Psychology and Art Faculty Team Up with Students on Plea Bargain Research Tool
Image by Jordanne Love and Misha Rabinovich
06/04/2018
By Katharine Webster
If you鈥檙e arrested, chances are good that you鈥檒l never get your day in court.
That鈥檚 because more than 95 percent of all criminal charges are resolved by guilty pleas, not trials, says Asst. Prof. of PsychologyMiko Wilford. And in too many cases, innocent people are pleading guilty to avoid incarceration or draconian sentences, she says.
鈥淲hen prosecutors offer really dramatic plea discounts, like five years in jail compared to 25 years, then, innocent or guilty, you鈥檙e likely to seriously consider it,鈥� says Wilford, who specializes in legal psychology. 鈥淭hat kind of sentencing discount should not be allowed, because then plea bargains essentially punish innocent people for exercising their constitutional right to a trial.鈥�
Yet most legal psychology research into how people are convicted focuses on jury trials, not plea offers. So Wilford and Asst. Prof. of Art and DesignMisha Rabinovich have teamed up with students to develop an open-source, animated computer simulation that will make it easier for researchers to study plea bargain proceedings, which vary widely among states and jurisdictions. In the process, they hope to find ways to reduce false guilty pleas.
鈥淚n many jurisdictions, there are no clear procedural guidelines, so prosecutors can approach defendants directly with plea offers before the defendants have even been given a chance to ask for an attorney or a public defender,鈥� Wilford says.
Image by K. Webster
鈥淢ost of my work is collaborative. I鈥檓 an artist, but I鈥檓 also interested in social justice,鈥� he says. 鈥淥ur goal is to inform plea policy to keep innocent people out of jail.鈥�
Rabinovich oversaw Jordanne Love 鈥�18, an art major with a concentration in animation and interactive media, and computer science major Thomas Nelson 鈥�18 as they built the simulation, which combines animation with the social science data-gathering software Qualtrics.
In the demo version of the simulation at , research participants 鈥減lay鈥� as a female driver who is charged with hitting a parked car and then leaving the scene of the accident. Some participants then see a flashback scene in which they 鈥渞emember鈥� hitting the car, while others see a flashback that indicates they are innocent.聽
Then they鈥檙e offered a deal by the prosecutor: probation and a fine for a guilty plea, compared to jail time and higher costs if they reject the plea offer and they鈥檙e found guilty at trial. After choosing one or the other, they鈥檙e asked to explain the reasons for their choice.
Image by Alex Priest
The project is supported by a pair of internal seed funding grants totaling almost $20,000, plus additional funding from the College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Now that Wilford has validated the simulation by showing that it yields results similar to live, in-person research, she plans to apply for a National Science Foundation grant to add more options and features.聽
She and Rabinovich also hope to create an educational add-on, in collaboration with the , to teach young people about the plea process and their rights.
Nelson built it all on a robust, open-source platform so other researchers can adapt it.聽
Image by K. Webster
Khairalla says that designing and carrying out her own research from start to finish and working with Wilford, Rabinovich, Love and Nelson was an invaluable experience that helped prepare her for graduate school. She will begin pursuing a Ph.D. in forensic psychology at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in the fall.
鈥淚 learned how to make sure all my questions were clear and unbiased and how to communicate research process and design in a way that other people could understand,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd I learned how much people in other disciplines can contribute.鈥�
