This paper puts forth a radical behaviorist approach to legal theory according to which law is a set of behavioral contingencies which control the behavior of individuals according to politically defined goals. Based on the proposition that modern legal systems, because of their inherent contingency and chronic mutability, are irremediably instrumental to politically defined social goals, and on the radical behaviorist fundamental assumption that a science of human behavior is possible, the paper develops what can be called a radical behaviorist perspective on social systems theory. According to this perspective, a social system is neither a collection of individuals nor of individual acts, but a class of interconnected behavioral patterns or cultural practices conditioned and maintained through the same generalized reinforcer, which, in the case of law, is the dichotomy between legal versus illegal. To construct this radical behaviorist perspective on social systems theory, the paper relies on three major theoretical foundations. The first one is a criticism of Skinner’s concept of verbal behavior according to which instead of a special kind of behavior, it is defined as nothing but the human species-specific operant control of the vocal musculature by social reinforcement contingencies. The second one is to propose a more functional alternative to Skinner’s concept of human social behavior as that kind of operant behavior which is conditioned and maintained by other people’s behavior. The third one is a dialogue between radical behaviorism and Luhmann’s social systems theory, whose main purpose is to provide radical behaviorism with a more sophisticated description of modern society which, despite several differences, is also radically anti-individualistic and evolutionary. The final part of the paper is a detailed discussion of how law controls human behavior.

Writers of golden age crime fiction (1920 to 1945), and in particular female writers, have been seen by many critics as socially and politically detached. Their texts have been read as morality tales, theoretically rich mise en scenès, or psychic fantasies, by necessity emerging from an historical epoch with unique cultural and social concerns, but only obliquely engaging with these concerns by toying with unstable identities, or through playful, but doomed, private transgressions. The thesis overturns assumptions about the crime novel as a negation of the present moment, detached and escapist, by demonstrating how crime narratives responded to public debates which highlighted some of the most pressing legal and philosophical concerns of their time. Grounded in meticulous historical research, the thesis draws attention to contemporary debates between antagonistic psychological schools – giving equal space to debates within psychoanalysis and adaptive neuroscience – and charts how these debates were reflected in crime writing. Chapter two explores the contestation of the M’Naghten laws on criminal responsibility in light of Ronald True’s case (1922), followed by readings of crime narratives in which perpetrators have ambiguous and controversial legal status in regard to criminal responsibility. At the intersection of psychiatric discourse and the popular literary imagination, a critical and ethical perspective developed which not only conveyed a version of psychological discourse to a wider public, but profoundly reworked the foundations of the genre as the ritual unveiling of deviancy and the restoration of the rational institutions of society. In similar vein, chapter three explores the status of the ‘Born Criminal’ in law and medicine, and looks at crime writer Gladys Mitchell’s efforts to expose both the pitfalls of categorisation, and competing discourses’ limitations in adequately accounting for crime. Chapter four, whilst maintaining close medical-legal focus, opens up the study to consider how understandings of deviant selfhood in modernist writing inflected crime writers’ representations of unconscious and epileptic killers. Finally, chapter five continues this intertextual approach by asserting that certain crime novels express an exhaustion with the genre’s classic rational and scientific heroes, and turn instead to the affective epistemologies and notions of subconscious synthesis concomitantly being celebrated in modernist writing. Altering the position of the authoritative detective in ways that profoundly alter the politics of the form, the chapter and the thesis in total propose a reading of golden age crime fiction more responsive to cultural, psychological and legal debates of the era, leading to a reassessment of the form as neither escapist nor purely affirmative of the status quo.

The present study investigated mock juror perceptions of hate crimes in the courtroom, specifically whether a victim’s religion (Atheist, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim) influenced the likelihood that a mock juror would render a hate crime verdict. I employed a mock juror methodology where participants read an assault trial summary, rendered a verdict, and answered a series of rating questions about the victim and defendant. Two theoretical explanations were proposed to explain the main effect of victim religion on participant verdict decisions; that participants would be most likely to render a guilty verdict when the victim is considered an in-group member (i.e., same religion) or when participants perceived the victim’s religion to be commonly targeted in religion-motivated hate crimes. The results showed a main effect of victim religion on participant verdict decisions, such that the Jewish victim received the highest percentage of hate crime verdicts. Participant perceptions of the victim’s trustworthiness and the defendant’s bias mediated the relationship between participant religion (Christian or Jewish) and verdict decisions. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for law enforcement, social psychology, and policy.

Mass shootings, whether on a smaller scale or a large scale, take place frequently (LaFraniere, Cohen, & Oppel, 2015). Yet the media only covers a small fraction of crime events, and those selected often gather large amounts of attention. This is problematic because by only focusing on the only most extreme and newsworthy cases, the media distorts the general public's understanding of crime in the United States, and a person's actual likelihood of victimization (Schildkraut & Elsass, 2016). The purpose of the proposed study is to investigate in a nationally represented sample how individuals’ causal attributions for a school shooting with an Asian shooter, as well as whether media influence moderate their attitudes toward the shooter. Participants will be subjected to one of two media conditions, editorial type news or straight news, regarding a shooting and then will answer casual attribution questions and perceptions of the shooter. Participants who judge in-group members as the shooter are predicted to more likely to attribute the crime to external than individuals who judge out-group members. Also, it is predicted that individuals who judge out-group members as a shooter will not be more likely to attribute the crime to internal factors than individuals who judge in-group members. Lastly, it is predicted that editorial type news will influence individuals to attribute the shooting more to both external and internal factors than straight news would. This study may add important information on how media should be portrayed, and further explore attributions that are made against shooters. Implications for future research are also discussed.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-77). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-77). Also available on the Internet.

As the divorce rate in the United States remains steady at 50%, the last few decades have shown an increase in child custody disputes. Within these litigations, interparental conflict can reach high levels and incite behaviors that wreak havoc on the children who are caught in the middle. When considering custody arrangements, judges and other evaluators use the Best Interest of the Child Standard (BICS), a jurisdictionally-specific framework that examines several factors that contribute to a child’s health and well-being. Parents who allow their resentments to get the better of them sometimes engage in behavior that encourages their child to become alienated from the other parent, known as Parental Alienation (PA) —a form of psychological abuse that can result in emotional and behavioral consequences for the child. While some states investigate components relevant to PA during a BICS evaluation, none include criteria that directly addresses this construct. Therefore, to achieve the intended outcome of BICS, which is to create a custody arrangement that will best meet a child’s needs, recognizing and addressing the presence of PA within a family system is required.

Given the ever-growing body of evidence surrounding implicit bias in and beyond the institution of the law, there is an equally growing need for the law to respond to the accurate science of prejudice in its aspiration to objective practice and just decision-making. Examined herein are the existing legal conceptualizations of implicit bias as utilized in the courtroom; implicit bias as peripheral to law and implicit bias as effectual in law, but not without active resolution. These views and the interventional methods, materials, and procedures they inspire are widely employed to appreciably “un-bias” legal actors and civic participants; however, without an accurate conceptualization of the science of prejudice in law, these interventions are likely doing more harm than good. On the basis that these interventional techniques are unscientific in their methodology, reliant upon a misleading theory of transparency of mind, deny the inherently emotional and biased origin of the court, and are disseminated largely technocratically, they fail to serve their intended purpose. In actuality, they reinforce systemic intergroup biases and are seen to produce a lesser objective justice. This project reiterates, as with so many aspects of justice, that there must be the same care taken in the address of those structural and institutional contributions to implicit bias that the enterprise of law perpetuates in and of itself as have been taken in the address of our individual cognitive predispositions toward discrimination.

The purpose of this study is to assess why the race and gender of defendants influence judges’ decisions using the focal concern theory. This study will require around 84 participants. Participants will be federal judges who will be recruited via email. In an online survey, participants will be randomly assigned to one of four conditions . Participants will all read a vignette which an individual was convicted for in trafficking of Xanax. The vignette will be manipulated by the name and accompanying a mugshot based on the race (Black/White) and gender (male/female) of the defendant. The expected result is that there will be a significant effect on sentencing time based on race and gender due to perceived offender characteristics (perceived culpability, perceived aggression). The judges’ prejudice (sexism, racism, and feelings of paternalism toward the defendant) will also have a significant effect on sentencing length. With more research about judges’ perceptions and biases, reforms can be implicated to reduce sentencing disparity and to make the legal system more fair.