Criminal Justice Decisions Research Articles

Impact of trauma and placement in residential or congregate care on the criminalisation of children in England/Wales and Australia

Children in residential care have the most complex needs of all children growing up in Out-of-Home care (OOHC), due to complex trauma from pre-care experiences of abuse and neglect, inadequate therapeutic supports while in care and significant placement instability. Some argue that residential care settings are intrinsically criminogenic, as evidenced by significant over-representation of this cohort in youth justice. However, little is known about how children’s experiences of trauma, including removal from family and placement in OOHC, is viewed by lawyers and decision-makers in criminal cases involving children in care. Criminal justice decisions can have long-term ramifications for children in care and custodial sentencing can often be a precursor to ongoing incarceration into adulthood. This qualitative, cross-national study explored the impacts of trauma and placement in residential or congregate care on the criminalisation of children in England/Wales and Australia. In-depth interviews were conducted with 28 legal, youth justice and judicial stakeholders in England, Wales (UK), New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria (Australia). While there are considerable differences in the operation of child protection and youth justice systems between these jurisdictions, thematic analysis using NVivo14 identified. confirmed ongoing systemic factors associated with criminalisation identified in previous literature persists despite attempts to address these through policy and practice reforms. These factors include an absence of therapeutic supports, unstable and unsafe residential care placements, over-reliance on police to respond to minor incidents, increasingly punitive police responses lacking awareness of the impacts of childhood trauma and inappropriate use of custody as an ‘alternative’ placement. These findings suggest the similar systemic processes across these jurisdictions are likely to reflect deeply entrenched ideologies about ‘care’ and ‘protection’ that function to criminalise trauma. The implications of these systemic factors when children are exposed to formal criminal justice decision-making are considered.

Bio-behavioral scientific evidence alters judges' sentencing decision-making: A quantitative analysis

The present study surveyed judges to examine how they consider and apply scientific information during sentencing determinations. Judges in criminal courts are increasingly asked to assess and make decisions based on evidence surrounding psychiatric disorders, with unclear results on sentencing outcomes. We qualitatively interviewed 34 judges who have presided over criminal cases in 16 different states and also administered vignette surveys during the interviews. We asked them to make sentencing decisions for hypothetical defendants in cases presenting evidence of either no psychiatric disorder, an organic brain disorder, or past trauma, as well as to rate the importance of different goals of sentencing for each case. Results indicated that the case presenting no evidence of a mental health condition received significantly more severe sentences as compared to either psychiatric condition. Judges' ratings of sentencing goals showed that the importance of retribution was a significant mediator of this relationship. Trauma was not deemed to be as mitigating as an organic brain disorder. These results provide unique insights into how judges assess cases and consider sentencing outcomes when presented with scientific information to explicate defendants' behavior. We propose ways forward that may help better integrate scientific understandings of behavior into criminal justice decision-making.

Restorative Justice in the Case Verdict of the Muhammed Bin Zayed: MBZ Toll Road Case

Traffic congestion is a common problem throughout the country. Traffic accident cases that occur in the West Java Regional Police are generally handled through criminal procedures rather than non-criminal. The purpose of this study is to analyze and understand the implementation of the concept of Restorative Justice in cases of traffic accident decisions and other legal products in solving cases. The method used is empirical juridical using primary legal data, secondary legal data and tertiary legal data, namely legal products relevant to the restoration of justice. The results of the study explained the issuance of Law No. 22 of 2009 concerning Road Traffic and Transportation and the Circular Letter of the Chief of Police of the Republic of Indonesia. Police Number: SE/8/VII/2018 concerning the Implementation of Justice and Criminal Justice Decisions to resolve traffic accident cases. The persons involved as well as the legal requirements regarding the time limit for the implementation of justice only react to criminal investigations before submitting the initial notice of investigation, and the principle of civil law culture through the process of implementing the concept of Restorative Justice.

Disparities in Criminal Justice Decision-Making

Disparities in Criminal Justice Decision-Making

Can ethnic disparities in sentencing be taken as evidence of judicial discrimination?

Large research efforts have been directed at the exploration of ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system, documenting harsher treatment of minority ethnic defendants, across offence types, criminal justice decisions, and jurisdictions. However, most studies on the topic have relied on observational data, which can only approximate ‘like with like’ comparisons. We use causal diagrams to lay out explicitly the different ways estimates of ethnic disparities in sentencing derived from observational data could be biased. Beyond the commonly acknowledged problem of unobserved case characteristics, we also discuss other less well-known, yet likely more consequential problems: measurement error in the form of racially-determined case characteristics or as a result of disparities within the ‘Whites’ reference group, and selection bias from non-response and missing offenders’ ethnicity data. We apply such causal framework to review findings from two recent studies showing ethnic disparities in custodial sentences imposed at the Crown Court (England and Wales). We also use simulations to recreate the most comprehensive of those studies, and demonstrate how the reported ethnic disparities appear robust to a problem of unobserved case characteristics. We conclude that ethnic disparities observed in the Crown Court are likely reflecting evidence of direct discrimination in sentencing.

Minority Salience and Criminal Justice Decisions

Minority Salience and Criminal Justice Decisions

Recent Legal Developments: Criminal Justice Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, 2022 Term

In this paper, we review and analyze the criminal justice–related decisions of the 2022 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court's voting patterns and opinion authorship. Fourteen of the Court's 58 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the First Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, and federal criminal statutes. Each of these is discussed in turn.

Potentially criminal: Will AI-assisted risk assessments eliminate bias in criminal justice decisions – or add to it?

Potentially criminal: Will AI-assisted risk assessments eliminate bias in criminal justice decisions – or add to it?

Improving Fairness in Criminal Justice Algorithmic Risk Assessments Using Optimal Transport and Conformal Prediction Sets

In the United States and elsewhere, risk assessment algorithms are being used to help inform criminal justice decision-makers. A common intent is to forecast an offender’s “future dangerousness.” Such algorithms have been correctly criticized for potential unfairness, and there is an active cottage industry trying to make repairs. In this paper, we use counterfactual reasoning to consider the prospects for improved fairness when members of a disadvantaged class are treated by a risk algorithm as if they are members of an advantaged class. We combine a machine learning classifier trained in a novel manner with an optimal transport adjustment for the relevant joint probability distributions, which together provide a constructive response to claims of bias-in-bias-out. A key distinction is made between fairness claims that are empirically testable and fairness claims that are not. We then use confusion tables and conformal prediction sets to evaluate achieved fairness for estimated risk. Our data are a random sample of 300,000 offenders at their arraignments for a large metropolitan area in the United States during which decisions to release or detain are made. We show that substantial improvement in fairness can be achieved consistently with a Pareto improvement for legally protected classes.

Nested conformal prediction sets for classification with applications to probation data

Risk assessments to help inform criminal justice decisions have been used in the United States since the 1920s. Over the past several years, statistical learning risk algorithms have been introduced amid much controversy about fairness, transparency and accuracy. In this paper we focus on accuracy for a large department of probation and parole that is considering a major revision of its current, statistical learning risk methods. Because the content of each offender’s supervision is substantially shaped by a forecast of subsequent conduct, forecasts have real consequences. Here, we consider the probability that risk forecasts are correct. We augment standard statistical learning estimates of forecasting uncertainty (i.e., confusion tables) with uncertainty estimates from nested conformal prediction sets. In a demonstration of concept using data from the department of probation and parole, we show that the standard uncertainty measures and uncertainty measures from nested conformal prediction sets can differ dramatically in formulation and output. We also provide a modification of nested conformal, called the localized conformal method, to match confusion tables more closely. A strong case can be made favoring the nested conformal approach. As best, we can tell our formulation of such comparisons and consequent recommendations is novel.

A test for implicit bias in discretionary criminal justice decisions.

Our goal was to develop a framework to test for implicit racial bias in discretionary decisions made by community supervision agents in conditions with increasing information ambiguity. We reasoned that as in-person contact decreases, community supervision officers' specific knowledge of clients would be replaced by heuristics that lead to racially disproportionate outcomes in higher discretion events. Officers' implicit biases would lead to disproportionately higher technical violation rates among Black community corrections' clients when they have less personal contact, but we expected no analogous increase in nondiscretionary decisions. Using data from Black and White clients entering probation and postrelease supervision in North Carolina from 2012 through 2016, we estimated the difference in racial disparities in discretionary versus nondiscretionary decisions across five levels of supervision. We evaluated the robustness of our main fixed-effects model using an alternative regression discontinuity design. Racial disparities in discretionary decisions grew as supervision intensity decreased, and the bias was larger for women than men. There was no similar pattern of increased disparity for nondiscretionary decisions. Criminal justice system actors have a great deal of discretion, particularly in how they deal with less serious criminal behavior. Although decentralized decisions are foundational to the function of the criminal justice system, they provide an opportunity for implicit bias to seep in. Shortcuts and mental heuristics are more influential when the decision-maker's mental resources are already strained-for instance, if someone is tired, distracted, or overworked. Therefore, limiting discretion and increasing oversight and accountability may reduce the impact of implicit bias on criminal justice system outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Use of Big Data in Criminal Justice and its Challenges

ABSTRACT The explosive growth of information and the development of data processing technology have generated ‘big data’ tools, which have opened up major transformations in various fields. The field of criminal justice has also been subjected to big data application without exception, and it is undergoing a major development from partial data statistics to ‘full data’ analysis, from retrospective thinking to predictive thinking. Big data has been applied to various stages of investigation, prosecution, and delivery of punishment, but it still faces the issues of fairness and legitimacy, and its utility cannot be truly realized. Effective regulation and supervision of data and algorithms can prevent discrimination and improve the fairness of big data tools, and by redesigning relevant judicial procedure rules and clarifying the basic principles of personal information data collection, it can help realize big data applications and secure basic rights and achieve the best balance between protection which make it acceptable to the public. Finally, the auxiliary role of big data in criminal justice needs to be reassured which means it cannot and should not overstep the tasks that are exclusively for criminal justice decision-makers.

Supplemental Material for A Test for Implicit Bias in Discretionary Criminal Justice Decisions

Supplemental Material for A Test for Implicit Bias in Discretionary Criminal Justice Decisions

An Algorithmic Assessment of Parole Decisions

ObjectivesParole is an important mechanism for alleviating the extraordinary social and financial costs of mass incarceration. Yet parole boards can also present a major obstacle, denying parole to low-risk inmates who could safely be released from prison. We evaluate a major parole institution, the New York State Parole Board, quantifying the costs of non-risk-based decision-making.MethodsUsing ensemble machine Learning, we predict any arrest and any violent felony arrest within three years to generate criminal risk predictions for individuals released on parole in New York from 2012–2015. We quantify the social welfare loss of the Board’s non-risked-base decisions by rank ordering inmates by their predicted risk and estimating the crime rates that could have been achieved with counterfactual, risk-based release decisions. We also estimate the release rates that could have been achieved holding arrest rates constant. We attend to the “selective labels” problem in several ways, including by testing the validity of the algorithm for individuals who were denied parole but later released after the expiration of their sentence.ResultsWe conservatively estimate that the Board could have more than doubled the release rate without increasing the total or violent felony arrest rate, and that they could have achieved these gains while simultaneously eliminating racial disparities in release rates.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates the utility of algorithms for evaluating criminal justice decision-making. Our analyses suggest that many individuals are being denied parole and incarcerated past their minimum sentence despite being a low risk to public safety.

Recent Legal Developments: Criminal Justice Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, 2021 Term

In this paper, we review and analyze the criminal justice-related decisions of the 2021 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court's voting patterns and opinion authorship. 18 of the Court's 58 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the Second Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, and federal criminal statutes. Each of these is discussed in turn.

The construction of victim of defamation in court's written verdict

Most countries in the world consider defamation case as a civil domain. Indonesia is still one of the few countries in the world, which classify defamation case as a criminal act. The issue of defamation in Indonesia becomes more complex since there are various regulations governing defamation. Initially, the Indonesian Criminal Code (KUHP) is the only law that regulates the act of defamation. The establishment of the Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Electronic Information Transactions (the EIT Law) has resulted in a complex situation since it also covers the act of defamation. After the EIT Law came into force in 2009, up until 2014, there have been 71 people charged in court for alleged defamation. Current research is a linguistic study in the context of law to discuss the construction of victims in copies of court decision. The data of the study were taken from two copy-texts of court decisions, which were the result of defamation cases in 2014 and 2015. Data are in the form of texts explaining the position of victims in relation to one of the grounds for judge’s decision. As explained by Coulthard Johnson (2007), Forensic Linguistics includes several levels such as acoustic phonetics, discourse analysis, and semantics. On this basis, data analysis in this study uses a critical discourse analysis (CDA) framework by Fairclough (1997) used with the consideration that the framework features dialectical-relational approaches which can map the patterns of social relations to explain the construction of a party in a discourse. Data interpretation and final conclusions of this study reveal the reproductions of logic of certain parties in a copy of criminal justice decisions; marginalization of victims to balance justice retributively and restoratively; and the establishment of role and position of victims in defamation discourses by ignoring institutional aspects and powerlessness. Thus, it appears that victims are not the center of discourse in the text copies of court decisions. Besides, the victim is the most important part of the defamation case considering that the case was classified as a criminal complaint.

A Multi-disciplinary and Comparative Approach to Evaluating Pre-trial Detention Decisions: Towards Evidence-Based Reform

The decision to remand a defendant into custody pre-trial is one of the most controversial criminal justice decisions because it deprives individuals of their liberty while they are presumed to be innocent of a crime. Indeed, pre-trial detention decisions can have significant consequences for defendants, which need to be balanced against the potential implications of bail for public safety and the course of criminal proceedings. Despite this, court-based bail and remand decision-making remains relatively underexplored. In this paper, we compare court-based bail/remand decision-making in England and Wales and The Netherlands. We focus on (i) the procedure and structure of decision-making, (ii) the substantive relevant legal frameworks, (iii) the courts in which the decisions are made and the decision-makers in those courts, (iv) the conditions characterizing the decision task, and (v) the court’s reasoning of bail and remand in custody decisions. Using a comparative and multi-disciplinary approach, relying on Law, Criminology, and Psychology, we make predictions about bail and remand in custody rates in the two jurisdictions as well as the decision performance of court-based decision-makers. These predictions are then evaluated using available (official) statistics and past research. We identify the need to collect more nuanced statistical data on bail and remand in custody rates and point to potentially fruitful avenues for future research. A comparative, multi-disciplinary, evidence-based approach can underpin remand reform in England and Wales, The Netherlands, and beyond.

Neighborhood matters: the impact of community context on the cumulative case processing of firearm offenses

ABSTRACT Drawing on the minority threat and focal concerns theoretical perspectives on criminal justice outcomes, the current study of arrests for firearm-related felony offenses in St. Louis examines the effect of neighborhood context on formal charges, bail, pretrial detention, and sentencing. The study finds that individuals charged with committing a firearm-related felony in More socioeconomically adVantaged neighborhoods receive significantly higher bail than those arrested for the same crimes in less advantaged neighborhoods. High bail increases the length of pretrial detention, which in turn raises the probability that the individual is sentenced to prison rather than placed on probation. The results highlight the importance of modeling the cumulative process of case disposition when assessing the influence of community context on criminal justice decision-making.

Recent Legal Developments: Criminal Justice Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, 2020 Term

In this paper we review and analyze the criminal justice-related decisions of the 2,020 term of the United States Supreme Court. We also provide a summary of the Court’s voting patterns and opinion authorship. Thirteen of the Court’s 57 decisions touched on criminal justice. There were significant decisions involving the Fourth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, and federal criminal statutes. Each of these is discussed in turn.

Decolonizing Criminology: Exploring Criminal Justice Decision-Making through Strategic Use of Indigenous Literature and Scholarship

Post-secondary institutions have been increasingly called upon to decolonize pedagogy and syllabi. Minimal research has examined decolonization efforts within criminology curricula despite such classes often exploring structural racism in discussions of the overrepresentation of Indigenous, Black, and other racialized persons in the criminal justice system. Through a content analysis of multiple written assignments – written by 25 undergraduate students enrolled in a decision-making in criminal justice class offered at a university in western Canada – this study explores how an instructor decolonized their course through the strategic use of Indigenous literature and scholarship. The results indicate a single course does not provide enough time to unravel the complex connections between colonialism and Indigenous peoples’ involvement in the justice system. Further, students have a desire to engage in difficult conversations about racism and colonialism. Take-aways for consideration by instructors and administrators working towards decolonizing curricula are discussed.