Psychology Crime and Law

Davey, Caitlin B.; Mulrooney, Kyle J. D.; Watt, Susan E.

2024 Psychology Crime and Law

doi: 10.1080/1068316X.2024.2338200

Western countries tend to display preferences for the harsh punishment of people with criminal justice involvement. Drawing on a representative survey of the Australian population, the present study explores punitive attitudes and what factors shape the development of these attitudes at an individual level. More specifically, the study considers the role of age, sex, level of education, geographic location, perceptions of crime, fear of crime, confidence in the criminal justice system, media consumption, crime causation, beliefs in redeemability, interpersonal trust, political ideology, racial essentialism, and minority threat in predicting the punitive attitudes of Australians. The results indicate that generally Australians are somewhat punitive and that the strongest predictors of these attitudes are: internal attribution of crime, perceptions of rising crime rates, a lack of belief in redeemability, geographic location (specifically rural areas), a lack of interpersonal trust and a lack of support for multicultural principles together, creating a more robust understanding of punitive attitudes in Australia, which is currently lacking.

Ploeg, Oliver H. J.; Mehigan, James; Grace, Randolph C.; Cording, Jacinta R.

2024 Psychology Crime and Law

doi: 10.1080/1068316X.2024.2405678

Behavioural differences between murder and manslaughter have rarely been empirically assessed. By examining real-world data, assessment of this type helps ensure that the legal classification and sentencing framework aligns with the nuances of criminal behaviour and contributes to just outcomes. Additionally, empirical assessment of differences between offence types provides an inclusionary/exclusionary basis in the pooling of samples. This study examined the relationships between demographic and crime-scene behaviours with conviction outcome (i.e. either murder or manslaughter) in 253 New Zealand homicides. Premeditated intent to kill was highly associated with murder as the conviction outcome; however, lower levels of premeditation were not. Other significant predictors were primarily those of a mitigating nature; a victim provoking an attacker or an offender attempting to save the victim were observed to potentially reduce the likelihood of a murder conviction, while aggravating factors such as the use of a weapon increased this likelihood. Most variables did not significantly predict conviction outcome for either homicide type, indicating these types of crimes are perhaps more similar than they are different. Overall, this study helped reveal an intricate interplay of factors which impact on homicide conviction outcomes, shedding light on the decision-making process within the criminal justice system.

Raymond, Bea; Davis, Michael R.; Ogloff, James R. P.; McEwan, Troy E.

2024 Psychology Crime and Law

doi: 10.1080/1068316X.2024.2401489

Structured professional judgement (SPJ) guidelines for assessing risk of sexual offending have existed for more than two decades, yet the literature investigating the validity of these tools remains relatively limited. Recent research has shown that actuarial sexual offending risk assessment tools should be adjusted to reflect reduced risk as offenders age (Helmus et al., 2012), leading to questions about the validity of extant SPJ guidelines for older people who sexually offend. The current study investigated the reliability and predictive validity of the Sexual Violence Risk-20 (SVR-20) and the Risk for Sexual Violence Protocol (RSVP) with a sample of 95 Australian individuals aged 50 years or over who had sexually offended. Sixteen (16.84%) participants sexually recidivated over a mean follow-up period of 9.07 years. Contrary to results with younger offenders, structured judgements using the SVR-20 or RSVP did not significantly differentiate recidivists from non-recidivists in this sample (AUC = .57). However, the total scores for both instruments were predictive at particular time periods. Certain risk factors were potentially important and accounted for unique variance that was not accounted for by actuarial instruments. The implications and limitations of this study are discussed, as well as recommendations for future research and practice.

McLaren, Sonya A.; Serin, Ralph C.; Lloyd, Caleb D.; Dunham, Mackenzie D.

2024 Psychology Crime and Law

doi: 10.1080/1068316X.2024.2400110

Ideally, when an individual enters the Criminal Justice System there is the goal and expectation that they will, over time and through intervention, change from the individual who perpetrated the crime(s) toward adopting a non-criminal identity. However, there are currently few measures of change with established validity for predicting post-program or post-release outcomes with correctional samples. The Client Change Scale [CCS; Serin & Lloyd, 2018] was developed to address this gap to provide an empirically grounded systematic measure of factors relevant for change. This study was the first to assess the psychometric properties of the CCS with post-release outcomes and to predict recidivism outcomes with a Canadian release cohort using archival data. The sample included 390 adult males under community supervision by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) between 2015 and 2017. Overall, the CCS reflected acceptable psychometric properties. Additionally, an exploratory factor analysis revealed that all 16 items of the CCS should be retained and provided evidence for separate but correlated consideration of internal and external change factors. These initial findings suggest the CCS has the potential to improve decision-making throughout an individual’s time in the criminal justice system by utilizing a person-centered approach in support of improving client success and subsequent public safety.