Browse

The right to privacy figures prominently in popular discourse and law. Its popularity, however, is not matched by the respect it receives. A close look at empirical understandings of privacy, how it shapes development, and how privacy itself can be shaped, provides important lessons for addressing the critical juncture facing privacy rights and privacy itself. To increase respect for privacy and foster privacy’s effective outcomes, society must capitalize on opportunities to shape adolescents’ use of privacy. Yet, as currently developed, the legal system has difficulty recognizing adolescents’ privacy rights and supporting systems that would shape adolescents’ skills and abilities in ways that would foster respect for privacy. As a result, the system fails to address the needs of adolescents and society. The upshot is that a developmental understanding of privacy essentially asks that the legal system take an entirely different approach to adolescents’ privacy. This book provides the foundation for understanding privacy rights and how they relate to adolescents. It then explores the place of privacy in adolescent development and builds on that understanding to chart ways to better address adolescents’ privacy needs and rights as well as society’s broader privacy interests. It argues that privacy actually is an inherently social phenomenon, one that can and must be shaped more effectively.

There is much controversy about the dangers of a free media when it comes to children and adolescents. Many believe that this constitutional right should be amended, altered, or revoked entirely in order to prevent the young from being negatively influenced. Graphic violence, sexual content, and the depiction of cigarette smoking have all come under fire as being unacceptable in media that is geared toward adolescents, from television and movies to magazines and advertising. Yet not much has been written about the developmental science behind these ideas, and what effects a free media really has on adolescents. This book presents a synthesis of all current knowledge about the developmental effects of a free media on adolescents. The author first presents a full analysis of research studies into the media's effects on adolescents in four key areas: sexuality, violence, smoking, and body image. All findings are assessed within the context of normal adolescent development. The author then discusses how this knowledge can be used to inform current standards for the regulation of free speech with regard to adolescents. Both legal restrictions and less formal regulatory bodies (schools, parent groups, etc.) are reviewed in order to present a full picture of the ways in which a free media is constrained to protect adolescents' development.

The authors present the most relevant factors and considerations involved in the intersection between behavioral science and firearms. The intent is to provide a comprehensive review of these issues in the context of the professional literatures in these areas and to serve as an informational and educational source for a wide range of readers and as a reference text for practitioners, institutional and law enforcement personnel, legislators, and academicians and students in fields such as psychology, criminal justice, and public health. Concepts are presented using a best-practices model that encourages and promotes empirically supported practice, research, policy, and overall decision-making. This book is distinct from all others published in this area, given its inclusion and integration of the following: (1) a focus on the behavioral science of firearm-related matters; (2) review of the professional literatures and case law/legal statutes, particularly as related to firearm development and use, laws, regulations, violence, suicide, and safety; (3) considerations and information from various relevant areas: psychology, sociology, criminal justice, law, and others specific to the general public (e.g., media); (4) presentation of a framework for the assessment of civilians seeking firearms permits, reinstatement of their firearms subsequent to revocation, and considerations for relevant others, such as military, law enforcement and corrections personnel, and security and armed guards; (5) issues related to treatment and self-care in the context of firearm use and ownership; (6) a focus on how the principles and empirical knowledge within behavioral science can inform and improve firearm-related policy, practice, and research.

Many decisions in the legal system and elsewhere depend on predictions of bad behaviors, including crimes and mental illnesses. Some scientists have suggested recently that these predictions can become more accurate and useful if they are based in part on biological information, such as brain structure and function, genes, and hormones. The prospect of such bioprediction, however, raises serious concerns about errors and injustice. Can biological information significantly increase the accuracy of predictions of bad behavior? Will innocent or harmless people be mistakenly treated as if they were guilty or dangerous? Is it fair to keep people in prisons or mental institutions longer because of their biology? Will these new instruments of bioprediction be abused in practice within current institutions? Is bioprediction worth the cost? Do we want our government to use biology in this way? All of these scientific, legal, and ethical questions are discussed in this volume.

Interest in the problem of children who resist contact with or become alienated from a parent after separation or divorce is growing, due in part to parents' increasing frustrations with the apparent ineffectiveness of the legal system in handling these unique cases. There is a need for legal and mental health professionals to improve their understanding of, and response to, this polarizing social dynamic. This book is a critical, empirically based review of parental alienation that integrates the best research evidence with clinical insight from interviews with leading scholars and practitioners. The text draws upon the growing body of mental health and legal literature to summarize the historical development and controversies surrounding the concept of “alienation” and explain the causes, dynamics, and differentiation of various types of parent-child relationship issues. The chapters review research on prevalence, risk factors, indicators, assessment, and measurement to form a conceptual integration of multiple factors relevant to the etiology and maintenance of the problem of strained parent-child relationships. A differential approach to assessment and intervention is provided. Children's rights, the role of their wishes and preferences in legal proceedings, and the short- and long-term impact of parental alienation are also discussed.

The jury is often celebrated as an important symbol of American democracy. Yet much has changed since 1791 when the Sixth Amendment guaranteed all citizens the right to a jury trial in criminal prosecutions. Psychological and legal scholars have empirically evaluated many claims about the strengths and limitations of the jury system. Now, scientific attention is focusing on new challenges that contemporary juries face. The authors of the chapters in this volume consider myriad legal issues that arise when jurors decide criminal cases while reviewing cutting-edge psychological research and ways that this research can improve the experience and performance of the modern criminal jury. The first part of this book reviews recent societal shifts in attitudes and their potential impact on the demographic and ideological composition of the criminal jury and, in turn, the jury’s ability to make fair and just decisions. The second part of the book considers how recent technological advances have generated new sources of influence on jurors’ evaluations of evidence and decision-making. The final part of the book examines how emotions impact the jury decision-making process and individual citizens’ experiences of serving as jurors. Each of these sets of issues is relevant to understanding the structure, functioning, and performance of today’s juries. This volume offers a unique and broad view of criminal juries, drawing attention to a wide range of issues that impact jurors’ decision-making in the 21st century and, thus, are in need of theoretical, scientific, and legal attention.

The Ethical Practice of Forensic Psychology: A Casebook highlights the ethical standards and guidelines set forth in the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Ethical Principles of Psychologist and Code of Conduct (EPPCC; APA, 2010) and the more recently published Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychology (SGFP; APA, 2013). This book provides readers with a practical review of these ethical principles and professional guidelines in the context of forensic case vignettes with corresponding commentary by leaders in the field. It is designed to serve as a resource for a broad audience, including academics, psychology graduate and postdoctoral students, practitioners, mental health counselors, social workers, and legal professionals. Concepts are presented using a best-practices model that encourages and promotes engaging in empirically supported decision-making. This book is distinct from all others published in this area, given its inclusion and integration of the following: (a) review of the ethical standards and guidelines contained in the APA’s EPPCC and SGFP, in addition to numerous types of ethical dilemmas encountered in forensic practice; (b) review of the relevant empirical literature and case law/legal statutes; (c) presentation of ethical dilemmas typically encountered by forensic practitioners in the form of case vignettes, which correspond to each ethical standard and professional guideline; and (d) commentary by experts in forensic psychology in response to each vignette.

This book demonstrates how the forces of captivity and risk management dangerously co-habit justice at the self/society divide. This cohabitation is the power to harm (i.e., to reduce being and to repress becoming), for the kept and their keepers, for their managers and their watchers. This harm as “madness” occurs through interactive symbolic, linguistic, materially and cultural intensities. Overcoming these intensities or “conditions of control” for one and all necessitates the cultivation of transformative and dynamic habits of character. Embodying such citizenship makes the evolving praxis of social justice (as fair-minded and dignified, therapeutic and healing, restorative and communal) that much more possible. The theoretical, empirical, and policy dimensions of this thesis are examined by way of judicial decision-making that sustains captivity and risk management in three controversial total confinement contexts. These contexts include developmentally immature juveniles waived to the adult system and found competent to stand trial; psychiatrically disordered inmates placed in long-term disciplinary segregation where said isolation is not deemed cruel and unusual punishment; and formerly incarcerated sexually violent predators subjected to multiple forms of civil detention, re-entry surveillance, and communal inspection. The judicially endorsed harm that follows in each instance extends to victims, offenders, and the communities that bind both groups. The book concludes with a series of provocative, yet sensible, recommendations in theory development; methodology and future research; immediate and emergent praxis interventions; pedagogy and (continual) training; and institutional practice, programming, and policy. These reforms are relevant for the legal, psychiatric, clinical forensic, scholarly academic, bioethical, and human service/social welfare communities. Collectively, these change initiatives suggest several vibrant directions by which to activate captivity’s release, to re-evaluate the risk management thesis, and to experience character’s promise in our lives, in the lives of others, in mental health law, and in all expressions of dynamic human/social cohabitation.

The field of forensic psychology explores the intersection of psychology and the law. The purpose of this book is to examine topics in the field, using the powerful, multidisciplinary, conceptually integrated approach that the natural sciences have embraced for decades with great success. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the meta-theoretical framework that unifies the field of biology. It unites research with understanding of the development, control, and organization of behavior. The study of humans, which includes all of the social sciences, is part of the field of biology. Darwin's theory provides a powerful meta-theoretical framework that can unify and energize forensic psychology, just as it has the biological sciences. Evolutionary processes undoubtedly shaped physiological characteristics to help solve problems of survival and reproduction. The lungs, for example, with their vast surface area and moist membranes, are marvellous adaptations for extracting oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. Natural selection is the only known process capable of shaping complex functional mechanisms. Just as it shaped physiological adaptations with specific problem-solving functions, it also shaped our thoughts and emotions to guide behaviors toward solving recurrent problems of survival and reproduction. With this logic, we can use knowledge of ancestral problems to guide our understanding of how the mind works. Evolutionary Forensic Psychology is a step toward a unified and complete understanding of psychology and the law. It recognizes that crimes such as murder, nonlethal violence, rape, and theft are manifestations of evolutionarily recurrent selection when they gave individuals an advantage in competition for resources. Each of the chapters that comprise this volume has been selected to provide a unified examination of research contributions and future directions of evolutionary forensic psychology.

This book provides a contemporary review of empirical and legal issues surrounding expert psychological testimony on eyewitness identification. The chapters address a variety of topics, including the scientific base underlying this form of expert testimony, the typical content and ethical issues regarding the testimony, admissibility decisions at the trial and appellate court levels, research on whether the testimony goes beyond common sense, agreement among experts about the underlying research, and the effects of expert testimony on juror decisions. Additional chapters raise limitations associated with expert testimony and question its appropriateness. These limitations include the shortcomings with respect to the underlying research and other issues associated with admissibility. Several chapters by experienced attorneys provide prosecution and defense perspectives on expert testimony.

Eyewitnesses are likely to have some degree of familiarity with a perpetrator when a crime is committed. Despite the fact that the majority of crimes are committed by someone with whom the victim/witness is familiar, the majority of eyewitness research has focused on the identification of stranger perpetrators. It is critical to examine how familiarity may influence eyewitness accuracy. Familiarity can vary from a complete stranger to a very familiar other. This book explores the “middle ground” as it relates to the criminal justice system, namely describing perpetrators, eyewitness identification, and jury decision-making. The purpose of this book is to consolidate the literature that exists regarding familiarity and to apply this research to an eyewitness context. This book attempts to better understand how familiarity may impact eyewitnesses and to highlight key considerations when an eyewitness is familiar with a perpetrator while collecting eyewitness evidence and using it in a courtroom. This is achieved through an in-depth discussion of the definition of familiarity, the examination of critical social psychological and cognitive theory in relation to familiarity, a description of the current literature examining eyewitness familiarity, a discussion of familiarity evidence in the courtroom, and a proposal for future directions and research.

The focus of this book is on how legal professionals, legal/forensic psychologists, and memory researchers can decide when statements or identifications are based on truthful or fabricated experiences and whether if fabricated, can we distinguish between lies, deception, and false memories. The ultimate focus is to assemble recent experimental work and case studies in which deception or false memory plays a dominant role. That is, in many criminal trials, forensic technical evidence is lacking and triers of fact must rely on the reliability of eyewitness statements, identifications, and testimony. However, such reports can be riddled with deceptive statements or erroneous recollections. Based on such considerations, the question arises as to how one should weigh such eyewitness accounts given the theoretical and empirical knowledge in this field. Topics discussed are, for example, related to the susceptibility to suggestive pressure (e.g., “Under which circumstances are children or adults the most vulnerable to suggestion?”), the fabrication of symptoms (e.g., “How to detect whether PTSD symptoms are malingered?”), or the detection of deceit (e.g., “Which paradigms are promising in deception detection?”). By using this approach, this book unites diverse streams of research (i.e., deception, malingering, false memory) that are involved in the reliability of eyewitness statements.

Person identification at passport control, at borders, in police investigations, and in criminal trials relies critically on the identity verification of people via image-to-image or person-to-image comparison. While this task is known as ‘facial image comparison’ in forensic settings, it has been studied as ‘unfamiliar face matching’ in cognitive science. This book brings together expertise from practitioners, and academics in psychology and law, to draw together what is currently known about these tasks. It explains the problem of identity impostors and how within-person variability and between-person similarity, due to factors such as image quality, lighting direction, and view, affect identification. A framework to develop a cognitive theory of face matching is offered. The face-matching abilities of untrained lay observers, facial reviewers, facial examiners, and super-recognizers are analysed and contrasted. Individual differences between observers, learning and training for face recognition and face matching, and personnel selection are reviewed. The admissibility criteria of evidence from face matching in legal settings are considered, focusing on aspects such as the requirement of relevance, the prohibition on evidence of opinion, and reliability. Key concepts relevant to automatic face recognition algorithms at airports and in police investigations are explained, such as deep convolutional neural networks, biometrics, and human–computer interaction. Finally, new security threats in the form of hyper-realistic mask disguises are considered, including the impact these have on person identification in applied and laboratory settings.

The continuing development of forensic psychology and psychiatry, combined with several recent decisions from the United States Supreme Court addressing various aspects of the death penalty, has increased the number of forensic mental health assessments conducted in death penalty cases. Forensic mental health professionals are now conducting assessments at every stage of death penalty proceedings, ranging from pre-trial evaluations to determine eligibility for the death penalty to evaluations conducted post-sentencing closer to the date of the execution. Yet there are surprisingly few comprehensive resources for clinicians who conduct those assessments, students interested in learning about these assessments, and attorneys who work with forensic mental health professionals. This book provides relevant background on death penalty litigation and influential court cases, a discussion of key ethical considerations for clinicians who conduct assessments in death penalty cases, guidance on conducting various types of forensic mental health assessments in death penalty proceedings, and sample forensic reports illustrating best practices.

The phrase “God in the courtroom” conjures up several images, such as William Jennings Bryan defending religion against the tyranny of evolution, a robed deity passing divine judgment, a witness swearing to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” and so on. But there are numerous other, often subtle ways in which religion and law intersect. This book reviews legal developments and behavioral science research concerning the effects of religion on legal practice, decision making processes of various legal actors, and trial outcomes. For example, religious beliefs might influence the decisions of legal decision makers, such as judges and jurors. Attorneys might rely on religion, both in the way they approach their professional practice generally and in specific trial tactics (e.g., using a scriptural rationale in arguing for a particular trial outcome). This book covers these and related topics in exploring how religion affects the actions of all of the major participants at trial: jurors, judges, attorneys, and litigants.

The German American psychologist Hugo Münsterberg’s 1908 book, On the Witness Stand, is widely regarded as “founding” the modern field of psychology and law. The purpose of the present volume is twofold: first, to summarize the chapters and conclusions of On the Witness Stand, making Münsterberg’s insights available to a new generation of scholars and students; and second, to present the “state of the science” on the very issues that Münsterberg raises. These issues continue to be of great importance to the field and the contemporary criminal justice system: eyewitness memory, deception detection, false confessions, suggestibility, hypnotism, and the causes of criminal behavior. Thus, the book provides a historical perspective, as well as a contemporary, comprehensive review of topics that remain central to the discipline of psychology and law. In essence, each chapter asks, “What have we learned about this topic in the 110 years since Münsterberg first wrote about it? Has subsequent research shown him to be right or wrong?” Each chapter summarizes the content of Münsterberg’s corresponding chapter, interleaved with a contemporary assessment of the topic.

The insanity defense is one of the oldest fixtures of the Anglo-American legal tradition. Though it is available to people charged with virtually any crime, and is often employed without controversy, homicide defendants who raise the insanity defense are often viewed by the public and even the legal system as trying to get away with murder. Often it seems that the legal result of an insanity defense is unpredictable, and is determined not by the defendant's mental state, but by their lawyers' and psychologists' influence. From the thousands of murder cases in which defendants have claimed insanity, Doctor Ewing has chosen ten of the most influential and widely varied. Some were successful in their insanity plea, while others were rejected. Some of the defendants remain household names years after the fact, like Jack Ruby, while others were never nationally publicized. Regardless of the circumstances, each case considered here was extremely controversial, hotly contested, and relied heavily on lengthy testimony by expert psychologists and psychiatrists. Several of them played a major role in shaping the criminal justice system as we know it today.

Society is largely blind to the ongoing violations of international human rights law in the context of the institutional commitment and treatment of persons with mental disabilities. Notwithstanding a robust set of international law principles, standards, and doctrines, people with mental disabilities live in some of the harshest conditions that exist in any society. The recent ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities forces all nations to take seriously these issues, and the conditions that are faced on a daily basis by persons worldwide who are institutionalized because of mental disability. These conditions are the product of neglect, lack of legal protection against improper and abusive treatment, and, primarily social attitudes (“sanism” and “pretextuality”) that demean, trivialize, and ignore the humanity of persons with disabilities. This book draws attention to these issues, to shed light on a shame that governments continue to ignore, and to invigorate the debate on a social policy issue that remains “beneath the radar” for most of the world’s nations by examining the mistreatment of persons with mental disabilities around the world. This book “matters,” not simply to institutionalized persons and their families, but to all concerned citizens of the world. Governmental inaction (in some cases, through benign neglect; in others, because of malignant motives) demeans human dignity, denies personal autonomy, and disregards the most authoritative and comprehensive prescription of human rights obligations. These issues should matter to all citizens of the world who take human rights seriously, and who care about how we treat those who remain, in many nations, locked away in facilities that violate any concept of fundamental fairness in conditions that still shock the human conscience. They should matter to policymakers, to governmental officials, to mental health professionals, to human rights advocates and activists, and to scholars.

As the world’s prison population continues to grow and with the number of inpatient beds in forensic mental health units on the rise, establishing valid and reliable methods of identifying individuals who will commit violent acts is an important public safety issue. One approach to identifying future offenders is through the use of risk assessment—unstructured and structured methods of predicting the likelihood of antisocial behavior. Although much has been written on the performance of risk assessment methods in research settings, little is known about current standards of practice and relevant public policy across the globe. With chapters contributed by leading scholars in more than 15 countries, this volume explores the topic of violence risk assessment from an international perspective. Using findings from the seminal International Risk Survey, the largest qualitative study in the history of the field, current assessment, management, and monitoring practices on six continents are discussed. The most commonly used risk assessment tools are identified and described, risk communication preferences are examined, and recommendations for mental health practitioners, criminal justice professionals, and policymakers are shared. Finally, seminal research studies, current practice guidelines, and relevant legal statutes of individual countries are reviewed.

The Jury Under Fire: Myth, Controversy, and Reform examines a number of controversial beliefs about juries that have persisted in recent years, as well as the implications of these views for jury reform. It reviews empirical research on both criminal and civil juries that uses a variety of research methodologies: simulations, archival analyses, field studies, and juror interviews. Each chapter is titled with a mistaken assumption or myth about jurors or juries. The book critiques these myths and relies on social science research findings to inform empirically grounded reform efforts. It focuses on the experience of serving as a juror; jury selection and jury size; and the impact of evidence from eyewitnesses, experts, confessions, and juvenile offenders. It also covers the process of deciding damages and punishment and the role of emotions in jurors’ decision making, and it compares jurors’ and judges’ decisions. Finally, it reviews a broad range of efforts to reform the jury, including the most promising reforms that have a strong empirical foundation. Sample legal cases are included throughout the book to illustrate key points and promote reader interest. The book is unique in its comprehensive integration of social science research on juries, legal issues, and the real-world trials that splash across our headlines and television screens.