Crime and prejudice: The influence of appearance on blame amongst perpetrators and victims

Stereotypes based on characteristics such as age, race, and gender influence opinions in a criminal context. Yet, to date research has largely assessed whether perpetrators, rather than victims, are judged differently. Furthermore, although facial features can be a source of unconscious bias, research has failed to assess whether perceptions based on facial features affect the criminal context. To better understand the relationship between stereotypic facial features and gender, and whether this varies across perpetrators and victims, participants were asked to answer questions about an aggravated assault scenario after viewing an image of a person described as the victim or the alleged perpetrator. Images varied in gender and in presence or absence of tattoos or gothic makeup. Participants sympathized with the victim regardless of gender, but discrepancies were stronger if the victim was female than male. Neutral and tattooed faces were judged more harshly than faces with gothic makeup, regardless of gender.

Exploring the Role of Parental Hearsay when Children Witness a Crime

In cases of potential child abuse, parents may provide hearsay testimony on behalf of a child, retelling events from the child’s perspective. However, according to the limited research that exists, parents may have a negative impact on their child’s memory of an event (Principe, DiPuppo, & Gammel, 2013). In order to gain a better understanding of parental hearsay, parents’ descriptions of information children provided in recorded parent-child discussions were compared to the actual information the children provided in the initial discussion and in a 1-week follow-up interview. Children interviewed by parents were also compared to children interviewed by a trained interviewer. To date, 11 children between the ages of 6-9 years have been assessed. While the current sample size was too small to yield many significant results, graphs and effect sizes suggest there are differences in memory accuracy and completeness between parents and children and across children’s interview condition. Whether hearsay testimony or children’s testimony is preferable may depend on how suggestive the initial parent-child discussion is.