Article Summary Paper Sample: Criminal Justice

Alvarez, M. J., & Miller, M. K. (2017). How defendants' legal status and ethnicity and participants' political orientation relate to death penalty sentencing decisions. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 3(3), 298.

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White mock jurors have a greater endorsement of aggravators and lower endorsement of mitigators in cases with an African American. More so, death penalties are influenced by traits of the defendant mediated by differences in how aggravators and mitigators are weighed. White participants perceive harsh treatment of immigrant suspects and are more likely to be sentenced to death as opposed to dealing with an American citizen. Foreigner defendants are perceived as more responsible, are blamed more, and their version of the events are less likely to be believed in comparison to White defendants. Immigrants are also more likely to be found guilty by White participants. This effect is partly driven by the difference in evaluation of the evidence by White participants. These participants are more punitive toward immigrants' defendants with low in socioeconomic status compared to wealthy immigrants' defendants or White defendants regardless of their socioeconomic status.

The study finds that the weighing of aggravators and mitigators is influenced by the political orientation of the decision-making panel. political orientation might influence whether jurors properly follow instructions. Therefore, it is necessary that the courts address this bias by developing instructions that are written in plain English participants' decisions are influenced by a defendant's legal status. Most of the times, these instructions rely heavily on legal terminology exhibiting complex sentence structure, which in times makes it difficult for jurors to follow. When jurors do not understand instructions, their decisions are more likely to be influenced by personal beliefs. temporary immigrants might experience worse outcomes in a trial. Particularly, jurors' political orientation is relevant to the decision-making in cases involving politically charged topics. The defendant's legal status and participants' political orientation were referred by participants' weighing of aggravators and mitigators.

Reidy, T. J., Cihan, A., & Sorensen, J. R. (2017). Women in prison: Investigating trajectories of institutional female misconduct. Journal of criminal justice, 52, 49-56.

Females commit less serious disciplinary offences compared to males. prior exposure to physical trauma, mental disorders, substance abuse, and dysfunctional relationships are linked to a higher probability of inmate misconduct. Moreover, female inmates are severely impacted by these factors compared to males. the study seeks to isolate the development of female misconduct and provide an understanding of the dynamics of divergent groups associated with serious prison misconduct among women inmates.

The involvement in crime and violence is an element that determines the developmental life they extend in prison. Some factors include violence and prison homicide. The incorrigible persons are involved in misconduct to a much greater extent. The delay-onset levels off to a steady rate of misbehavior while the early-onset level of misconduct is below that of the other groups. All three groups indicate a gradual decline in misconduct over time but never terminates. The chronic offenders associate with by prior violent arrests. The early-onset group which is half the size of the delayed-onset might possess a high school diploma or its equivalent.

Female inmates include different people, most are those that maintain a relatively steady but limited pattern of serious rule infractions. Otherwise, a relatively smaller number of inmates of one group exhibit an initially elevated then declining frequency of serious infractions, and the other group escalating infraction frequency. A vast majority of female inmates lead a less criminally-oriented lifestyle. the early-onset group indicate low education, are more naive prisoners, and more prone to violence in prison. Sentence length is not related to infractions. However, Mental illness is significantly related to each group of serious rule violators and influences the response of female in prisons.