Legal System/Criminal Justice

Social psychology can be seen in the legal and crminal justice system in a few ways. Some of which include jury decision making and interrogations and investigations. When it comes to jury decision making it is clear that social psychology plays a role in this as humans decide the fate of others through the legal system. The size of the jury plays a role in the outcome of the verdict. Apparently, fewer jurors leads to more biases against the defendent, this is because it is less likely that someone in  asmall gorup will state a different opinion that is different from the majority (PSU Lesson). Where as, in a larger jury group, people are more likely to state different opinions and provide more veiwpoints.

Everyone has prejudices and biases, these can also cause a problem in the legal system as jurors or any one involved in a case is likely to fall victim to ‘generic prejudices’. These generic prejudices typically surrounded cases such as sexual abuse/assault, murder, or cases similiar to these. These types of cases have a higher conviction rate due to the jury typically judging the crime without even listening to the facts. Jurors can be flawed and prejudice which can lead to wrongful convictions. These biases can also be seen in the interogation and investgation process as well.

People who are apart of invesitgations, such as police officers, detectives, key witness can be impacted and require a deeper look from a social psychological view. Confessions can be forced and coerced due to an officer or detectives belief that the person did the crime, based on the need to be correct or prejudices. Interrogation tactis clearly play a role and impact ones confession or lack there of, this is also based on social psychology because it is one’s ability to be interrogated as well as interrogate.

An interrogators goal is to get a confession and do so using techniques that allow for the interrogators to get into the suspects head. They typically use a nine-step approach which allows for them to get the changes in attitudes that they want. These steps include a variety of different languages, making up fake evidence, create a reason the crime could have been committed, dealing with denial, keeping the suspects attention, have a good repore, and symphathy. getting details from the supsect and lastly making those details into a written confession (Hartwig 2005). All of these things and everything we see in the legal system and criminal justice system are all intertwined with social psychology.

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References:

Hartwig, M., Granhag, P. A., & Vrij, A. (n.d.). (PDF) police interrogation from a social psychology perspective. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248932981_Police_Interrogation_from_a_Social_Psychology_Perspective 

 

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