psychology research questions annotated bibliography

Research Question Development

Criminal psychology is one of the most exciting fields in the social sciences, partly because of the potential to make a difference in public policy and the criminal justice system. A criminal psychologist provides important information about things like why individuals make choices that lead to criminal behavior, or how a program can better help inmates readapt to their communities. Criminal psychologists can also show how eyewitness testimony might or might not be reliable, or how juries perceive certain defendants or cases based on their own cognitive biases. After brainstorming the subjects related to criminal psychology, I came up with the following three research questions:

What psychological factors are related to lower rates of recidivism and/or successful reintegration into the community after incarceration?

How can early intervention programs help prevent delinquent youths from becoming criminal offenders?

When do police interrogation techniques lead to false confessions/false witness testimony, and how can false confessions be prevented?

After considering these three different research questions, I decided to conduct my research on the last one, because there are fewer variables involved. With the other two questions, there are sociological variables that complicate the research. I want to focus more exclusively on psychology, and on the cognitive processes involved when law enforcement officers interrogate witnesses or suspects. This is a fairly open-ended but focused research question, which directly serves to solve a criminal justice problem. I can also take a stand on the issue, as I wish to help reduce the numbers of false convictions.

Reflection

I am interested in almost every area of criminal psychology. Therefore, it is hard to narrow down a general area of research, let alone a specific topic. When I brainstormed the issues, I considered almost every area in the field. Then, I started to consider my interests in applying criminal psychology research to criminal justice policies. My main concern is to reduce the number of individuals unnecessarily in prison, and I am interested in the psychological effects of labeling, as well as how to promote prosocial values that reduce recidivism. However, I am also interested in the cognitive processes that lead to wrongful convictions. I found that conducting the preliminary research helped me to see how other scholars have approached this subject, which in turn helped me to devise my research questions. It was helpful to allow myself to brainstorm first and then narrow down the subject after reading the literature that is available.

When I did initial research on wrongful convictions, I came up with an abundance of evidence on false confessions and police interrogation techniques. In fact, Horselenberg, Merckelbach & Josephs (2010) found that as many as 82% of people are willing to sign false confessions, even when individual differences are controlled for. The methods and tactics used during police interrogations have a strong bearing on confessions. Although guilty people are more likely than innocent people to confess in general, police tactics can be used to elicit false confessions (Russano, Meissner, Narchet, et al, 2005). Juveniles are especially susceptible to police intimidation tactics and are more prone to false confessions than adults (Honts, Kassin & Craig, 2013). These studies, as well as the Kassin (2015) article, provide an abundance of information for me to prepare my annotated bibliography.