Prof. John M. Darley

Renowned Psychology Professor John Darley Visits BLS
Discusses the Psychology of Crime and Punishment

Established in 1999, BLS’s Center for the Study of Law, Language and Cognition has explored how developments in the cognitive sciences – including psychology, neuroscience and linguistics – have had dramatic implications for the law at both theoretical and practical levels.

In keeping with this mission, last January the Center welcomed renowned psychology professor John M. Darley to the Law School as a Scholar-in-Residence. Darley, the Warren Professor of Psychology at Princeton University and a Professor of Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs, is a pioneer of social psychology known for his work on altruism, bystander intervention, deviation and conformity, attribution, moral judgment, and psychology and law. His work was recently discussed in Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century by Lauren Slater (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004). Darley spoke to faculty, students and the academic community throughout the week of January 26 on the ways in which our system of criminal justice does or does not live up to its stated goals.

He began the week by addressing Professor Ursula Bentele’s Criminal Law class on methods of effective – and ineffective – deterrence. On Wednesday, he presented "How We Got There: Enron, Tyco, and Other Triumphs of Modern Theories of Management" at a lunchtime faculty workshop series. In that talk, Darley sought to explain the philosophy behind the corporate culture that has lead to widespread corruption in recent years. “We live in a world of performance management,” he said. “It is understood in modern times that we monitor the performance of people, and reward and punish them accordingly.” However, the imposition of these criteria can have unintended effects, according to Darley. Organizations that impose measurement systems on their employees “can create forces that morally corrupt the individuals functioning within that system,” he said.

At the end of the week, the Center hosted a panel discussion entitled “3 Perspectives on Criminal Justice” in which Darley joined two other distinguished scholars: Professor of Psychology Larry Heuer from Barnard College, Columbia University and Professor Erin O'Hara, Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University Law School, to discuss various perspectives on criminal justice from both legal and psychological vantage points. Professor Lawrence Solan, Director of the Center, introduced the program and BLS Professor Michael Cahill served as moderator.

Leading off the program, Darley expanded on remarks he had made in Professor Bentele’s class. He argued that lengthening jail sentences – the chief method of deterrence in the United States – is an ineffective way to lower the crime rate. Moreover, he continued, this type of deterrence comes at a high cost in both financial and human terms. According to Darley, effective deterrence is a function of several factors: certainty of punishment, severity of punishment, and celerity (the duration of time between arrest and the start of punishment), which he discussed in detail. Darley also discussed how jurors arrive at appropriate sentences, citing evidence that juries operate on what he called a “just deserts” model. In that model, jurors base the length of a sentence on their sense of emotional and moral outrage arising from the crime and by taking into account the motives of the accused.

Professor Heuer then discussed people’s perceptions of how fairly or unfairly they are treated in the court system. Those who express satisfaction with the system believe they have had their say, have been able to participate meaningfully in the process, and have been listened to and treated with respect. Surprisingly, Heuer said, these factors can instill more trust in the system than does a favorable outcome.

The third panelist, Professor O’Hara, spoke for victims who feel their roles in the judicial system are marginalized and that their needs are under-addressed. She described victim-offender mediation and restitution programs that are gaining popularity in the United States, and which she said are especially effective in dealing with less severe crimes. In studies she cited, 90 percent of the participants expressed satisfaction with the process and often elected to forego restitution from the criminal.

Those in attendance – a full house of faculty and students – participated enthusiastically in the Q&A session that followed the professors’ remarks.

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