Author: Natalie Taylor
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781921185526
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 6
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Book Description
Sexual assault has among the highest rates of acquittal and lowest rates of proven guilt compared with other offences. Given that more than 70 percent of sexual assault incidents are not reported to police and only about one in 10 reported incidents results in a guilty finding, increasing conviction rates for sexual assault is a key issue for the criminal justice system. This paper presents findings from two recent studies conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology. These show that juror judgements in rape trials are influenced more by the attitudes, beliefs and biases about rape which jurors bring with them into the courtroom than by the objective facts presented, and that stereotypical beliefs about rape and victims of it still exist within the community. As jurors are members of the community and are randomly drawn in order to be representative of it, the two studies together indicate that successful prosecutions of sexual assault will remain low until we acknowledge that jurors interpret what they see in light of their own beliefs, experience and expectations. We need to know what these belief structures are and how they directly impact upon judgements in rape trials, if conviction rates are to improve.
Author: Jennifer Temkin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1847314201
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
This book is set against the background of the 'justice gap' in sexual assault cases - the dramatic gap between the number of offences recorded by the police and the number of convictions. It seeks to examine the attitudinal problems which bedevil this area of law and possible strategies for addressing them. Written by a professor of law and a professor of psychology, it reviews evidence from socio-legal and social cognition research and presents new data drawn both from interviews with judges and barristers and from studies with prospective lawyers and members of the public. In the final part, it considers different ways in which rape trials could be improved and suggests steps that could be taken to change public attitudes about sexual assault.
Author: Brian H. Bornstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190201347
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 417
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Book Description
The Jury Under Fire reviews a number of controversial beliefs about juries that have persisted in recent years as well as the implications of these views for jury reform efforts. Each chapter focuses on a mistaken assumption or myth about jurors or juries, critiques the myth, and then uses social science research findings to suggest appropriate reforms.
Author: Bonnie Berry
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108422314
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
The book offers a new way of examining crime, criminal victimization, and crime control through the lens of appearance bias. It covers timely topics, such as human trafficking, terrorism, racial profiling, and the effects of inequality on appearance, and it offers policy and legislative recommendations and discussions of social movements.
Author: G. T. Munsterman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 342
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Book Description
Author: Elizabeth A. Sheehy
Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
ISBN: 0776619772
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 833
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Book Description
Sexual Assault in Canada is the first English-language book in almost two decades to assess the state of sexual assault law and legal practice in Canada. Gathering together feminist scholars, lawyers, activists and policy-makers, it presents a picture of the difficult issues that Canadian women face when reporting and prosecuting sexual violence. The volume addresses many themes including the systematic undermining of women who have been sexually assaulted, the experiences of marginalized women, and the role of women’s activism. It explores sexual assault in various contexts, including professional sports, the doctor–patient relationship, and residential schools. And it highlights the influence of certain players in the reporting and litigation of sexual violence, including health care providers, social workers, police, lawyers and judges. Sexual Assault in Canada provides both a multi-faceted assessment of the progress of feminist reforms to Canadian sexual assault law and practice, and articulates a myriad of new ideas, proposed changes to law, and inspired activist strategies. This book was created to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Jane Doe’s remarkable legal victory against the Toronto police for sex discrimination in the policing of rape and for negligence in failing to warn her of a serial rapist. The case made legal history and motivated a new generation of feminist activists. This book honours her pioneering work by reflecting on how law, legal practice and activism have evolved over the past decade and where feminist research and reform should lead in the years to come.
Author: Dennis J. Devine
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814725228
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
While jury decision making has received considerable attention from social scientists, there have been few efforts to systematically pull together all the pieces of this research. In Jury Decision Making, Dennis J. Devine examines over 50 years of research on juries and offers a "big picture" overview of the field. The volume summarizes existing theories of jury decision making and identifies what we have learned about jury behavior, including the effects of specific courtroom practices, the nature of the trial, the characteristics of the participants, and the evidence itself. Making use of those foundations, Devine offers a new integrated theory of jury decision making that addresses both individual jurors and juries as a whole and discusses its ramifications for the courts. Providing a unique combination of broad scope, extensive coverage of the empirical research conducted over the last half century, and theory advancement, this accessible and engaging volume offers "one-stop shopping" for scholars, students, legal professionals, and those who simply wish to better understand how well the jury system works.
Author: Miranda A. H. Horvath
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134026463
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 373
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Book Description
Rape remains one of the most controversial issues within criminal justice and receives high profile coverage internationally. Despite the many changes there have been to the law, practice and procedure in the investigation of rape allegations, and support available for victims, victims are routinely blamed for their victimization. Only a very small number of perpetrators ever face prosecution, let alone conviction. This book aims to take stock of current thinking and research about rape and the way it is handled in practice within the criminal justice system, and to challenge some of the widely held but inaccurate beliefs about rape. It brings together leading researchers in the field from psychology, sociology and law, considering new research and presenting new data from a strong theoretical and contextual base. The main focus of the book is on adult victims of rape, with chapters exploring such issues as rape and the media, the use of alcohol and drugs in rape, police decision making on rape cases, conviction patterns in rape trials, and interviewing victims of rape and sexual assault.
Author: Anne Cossins
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 1137320516
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 722
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Book Description
This book examines the justice gap and trial process for sexual assault against both adults and children in two jurisdictions: England and Wales and New South Wales, Australia. Drawing on decades of research, it investigates the reality of the policing and prosecution of sexual assault offences – often seen as one of the ‘hardest crimes to prosecute’ – across two similar jurisdictions. Despite the introduction of the many reform options detailed in the book, satisfactory outcomes for victims and the public are still difficult to obtain. Cossins takes a new approach by examining the nature and effects of adversarialism on vulnerable witnesses, jury decision-making and the structures of power within the trial process, to show how, and at what points, that process is weighted against complainants of sexual assault, in order to make evidence-based suggestions for reform. She argues that this justice gap is a result of a moralistic adversarial culture which fosters myths and misconceptions about rape and child sexual assault, thus requiring the prosecution to prove a complainant’s moral worthiness. She argues this culture can only be eliminated by a radical replacement of the adversarial system with a trauma-informed system. By reviewing the relevant psychological literature, this book documents the triggers for re-traumatisation within an adversarial trial, and discusses the reform measures that would be necessary to transform the sexual assault trial from one where the complainant’s moral worthiness is ‘on trial’ to a fully functioning trauma-informed system. It speaks to students and academics across subjects including law, criminology, gender studies and psychology, and practitioners in law and victim services, as well as policy-makers.
Author: Natalie Taylor
Publisher: National Gallery of Australia
ISBN: 9780642538925
Category : Closed-circuit television in courtroom proceedings
Languages : en
Pages : 108
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Book Description
This report presents the findings from a mock sexual assault jury trial research project conducted on behalf of the New South Wales Attorney General's Department in 2005. The project aimed to investigate whether the impact of adult sexual assault complainant testimony on juror perceptions and decisions differs if presented via closed circuit television (CCTV), pre-recorded videotape or face-to-face in the courtroom. The study also investigated the impact of emotional versus neutral complainant testimony. Eighteen mock trials were held in a mock courtroom in which 210 members of the public participated as jurors. After watching the trial but before jury deliberation, jurors completed individual questionnaires which investigated their perceptions of complainant credibility, empathy with the complainant, overall impression of the complainant, empathy with the accused, overall impression of the accused and personal beliefs about guilt of the accused. After jury deliberation, jurors completed a questionnaire which asked again about their beliefs about guilt of the accused. Jurors also completed a questionnaire about their attitudes toward rape victims in general. The report outlines the methodology used, the key findings, issues arising from juror feedback and the difficulties encountered by jurors in trying to reach unanimous verdicts. The study finds, overall, that immediately following the trial but before jury deliberation, mode of presentation of testimony (face-to-face, CCTV or pre-recorded videotape) did not impact differentially on juror perceptions of the complainant or the accused, or guilt of the accused. The degree to which the complainant was upset while giving her testimony (emotional) or calm (neutral) was also not found to impact in any consistent pattern on juror perceptions or decisions. One of the key insights obtained during this study was the high degree to which many jurors believed many of the "myths" which surround rape in general. Acceptance of these myths means that many jurors have strong expectations about how a "real" victim would behave before, during and after an alleged sexual assault. These expectations impact on their perceptions of the complainant's credibility. Other key issues were the difficulty juries experienced in defining reasonable doubt, and the difficulty of understanding what was meant by "consent".
