Psychology and Law

Soziale Medien haben unser Kommunikationsverhalten entscheidend verändert. Im Zuge dieser Veränderung begegenen uns bekannte Herausforderungen wie Radikalisierung oder Hassrede in neuer Intensität. Zusätzlich tun sich bislang unbekannte Phänomene beachtlicher Konsequenz, wie digitale Entrüstungsstürme auf. Der vorliegende Beitrag dikutiert, ob es in Anbetracht dessen eine Neuvermessung der Grenzen freier Meinunsgäußerung braucht.

As psychological research advances, psychologists and neuroscientists are able not only to debate one another in increasingly precise ways, or address mental illness with increasingly sophisticated interventions. They also become better equipped to suggest concepts that individuals may apply in everyday contexts in order to improve their personal lives—or their professional ones. The legal profession represents a complex field that makes substantial demands on both brain and body. Five psychological concepts, grounded in research, stand out as being of potential benefit to practitioners of this demanding art: meditation; observational learning; retrieval cues; memory preservation through new learning; and multiple intelligence's.

Laws differ from one country to another in the European Union. When legal diversity is perceived as a problem, notably for the integration of the Internal Market, harmonisation is used as a tool to increase the similarity of legal rules. However, legal harmonisation in the EU can be a challenging task. Familiar arguments against legal harmonisation include the protection of national sovereignty, the preservation of legal cultures and the superiority of regulatory competition. These arguments have been studied extensively in the literature. This paper takes a novel approach by providing a perspective from the field of social psychology to further our understanding of the challenges of legal harmonisation in the EU. We adopt a case study method and focus on the specific area of European insolvency law to provide specific examples of how psychological biases have influenced the harmonisation process

The issue of exactly what constitutes a gang is fraught with debate and lack of consensus across researchers and policy makers (see Wood and Alleyne 2010 for a fuller discussion). However, the Eurogang network has captured the elements broadly agreed by many researchers and policy makers by stating that, "a street gang (or troublesome youth group corresponding to a street gang elsewhere) is any durable, street-oriented youth group whose identity includes involvement in illegal activity" (Weerman et al. 2009, p. 20). The important elements of this definition are that gangs generally consist of young people who are collectively involved in illegal activities on the streets which create problems for communities and authorities. To address the problems that gangs create, a whole host of strategies have been developed to focus on, for example, prevention, intervention and suppression of gangs and their activities. The problem remains, however, that despite the concerted efforts of justice systems, gangs appear to be flourishing. This leaves criminal justice systems struggling to devise effective programs that will contain the disturbing menace that gangs pose in communities, schools, and prisons and the threat that they pose to individual gang members-on both a physical and psychological level. The current discussion considers programs that aim to deter existing gang activity and the political policies that underpin them: Gang prevention programs, although perhaps including elements of deterrence, will not be included since deterring current gang membership is not their key feature. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overall evaluation of deterrence strategies and to examine more closely the psychological effects that group processes may have in insulating gang members against the intended effects of legal deterrence efforts. Although gang membership is a worldwide phenomenon, the focus in this chapter will be on programs and policies that have been devised and implemented in the U.S. and the UK.

El psicoanálisis puede ser definido como una terapia del lenguaje. Sus recursos básicos son el discurso, la escucha y la atención al acontecimiento. Tiene como horizonte, entre otros, el de disolver y solucionar malestares. Uno de sus principios éticos básicos parece ser el de preservar al sujeto de sí mismo, en el sentido de preservar a la persona de sus propios mecanismos de aniquilamiento, negación o autoboicot que lo reprenden o sacrifican. Se pretende identificar la compleja economía psíquica que convierte a alguien en el depredador de sí mismo por violencia autoinfligida a modo de directo castigo o de " placer penoso " (goce). Así entendido, se trata de una terapia del lenguaje en donde se intenta identificar y desarmar los discursos contra-uno. Por el momento bastará esta caracterización amplia. El psicoanálisis puede ser útil de múltiples maneras en el ámbito del derecho. Puede ayudar a entender por qué se piensa lo que se piensa en determinados ámbitos jurídicos, o por qué una acción fue llevada a cabo y no otra, o cuál ha sido lo que los juristan llaman el " daño moral " causado a una víctima. Así, por ejemplo, podría colaborar a entender por qué un conjunto de personas dictó o se rige por este o aquel conjunto de normas, o podría ayudar a aplicar ese derecho en el caso en que se lo solicite como condición necesaria de la fijación de un daño. No obstante, existen múltiples objeciones a la supuesta utilidad/plausibilidad del psicoanálisis. La primera de ellas es que no puede considerarse científico o serio. La segunda de ellas es que aún salvada la primera objeción, no es aplicable o implementable a algunos supuestos de lo que genéricamente se llama " fenómeno jurídico ". La tercera proviene del psicoanálisis mismo. Algunos de los fines del derecho, como investigar la responsabilidad penal y hallar un culpable, son incompatibles con los fines que persigue la terapia psicoanalítica. Voy a detenerme un poco en estas tres objeciones. Luego quiero ingresar en una idea relacionada con el derecho que podría resultar interesante analizar con las herramientas de la psicología en general y el psicoanálisis en particular. Me refiero al reconocimiento. Al hablar del reconocimiento y su relación con el derecho me referiré a éste último tanto en su aspecto descriptivo como prescriptivo. Intentaré mostrar que el concepto de reconocimiento puede ser fructífero para analizar diversos aspectos de lo que el derecho hace y debería hacer. Aunque el rendimiento de este análisis puede ser vasto, me limitaré a sugerir sólo tres aspectos que considero abiertos a ulterior desarrollo: un aspecto conceptual relacionado con el contenido y alcance del reconocimiento en el derecho; un aspecto valorativo relacionado al derecho a ser oído y obtener respuestas institucionales; y un aspecto político relacionado con el análisis del concepto de libertad.

The conviction rate for sexual assault is persistently low in the United States. We propose a cycle-of-blame framework to highlight the possibility that the same rape myths that limit convictions are in turn strengthened by not-guilty verdicts. Participants read a summary of a rape trial. In different conditions, they were told that the jury's verdict was guilty or not guilty. In a No-Verdict condition, participants merely read the summary. All 96 participants subsequently responded to questionnaires measuring rape-myth acceptance and victim empathy. Gender affected both the myth and empathy measures, with women accepting fewer myths than men and exhibiting more empathy for the victim. Gender and Condition interacted such that men showed greater acceptance of rape myths and less empathy after a not-guilty versus a guilty verdict. Women evidenced consistently high empathy across conditions and greater myth acceptance after a guilty verdict. Although the cycle-ofblame principle is consistent with the performance of men, women's data require a different interpretation, which we base on just-world theory.

An article which is based on the need of behavioral sciences in the investigation and judicial system of Pakistan. there are many flaws need to be modified according to the need of time. To provide fair justice to the all people of Pakistan on the base of equality. For the enforcement of law to provide security and justice to the nation, it is necessary that our work method must be updated with the advancement in the scientific knowledge. Forensic Psychology is the one of most important field which can provide a new direction to the investigating agencies and judicial system.  In this article it is shown that why Forensic Psychology is necessary for the Justice

El escrito es una breve recopilación y adaptación al contexto colombiano del trabajo realizado por los doctores Ronald Clarke y John Eck, titulado Análisis delictivo para la resolución de problemas (en 60 pequeños pasos) , y que pretende ser fuente de insumo para la elaboración de análisis criminológicos, especialmente por parte del personal que conforma el Centro de Investigaciones Criminológicas (CICRI) y el Observatorio del Delito en todas las unidades policiales, y que estos a su vez sirvan a las autoridades públicas (gobernadores, alcaldes, comandantes de Policía) en la elaboración, ejecución y evaluación de las políticas públicas de seguridad y convivencia.

The article aims at presenting the topic of cognitive interview (CI) taking into account its advantages and disadvantages, as well as the usefulness of its application in Polish law enforcement during pre-trial proceedings. Due to the wide application of this method of questioning, mainly in countries with the common law judicial systems, it is worth considering which of the achievements of combined science and practice from Western Countries may be adapted in Poland. Are there any contraindications to conduct interviews by means of this method? If not, the question arises – what benefits it can bring to Polish practice.

Sebagai bidang psikologi yang relatif lebih baru dan terus mengalami perkembangan, psikologi hukum dan forensik belum begitu diketahui oleh masyarakat Indonesia sebagaimana di negara tempatnya berkembang, di Amerika. Artikel ini bertujuan memperkenalkan praktik psikologi dalam bidang hukum melalui psikologi hukum dan forensik dengan memberikan gambaran tentang pengertian psikologi forensik dan sejarah singkatnya, domain-domain penerapan psikologi dalam bidang hukum, serta dilema yang dihadapi terkait perannya, termasuk dilema karena konflik yang muncul dalam pertemuan kedua ilmu tersebut. Digambarkan pula peluang dan tantangan pengembangan psikologi hukum dan forensik di Indonesia. Secara luas psikologi hukum dan forensik merupakan ilmu yang menerapkan teori dan metode psikologi dalam ranah hukum. Penerapan teori dan metodenya dapat dilakukan dalam wilayah pengadilan dan sistem hukum, kepolisian dan penegakan hukum, serta praktik lembaga pemasyarakatan dan penjara. Peran yang dijalankan psikolog hukum dan forensik sangatlah beragam, namun konflik integritas dan dilema-dilema yang dihadapi cenderung sama. Di Indonesia, pengembangan psikologi hukum dan forensik memiliki tantangan dan peluang, namun merupakan bidang yang menjanjikan di masa yang akan datang mengingat semakin dibutuhkannya ilmu psikologi dalam proses hukum.

A national sample of 89 experts reviewed a police interview of an alleged 5-year-old female victim. Retaining party (prosecution or defense) and interview suggestibility (low or high) varied across experts. Experts were more willing to testify for the defense than prosecution in high suggestibility conditions, but equally willing to testify for either party in low suggestibility conditions. Experts focused on aspects of the evidence that favored the retaining party when interview suggestibility was low, blind raters’ perceptions of expert bias mirrored those findings. Experts’ perceptions of child victim accuracy, trustworthiness, and interview quality only varied as a function of interview suggestibility. Results suggest that expert witnesses in child sexual abuse cases may have an initial bias towards the retaining party when interview suggestibility is low. However, appear unbiased when evaluating the child victim and police interview. This information is valuable in the courtroom setting for attorneys and judges.

Artykuł ma na celu przybliżenie tematyki przesłuchania poznawczego (wywiadu poznawczego, cognitive interview, CI) z uwzględnieniem jego zalet oraz wad, a także użyteczności stosowania go w praktyce polskich organów ścigania podczas postępowania przygotowawczego. Z uwagi na szerokie wykorzystanie tej metody
przesłuchania, głównie w krajach bazujących na common law, warto się zastanowić, co z zachodniego dorobku połączenia nauki i praktyki możliwe jest do zaadaptowania w Polsce. Czy w ogóle istnieją jakiekolwiek przeciwwskazania prowadzenia przesłuchań przy użyciu tej metody? Jeśli nie, to nasuwa się pytanie – jakie korzyści może ona przynieść polskiej praktyce.

Ekshibicjonizm, czyli publiczne obnażanie się w celu osiągnięcia gratyfikacji seksualnej to jedno z najczęściej występujących na świecie zaburzeń preferencji seksualnych. Z racji swojego trudnego do uchwycenia charakteru, oraz nie tak wysokiego stopnia szkodliwości społecznej jak w przypadku innych przestępstw seksualnych, często bywa ignorowane i niedocenianie przez autorów zajmujących się tą tematyką. Niniejsza praca ma na celu przybliżenie dotychczasowego stanu wiedzy na temat tego zjawiska polskim czytelnikom.

The use of expert witnesses in jury trials is common. Experts are assumed to be neutral, objective parties who disseminate information to jurors; however, the adversarial system may bias experts in favor of the side that retained them (prosecution or defense). This thesis examined the potential influence of adversarial allegiance on experts' evaluations in a simulated child sexual abuse case. A national sample of 89 experts reviewed a police interview of an alleged 5-year-old female victim. Retaining party (prosecution or defense) and interview suggestibility (low or high) varied across experts. Experts were more willing to testify for the defense than prosecution when interview suggestibility was high, but equally willing to testify for either party when interview suggestibility was low.

El uso de la técnica de perfilación criminológica como herramienta de investigación criminal en los últimos años ha sido objeto de revisiones en cuanto a su fundamentación científica, aplicabilidad rigurosa y funcionalidad para el aparato judicial. En consecuencia, esta investigación tuvo como principal objetivo brindar información actualizada sobre la conceptualización de perfilación criminológica, su utilidad y las críticas que ha recibido en el contexto colombiano. Se
realizó análisis del contenido en 34 documentos relacionados con perfilación criminológica, los cuales corresponden a producciones académicas realizadas durante 1998 y 2012 en Bogotá por cinco universidades, la Escuela Penitenciaria Nacional y la Escuela de Investigación Criminal de la Policía Nacional, en las cuales se imparte formación en psicología jurídica e investigación criminal. Los resultados y las conclusiones de la revisión documental indican: 1. El uso de la
técnica en la investigación judicial ha sido limitado. 2. Es utilizada para comprender el actuar de quienes realizan comportamientos criminosos. 3. La mayor parte del conocimiento en perfilación criminológica se origina en la academia, en especial en el área de psicología jurídica y hace énfasis en el análisis y las construcciones conceptuales, sin muchos ejercicios de aplicación de la técnica en hechos delictuales. 4. Es necesario utilizar la técnica con mayor frecuencia dentro del contexto judicial y académico de la capital colombiana.

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This paper examines possible ways in which the legal process is influenced by money-related considerations – sometimes to a dramatic extent - and considers ethical implications and practical reflections on the administration of justice. 

Financial considerations can have a direct or indirect impact on the legal process, both technically (funding availability and ability) and psychologically (the importance attributed to financial considerations in human decision-making processes). 
In many cases – money can be seen as a moving force in the legal process, from the moment a person contemplates the idea of initiating it; throughout the process; and even after a judgment is reached.

This study examined the effect of gender and facial characteristics of criminal offenders on attributions of crime-relevant traits. The stimulus pictures portrayed women and men of varying attractiveness. Participants were presented with pictures of these female or male faces along with accompanying crime accounts. The crime account described the individual in the picture as a person who had committed one of the following crimes: theft, fraud, drug crime, child molestation, child abuse, or homicide. After reading one case account the participants were asked to evaluate the credibility and other crime-relevant personality traits of the offender. Results showed that female defendants were rated more favourably than were male defendants. Gender worked to the advantage of the female perpetrator. There were also slight tendencies towards more lenient appraisal of the more attractive women.

Algorithms may seriously impair the right to privacy held by groups of individuals (and thus, more subtly, individuals themselves, but relationally). Indeed, a functional equivalence exists between the way personal data is gathered and aggregated, and the patterns of data analysis about groups of individuals, with the difference that whilst the first is (unevenly) regulated domestically, EU-wide, as well as internationally, the second is almost consistently disregarded. Consequently, one needs to determine whether a full-standing “right to group privacy” should be recognised also as a legal (alternatively to only moral) obligation. In the positive, policymakers shall establish the (expectedly sophisticated) criteria for deciding what groups would not be simply considered as “aggregated bundles of individual privacy rights” (defined here as “collective rights”, like in a standard “class action”) by algorithms’ owners, programmers, and end-users. The main contribution of the present study is to further the theoretical understanding of the relevance of mentioned distinction (collective vs group rights) by drawing normative inferences from the modern-day psychology theory of Gestalt, eventually encoding a wider range of legal shades, and possible implications thereof for privacy entitlements in everyday life.

One of the most provocative topics at the intersection of law and mental health is whether or not psychopaths should be able to use the insanity defense. The factors needed for a successful insanity defense differ from state to state (Legal Information Institute, 2010). However, typical factors include the inability to recognize the nature of one’s actions or to recognize the criminality or immorality of an act, or else the inability to act “to conform [one’s] conduct to the requirements of the law” (LII, 2010, paras. 7-10). Because psychopaths are not delusional, and because they are often highly intelligent and purposeful (McAleer, 2010; Lilienfeld & Arkowitz, 2007), they are generally prevented from using the insanity defense (Stern, 2012; Glenn, Raine, & Laufer, 2011). Yet the more we learn about psychopathy, the harder it becomes to say whether psychopaths truly possess the mens rea, or “the criminal mind necessary for criminal liability” (Stern, 2012, p. 3). This brief essay reviews the law of the insanity defense and the state of knowledge concerning psychopathy in order to consider arguments for and against allowing psychopaths to plead insanity.

The argument presented in this paper is that not only should the state make greater use of scientific research, it is under a moral and legal obligation to do so. The source of this obligation is the right to the most accurate procedures for determining innocence and guilt. I will suggest that this right is implied by the presumption of innocence.

The paper compares and contrasts the way in which the evidence of witnesses to events, eyewitness identification evidence is obtained and tested. It goes on to envisage what the most accurate procedures for obtaining and testing the former class of evidence might look like.

This symposium essay constructs a theory of police racial violence that is based upon the social psychology of contemporary bias.  Our examination of this violence through the lens of the mind sciences reveals that it is an inevitable and foreseeable consequence of current policing strategies and culture, even in the absence of institutional and individual racial animus.  These practices, such as stops and frisks, create an environment that nurtures the unconscious racial biases and self-threats that can lead even consciously egalitarian officers to be more likely to use force disproportionately against Black suspects relative to suspects of other races.  This Essay argues that if the state is to take seriously the project of protecting citizens from violence, then it must contend with the role of both unconscious racial biases and self-threats in producing racially disparate violence.  Although one way to achieve this is to change existing legal doctrines to account for the pernicious effects of these psychological processes, our focus is examining ways to transform current policing strategies to better protect citizens from racial violence.

L’alliance entre les sphères de pouvoir politiques et psychiatriques s’est longtemps justifiée par la nécessité et la complémentarité. Or, depuis le milieu du vingtième siècle, les bases de la gouvernance politique et les fondements du système juridique se sont profondément transformés. Comment concilier les fondements du système juridique, qui s’attache au droit des personnes, et les mesures préventives liées à la gestion du risque psychiatrique qui, de par leur nature, sont immanquablement attentatoires aux droits fondamentaux?
L’auteure postule qu’à travers le développement d’un discours psychiatrique expert sur le risque, de nouveaux repères normatifs ont favorisé l’émergence d’une tension au sein du système juridique. Ainsi, cette tension pourrait servir d’illustration au phénomène plus global de pluralisme normatif, qui complexifie le rapport individuel aux normes multiples et concurrentes. En outre, le formalisme juridique ne peut plus suffire à la protection des droits fondamentaux en toute égalité. Dans ce contexte, l’intégration d’une perspective matérialiste et holiste constitue éventuellement une avenue à emprunter.

In a series of experimental studies, we asked people to assign appropriate civil and/or criminal liability to individuals who cause harm with various culpable states of mind and kinds of knowledge. The studies are principally aimed at two related issues. First, do people actually separate the various states of mind conceptually? How much knowledge, and what kind of knowledge, regarding something that may go wrong (understanding risk) is sufficient to count as knowing that something will go wrong (having knowledge legally equivalent to intent)? Second, to the extent that people distinguish among the states of mind that help define normative behavior, how much do those distinctions contribute to people's judgments of civil liability? Our studies show that people are able to make explicit distinctions about the states of mind of others that more or less correspond to legally relevant categories. Yet, when asked to assign consequences, their "hot" moral judgments play a larger role than do their "cold" cognitive categorizations.

Streszczenie W niniejszym artykule przedstawiono psychologiczne i prawnicze kryteria oceny wiarygodności zeznań świadków w kontekście pracy tłumacza w środowisku sądowym, w szczególności w odniesieniu do wierności tłumaczenia i ewentualnego wpływu transformacji na ocenę dowodu osobowego przez sąd. Pomimo znaczącego postępu technologii wykorzystywanych w kryminalistyce zeznania nadal są istotną wskazówką dowodowo-wykrywczą i mają bezpośredni wpływ na orzeczenia sądów. Przesłuchanie jako czynność procesowa przeprowadzana zarówno w postępowaniach karnych, jak i cywilnych, jest złożonym aktem komunikacji interpersonalnej, w trakcie którego kształtowane jest subiektywne przekonanie sądu co do szczerości i prawdziwości zeznań, zaś obecność tłumacza jako pośrednika pomiędzy przesłuchującym a przesłuchiwanym dodatkowo czynność tę komplikuje. Określenie wartości zeznania zależy od wielu czynników, których tłumacz powinien być świadomy, podobnie jak doniosłości swej roli, jaką odgrywa, uczestnicząc w postępowaniu sądowym. W oparciu o dotychczasową wiedzę i przeprowadzone wywiady z polskimi tłumaczami przysięgłymi, sformułowano przesłanki do przeprowadzenia pogłębionych badań na temat wpływu strategii tłumacza na ocenę świadka i złożonych przez niego zeznań. Słowa kluczowe: tłumaczenie środowiskowe, tłumaczenie sądowe, kryteria oceny wiarygodności zeznań, analiza treściowa zeznań, CBCA, SVA, kryterialna analiza danych Abstract Court interpreting and the assessment of witness veracity The present article presents the psychological and legal criteria for the assessment of the reliability of witness testimony in the context of the work of an interpreter in a court environment, specifically in relation to the accuracy of the interpretation and the possible impact of the transformation on the assessment of the personal evidence by the court. Despite the considerable technological progress in criminology, testimony is still a significant

Mental health legislation exists in between the opposing disciplines of law and psychiatry, and poses a challenge to lawyers, judges and medical witnesses to make legal standards workable where difficult psychiatric questions are involved. In the case of Delusional Disorder, this has resulted in the criminal law making a number of incorrect assumptions about the functioning of the disease in both sentencing and conviction. This paper identifies four main assumptions that the law attributes to sufferers of DD; reduced intellectual capacity, propensity for violence, warped perception, and irrational moral cognition. This paper then advocates for an alternative method of approaching cases involving criminal sufferers of delusional disorder, whereby the focus is upon the impact of the defendant’s particular beliefs upon their “world” in a holistic sense, avoiding reliance upon generalisations about the disease. Ultimately, I submit that a court should never base it’s holdings upon a diagnosis of delusional disorder without further inquiry into the idiosyncrasies of the defendant themselves.

L’utilisation de la contention chimique est réglementée depuis dix ans au Québec. Pourtant, les enjeux clinique, éthique et juridique, parfois antinomiques, n’ont pas été réellement envisagés lors du processus législatif qui a mené à la codification dans sa forme actuelle. L’auteure soutient qu’un cadre légal spécifique à l’utilisation de la médication à des fins de contrôle, en contexte d’intervention non planifiée, est nécessaire pour protéger les patients et le personnel médical. Ce cadre favoriserait les bonnes pratiques, tiendrait compte des aspects non médicaux du consentement et formaliserait la pratique en tant qu’exception à la règle établie. En outre, le caractère symbolique du droit par lequel la solidarité sociale peut s’exprimer serait mis de l’avant.