Using Hawkins's Surround,Field, and Frames Concepts to Understand the Complexities of Special Measures Decision Making in Crown Court Trials

Adjustments to criminal trial processes, called special measures, are available to vulnerable and/or intimidated witnesses giving evidence. Findings from interviews with 13 criminal practitioners suggest that there are notable variations in the uptake of special measures between prosecution witnesses, defence witnesses, and the accused in Crown Court trials. These extend beyond any inequality in their legal provision. This article uses Keith Hawkins's conceptual framework of surround, field, and frames as a heuristic device to understand this differential uptake. The framework delineates the various factors – including the socio‐political, organizational, and attitudinal – which can influence decision‐making practices in relation to special measures. In doing so, this article demonstrates two things. First, that changing the legal provision is unlikely to effect much change in practice, absent specific complementary changes to the field. Second, that Hawkins's framework has potential as an explanatory device in decision‐making contexts outside his own health and safety setting.     

Simultaneous Lineups,Sequential Lineups,and Showups: Eyewitness Identification Decisions of Adults and Children

Two experiments were conducted comparing the identification accuracy of children aged 3–15 years (N = 307) and undergraduates (N = 384) using target-present and target-absent simultaneous and sequential lineups and showups. Correct identification rates tended not to vary across either age of subject or identification procedure. However, children show a significant tendency to guess as indicated by their lower rate of correct rejection when the target is absent. The tendency for children to make false positive choices was particularly evident with showups.     

Navigating Get-Tough and Support-Oriented Philosophies for Improving School Safety: Insights from School Administrators and School Safety Staff

American Journal of Criminal Justice - Schools in the United States are increasingly faced with the challenge of navigating two seemingly contradictory approaches to school safety. On the one hand,...     

Risk-Taking,Recklessness and HIV Transmission: Accommodating the Reality of Sexual Transmission of HIV Within a Justifiable Approach to Criminal Liability

This paper examines the issue of justifiability of risk-taking with regard to the transmission of HIV. It considers a number of factors, such as seriousness of risk, likelihood of risk occurring, social utility of conduct involved, ability to use precautions and victim awareness of the risk and willingness to accept it, which combined help to determine whether the taking of a risk is reasonable or not. It argues that by considering the issue of justifiability in this way, it is possible to accommodate the wider social, psychological and public health realities of HIV. It further argues that a criminal law which fails to take account of such considerations is not only overly broad in its application but ultimately risks punishing those who are not in fact deserving of punishment. I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft.