Our basic assumption about the law is that it is designed to operate fairly and openly. But with human beings as the ultimate decision makers, how do we prevent discrimination within the legal arena, and how does the law decide whether others have behaved in a discriminatory manner? Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making examines four controversial areas involving people's perceptions of others-racial profiling, affirmative action, workplace harassment, and hate speech/hate crime-from the perspectives of psychology, decision theory, and the law.
This book's contributing experts raise these critical questions:
How valid are legal assumptions about human behavior?
What cognitive processes underlie biased behavior?
What do personal experience and situational cues contribute to decision making?
How do individuals' perceptions of the law influence their judgment?
Can psychology help legislators write more effective laws?
In answering them, the book:
Compares rational, descriptive, and normative decision-making models in legal contexts
Provides important insights into legal decision making by non-specialists (police, administrators, jurors)
Clarifies and broadens the role of social science in the courts
Promotes improved dialogue between the field of psychology and law to create a more socially aware jurisprudence.
Social Consciousness in Legal Decision Making invites the legal and psychology communities to work together in solving some of our most pressing social problems.
From questions surrounding motives to the concept of crimes of passion, the intersection of emotional states and legal practice has long interested professionals as well as the public-recent cases involving extensive pretrial publicity, highly charged evidence, and instances of jury nullification continue to make the subject particularly timely. With these trends in mind, Emotion and the Law brings a rich tradition in social psychology into sharp forensic focus in a unique interdisciplinary volume. Emotion, mood and affective states, plus patterns of conduct that tend to arise from them in legal contexts, are analyzed in theoretical and practical terms, using real-life examples from criminal and civil cases. From these complex situations, contributors provide answers to bedrock questions-what roles affect plays in legal decision making, when these roles are appropriate, and what can be done so that emotion is not misused or exploited in legal procedures-and offer complementary legal and social/cognitive perspectives on these and other salient issues: Positive versus negative affect in legal decision making, emotion, eyewitness memory, and false memory, the influence of emotions on juror decisions, and legal approaches to its control, a terror management theory approach to the understanding of hate crimes, policy recommendations for managing affect in legal proceedings, additional legal areas that can benefit from the study of emotion.Emotion and the Law clarifies theoretical grey areas, revisits current practice, and suggests possibilities for both new scholarship and procedural guidelines, making it a valuable reference for psycho legal researchers, forensic psychologists, and policymakers.
Justice, conflict and wellbeing are large topics that occupy researchers from a variety of disciplines, as well as laypeople and policy makers. The three concepts are closely connected: conflict often (though not always) impairs wellbeing, whereas justice often (though not always) enhances it; perceived injustice is a common source of conflict, at multiple levels and calls for justice are a common response to conflict. In addition, each construct has subtypes, such as distributive and procedural justice, individual and group conflict and physical and psychological wellbeing. Although there are established traditions of research on the topics in multiple disciplines, there is little cross-fertilization across disciplines. This volume brings together researchers from social, clinical and educational psychology; law and political science. The unifying theme is how injustice and conflict pose threats to wellbeing, at the micro (individual) and macro (groups and societies) levels. Multi- and interdisciplinary research are at the vanguard of science in the twenty-first century and the present work applies multi and interdisciplinary perspectives to the important real-world topics of justice, conflict and wellbeing.
In order to make the criminal court system more effective there has been a growing trend to have courts participate in what is essentially a rehabilitation strategy. Such courts are often referred to as "problem-solving" because they are working on root causes of criminal behavior as part of the dispensation of justice. This major shift in the role of the courts means that the court works closely with prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, social workers, and other justice system partners to develop a strategy that pressures offenders to complete a treatment program which will ultimately, hopefully prevent recidivism. Research has shown that this kind of strategy has a two-fold benefit. It has been successful in helping offenders turn their lives around which leads to improved public safety and the ultimate saving of public funds. This book is the first to focus exclusively on problem solving courts, and as such it presents an overview of the rationale and scientific evidence for such courts as well as individual sections on the key areas in which these courts are active. Thus there is specific attention paid to domestic violence, juvenile criminality, mental health, and more. Throughout, research findings are incorporated into general discussions of these courts operate and ideally what they are trying to accomplish. There is also discussion of how such courts should evolve in the future and the directions that further research should take.
Two things are certain in the contemporary workplace: the aging of employees, and negative attitudes toward them - especially those with disabilities-by younger colleagues and supervisors. Yet related phenomena seem less clear: how do negative stereotypes contribute to discrimination on the job? And how are these stereotypes perceived in legal proceedings?
Bringing theoretical organization to an often unfocused literature, Disability and Aging Discrimination offers research in these areas at the same level of rigor as research into racial and gender discrimination. The book applies Social Analytic Jurisprudence, a framework for testing legal assumptions regarding behavior, and identifies controversies and knowledge gaps in age-discrimination and disability law. Chapters provide historical background or present-day context for the prevalence of age and disability prejudices, and shed light on the psychosocial concepts that must be understood, in addition to medical considerations, to make improvements in legal standards and workplace policy. Among the topics covered:
o Applying Social Analytic Jurisprudence to age and disability discrimination.
o The psychological origins and social pervasiveness of ageism.
o Growing older, working more: the boomer generation on the job.
o Limitations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
o Disability and procedural fairness in the workplace.
o Cross-cultural perspectives on stigma.
The first volume of its kind, Disability and Aging Discrimination is essential reading for researchers, forensic and rehabilitation psychologists/psychiatrists, and those involved in the well-being of older and disabled workers.
This volume will be a handbook that treats trial consulting as applied psychology. The purpose of the volume will be to collect the viewpoints of leaders in the field of psychology and law who apply the discipline's theoretical models, methods, and ethics to assist litigators to try cases in the most effective way possible. As a whole, the collection of chapters will describe the theory, business, and mechanics of trial consulting for those interested in learning and practicing the profession. However, it will do so from the perspective of organized theories of jury-decision making. In other words, the work of juror researchers will inform the recommendations and suggestions in the handbook. The volume consists of six sections, each pertaining to a different topic. Multiple chapters with different authors will cover each topic. The topics and corresponding seven sections will be 1) An Introduction to the Theory and Psychology of Jury Decision-Making, 2) Applied Research Methodologies for Trial Consultants, 3) Education and Ethical Considerations for Trial Consultants, 4) Preparing and Cross Examining Witnesses, 5) Technology and Demonstrative Evidence at Trial, and 6) Special Topics in Trial Consulting. Each section will begin with the editors' short introduction reviewing that section and explaining its goals, objectives, and content. Separate individuals, recognized as leaders in their areas will write the remaining chapters in each section. These individuals come from the fields of both psychology and law, and represent viewpoints on these topics from a practice-oriented perspective, but a perspective that is emerges from research results. They are affiliated with a number of academic institutions, including University of Nebraska, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, University of Texas, University of Chicago Simon Fraser University, and private law firms.
