Sigall And Ostrove: Juror Experiments

One of the studies was conducted by Harlow in 1959 who wanted to study the mechanisms by which new-born rhesus monkeys bond with their mothers. He tested the learning theory by comparing attachment behaviour in the monkeys given wire surrogate mother producing milk with those given a soft towelling mother producing no milk.

In the past, the jury learned from the forensic scientists’ testimony; but now, they’re learning from television and a lot of reality shows. Consequently, what they’re learning is not necessarily what is actually done (Honeycutt). However, those jurors who watch criminal investigation television shows do believe that what they’re seeing on TV is what does go on in real life and they expect to see it in court. This is because, according to Shelton, “the more frequently jurors watched a given program, the more accurate they perceived it to be.”

However, the monkey study was conducted on monkeys and it could be argued that this is not an accurate representation of human attachment. Humans are a lot more complex than animals and so therefore research on animals to study behaviour cannot be applied to human behaviour.

Walker, Bela August. "The Color of Crime: The Case against Race-Based Suspect Descriptions." Columbia Law Review, vol. 103, no. 3, Apr. 2003, p. 662. EBSCOhost,

Since the time that the scientific science dramatization "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" turned into a tremendous hit and generated its fans, reporters have been worried about what they instituted the "CSI Effect." The hypothesis behind the effect is that fans of the well-known show disguise misguided judgments about the law that they bring with them into the court as jurors. In this way, the trepidation is that the TV show is at last influencing the results of trials - and not in a great manner. Criminal justice researchers have started to study the inquiry of whether nationals who are called to serve on juries bring unreasonable desires and convictions to the court as a consequence of TV projects. The impact that these projects may have on the jurors, their desires, and their choices is known as the CSI effect.

It has been brought up that certain race and ethic affects a person’s sentencing. Many studies have addressed the question are African Americans treated more severely than similarly situated whites? (Mitchell, 2005). Observers had indeed noted that black defendants get more severe sentencing than white defendants do (Spohn, 1981). For many years’ social scientist has examined this theory and came up with three explanations, racial discrimination, Wealth discrimination, and legal factors (Sellin, 1928). These three explanations all direct back to blacks because blacks are more likely to be poor, so they are wealth discriminated. Also, legal factors point to blacks because black defendants are more likely to have a serious charge or criminal record than whites do. Some researchers examine whether race has an impact on juveniles being convicted in the adult system (Howell, 2012) as well.

On the other hand, others argue that disproportionality in arrest decisions is commensurate with the racial distributions in offending rather than residential distribution in the population (D’Alessio & Stolzenberg, 2003; Sampson & Lauritsen, 1997). Putting it differently, proponents of this group hold that differential involvement in crime commission leads to higher arrest rates. For this reason, employing frequency of crime involvement as a baseline measure would yield different findings as opposed to relying only population as a baseline measure (Golub et al., 2007).

Harlow gathered 16 rhesus monkeys, placing some with a cloth covered monkey that did not produce food, and some with a wired monkey that dispensed food. With this presence, it was found that the newborns didn’t die as they had the cloth to cuddle. It was found that the monkeys would rather cuddle the cloth covered monkey rather than the wired one which produced food, just to establish a sense of contact comfort, which was much more important for the attachment of the monkeys. Harlow also followed monkeys which had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother at birth and found the wire mother reared monkeys were dysfunctional but those with the cloth covered one didn’t develop normal social

Harry Harlow 's research on monkey 's support 's Bowlby 's theory of attachment as he investigated ‘the nature of human love and affection ' (Cherry, 2016) through monkeys. This shows Harlow 's experiments demonstrated the importance of early attachments, emotional bonds and how attachment increases a healthy development. Harlow 's experiment consisted of ‘two wired surrogate mothers and an infant monkey separated from their mother hours after birth. One of the wired monkeys had a soft terrycloth around it and the other one only had food attached with to it. ' (Cherry, 2016) This was set up to find out which wired monkey the baby monkeys would be attached to more. Harlow 's study showed that ‘the

The existence of racial disparity and structural inequality within the criminal justice system renders the concept of true justice for all unobtainable. The statistics of convictions and prison sentences by race definitely support the concept that discrimination is a problem in the justice system as well as the insignificantly number of minority judges and lawyers. There are a multitude of circumstances that influence these statistics according to the “Central Eight” criminogenic risk factors. The need for programs and methods to effectively deter those at risk individuals has never been greater and the lack of such programs is costing society in countless ways.

With jury bias we examined that the perspective taking, victim impact statements and race of the victim had no main effects with ps > 0.26 and no significant interactions either with ps > 0.64.

Precise information is derived from these observations due to the scientific fact that infant monkeys and human infants “exhibit no fundamental differences“. Harlow’s research primarily revolved around the study of infant rhesus monkeys and their level of desire to bond with surrogate mother monkeys. Two surrogate mothers were equally available to each baby monkey. Observation of tolerance was recorded as each monkey passably chose between a welded-wire surrogate mother and a surrogate mother covered with terry cloth. Results showed that an equal number of monkeys fed from each of the surrogate mothers, however, they spent more time with the cloth mother as they would climb and cling to her. These results significantly disclose the resemblance between humans and monkeys because human infants also covet soft and cuddly toys, blankets, apparel, stuffed animals, etc.

A mother can impact lives greatly. Could you imagine growing up without a mother? You can either be very lucky with a mother that cares for you or be deprived of that sense of love from a mother figure. It is inhumane to destroy any kind of maternal bond because mothers are not people to depend on, but are people to make depending not required.

Additionally, this study surrounded a trial that occurred in Texas in 2001, in order to research their views. In the case in which the study surrounded a male lover who was thrown out the previous day, and then returned and shot and killed his female lover, and wounded her new lover. All the participants in the study were given a set of instructions and were told that he was getting charged with second degree murder. In the study, they were given the option of convicting the defendant on that charge, going with a less-serious charge of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, or finding the defendant not guilty by reason of insanity. In order to destruct levels of uncertainty the researchers had the participants rank on a scale from 1 to 7, the extent in which they believe the defendant was guilty. Then they were told to give an appropriate prison sentence from no time to fifteen more years. For one-quarter of the participants,

In the courtroom, these stressors come out in full force. Although the Courts have “concluded that statistics alone do not prove that race enter[s] into any capital sentencing decision in any one particular case…” it is obvious that ethnicity becomes a factor (Ross 153). Countering the court’s argument, statistics have shown that in America, “blacks who killed whites were five and six times… more likely to be sentenced to death than whites who killed whites” (151). The reason for this is mainly due to jurors unintentionally letting race influence their decision making process. The in-group bias and ethnic boundaries described above cloud the jury’s judgment, seeking a stronger penalty for minority groups. Also, if the victim who was killed was someone with good