY and the police officers were looking for a rape aspect. He reached into his jacked and they opened fired but he was just reaching for his wallet.
o Officers were found not guilty on all charges
o Example of police behaving in a controversial way
The selection of police officers: psychological assessment
- No universal assessments
- Personal interviews: most common but unreliable (don’t get the same outcomes across time)
o Structured interviews: makes them more reliable - Situation test: put them in a job situation and see how they do, more time consuming and expensive and don’t predict that well
o Mills, mcdevitt, and Tonkin (1966) – 3 tests
The foot patrol test: have them walk a block and report on what they see
Clues test: plant a bunch of clues and have them find them
Bull session: have the candidate talk about different issues police face - Psychological tests
o Cognitive tests: intellectual test
o Personality test: look at emotional stability
psychological tests
- Use tests of cognitive ability (or intellect) and personality ( or emotional stability)
- Intelligence test: IQ test
o Police officers usually score higher, but it doesn’t predict job performance, but it predicts how well they do in their training
Thought candite would get bored with the job and quite soon: high turnover – court said it was fine - General personality tests: MMPI-2 (Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory), CPI (California psychological inventory), 16PF (sixteen personality factor questionnaire
- Inward personality inventory: personality test created specifically for the police force
- “faking good” – socially desirable responding
Police academy
- Varies depending on police department
o 14-24 weeks of training, 40 hrs a week - Many departments require some college education
- Criticism
o Too focused on classroom training, not enough field
o Not in depth enough
o Performance in academy doesn’t predict job performance
Incidents involving mentally ill citizens
9 out of 10 police officers stated they had dealt with mentally ill person in last month
Teplin
- Presence of mentally ill person increases likelihood of arrest
Officers may not be getting enough training - One study found that only 6.3 hours were spend in the academy on encounters with the mentally ill
Indicators of Suicide by cop (SbC)
- Has hostages and refuses to negotiate
- Just killed a significant other in his life
- Demands to be killed to be stopped or to “surrender” to an officer in person
- Sets a deadline for his death or gives a verbal will
- Recent major life change
CIT (crisis intervention training)
Family disturbances
Responding to family disturbances is one of the most dangerous activates that police face
61% of violent offenses are perpetrated by family members, neighbors, and others known to the victim
Most effective change they’ve made is arresting people
The taking of hostages
Mentally ill
Trapped offender
Prisoner: riot in prison
Terrorist
Want to get rid of circus atmosphere
Stockholm syndrome: positive feelings of loyalty to a hostage-taker
Deinstitutionalization
- Policy of moving severely mentally ill people out of large state institutions and then closing part or all of these institutions
o Goal was to treat people in less restrictive settings
o One source, but not the only for increased incarceration of mentally ill (incarceration increased significantly in general for everyone)
o Didn’t help severely mentally ill, or the poor
The police officer’s job
- Enforcing the law: 10% of total police activity
- Maintaining order: 1/3 of total police activity
- Providing services: the largest percentage of total police activity
o Zero tolerance programs: Some think that you shouldn’t be focus on this but on crime prevention
o Benefits to community programs: helps police reputation and not really other people to do these things
stress in the line of duty
- Project shield: study that looked at stressors police found, results similar
- Police stress survey (1980(, 25 open-ended questions, 3 categories of stress:
o Physical and psychological threats: fishbowl/danger
o Evaluation system (legal system): police officers power goes away once they make an arrest so legal system frustration
o Organizational problems: can’t rely on coworkers, pay bad, etc
Higher rate of substance abuse and suicide (it’s common though for white men), divorce and domestic abuse - Reluctant to ask for help
o Bad to ask for help, taken out of line of duty, etc
Fit for duty evaluation
- As a result of a life-threatening incident or another indicators that an officer is psychologically impaired, police administrators can order an officer to undergo an evaluation of fitness to continue performing his or her duties
o Conflict of interest: same psy that is providing fitness for duty evaluations and therapy, both employed by police
Police-community relations
- Concerns of citizen’s groups:
o How investigations are conducted
Police officers can lie to people: concern about if it’s ethical or not, illegal searches and segures, rights being impinged upon
o Racial profiling
Airport and traffic stops based on race: illegal
o Police brutality: amadou Diallo, Michael brown, Rodney king, etc.
A few bad apples theory: problem is not with police officers but with the police officers that are killing people
Price to pay theory: violence of brutality is a reflection of the brutality we have in our country – because our criminals are, the police have to be too
Fundamental sociological pathology theory: racism and aggression are embedded in our culture and so are in our institutions – we can’t fix the police if we don’t fix it on a more societal level
Psychological - Priming aggression: more likely to behave aggressively after a car chase
- Racial bias (plant & peruche; correll): research shows that police are more racist then general population because they are high on authoritarianism
Tennessee vs. Garner (1985)
- Edward garner (15); robbed a purse in a person’s house and when the police come he runs away
- Officer Elton Hymon open fires in order to seize him and kills him, was legal in Tennessee at the time (1975)
- Family sued saying it shouldn’t be able to do that
- Supreme court decision striking down the right for police officers to “shoot to kill”, even when an unarmed suspect is fleeing
o This is because deadly force violates a person’s fourth amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures
o Deadly force must only be used if a suspect presents an immediate threat
Still subjective because based off of police officers opinion of threat, juries tend to side with police officer is seeing that they perceived their life was in danger
Community- based policing
try to create a relationship between a community and police officers
- A neighborhood orientation: get to know a particular neighborhood/people
- Increased geographic responsibility: same police officers that make themselves visible
- A structured response to call for police service: send someone with training for specific case
- A proactive problem-oriented approach: crime prevention
- Brokering more community resources for crime-prevention
- Analysis of crime problems: target hotspots for crime and extra support those areas
o Research found that community-based policing it lowers crime rates and improving perceptions of police. However, there tends to be drift where people really follow the intervention at first and then stop following it which causes the benefits to stop so it must be followed to hold long term.
Body Cameras
- Rialto, CA: incidence of police use-of-force events dropped by 66% the first year cameras were worn, and in the second year, complaints against the police decreased 83.3% (lower decreases in mesa, AZ, Plymouth England, Aberdeen Scotland)
- Decreases untruthful statements by citizens (UK)
- Issues: little research, who controls camera, buffer, cost
