The basis of citizen's perceptions of the criminal jury

Two studies examined citizens' perceptions of the criminal jury and their evaluations of 6- or 12-person juries operating under unanimous or majority decision rules. Study 1 was a telephone survey of 130 adult citizens in which respondents evaluated alternative jury structures in the abstract. In Study 2, students were asked to evaluate jury structures for a hypothetical trial in which they were either the defendant or the victim in a crime with a mild or serious outcome. In both studies, jury size and decision rule were related to ratings of procedural cost, and the severity of the crime moderated procedural evaluations. In Study 1, juries were preferred to judges and the 12-person unanimous jury was preferred over other jury structures when the crime involved was serious. In Study 2, there were no direct effects due to variations in jury structure, but subjects appeared to trade off procedural cost and thoroughness of deliberation as a function of the seriousness of the crime. Procedural fairness emerged as the strongest independent predictor of desirability for jury procedures, and fairness was related to representativeness and accuracy. The role manipulation did not influence subjects' responses. In both studies, respondents were very supportive of the jury as an institution, despite a perception that erroneous jury verdicts do occur.     

Working with street children

In September 1990 we became involved with the Centre for the Defence of the Child (CDM) in Brazil, hoping to participate in a survey of the lives of street children that was being conducted by the group. The CDM, a branch of its parent organisation The Young Street Vendors' Association, takes on individual cases of street children, providing crisis management with social, psychological, and legal support. It was decided to start a project of regularly taking a team of staff on to the streets and into the areas where the street children were, with the aim of providing a programme of support and self-esteem building, principally for the street girls. This project proved a success with the street children and remains so following our departure from Brazil.