psychology and law

free will

the ability to choose and control your actions and thus be held responsible for them

3 discoveries in support of free will

1. Libet experiment: in the slit second between tour brains activation and act you can veto it

2. physiological factors operate on individuals abiilty for free will, even in the face of strong genetic forces

3. neuroplasticity: CBT for depression → brain rewiring is possible, so it doesn’t eliminate free will

2 requirements for insanity

1. incapacity clause: mental incapacity at the moment of comitting - incapable of knowing its wrongness/knowing what they were doing

2. mental illness clause: incapacities due to a mental disorder

retribution perspective

punishmnet should be proportionate to the crime

• requires that they had free will and understood what they did - otherwise immoral

deterrence perspective

punishment so they learn that committing a crime leads to punishment and that similar individuals vicariously also learn this (specific/general deterrence)

• mentally ill → not deterred from punishment

• other mentally ill people will also not learn

how do courts measure insanity?

1. clinical evaluation

2. legal criteria

   1. understand reality

   2. ability to distinguish right from wrong

3. behavioural evidence

   1. statements before/ after the act

what is flawed about the way we measure insanity?

1. you need retrospective evaluation of mental state

   1. third parties?

   2. problems with retreived memories

2. difficult to quantify whether someone knows the difference between right and wrong

3. differences across states

actus reus

physical act

mens rea

criminal intent

reasons against the mental illness clause

1. misuse: having a mental disorder does not equal insanity. is depression enough?

2. it’s the role of the jury to decide insanity, not psychologists

3. stigma

   • people rather pled guilty than be classified insane → those that need it don’t get help

4. there have been insanity defenses without disorder

5. nothing of moral or practical relevance would be lost without it

   • consider it as evidence

competency to stand trial

the ability to participate adequately in criminal proceedings and to aid in one’s own defense

1. ability to interact rationally with an attorney

2. ability to understand how court processes work

emotional and behavioural symptoms of psychopathy

• emotional: reduced empathy and guilt

• behavioural: criminal activity, violence

  • core feature: use of instrumental aggression

PCL-R

factor 1: interpersonal - affective scale

• interpersonal

• affective

factor 2: antisocial scale

• lifestyle

• antisocial

scole above 30 out of 40. rate statements from 0-1-2

genetic aspect of psychopathy

emotional dysfunction: reduced emotional responsiveness

neural level of psychopathy

dysfunctions in:

• amygdala

  • reduced activation → disrupted

    • aversive conditioning

    • augmentation of startle reflex

    • passive avoidance learning

    • fearful expression recognition

  • dysfunction disrupts socialisation

    • increased risk for learning antisocial behaviour (instrumental aggression)

• orbial/ventrolateral frontal cortex

  • regulated the neural systems that mediate the basic response to threat)

    • increase risk for reactive aggression

cognitive level in psychopathy

impairments in

1. executive dysfunction

   1. impulsivity

      1. difficulty inhibiting previously rewarded behaviour when contingencies change

   2. impaired reponse set modulation

      1. reduced ability to shift attention from goal-directed behaviour to evaluating outcomes

   3. (it is domain specific: shifting between shapes and lines is fine)

2. stimulus-reinforcement learning (learning from punishment)

   1. fear system dysfunction (amygdala)

      1. reduced startle reflex

      2. reduced skin conductance

3. stimulus-response updating (changing associations as changes occur)

   1. low sensitivity to temporal difference errors

      1. the smaller the difference between expected reward and received reward, the impairement is shown

   2. risk for frustration-based aggression (when expected is not reached)

role of social environment in psychopathy

influences the expression

• knowledge base of antisocial strategies

• increases motivation to offend

  • financial: funds to achieve goals in socially accepted ways

  • role models: levels of exposure to potential antisocial strategies

effective programs characteristics for psychopathy

1. provide services where it is most impactful → those likely to reoffend

2. target changeble correlates of reoffending

   1. relationship with criminal peers

   2. ‘pro-crime’ attitutdes, beliefs

   3. misuse of alcohol and drugs

3. use methods with empirical support

   1. play into learning with reward

4. monitoring to minimise drifting away from these principles

arguments for responsibility of psychopaths

1. they are capable of forming intent to do something against the law

2. rational capacities

   1. understand rules

   2. feel pleasure and pain

3. do not suffer from a lack of self-control

arguments against responsibility of psychopaths

• specific theory: they have deficits in moral concern and respect for others

  • if this isnt stopping them from committing crimes, then only the ‘fear of punsihment’ is left as a good reason not to commit

    • research shows this is not anough of a reason to stop crime for anyone

    • psychopaths do not learn from punishment

• broader theory: they are not rational at all

  • they dont have evaluative standards to assess/ guide conduct

  • severe psychopaths are out of touch with social reality (only severe psychopaths)

problems with female assessment of psychopathy

1. inadequate assessment tools

   1. PCL-R developed/validated for men, ignores gender differences

2. gendered behavioural expression

   1. traits manifest differently

      1. female impulsivity: self-harm/ running away

      2. male impulsivity: violence

3. differences in psychological meaning

   1. same behaviour → different motivations

      1. promiscuous sexual behaviour

         1. female: ‘parasidic’ strategy

         2. male: sensation-seeking

4. factor structure issues

   1. how symptoms cluster together is not equivalent across genders

5. cut-off’s

   1. women score lower → should we lover the cut-off?

      1. adjustments bade adhoc, not based on standardised evidence

6. ehtical/ forensic implications

   1. mis-applying ciriteria has real-world consequences.

      1. longer incarceration

      2. exclusion of treatment

      3. denial of parole

7. future research

   1. basic qualitative clinical sutdies to map specific domain of female symptoms

   2. distinguish between: real gender differences vs. measurement biases in current tests

risk assessment instruments

• unstructured clinical judgement

• actuarial techniques

• guided professional judgement instruments

wekanesses unstructured clinical judgement

• lack of feedback → cannot know accuracy

• intuition

• ignore base rate info:

  • availability heuristic/ confirmation bias

  • base rate of reoffence is very low → prone to overpredicting

weaknesses actuarial techniques

• generalisabiity (if based on certain population)

• do not include rare factors

• not sufficientyl accurate to help in serious decisions

• over-reliance on static factors

strengths guided professional judgement instruments

• empirically derived risk factors

• generalisable

• can account for rare, dynamic, and risk management factors

types of risk factors

1. historical markers: dont change over time

2. dynamic markers: change over time

3. risk managements markers: rate of adjustment after treatment

treatments to reduce violence risk

• help adapt to stressors of life outside

  • job, housing, training for family, social skills, impulse control, services preventing social isolation

  • personalised

  • frequent monitoring

  • frequent reassessing

problems of risk assessment

1. ethics

   1. freedom

   2. stigma

   3. punishment without act

2. reliability: 92.8% false positive rate

3. “continuing danger to society” not defined

   1. society is different from prison society

4. trust in psychological experts

   1. they are unsure themselves

   2. 2/3 are wrong

   3. it is a legal issue in the end

5. bias & subjectivity

   1. racial bias concerns

6. duty to protect laws expanded to recieve information from direct family

   1. how to determine credibility

7. implementation problems

   1. gap between assessment/ action

police power of state

state’s authority to protect its citizens from dangerous individuals

parens patriae power of state

state’s duty to protect those who cannot care for themselves

how come children are more suggestible?

• less personal experience to go off of, easier to trust an adult telling you something

• difficulty distinguishing real and imaginary

• cognitive schemas: easire to create connections that don’t exist

  • less connections between concepts → unable to verify information → more likely to believe others

• experienced maltreatment can impact a child’s ability to recount their experiences → preform poorer on language measures

• children are encouraged to tell a fun story, not a truthful one

ways that interviews can influence how children answer

guided imagery

• encouraging imaginging events → brain confuses them with real memories

anatomically accurate dolls

repeated misinformation

how are false memories created?

3 steps:

1. plausibility: a person must believe that it could have happened

2. construction: builds images in their head

3. sourceness attribution: mistake false memories for real ones

bad interviewing techniques

1. repeated questioning

2. questions suggesting certain events occured

3. offering praise/ rewards for desired answers

4. critisising children who give undesired answers

5. inviting children to imagine what might’ve happened

NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol

open-eded prompts

1. phase 1: introductory phase

   1. introductions

   2. establish expectations of truth/ detail

   3. ground rules

2. phase 2: rapport-building phase

   1. relaxed, supportive environment

   2. establish rapport

   3. start with non-threatening event

3. phase 3: substantive phase

   1. open prompts about investigated events

   2. if abuse is mentioned, ask incident specific information

   3. directive questions after free recall

eyewitness memory-as-trace-evidence metaphor

eyewitness memory should be treated with the same care as other forms of trace evidence

estimator variables

affect identification accuracy

e.g. how carefully they observed the crime

• independent of whether line is culprit-present or absent

• poor predictors of outcomes in actual lineups

system variables

under control of justice system

e.g. how they are questioned - how lineups are constructed

reflector variables

behaviour is eyewitnesses during identification that reflect whether the suspect is innocent/ guilty

e.g. decision time - vocalised decision process - confidence statements

how to improve eyewitness accuracy

1. blind lineup administrator

   • those who make lineups shouldn’t know who is the suspect

2. bias-reducing instructions to eyewitnesses

   • should be told the true criminal might not be in the lineup

   • should be told aministrator doesn’t know

3. unbiased lineups

   • suspect shouldn’t stand out from fillers

     • if more than 2/12 can identify from verbal descriptions only, then it is a biased lineup

4. confidence ratings

   • right after identfication, before feedback

5. video recording

   • see process ‘objectively’

6. sequential lineups

   • one person at a time, decide before next one is presented

7. expert testimony

   • on conditions that increase/decrease accuracy

Manson criteria

factors that should be consdired when evaluating accuracy of eyewitness identification

1. the witness’ opportunity to view the perpetrator

   • estimates of time are longer than the actual time → reported 2min can be 30s

   • night, poor lighting, distance

2. the witness’ level of attention

3. the accuracy of the witness’ previous description of the offender

4. degree of certainty displayed by the witness

   • research is against this

5. amount of time between witnessing and making the identification

critque of manson criteria

• difficult to apply, how to quantify

• 3-5 are self-report

removal-without-replacement effect

is the culprit is not present, they are likely to still identify someone from the lineup

• nearly 80% of the 54% who would have identified the culprit chose an inncent person instead of rejecting the lineup

post-identification feedback effect

feedback inflated retrospective confidence, view, and attention + self-rated detail of culprit + self-rated accurcay of recognising faces overall

biases that infleunce eyewitness memories

1. cross-racial identifications: cross-race effect

2. stress and weapons focus: 58% identified wrong in high stress conditions

   • high stress conditions lead to more vivid memories, but not more accurate memories

   • weapons focus effect: more attention to weapon than face

3. unconscious transference: familiar face transferred to scene of crime

   • prior exposure to mudshot → misidentification

4. pre-existing expectations: prior knowledge/ beliefs get mixed with observed events

   • scripts can lead to error: insufficiently encoded info → rely on scripts to fill the gaps

5. leading or suggestive comments

   • cars connected/cars crashed

   • retreival inhibition: relectively retreiving only some aspects of a scene ‘inhibits’ other aspects

6. witness confidence: increases over time

   • cognitive dissonance: once you commit, you are moitvated to justify that course

   • post-identiification feedback effect

7. child witness: worse accuracy if culprit is not present in the lineup (same if they are)

   • suggestibility

why witnesses report false information

1. normative social infleunce

   • cost of disagreeing with law enforcement too high

2. informational social influence

   • come to belive another version

3. misinformation effect

sensory reactivation hypothesis

same regions activate during encoding and retreival

techniques for refreshing the memory

hypnosis

• more recall, but not accurate infromation

• save face

• could lead to discovery of new accurate information

cognitive interview

cognitive interview

relax witness + mentally reinstate context of the crime

• phase 1: reduce anxiety, develop rapport, help concentrate

• phase 2: closed eyes → reinstate crime environment

• phase 3: probing images/ actions, events recalled in different orders

• phase 4: mentally adopt a different perspective of crime

• phase 5: collect background info, try to remember new info

avoid coercive/ leading questions

increased recall of accurte info without increased suggestibility!

false confessions are facilitated by

1. dispositional charactersitcs of weak/ vulnerable suspects

2. situational aspects of custody and interrogation

3. phenomology of innocense

why do people trust confessions?

1. truth bias: self-report is generally trusted + tendency to believe statements made aganst self-interest

2. false confessions often include details “they only could know if they did it”

3. people dont believe they would falsely confess

3 ways of corroborating a confession

1. rational corroboration: suspect recount detailed description

2. dependent corroboration: ability to provide facts unknown to media or suspect

3. independent corroboration: extrinsic evidence consistent with/ generated by confession

potential solutions to problem of false confessions

1. video recording of interrogations

   • full interrogation

   • equal-focus camera perspective

   • police more careful

   • archival studies can identify risk

2. time limits

   • fatigue → imapried ability to resist police pressures → more false confessions

   • 4 hour limit

3. ‘appropriate adult’ for vulnerable suspects

4. expert testimony on interrogations/ confessions

   • fully informed decisions for jury

the ‘harmless error’ analysis

courts uphold convictions despite the admission of coerced or false confessions if other evidence of guilt is overwhelming…

• confessions can bias other collected evidence

• perception of corroboration that is more illusory than real

  • corroboration inflation (cascade/snowball)

types of confessions

instrumental-coerced: end interrogation by reluctant acception

instrumental-voluntary: protect someone/ gain notoriety

authentic-coerced: confessor becomes persuaded that they are guilty

authentic-voluntary: delusional/ mentally disorderd

minimisation

face-saving excuses to lower perceived consequences of confessing

maximisation

exaggerating evidence/ severity to scare suspect into confessing

4 basic infleunce strategies in interrogations

1. loss of control

   • tightly controlled situation, psychologically disorenting, no normal rules

   • vulnerable, anxious, off-balance

2. social isolation

   • no emotional support

   • minimise contradictory info

3. certainty of guilt

   • evidence ploys: cite real/ fake evidence

4. exculpatory scenarios

   • face-saving explanations/ excuses for crime

   • shifting blame

   • sympatise

     • no direct promises

reduce bias in forensic labs/ crime scenes

1. linear work: examine + document before comparisons

   • initial assessment done in isolation of target

2. blind testing: examinations done in isolation

3. blind verification

4. evidence lineup: 1 suspect, 5 filers

   • significantly lower error rate: 3.8% vs. 30.4%

5. careful consideration of technology

6. training in basic psychology for forensic expert

reducing bias in trail/ courts (forensic evidence)

education for legal decisionmakers

• ask “what did the examiner know and when did they know it?”

• informed on the harmless error doctrine

how to make forensic science more trustworthy

1. add probability science

   • different framings of statistical information

2. estimate error rates: blind proficiency tests

3. Daubert test: scientific testimony should be shown to have sceintific foundation: validty

4. peer-review

5. re-resting (blind)

   • reduce access to unnessary information

6. independent laboratories: allow acces to own forensic expert

confirmation bias

seek, perceive, and create new evidence in ways that verify their existing beliefs

bias cascade

one biased person will contaminate different pieces of evidence

bias snowball

someone biased might lead other people to be biased

relibaility

consistent measures

• inter-rater reliability: between raters

• test-retest reliability: over time

validity

measure what it is supposed to measure

problems with forensic science

1. evidence is dependent on one another

   • confirmation bias

2. judgements often derived from inadequate testing/ analysis

   • give exaggerated testimonies

3. no objective standard → similarity based on subjective judgements

4. pressure-packed environment

   • can lead to data fudging and fabriaction

   • can increase bias

   • marked by secracy and fear of negative findings

5. financial interest

6. psychological biases: more likely to match print after watching emotionally arousing stimuli

types of forensic evidence

• DNA

• fingerprints

• bullet matching

• bite marks

• tool marks

• microscopic hair analysis

• handwriting

communicating forensic evidence results

1. nonstatistical qualitative statements

   • subjective

2. simple match

3. match + statistisc

   • how rare is the match

4. individuation

   • could only come from this person

   • “assumption of discernible difference”: if they come from a different source, they are different, so if they are not different, they must come from the same source

Ronal Holmes, 4 types of criminals

1. visionary → go along with their visions

2. mission-oriented → kill those they think are evil

3. hedonistic: thrill/ sexual pleasure

4. power-oriented: satisfaction from capture/ control victim

types of profiling

1. geographic profiling

2. psychological autopsies

3. behavioural investigative advice

4. the investigative psychology model

5. behavioural evidence analysis

problems of profiling

1. lack of scientific validation

   • profiles are ambiguous - too vague, not testible

   • accuracy/ validity are based on not clear concepts

2. rely intuition

3. personality paradox

4. circular reasoning

5. tunnel vision

6. influence of media

7. often work on rare cases → less experience

8. crime scene characteristics do not neatly fit into organised/ disorganised boxes

9. assuming there is a home base (geographic profiling)

3 underpinning theories of profiling

1. homology assumption

   • offenders exhibiting similar criminal behaviour will possess similar characteristics (100 stranger rapists study…)

2. behavioural consistency

   • offenders behave in a generally consistent manner each time they offend (situational infleunce…)

3. behavioural differentiation

   • the manner in which a particular offender behaves is distinguishable from that of another (research supports, but which behaviours are distinguishable is unclear…)

problems with the underlying theory of profiling

it is yet to be scientifically validated…