Dr Mandeep K. Dhami is fascinated with connections between some aspects of psychology and criminology.Her study regarding decision making in courts has won her Social Issues Dissertation Award therefore I must write about her significant findings.
Anyone who is interested in the subject of decision making will be amused with the fact that she actually managed to prove (regarding general opinion) that the judges in courts use heuristic (basing decision on a one cue only) while making their judgement. We know that these decisions have a great impact on peoples lives therefore we expect the judges to base their verdicts on complex process such as weighing up all the cues, which might take a bit more time, analyzing cues in details
(Franklin's rule).
Unfortunately this is not the case. Dr Dhami was studying bail decisions in two different courts over 4 months. She found that there is a tendency of "passing the buck"that is relying judgement on decesions made previously by e.g. police or prosecutor. In both courts matching heuristics outperformed Franklin's rule.People use matching heuristic while making their decision usually in the situation of pressure or lack of time. They focuse on one cue only that overshadows the rest of the cues as this is the simple way.
So what does this tell us about the justice in the courts?
Any thoughts?
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