A Dutiful Voice: Justice in the Distribution of Jury Service

Jury service in the United States is both compulsory and yet distributed to some but not others in a nonsystematic way. Concerns about unfairness in this distribution system have led to legal changes; however, there is still little empirical information on how jurors view the jury selection process. This study considers jury selection in terms of participants' perceptions of procedural and distributive justice. I argue that justice in this setting is related to areas of conflict between the decision maker and the prospective jurors, especially over privacy protection, despite strong rhetoric that jurors minimize their own preferences and rights in this setting. Data from interviews of 194 formerly excused and selected jurors support this contention.     

Perceptions of Gender Bias in the Promotional Process of a Detention Staff

With growing numbers of female staff in correctional settings, issues relating to promotional fairness are certain to occur. Historically, female detention staff held perceptions of being discriminated against in the promotional process due to gender biases. However, there is almost no recent examination of these perceptions. The current study addresses this shortcoming in the literature by using a sample of 362 sworn detention deputies ranked Sergeant and below at a large southern-central United States jail. Contrary to the data from a generation ago, more male detention staff perceive gender biases in the promotional process than females, and report that promotional decisions are based on arbitrary and informal factors. Women are more likely to perceive promotions to be fair and based on merit. Results are discussed in relation to two theoretical perspectives: the importation-differential experiences model, and the work-role prisonization model.     

性别正义:迈向宪治的社会性别

我们对性别身份及其差异已经习以为常,而这或许是一个"可怕的错误"。性别平等的实现有赖于我们对社会性别及其女权主义理论的深刻理解,以期在性别认知的基础上对现存的性别歧视进行矫正。透过妇女的经验,性别化取向和决疑术可以为女性主义法律的理论化、性别化与权利实践策略的企图提供理论与实践的架构。由是,我们对"跨性别"及性别正义充满宪政期待。     

Doing Justice to Foucault: Legal Theory and the Later Ethics

This article provides a critical evaluation of Ben Golder’s and Peter Fitzpatrick’s recent Foucault’s Law, which it characterizes as a decisive intervention into both legal theory and Foucault scholarship. It argues in favour of Golder’s and Fitzpatrick’s effort to affirm the multiplicity of Foucault’s work, rather than treat that work as either unified by a consistent position or broken into a series of relatively stable periods. But it also argues against Golder’s and Fitzpatrick’s analysis of Foucault’s understanding of the law through a conceptual framework borrowed from Derrida, and especially Derrida’s distinction between law and justice. It shows how this approach to reading Foucault effectively transforms some of his more powerful criticisms of the law into defences of justice. In place of this interpretation, the second half of this paper initiates a reading of Foucault’s later work on ethics and the self in the ancient world. It develops the theme of an ethics, or a way of life, that takes shape at a distance from politics on the one side and law on the other.     

Caught in the Act: States Doing Some Things Right in Juvenile Justice

Bashing of juvenile justice systems in the United States is commonplace. We wondered if this is justified. As a product of our everyday practice and academic assessment, this article draws attention to salutary developments on several fronts, including reduced confinement, systematic assessment of child risks and needs, including use of structured decision‐making tools, evidence based services, and construction of comprehensive service plans. Our goal is to draw attention to best practices such as these that can lead to further advancements in juvenile justice systems.     

Judicial and Litigant Perceptions in Dutch Court Cases: Perceptions of Outcome Importance Overlap,Perceptions of Procedural Justice Diverge

Social Justice Research - The current paper aims to provide insight into judges’ perceptions of how fairly they treat litigants and how important case outcomes are to litigants, and whether...     

Violence and Gangs: Gender Differences in Perceptions and Behavior

Most research on violence has focused on males, but recent studies indicatethat females are also involved in violent crimes. Few studies, to date,have examined whether different or similar models explain male and femaleinvolvement in violent behavior. In the current research, we examine therelative contribution of social bond, self-control and social learningconcepts to the explanation of male and female violent offending. We alsoexplore the unique contribution of gang membership, school environment andprior victimization to these explanatory models. Using a multisite sampleof eighth-grade students, we find that results of a Chow test indicate theneed for separate theoretical models. Despite some similarities, differentfactors account for male and female rates of violent behavior.     

提升刑事司法公信力的路径思考——兼论人民陪审制向何处去

中央吹响了新一轮司法体制改革的号角,实现司法独立已箭在弦上。然而,刑事司法不同于民事和行政司法,实行司法独立亦不能消除导致司法腐败的根源,难以显著降低冤假错案的发生率,改变不了司法不透明的局面,很难拉近判决结论与民众正义观的距离,因而无法显著提高刑事司法的公信力。提高刑事司法公信力有赖于实现司法民主,但现行人民陪审制重象征意义而轻实际效果,陪审员只陪不审,没有发挥分权制衡的功能,因而必须改革。有关人民陪审制改革的三种方案中,陪审团制更有利于提高刑事司法公信力,应当成为人民陪审制的改革方向。     

Ambivalent Legal Mobilization: Perceptions of Justice and the Use of the Tutela in Colombia

This article explores the relationship between legal consciousness and legal mobilization in the context of constitutional rights in Colombia. Citizens report extremely low confidence in the state and the judiciary, yet hundreds of thousands of Colombians make constitutional rights claims through the acción de tutela procedure each year. Why does profound skepticism of the ability of the judiciary to provide justice and fair treatment seem to coexist with high levels of use of the legal system? How do perspectives on rights and the legal system relate to observed mobilization of the law? Drawing on 74 interviews and an original 310‐person survey, this article develops legal consciousness theory, identifying the specific beliefs that encourage or discourage individuals to turn to the courts to make claims to their rights. In the Colombian case, understandings of law and the state encourage the use of the tutela procedure, not due to the realizable promise of the state to protect rights or the majestic power of the law, but because the tutela is understood to be the only mechanism through which citizens can access their rights. In other words, citizens turn to the courts because there is no other alternative.     

Measuring Perceptions of Economic Inequality and Justice: An Empirical Assessment

Social Justice Research - How should we measure people’s perceptions of—and attitudes about—economic inequality? A recent literature seeks to quantify the level of...     

Keeping Up with the Joneses Affects Perceptions of Distributive Justice

An experimental field study investigated why people of higher social standing might jump to the conclusion that an injustice has occurred when an authority implements a program that benefits some constituents but not others. High-status individuals are uniquely vulnerable to downward mobility, especially in the event that a situation does not benefit them, but does benefit their high-status peers. In our study, students in a university course were asked to judge a bonus program by which the grades for some would increase and the grades for others would remain the same. Two framing conditions were used, each providing an example in which only one of two students would benefit from the program. In the peer-gets-ahead condition, the two students were of equal status before the program acted to differentiate them, and in the inferior-catches-up condition, the two students differed in status before the program acted to equate them. A majority of students responded favorably to the program, although this number was affected strongly by framing, with almost unanimous approval in the inferior-catches-up condition and comparatively modest approval in the peer-gets-ahead condition. Objections in the latter condition were most frequent among high-status students, who were implicitly uncomfortable with the possibility that their status could decrease relative to some of their high-status peers. Explicitly, their objections used the language of social injustice, especially claims of distributive unfairness. We argue that these perceptions of injustice are a cognitive manifestation of an aversion to any situation that could result in downward mobility.     

Student Perceptions of Juvenile Offender Accounts in Criminal Justice Education

In criminal justice programs, a major teaching objective is to expose students to the wide range of experiences and career paths available in criminal justice. Technological advances increase instructional strategies so that students may gain more realistic educational experience and correct erroneous perceptions about the criminal justice system. This paper describes one such strategy for online criminal justice students, a virtual prison tour, founded on the principles of social learning, experiential learning, and e-learning. In an upperclass course in juvenile delinquency, 43 students viewed a video of incarcerated juvenile offenders recounting their experiences of institutionalization, sentences, challenges, programming, and fears upon release. Student responses to seven quantitative questions and one qualitative question revealed that the video greatly impacted their attitudes, understanding, and perceptions of the juvenile justice system and provided pedagogical benefits. This strategy can be used to help criminal justice educators enhance student learning so that students experience a major aspect of the juvenile justice system.     

Justice by Gender: Understanding the Role of Gender in Disposition Decisions Involving Out of Home Placement for Juvenile Offenders

Although several studies have examined the differences in sentencing decisions by gender for adult offenders, a limited amount of research on the role of gender in the post-adjudication disposition determination exists for juvenile offenders. Specifically related to the role of gender and the rate of incarceration, previous research has developed a commonly accepted consensus that female juvenile offenders are often detained pre-adjudication for less serious offenses than their male counterparts. This article evaluates the results of previous studies regarding the role of gender in disposition decisions, and the process of bootstrapping juvenile offenders into incarceration. This study examines whether the role of gender and the process of bootstrapping results in similar gender bias decisions in post-adjudication dispositional decisions as has been demonstrated by previous literature for pre-adjudication detention decisions. The results of the study indicate that there is no empirical support to indicate that gender plays a role in the post-adjudication decisions resulting in out of home placement or incarceration. In fact, the main effect of the study indicates that females are actually less likely to be removed from their home and placed in residential care as a condition of their post-adjudication disposition than their male counterparts. These findings suggest that the differences in the level of the adjudicated offense accounted for more of the variance in disposition decisions than that of gender. Thus, this study found little support for the increasing argument for the sex stratification of theories of delinquency.