WEEK 13 - dealing with guilty offender + bias in forensic science

what is incapacitation?

aims to reduce criminal conducts by means of imprisonment or by isolating offenders from the rest of society so that they are unable to commit criminal offences

making it so they can not commit crime

what are the 2 types of incapacitation? describe each

collective - crime prevention accomplished through sentencing laws that are specific to the crime committed

selective - prevention of crime through the physical restraint of persons selected for confinement on the basis that they personally will engage in forbidden activities unless physically restrained from doing so

what is retributive justice?

not concerned with future outcomes, merely that the punishment should fit the crime committted

retributive justice theories have given rise to what?

victim participation in sentencing

what is detterent sentencing?

based on the notion that the punishment of the offender should prevent future instances of the offence

what are the 2 types of detterence and explain them ?

specific detterence - aims to discourge a particular offender from committing crimes

general detterence - aims to discourage potential offenders from committing crimes

does detterent sentencing work?

to be successful, general detterence involves emphasising both the punishment and the likelihood of apprehension

given that offenders underestimate the chances of beign caught, high visibility enforcement is needed

what is an example of detterent sentecning?

road side breath testing - if people think they are going to get caught they do more

what is rehabilitation?

emphasises changes that can and should be brought about in the criminals behaviour in the interests of the community and the criminal

based on the notion we can identify and change factors outside a persons control

what is a type of therapy of rehabilitation?

cognitive behavioural therapy - most successful for offenders

does rehab work?

important components appear to be problem solving skills, interpersonal skills, social learning and communication skills

CBT programmes have been successful for treating juvenille offenders, sex offenders and violent offenders

what is restorative justice?

aims to re-establish victims, offenders and communities following offence

sentencing circles

idigenous courts

reintergrative shaming

understand harm to the victim

does restorative justice work?

appear to be successful in reducing recidivism

for victims desirable outcomes seem to include:

• offender being held accountable

• being able to explain the harm caused

• receiving and apology

• satisfaction with the way the case was handled

for offenders desirable outcomes include:

• understanding harm to victim

• getting to apologise

• satisfaction with the way the case was handled

how are sentences decided?

• plea bargining (90% US, 30% AUS)

• by a judge - vulnerable to biases

what are judical biases?

male and black offenders are 50% more likely to receive harsher sentences than women and white offenders

the lowest sentences are given to who?

female offenders by female judges

describe what a study showed about judical biases?

• less than 10%of the variance in sentences could be explained by facts of the case

• over half the variance is explained by characteristics of the judge

when do judges give out longer sentences?

sleep deprived and hungry

how many states in the US have the death penalty?

27

what type of countries have death penalty?

populsie countries e.g china, indonesia, us and india

what is the trend of the number of US executions ?

going down

what si the conflicting evidence of the death penalty?

whether it is a successful collective (general) detterent

how many lives does each execution save?

5-18

what is the brutalisation effect?

the death penalty makes killign more acceptable to offenders

what is the death qualification?

death penalty decisions are made by jurors not judges

when the death penalty is an option, potential jurors undergo questioning procedure

to pass the death qualification what must you be?

1. not categorically opposed to the imposition of capital punishment

2. are not of the belief that the death penalty must be impose in all instances of capital murder (less common)

what is a concern that has been raised about the death qualification juries?

they are more prone to conviction than juries including excludables

what is a study conducted that adresses this concern and aims to see if the concern is true?

fitzgerald and ellsworth

• surveyed 811 eligible jurors

• 64% supported death penalty

• 17% said they could never impose death penatly

• asked questions about justice system

found that death qualified jurors were:

• more likely to favour prosecutions view point

• more likely to mistrust criminal defendants

• more in favour of punitive approaches towards offenders

• more concerned with crime control than with due process

describe another study conducted that adresses this concern and aims to see if the concern is true?

cown et al

• showed 2 hour murder trial re-enactment to 288 eligible jurors

• categorised jurors into death qualified and excludable

• formed juries comprising either all death qualified jurors or a mixture of death qualified and excludable jurors

• assessed verdict

found:\

• juries with death qualified jurors were more likely to convict than juries with mixture

• mixed juries took a more serious approach to their deliberation task, more critical of eyewitness testimony, and better able to remember the evidence

describe jurors in capital cases

receive complex instructions outling their duties and explaining how to evaluate aggravating and mitigating factors

what are aggravating factors?

• henious, cruel or depraved homicide

• procurement by payment

• victim vulnerability

what is mitigating factors?

• impaired capacity

• duress (force you to commit crime)

• remorse

• childhood abuse or neglect

what happens when jurors do not comprehend the instructions?

may rely on more familair factors to guide their decision making

such as racial or gender stereotypes, sympathy for the victims

describe a study that indicates that these instructions are not well understood by jurors?

Lynch and Haney

potential jurors either presented with a description of black defendant/white victim murder case or white defendant/black victim murder case

presented with death penalty instructions

verdict assessed (death penalty or no death penalty)

comprehension of instructions assessed

found:

• when jurors comprehension of the instructions was high, the race of the defendant/victim had no impact on whether or not death was reccomended

• when jurors comprehension was low, race played a significant role in decision-making - a black defendant who murdered white victim was almsot twice as likely to be put on death row than the other way around.

what is confirmation bias?

seeking out to cinfirm ones belief, while ignoring disconfirming evidence

what is cognitive dissonance?

the feeling of discomfort that arises when two beliefs conflcit with each other. we cat to resolve the dissonance by altering either our behaviour or belief.

what is bottom up processing?

the outside data drive the system. information is processed at higher and higher levels until a match is found with soemthing in memory

what is top down processing?

occurs when the process of bottom-up information is mediated by a variety of factors, such as prior experience and knowledge and the persons beliefs and expectations

can make the processing of information faster and more efficient

can help us fill in missing info and interpret ambiguous info

what is contextual bias?

when a decision is influenced by factors outside of the task at hand

why is forensics vulnerable?

• evidence that is often highly ambiguous

• lack of objective standards

• numerous contextual cues

• perceptions of infability

• limited potential for mistakes to be immediately identified

describe a study conducted that investiagted whether forensives is vulnerable

Dror et al

participants asked to decide whether or not two fingerprints matched (96 trials each)

manipulated task difficulty - non ambiguous (match/no match) + ambiguous and manipulated contextual information (e.g low or high emotion)

presented in 4 blocks

1. just the pairs

2. low emotion content

3. high emotion content

4. subliminal priming and high emotion context (saying guilty and same)

found:

• no effect of contextual manipulations when the task was non ambiguous

• when tasks were ambiguous, those in high emotion condition and high emotion + subliminal condition were more likely to find a match

• contextual information actively biases the way gaps are filled, but was not sufficient to override clear bottom-up infromation.

describe the study on experimental evidence conducted by zajac and osborne?

Repeated Dror et al study with 200 undergrad students

did this to see if findings meant that people made more matches on ambiguous stimuli as the experiment progressed, regardless of emotional context.

half participants were presented with increasing emotional context on each block just as dror did.

the other half of the participants received no contextual information on any of the blocks

what did they find?

results suggested that dror and colleagues findings were due to emotional context rather than people merely making more matches over time

further evidence showed that the photos need to be crime-related for the effect to occur- emotional context on its own is not enough

how are experts different?

• they filter out relevant information

• they simplify things

• utilise past experiences

• do things more quickly

what comes at the cost of expertise? and what things leave experts more vulnerable to bias?

• automaticity increases

• decisions become less easily articulated

• experts have more defined expectations

• exports rely less on data and more on other factors

• experts make snap judgements

what are the 2 main points about experts?

tend to be highly confident in their abiltiies

tend to belive that they are immune to bias

what is the best way to avoid expert bias?

peer review seperately (15-20% disagreement)