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The use of surveillance technologies by legal authorities has intensified in recent years. As new data collection technologies expand into law enforcement spaces previously dominated by interpersonal interactions, questions emerge about whether the public will evaluate interpersonal and technologically mediated interactions with legal authorities in the same ways. In an analysis guided by procedural justice theory, we examine whether and how legal authorities’ use of decision-making technology affects public evaluations of an authority-subordinate interaction and its outcome in the context of airport border crossings. Using an experimental vignette design (N = 278), we varied whether an encounter between a traveller and border security “agent” that produced a secondary search was described as interpersonal (conducted by a human agent) or technologically mediated (conducted by a machine agent). We also varied the traveller’s group membership relative to the nation-state, describing the traveller as either born in the country in question and a member of the nation’s most common racial group (in-group) or not born in the country and a racial minority (out-group). Both encounter type and group membership independently affected perceptions of the interaction (procedural justice judgements) and its outcome (distributive justice judgments). Technologically mediated encounters improved perceptions of procedural and distributive justice. Further, procedural justice judgments mediated the relationship between encounter type and distributive justice, demonstrating how perceptions of interactions influence perceptions of the outcomes of those interactions. Out-group members were evaluated as having worse experiences across all measures. The findings underscore the importance of extending tests of procedural justice theory beyond interpersonal interactions to technologically mediated interactions.

Rural/remote health services are vulnerable to occupational violence and aggression due to factors such as weapon accessibility, poor network coverage and distance to backup. This systematic review investigated (1) the nature of occupational violence and aggression perpetrated in rural/remote health service urgent care settings and (2) the availability and effectiveness of policies/interventions/recommendations that address occupational violence and aggression in this context. We searched Business Source Complete, CINAHL Complete, HealthSociety, APAIS Health, Health Collection, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, SocIndex and Web of Science. Included articles (peer-reviewed, no grey literature and English language) addressed occupational violence and aggression in rural health service urgent care settings. Fifteen articles matched these criteria (total [rural/remote only, where specified] N ~ 2555) and were included in the final analysis. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was applied to assess the risk of bias. A data extraction table and narrative synthesis are presented. The most common occupational violence and aggression type was verbal aggression. The primary perpetrator was patients. Risk factors reflected practitioner age, remoteness, sector, staffing, shift type and area of practice. Precipitating factors were alcohol/drugs, dissatisfaction and mental health conditions. Policy content and limitations and education/training programme effectiveness were not addressed. Community collaboration supported occupational violence and aggression prevention/management. Organisational culture should promote reporting, debriefing and post-incident care for staff well-being. Work environment and job/task design are priorities for safety, but with possible limitations for traumatised clients. Occupational violence and aggression policies/interventions in rural health settings must be systematically evaluated to inform best practices. Co-funded by Swinburne Social Innovation Research Institute Interdisciplinary Seed Funding Scheme and SMART Rural Health Network.

Risk assessment instruments are an important tool for assessing an offender’s risk of recidivism. However, concerns have been raised regarding their applicability to different cultural groups, and ...

Jurors sometimes consider inadmissible evidence in their verdicts, despite judicial instructions to disregard that evidence. Procedural justice research suggests this is because jurors are motivate...

Risk assessment instruments are frequently employed in criminal justice settings to predict recidivism and inform treatment plans for offenders. Modern approaches to risk assessment, (i.e. Structur...

Preventive detention legislation allows for ongoing detention or supervision following completion of an offender’s sentence. Consideration of public protection should drive the administration of pr...

We explored interviewing practitioners’ views about the effectiveness of a range of diverse interview strategies in the field. An online survey examined 73 interviewing practices comprising six bro...

The present study examined the role of political orientation and task engagement in juror decision-making. The study was conducted as a 2 (mode: laboratory versus online) × 2 (role: juror, observer) × 3 (evidence: admissible, inadmissible, control) between-subjects experiment, with participants (N = 157) recruited from a mid-sized Australian university. Findings supported our predictions that political conservatism is associated with convictions, and that university students endorse a wide range of political orientations. Participants who were more engaged in the study perceived more threat in the defendant, and threat, in turn, led to higher conviction rates; furthermore, the effect of participation mode on verdict decisions was completely mediated by perceptions of the threat posed by the defendant. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for jury decision-making research and its relevance to actual juror decisions.

In the present study, we investigated whether respectful treatment shaped participants’ perceptions of procedural justice during interactions with out-group authorities, and whether the effects of respectful treatment would extend to participants’ attachment to their in-group and to the authority’s social group. We hypothesised that the nature of the relationship between the out-group and a participant’s social group (diametrically opposed vs. not opposed to one another) would moderate the effect of respect on participants’ procedural justice judgements, attachment to the in-group, and attachment to the out-group. Participants (n = 186) read a short, fictitious news story describing an interaction between a fellow in-group member (the subordinate) and an authority. As predicted, respectful treatment increased perceptions of procedural justice and also led participants to feel more attached to the authority’s social group. Contrary to expectation, participants’ attachment to their in-group was not affected by treatment, but instead by authority group membership: interactions with an authority from a social group diametrically opposed to the participant’s social group led participants to become significantly more attached to their in-group, regardless of the authority’s behaviour (respectful vs. disrespectful) in the interaction. Results are discussed in terms of practical strategies for authorities to effectively manage interactions with out-group subordinates.

The bioengineering of individual microbial organisms or microbial communities has great potential in agriculture, bioremediation and industry. Understanding community level drivers can improve community level functions to enhance desired outcomes in complex environments, whereas individual microbes can be reduced to a programmable biological unit for specific output goals. While understanding the bioengineering potential of both approaches leads to a wide range of potential uses, public acceptance of such technology may be the greatest hindrance to its application. Public perceptions and expectations of “naturalness,” as well as notions of disgust and dread, may delay the development of such technologies to their full benefit. We discuss these bioengineering approaches and draw on the psychological literature to suggest strategies that scientists can use to allay public concerns over the implementation of this technology.

Preventive-detention legislation has been introduced in various forms in legal systems around the world to allow for the ongoing detention or community supervision of sex offenders following the completion of their custodial sentences. The stated purpose of these laws is utilitarian: they are intended to protect the community and allow for the ongoing rehabilitation of the offender. However, judges and legal scholars have expressed concern that retributive, rather than utilitarian, motives might drive decisions regarding the ongoing management of sex offenders. These concerns align with psychological research on procedural and distributive justice. In this article, we review the relevant psychological literature, which shows that notions of morality and deservingness are key motives underlying justice reasoning and sentencing decisions. We discuss the ways in which retributive and utilitarian motives may impact upon preventive detention decisions, and how this psychological research can inform legal schol...

As the popularity of restorative procedures increases, it is important to reflect on what we do and do not know about restorative justice, in order to enhance the effectiveness of restorative practices. In particular, we know little about the mechanisms that encourage success in restorative procedures. This article reviews research examining how, why, and for whom restorative procedures work. We consider how restorative processes differ from more traditional forms of retributive justice, and review the empirical research on factors driving people's perceptions of and responses to restorative justice. Through this overview of the existing knowledge base regarding why and for whom restorative procedures work, we draw attention to gaps in the restorative justice literature. We highlight the need for more focused research in understudied areas—in particular, we discuss the need for further development of experimental methods in restorative justice research—which will enable restorative justice scholars to develop more effective procedures that complement existing legal processes.

There is little experimental work examining the ways in which particular procedural features of restorative justice impact offenders. This research describes a new experimental paradigm designed to advance knowledge about causal relationships in restorative justice settings. Apologizing is a core component of restorative procedures, and can result in beneficial outcomes, but previous research suggests that coercion to apologize and the absence of victims in restorative procedures may negatively impact these outcomes. The experimental procedure elicited confessions and apologies for a transgression from participants (N = 101) in a deceptive paradigm. We manipulated coercion (coerced, not coerced) and victim presence (direct, surrogate, ambiguous) to test their effects on offenders' subjective experiences of offering an apology, as well as their effects on the quality of offenders' apologies. Findings indicated that the victim presence and coercion manipulations significantly impacted some of the subjective perceptions of apologizers, including perceptions of accountability and transgression finality. In addition, independent raters evaluated the degree to which the transgressor's apologies conveyed remorse, acceptance of guilt, and potential for dispute resolution. Victim presence and coercion consistently affected the ability of transgressors to convey high quality apologies. Implications for future research and restorative procedures are discussed.

Formal criminal justice systems worldwide have been increasingly incorporating restorative justice. As such, it is important to consider the state of knowledge on restorative justice, reflecting on that which is known and that which remains largely unknown. This chapter provides an overview of the academic literature associated with restorative justice to date, including: how restorative procedures differ from court-based justice responses; empirical research assessing restorative interventions; and theoretical explanations of the effects of restorative justice relative to court-based models. The latter part of the chapter is dedicated to the importance of better understanding public perceptions of appropriate justice. We draw attention to the discrepancy between legal and lay notions of justice; specifically, that legal notions of justice revolve around deliberative information processing, whereas lay notions of justice often stem from intuitive responses leading to retributive impulses. We argue that laypersons’ retributive motivations present a challenge to restorative justice, but that psychological research devoted to better understanding lay decision-making and justice heuristics offers a means to advance the long-term viability of restorative procedures. We conclude by suggesting more focused research directions that would progress the current state of knowledge, highlighting the value of experimental methods in this area of research.

(2014). Protecting human rights in Australian investigative interviews: the role of recording and interview duration limits. Australian Journal of Human Rights: Vol. 20, Special Issue: Policing and human rights, pp. 107-132.

In restorative justice, crime is recognised fundamentally as a violation of people and relationships, rather than as a violation of law (Zehr 1990). When criminal justice systems shift to framing crime in this way, there is a consequent recognition that an appropriate response to crime is to allow those affected by crime to discuss the event and arrive at a consensus about reparation (Latimer et al. 2005). With the increasing incorporation of restorative justice approaches and processes into mainstream criminal justice systems, researchers have recognised the need for thorough evaluations of the impact of restorative justice on various important outcomes, such as recidivism rates and participants’ perceptions that restorative justice procedures and their outcomes are fair and satisfactory. A wide and varied body of restorative justice research has been developing to meet this challenge over the past two decades, including program evaluations (Trimboli 2000), literature reviews (Braithwaite 1999), and meta-analyses (Latimer et al. 2005). In this special issue, we call for researchers to meet the next important challenge in restorative justice scholarship, framed eloquently by Kenneth Polk in 1994: Why does restorative justice work in the desired ways, for whom is it working or not working, and does it work differently for different people? Note that Polk presented us with these challenging questions in 1994— nearly two decades ago. Since that time, relative inattention to these questions in restorative justice research has left us with a strong understanding of the powerful effects of the restorative justice process as a whole, but without an equivalent understanding of why the process is so powerful, or the elements of the process that are more or less powerful. This relegates the transformative power of restorative justice to the realm of mystery. In order to develop restorative justice procedures and policy most effectively in the future, we seek a greater understanding of the basic mechanisms that drive the success or failure of restorative justice processes, and a more nuanced insight into the specific factors of

Advocates of restorative justice (RJ) argue that the process offers a more effective means of responding to crime than the formal criminal justice system, and many studies have evaluated RJ positively across a variety of outcome measures, particularly in comparison to court based procedures. However, the RJ literature contains few studies that directly test the factors affecting RJ participants’ behaviours and experiences, so little is known about the specific factors that influence how, and for whom, RJ works. In this paper, we argue that the expanded use of experimental laboratory methodologies will broaden and strengthen our understanding of the basic mechanisms by which RJ operates. We describe some ways in which experimental laboratory research may enhance understandings of apology in restorative settings as well as public support for RJ, and we emphasise the need and the potential to overcome barriers of artificiality in laboratory settings. This analysis of laboratory methodologies and the field of RJ research indicates that creative and well-designed experimental laboratory studies can advance knowledge in this area, allowing researchers to investigate how particular components of RJ contribute to the success or failure of RJ processes.

This study explores trust in police among a university sample of ethnic minority youth in Sydney, Australia, specifically examining the degree to which police are perceived to be biased against respondents' own particular ethnic groups. Results from this university sample replicate those found in previous community studies. By considering more specific questions regarding perceptions of police bias, this study further reveals that young minority groups consider police to be biased against their own ethnic group significantly more than do Caucasian youth. However, both minority youth and the Caucasian majority believe that police target certain ethnic groups, and generally agree on the particular groups that they perceive are targeted by police. These findings imply that perceptions of police bias are not restricted to minorities.

One procedural feature on which restorative justice conferencing models differ is the identity of the convenor, with some conferencing models being administered by police. This study investigates how convenor type affects decisions to participate in conferences. Research regarding power–distance (Hofstede, 1980, 2001) suggests that this factor may differentiate responses to conferencing among participants from different cultural backgrounds. Convenor type (police vs. civilian) was varied in a between-subjects quasi-experimental design, to determine whether participants' choice to engage in conferencing was affected by their beliefs about police, or by power–distance values. Results showed that participants overestimate the effect of convenor identity on their preferences: although self-report responses indicated a preference for civilian-convened conferences, between-groups effects indicated that participants chose police-convened conferences as frequently as civilian-convened conferences. Also, high powe...

Psychological research indicates that trust in the independent third party affects the way in which disputants rate the fairness of legal procedures. This article addresses procedural variation in restorative justice practices, in the context of psychological research on procedural and distributive fairness. In particular, we describe differences in the ways in which high and low power-distance participants determine fairness in conferencing procedures. This article outlines the way in which convenor variation in conferencing programs may affect participants' perceptions of bias in these conference procedures, and the moderating effect of power-distance on the consequences of this perceived bias. The authors argue that a sensitive analysis of the ability of restorative justice procedures to deliver effective justice requires consideration of individual difference factors in conjunction with situational factors.

As the popularity of restorative procedures increases, it is important to reflect on what we do and do not know about restorative justice, in order to enhance the effectiveness of restorative practices. In particular, we know little about the mechanisms that encourage success in restorative procedures. This article reviews research examining how, why, and for whom restorative procedures work. We consider how restorative processes differ from more traditional forms of retributive justice, and review the empirical research on factors driving people9s perceptions of and responses to restorative justice. Through this overview of the existing knowledge base regarding why and for whom restorative procedures work, we draw attention to gaps in the restorative justice literature. We highlight the need for more focused research in understudied areas—in particular, we discuss the need for further development of experimental methods in restorative justice research—which will enable restorative justice scholars to develop more effective procedures that complement existing legal processes.