Criminological Psychology - key question jury trials

Role of jury trials

• Protect the public from harm

• Maintain public trust in the justice system

• Disincentive committing crimes

ONLY WORK IF VERDICTS ARE JUST

Attractiveness

• Research has shown attractive defendants are treated more leniently than unattractive defendants

  • Except if their attractiveness has been used to aid their crime (fraud)

Attractiveness: Sigall & Osgrove (1975)

Found that more attractive defendants received shorter sentences for burglary than unattractive defendants, but longer for fraud.

Attractiveness: Castellow et al (1990)

• Guilty judgement for sexual harassment was more likely when a female secretary was attractive and the male was unattractive (83%) double the converse (41%)

• Supports idea that juries make judgements about the motives and character of the defendant based upon appearance.

Attractivness: Taylor & Butcher 2007

Male defenders charged with robbery were more likely to be found guilty if they were found unattractive

The Halo Effect

Dion et al. 1972: physically attractive people are assumed to have other desirable properties.

How can the halo effect influence jury decsion making

The Halo Effect in jurors - perception of a defendant is influenced by how attractive they are.

Jurors may judge an attractive defendant as 'good' and 'trustworthy' and therefore less likely to be a criminal.

Attractiveness Issues

A main methods for research on jury decision are lab experiments in mock trials.

Researcher can manipulate + control variables to isolate the variable they’re investigating

Reductionist approach is scientific as it allows cause and effect conclusions to be drawn from the data.

Race

• Evidence of racial bias in jury decision making

• USA - African American defendants are more likely to be found guilty than white defendants, also more likely to receive the death penalty.

Race: Pfeifer and Ogloff (1991)

In mock trial, white uni students were more likely to say that a black defendant was guilty than a white defendant for the same crime, particularly when the victim was white.

Race: Bradbury & Williams (2013)

Found juries compromised of predominantly white jurors or hispanic jurors were more likely to convice black defendants

Race: Skolnick and Shaw (1997)

Found both the race of the juror AND defendant were important.

BUT whether the juror was black or white, the black defendant always received fewer guilty verdicts irrespective of the race of the juror.

However, comes from a lab exp. so it might be due to a change in the general level or racism in society or socially desirable verdicts.

Evidence for Characteristics of the Defendant

There is a great deal of well controlled lab based experiments to support the idea that the characteristics of the defendants infuence the decisions of juries

Methodology GOOD

• Much of the research is in the form of lab based exps with scientific cred due to their empirical nature (e.g. hypotheses where variables are clearly defiend and directly observable).

  • So cause and effect can be established.

• Replicability is high as standardised procedures are used.

Application

The use of psychological knowledge within society: can be applied ot how the defendant presents themselves in court (e.g. look smart and tidy).

Methodology issues - Validity

• Low internal validity - lab experiments are problematic

  • Demand characteristics present in simulated and mock trials

  • DV (verdict) in most research measured by asking Ps to give verdict, this type of self-report data is likely to collect socially desirable answers.

• Low ecological validity - mock trials used

  • Ps know their decisions don’t have real consequences

  • Lacks mundane realism

Methodology issues - Generalisability

• Low generalisability: issues with samples used in lab experiments

  • Most were university student + young so may be very different to juries drawn from wider society.

• Cultural issues

  • Most research conducted in the US or UK (ethnocentric bias) so can’t be generalised to different cultures

Methodology issues - Practical

• Difficult to isolate variables to find out which factors are most important.

• Juries influenced by many factors, well controlled experiments are reductive

Conclusions of Evaluation

It would be fascinating to be able to study a real jury come to its verdict on a real case, but it is not likely to happen so we have to use mock trials & juries.

This creates many problems of generalisability and validity so we have to be cautious when applying the results of research in this on how the characteristics of the defendant influence jury decision making to real life.