The effects of forensic mental health reports on decisions about guilt in the Netherlands: An experimental approach.

In the Netherlands, in approximately 30% of the more serious criminal cases, a pretrial forensic mental health report (FMHR) is requested to inform the court whether a mental disorder was present at the time of alleged crime, whether this disorder affected behavior and decision-making at the time of the offense and how this disorder may affect future (criminal) behavior. While informative for sentencing decisions, information about mental disorders or risk is irrelevant for the question whether the defendant committed the alleged crime. Yet based on cognitive psychological theory of evidence evaluation and integration, we hypothesized that information in an FMHR would affect the evaluation of evidence as well as the ultimate decision about guilt.

An exploration of third parties' preference for compensation over punishment: six experimental demonstrations.

Research suggests that to restore equity, third parties prefer compensation of a victim over the punishment of a perpetrator. It remains unclear, however, whether this preference for compensation is stable or specific to certain situations. In six experimental studies, we find that adjustments in the characteristics of the situation or in the available behavioral options hardly modify the preference of compensation over punishment.

One rule for the goose, one for the gander? Wrongfulness and harmfulness in determining reactions to offenders and victims of crime.

People's reactions to offenders and victims of crime follow different rationales. Whereas the punishment of the offender is primarily determined by the severity of the crime (which includes its foreseeable harmful consequences), the actual harm that is experienced by the victim drives the need for his or her support and assistance. With the introduction of the Victim Impact Statement (VIS), in which victims are allowed to express the (harmful) consequences of the crime on their lives, the question is raised whether allowing such victim input during criminal proceedings would influence the offender's sentence.