Author ORCID Identifier
Cynthia Najdowski: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3624-9188
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2009
Abstract
Understanding jurors’ perceptions of juvenile defendants has become increasingly important as more and more juvenile cases are being tried in adult criminal court rather than family or juvenile court. Intellectual disability and child maltreatment are overrepresented among juvenile delinquents, and juveniles (particularly disabled juveniles) are at heightened risk for falsely confessing to crimes. In two mock trial experiments, we examined the effects of disability, abuse history, and confession evidence on jurors’ perceptions of a juvenile defendant across several different crime scenarios. Abused juveniles were treated more leniently than nonabused juveniles only when the juvenile’s crime was motivated by self-defense against the abuser. Jurors used disability as a mitigating factor, making more lenient judgments for a disabled than a nondisabled juvenile. Jurors also completely discounted a coerced confession for a disabled juvenile, but not for a nondisabled juvenile. In fact, compared with when it was portrayed as voluntary, jurors generally discounted a juvenile’s coerced confession. Implications for public policy and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Recommended Citation
Najdowski, Cynthia J.; Bottoms, Bette L.; and Vargas, Maria C., "Public Perceptions of Registry Laws for Juvenile Sex Offenders" (2009). Psychology Faculty Scholarship. 22.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/psychology_fac_scholar/22
Included in
Criminal Law Commons, Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons, Developmental Psychology Commons, Development Studies Commons, Family Law Commons, Juvenile Law Commons, Law and Psychology Commons, Personality and Social Contexts Commons, Public Policy Commons, Sexuality and the Law Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons, Social Psychology Commons
Terms of Use
This work is made available under the Scholars Archive Terms of Use.
Comments
Publisher Acknowledgement:
This is the Author’s Original Manuscript. The version of the record appears here: Reynolds, C. E., Najdowski, C. J., Salerno, J. M., Stevenson, M. C., Wiley, T. R. A., & Bottoms, B. L. (2011). Public perceptions of registry laws for juvenile sex offenders. In N. A. Ramsay & C. R. Morrison (Eds.), Youth violence and juvenile justice: Causes, intervention and treatment programs (pp. 331-334). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.