Loretta J Stalans

• Ph.D. in Social Psychology
• Professor at Loyola University Chicago

This study disentangled the effects of intimate relationships and parenting on women probationers’ noncompliance. Data from a sample of 257 women were analyzed using logistic and negative binomial regressions. Women with non-conforming intimate partners missed treatment more frequently, had a higher likelihood of missing a probation appointment and...

With unfolding crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential that factual information is dispersed at a rapid pace. One of the major setbacks to mitigating the effects of such crises is misinformation. Advancing technologies such as transformer-based architectures that can pick up underlying patterns and correlational information that const...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

In this paper, we explore third parties who unexpectedly fell within the legal definition of a sex trafficker. The anti-trafficking lobby and media stories frequently portray traffickers as organised, psychopathic, violent, and child kidnappers. We dismantle these depictions by showing the unexpected people who qualify as traffickers. This paper in...

Identity, values, and emotional processes underlying desistance and persistence in the illicit sex trade have received little empirical attention. An analysis of qualitative interviews of 49 active pimps or drivers managing sex workers showed that persisting pimps and those leading double lives assigned different meanings to their participation in...

Several criminological and psychological theories and their empirical support for explaining cybercrime are reviewed. Social learning theory, self-control theory, and subcultural theories have garnered much empirical attention and support. Lack of moral qualms, association with deviant peers and neutralizations have consistently been associated wit...

Research on public knowledge has found that the public knows little about crime or the criminal justice system including crime-related statistics such as crime rates, recidivism rates, and average sentences. Members of the public have little familiarity with specific laws or with their legal rights. Although some research shows that most people fav...

This study examines how 71 male pimps utilize rules about illicit drug use and safe sex practices to define their market sector, lower their risk of detection, and maximize the profitability of their business. The term, pimp, was used to refer to those who received a percentage of the earnings from sex workers in exchange for scheduling and negotia...

Prior research has found that pimps use both non-coercive and coercive management styles across and within market segments of the illicit sex trade. The current study is the first to examine the socialization processes underlying variation in the self-reported coerciveness of pimps. This study begins to fill a void in the almost non-existent resear...

Little research to date has examined how those who serve as intermediaries between clients and prostitutes (i.e., pimps) are influenced by targeted police interventions. While earlier work noted that displacement from risky online venues (i.e., Backpage and Craigslist) occurs, this study relies on data gathered from interviews with a purposive samp...

This study addressed the cultural schemas about legal issues associated with on line solicited prostitution from those embedded in the subculture. Qualitative analysis of conversations in a specialized legal website forum, coupled with interview data from 43 pimps, revealed that participants held similar realistic cultural schemas of law enforcemen...

This study, using data from a large sample of prison releasees, examined the similarities and differences in men's and women's risk factors for recidivism involving rearrest for any crime and rearrest for a violent crime during an average 3.4-year follow-up period. Logistic regressions revealed several gender differences. Prior incarceration, time...

What the public thinks about crime and about the criminal justice system’s response to crime partly depends upon how stories are framed. Internal and external frames are central themes that make certain information more critical and guide inferences and emotions about expressed opinions, attitudes, or decisions. This chapter reviews research on the...

How much assistance should a trial judge provide a self-represented litigant [SRL] before the judge’s impartiality will be reasonably questioned? This question has been of continuing concern to both the bench and bar ever since the rise of the pro se litigation movement in the late 1990s, particularly in the context of “mixed” cases involving an SR...

This study compared an understudied subgroup of sex offenders, those who had arrests for nonsexual domestic violence (n = 174), with nonviolent sex offenders (n = 467) and sex offenders arrested for nonsexual violent crimes against nonfamily members (n = 205). The domestic batterer subgroup had significantly higher sexual and general recidivism wit...

How much assistance should a trial judge provide a self-represented litigant [SRL] before the judge’s impartiality will be reasonably questioned? This question has been of continuing concern to both the bench and bar ever since the rise of the pro se litigation movement in the late 1990s, particularly in the context of “mixed” cases involving an SR...

In the past two decades, gender-responsive treatment and supervision programs have proliferated. Such programs provide comprehensive treatment and services that are tailored to address women's unique needs. Although gender-responsive programs vary greatly, their core components include trauma counseling, substance abuse treatment, and referrals for...

This study addresses whether the relationship between illicit drug use/abuse measures and intimate partner violence (IPV) varies across socioeconomic status, racial status, and environmental indictors of a drug supportive culture. Data from 19,131 respondents who were living with intimate partners and had not been treated for a substance abuse prob...

This study identifies the subgroups of domestic batterers who are at a low or high risk of failing to complete domestic batterer cognitive behavioral treatment. The sample is composed of 355 domestic batterers ordered to complete treatment, with 31.8% not completing treatment. Three subgroups of batterers were identified as having at least a 60% ch...

The public’s and police officers’interpretation and handling of realistic hypothetical domestic violence cases and their stereotypic views about domestic violence are discussed. A sample of 131 experienced officers, 127 novice officers, and 157 adult laypersons were randomly assigned to read a domestic violence case. Experienced officers were more...

How do people form beliefs about sanctions and norms toward the legal system? Using data from a telephone survey with 1,200 Minnesota adult residents, we examine how income sources that provide an opportunity to avoid official detection shape the amount and sources of communication about IRS enforcement effectiveness. Individuals with economic exch...

Disputes between officials and citizens during tax enforcement differ from most civil disputes between citizens in several ways: They are initiated when the official claims the citizen has not followed the law; they are fundamentally about the correct interpretation of the law; and the official has the formal power to end the dispute within the enf...

Opinion polls report that the pubic is increasingly critical of perceived judicial leniency in sentencing. To examine the degree and pattern of judicial leniency, Illinois judges and laypersons were asked to impose sentences on the same offenders. Contrary to the myth of judicial leniency, the sentences given by laypersons tended to be equal to or...

In this study, the authors identified potential risk factors for partner violence perpetration among a subsample (n=109) of men who participated in a national study of Vietnam veterans. Partner violent (PV) men with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were compared with PV men without PTSD and nonviolent men with PTSD on family-of-origin variables...

Dual arrests in family violence cases have increased following passage of proarrest laws. This study examined the relationship between officers’perceptions of their departmental policies and arrest outcomes. Each officer was given 1 of 6 hypothetical scripts that varied as to whether the wife only was injured or the wife and husband were injured. T...

Sex offenders present challenges to treatment providers and probation officers. This article reviews recent developments in assessing risk and gauging their treatment progress. Probation departments in many jurisdictions have recently created specialized sex offender programs that provide intensive supervision and treatment. This article also revie...

This study employs classification tree analysis (CTA) to address whether 3 groups of violent offenders have similar or different risk factors for violent recidivism while on probation. A sample of 1344 violent offenders on probation was classified as generalized aggressors (N = 302), family only aggressors (N = 321), or nonfamily only aggressors (N...

This article focuses on discretionary judgements made about sex offenders on probation. The sample consisted of 567 sex offenders on standard adult probation and 395 sex offenders on specialized sex offender probation in four counties in Illinois. The authors found that probation officers in specialized sex offender probation units, which included...

Within the past decade, restorative justice has emerged as a truly global phenomenon. Although retributive justice has dominated the penal landscape, more recently, restorative principles at sentencing have attracted increased attention. Restorative sentencing emphasizes the importance of compensation and reconciliation between victims and offender...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

Although criminal justice systems vary greatly around the world, one theme has emerged in all western jurisdictions in recent years: a rise in both the rhetoric and practice of severe punishment at a time when public opinion has played a pivotal role in sentencing policy and reforms. Despite the differences among jurisdictions, startling commonalit...

This article provides a systematic test of the reasoning underlying officers' decisions to civilly commit or arrest hallucinating suspects of domestic violence. Police officers (N = 257) read hypothetical scripts that manipulated three conditions (the suspect's mental state, antagonism or cooperativeness between disputants, and presence or absence...

Using data from a sample of discharged adult probationers, the authors compared the probationers' profiles, sentencing conditions, and outcomes for offenders convicted of domestic violence and other violent crimes. Analyses revealed a number of differences between the two groups, particularly regarding prior substance abuse histories, the length an...

Some scholars argue that a greater number of women police officers may improve the plight of battered women through increased arrest rates and referrals to battered shelters. We examine how women (N = 40) and men police officers (N = 214) perceive and respond to a hypothetical realistic domestic violence situation, and three manipulated features of...

Sociolegal theories of why "haves" might come out ahead in the legal system have emphasized legal mobilization and the use of legal representation. Small group research points to the influence of cultural capital on social expectations and interpersonal processes of social influence and deference as another potential explanation for status advantag...

The Handbook of Crime and Punishment is a comprehensive professional/reference work designed for those interested in the study of crime—its causes, effects, trends, and institutions; in the forms and philosophies of punishment, and in crime control. Although primarily American in its orientation, many of this book’s articles are of a broader, more...

This study compares how taxpayers and their representatives judge the procedural fairness of tax audits. Taxpayers (N=70) and their representatives (N=70) participated in interviews after the completion of their tax audits and were asked to describe their impressions of the audit and auditor and to rate how satisfied they were with the treatment an...

Research findings on gender biases in police decision making are mixed and have not directly examined how assailants' gender affects officers' interpretation of situational cues or their decisions. Using hypothetical scripts and experimental manipulation, this study examined how disputants' gender and mental state affected 130 officers' inferences...

Domestic violence situations create tough choices between protecting an individual's safety and fostering family harmony and autonomy. Using a sample of 157 adult residents of Georgia, this study examines how the public wants the police and court to handle domestic violence situations. Respondents read a detailed story about a domestic violence sit...

This article examines public opinion about court dispositions in domestic violence cases. Adult residents in Georgia were asked to respond to short scenarios involving their spouses and intimate partners. The scenarios were varied on three factors: the intentionality of harm, the presence of injury, and a history of injury in previous domestic disp...

This article examines how husband's mental state, antagonism between the disputants, and victim injury affect officers' inferences and referral decisions to battered women shelters and outpatient mental health centers. Husband's mental state and victim injury affected officers' inferences, whereas antagonism did not. Referrals to outpatient mental...

Prior research has speculated about, but has not provided systematic empirical data on, how officers use their prior knowledge to interpret wife assault situations and how these interpretations shape their responses. Our findings challenge claims that officers' reluctance to pursue formal arrest stems primarily from their proclivity to blame victim...

Examined views about trying juveniles accused of homicide as adults and compared these views to automatic legislative statutes. Random samples of 681, 671, and 64 adults, respectively, participated in 1 of 3 interviews. Ss responded to scenarios in which a juvenile had committed a homicide under different circumstances. Ss' views were strongly infl...

Few studies have addressed how people develop beliefs about legal authorities' neutrality and fairness. Using a cross-sectional survey of taxpayers (N = 147), this study examines the sources and processes underlying the formation of these beliefs. Controlling for significant contributions of media stories about audits and past audit experiences, pa...

To paraphrase Hogarth (1971), judicial sentencing is a process involving human judgment and decision making with all its pitfalls and limitations. Examining how judges organize, interpret, and use information about offenders is crucial to the explanation of this process and its outcomes. As Lawrence (1984) has noted, however, “little empirical evid...

People often evaluate the actions of government institutions and officials in their own encounters with officials and in encounters described by members of their social network. Research suggests people form separate evaluations of the fairness of the process used in making decisions (commonly known as procedural justice) and the fairness of final...

Research has shown that direct experience of legal authorities' unfairness or rudeness lowers unfairly treated individuals' support for legal authorities in general and fosters noncompliance with laws. Many people, however, get information about legal authorities and institutions indirectly through conversations with others. To highlight the possib...

Although researchers have noted the importance of understanding how people form punishment preferences about abstract criminal cases, few studies have examined this issue. Using both experimental and survey data, two processes, reliance on an availability heuristic and reliance on a crime stereotype, contributed to punishment preferences. The findi...

Using qualitative interviews with citizens who will soon have a state tax audit, this study examines the nature and formation of procedural expectations. The findings show that the most prevalent concept was dignity which means the auditors' politeness and respect for the citizens' rights. Expectations about relationship concerns also were signific...

Drawing on learning and social psychological research, we identify the processes by which positive incentives induce compliance with regulatory laws, using tax as a specific example. We evaluate the likely effects of various positive incentives on four different dimensions of compliance decisions: instrumental consequences, normative considerations...

A conceptual framework, schema theory, is presented to understand and compare lay and professionals' beliefs about crime and evaluations of the criminal justice system. Questionnaires were administered to a sample of probation officers (N = 145) and laypersons (N = 179) to examine differences between laypersons and probation officers' beliefs about...

Much research in cognitive and social psychology has demonstrated that people often fail to incorporate statistical principles in making judgments and decisions. For example, people generally assign too little weight to base-rate information and too much weight to case-specific information. Probation officers are no exception. Two studies examined...

Examined, in 2 studies, public views of sentencing by measuring how laypersons' beliefs about the characteristics of typical criminal cases can affect their evaluations of judicial sentencing leniency. Ss were 179 community residents and 132 jurors (aged 19–80 yrs) and 209 undergraduates. Most Ss said that judges are too lenient in their sentencing...

Past studies have generally found that perceptions of the likelihood of formal and informal sanctions have lower explanatory power of noncompliance with laws than do internalized norms. Using data from two telephone surveys, we examined a situational characteristic, structural opportunity, that may prod individuals to think about the likelihood of...

Examines citizens' views about when juveniles accused of homicide should be tried and punished as adults. Responses from two randomly selected samples of adult Georgia residents suggest that these views are strongly influenced by whether adolescent defendants have been victims of abuse. Laypersons prefer juvenile court for juveniles who kill abusiv...

The effects of a relationship variable (friends, strangers), an ability variable (equal, unequal), and a performance variable (equal, unequal) were studied in 40 male and 40 female university students. Eight versions of a hypothetical vignette were prepared to manipulate the eight treatment combinations. After reading an assigned vignette, subjects...

Thirty-two right-handed subjects (15 males and 17 females) participated in a study investigating the effects of the perception of positive and negative emotional stimuli on choice reaction time. Slides of faces showing positive (happy, surprise) or negative (anger, disgust, sadness) affect were presented via a tachistoscope to either the right or l...