This course explores the interface of psychology and criminal law. Legal psychology as a sub-discipline of psychology and an example of interdisciplinary study in law is described, and its historical and future development is discussed. Topics usually covered include mental illness and the law, risk assessment, witness memory, investigative interview techniques, detecting deception, profiling, children in court, jury research, correctional psychology, sentencing. Material discussed is primarily of relevance to the Australian legal system. The course offers a critical perspective on legal psychology as well as invites students to be critical about the legal treatment of psychological concepts in statute and case law. Students are also shown how to research the interdisciplinary literature via relevant databases, and are given confidence to research and work with empirical psychological reports.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

1. to obtain advanced knowledge in this area of interdisciplinary study;
2. reflect critically on the law’s impact on the psychology of those regulated by law;
3. plan and execute interdisciplinary research with independence in order to produce original scholarship;
4. develop technical skills to use psychological literature databases to retrieve empirical psychological research reports;
5. develop technical skills to understand the basic structure and meaning of scientific report writing used in empirical psychological research;
6. develop skills to design and write interdisciplinary research projects (case notes and essays/briefing papers/law reform submissions);
7. enhance cognitive skills and confidence to research, read and critically analyse empirical psychological reports;
8. enhance cognitive skills and confidence to research, read and critically analyse secondary legal psychological literature that comments on law and legal issues;
9. enhance cognitive skills to read cases, legislation, and legal commentary in order to identify the psychological assumptions underlying legal doctrines, legal reasoning, legal procedure, and the legal regulation of human behaviour;
10. generate new understanding of and solutions to complex problems relating to the interface between law and psychology in the context of criminal law, mental health law, and/or other sub-disciplines of law;
11. communicate interdisciplinary critique to a variety of audiences.

Research-Led Teaching

The focus of the course will be on interdisciplinary research—on the intersection between law and psychology. The textbook entitled Legal Psychology in Australia (https://legal.thomsonreuters.com.au/anu), co-authored by Professor Mark Nolan and Professor Jane Goodman-Delahunty summarises empirical psycho-legal work and informs on advances and limitations of contemporary research. The course will include Focus Readings (reports of empirical or experimental legal psychological work) published in Psychiatry, Psychology and Law; Law and Human Behavior, and Psychology, Crime and Law, from Weeks 3-12 which will form a further basis for research-led teaching in this course. Empirical Report Comments will also be based on experimental studies published in those and other journals.

Natalie has been conducting empirical legal studies that foster evidence-based decisions to promote social justice in Australia and other jurisdictions for more than eight years. She has a record of over 30 co-authored scholarly publications in high-quality peer-reviewed journals, book chapters and technical reports addressing different fields in psychology, such as social psychology, forensic psychology, research methods, psycholinguistics, and legal psychology. This also included her consultancy research work for the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Natalie’s experience in research will form the basis for this course.

Required Resources

MA Nolan and J Goodman-Delahunty, Legal Psychology in Australia (1st Edition, Pyrmont: Thomson Reuters Lawbook Co, 2015). (‘N&GD’) There should be second hand copies of this text available from past students. It is available for purchase from the Harry Hartog Bookshop, or available to purchase in hardcopy and/or ebook from https://legal.thomsonreuters.com.au/anu . A reading guide will be posted to the WATTLE site and any other references or files that constitute required reading in addition to the textbook and focus reading references.

Staff Feedback

Students will be given feedback in the following forms in this course:

• written comments
• verbal comments
• feedback to whole class, groups, individuals, focus group etc.

Student Feedback

ANU is committed to the demonstration of educational excellence and regularly seeks feedback from students. Students are encouraged to offer feedback directly to their Course Convener or through their College and Course representatives (if applicable). The feedback given in these surveys is anonymous and provides the Colleges, University Education Committee and Academic Board with opportunities to recognise excellent teaching, and opportunities for improvement. The Surveys and Evaluation website provides more information on student surveys at ANU and reports on the feedback provided on ANU courses.

Other Information

Extensions late submission and penalties - https://law.anu.edu.au/current-students/policies-procedures/extensions-late-submission-and-penalties

Deferred examination: http://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/assessments-exams/deferred-examinations

Special consideration: http://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/assessments-exams/special-assessment-consideration

Penalties for excess word length: https://law.anu.edu.au/current-students/policies-procedures/word-length-and-excess-word-penalties

Distribution of Grades Policy: Effective from Winter Session and Second Semester 2018 (and until further notice), the interim scaling guideline applies to all courses in the LLB (Hons) and JD programs. Please see: https://law.anu.edu.au/current-students/policies-procedures/grading

Further Information about the Course: is available from the course WATTLE page. Students are required to access the WATTLE site regularly throughout the course for details on weekly classes and any announcements relating to the course.

Class Schedule

Week/Session	Summary of Activities	Assessment
1	Introduction to the course and the field.
2	Legal Psychological Research Skills
3	Mental Disorder & Law (Mental State Defences)	Formative Research Assessment Task due on Monday 10 Aug 9am; Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri; Casenote cases and Empirical Report Comment reports released
4	Mental Disorder & Law (Mental Health Law)	Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri
5	Identifying Risk	Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri
6	Policing, Investigation & Interviewing	Casenotes/Empirical Report Comments due Monday 31 Aug 5pm; Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri; Essay topics released.
7	Children, Families & Law	Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri
8	Memory Processes	Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri
9	Jury Trials & Jury Decision-making	Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri
10	Sentencing	Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri
11	Corrections Management	Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri
12	Wellbeing in Law & Careers in Legal Psychology	Weekly Quiz noon Thu-Fri

Tutorial Registration

There are no tutorials for this course

Assessment Summary

Assessment task	Value	Due Date	Return of assessment	Learning Outcomes
Formative Assessment Task – Legal Psychological Research	0 %	10/08/2020	10/08/2020	4, 5
Case note or Empirical report comment	20 %	31/08/2020	04/10/2020	1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11
Weekly quiz	30 %	*	*	1, 2, 7, 8, 11
Research Essay	50 %	05/11/2020	*	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

* If the Due Date and Return of Assessment date are blank, see the Assessment Tab for specific Assessment Task details

Policies

ANU has educational policies, procedures and guidelines, which are designed to ensure that staff and students are aware of the University’s academic standards, and implement them. Students are expected to have read the Academic Misconduct Rule before the commencement of their course. Other key policies and guidelines include:

• Student Assessment (Coursework) Policy and Procedure
• Special Assessment Consideration Policy and General Information 
• Student Surveys and Evaluations
• Deferred Examinations
• Student Complaint Resolution Policy and Procedure

Assessment Requirements

The ANU is using Turnitin to enhance student citation and referencing techniques, and to assess assignment submissions as a component of the University's approach to managing Academic Integrity. For additional information regarding Turnitin please visit the ANU Online website. In rare cases where online submission using Turnitin software is not technically possible; or where not using Turnitin software has been justified by the Course Convener and approved by the Associate Dean (Education) on the basis of the teaching model being employed; students shall submit assessment online via ‘Wattle’ outside of Turnitin, or failing that in hard copy, or through a combination of submission methods as approved by the Associate Dean (Education). The submission method is detailed below.

Moderation of Assessment

Marks that are allocated during Semester are to be considered provisional until formalised by the College examiners meeting at the end of each Semester. If appropriate, some moderation of marks might be applied prior to final results being released.

Participation

Effective participation in this course requires at least around 6 hours of reading and preparation each week in addition to the 3 hours of class time.

Assessment Task 1

Formative Assessment Task – Legal Psychological Research

Details of Task: Students will be given a research brief and asked to research a relevant experimental or other psychological report found in a database of psychological literature. Students will then answer a short set of 4 or so open-ended questions about the article they have retrieved from the database.

Nature of Task: Optional.

Weighting: 0%

Release: Available on WATTLE from start of the course.

Due date: Monday 10 August, 9am (Week 3) via WATTLE quiz (not Turnitin). Due to the nature of the task, no submissions after the due date will be accepted.

Estimated return date: No individual feedback. Task will be discussed in class on Tuesday 11 August (Week 3)

Assessment Criteria: This task will not be graded but you will be expected to be able to:

• find a relevant empirical report, based on research leads provided, on PsycINFO and other databases;
• show an understanding of each of the constituent parts of an empirical psychological report;
• be able to reflect on how well you have understood using databases such as PsycINFO as part of the research process;
• identify steps for further developing your legal-psychological research skills.

Assessment Task 2

Case note or Empirical report comment

Details of Task: Students are able to select to write EITHER an interdisciplinary case note on one of three offered cases, OR, to write an empirical report comment on one of three offered empirical reports.

Case note

The case note task requires students to briefly describe the case, reasoning employed by judges (including evaluations of and conclusions about expert evidence) and its finding, but then to choose one or a number of issues relevant to the case that raise psychological questions. Students will then attempt to answer those psychological questions or controversies by researching relevant psychological literature in order to discuss the outcome of the case and/or its reasoning from the perspective of relevant psychological evidence.

The empirical report

The empirical report comment task requires students to describe the methodology of the article alongside the hypotheses, results and conclusions. The critical task is for students to examine the methodology used in the experiment and to pass judgement on whether there is adequate external validity, and, if not, how the method of the experiment could be changed to improve the external validity of the experiment.

More details about completing either of these tasks will be provided at the start of the course and past examples will be posted to the WATTLE site.

Nature of Task: Compulsory. Failure to submit the task will result in a 0 for this task.

Weighting: 20%

Word limit: 800 words

Release: 4 pm Monday 10 August (Week 3) via Turnitin.

Due date: 5 pm Monday 31 August (Week 6) via Turnitin. Late submissions (without an extensions) are permitted, however late penalties will apply.

Estimated return date: By Friday 9 October (end of Week 9) via Turnitin.

Assessment Criteria:

Case note

• Description of the legal issues and consequences involved in the dispute;
• Description of the court’s reasoning (including both majority and dissenting judgements where relevant);
• Description and evaluation of the court’s treatment of legal psychological concepts and/or research (or, of the court’s omission of such discussion); and an
• Ability to conduct some research of the psychological literature to inform an interdisciplinary (legal psychological) evaluation of the case judgement and its consequences (i.e., use of PsycINFO is evident).

Empirical Report Comment

• Overview of the context of the research as identified in the literature review or introduction;
• Description of hypotheses tested and method used, outline of the key results, and the conclusions and suggestions for future research (if any) made by the researcher(s);
• Ability to evaluate the external validity of the research and its application to the Australian legal context;
• Ability to identify directions for further research to enhance external validity or the applicability to the legal system or for the purposes of law reform.

Assessment Task 3

Weekly quiz

Details of Task: Each week in weeks 3-12, there will be a weekly multiple choice quiz. Each weekly quiz will comprise of 3 questions: one question based on the Focus Reading for the week, one question based on the textbook reading for the week, and, one question based on the content of in-class discussions for the week. Questions from each category presented to each student will be randomized from a selection of 9 questions in a question bank (ie. 1 question from a bank of 3 questions per Focus Reading; 1 question from a bank of 3 questions per Textbook reading; and 1 questions from a bank of 3 questions per Class Discussion). The order of answer options presented to students will be randomized across students. Each correct answer in each quiz will receive one mark for a total of 30 possible marks across all 10 quizzes.

Nature of Task: Compulsory. Not completing any one of the quiz questions in these quizzes will result in a mark of 0 for that question.

Weighting: 30%

Release: Each weekly quiz will be available from Thursday 12 noon.

Duration: The quiz will be open for 24 hours.

Due date: The quiz answers are due by Friday 12 noon via Wattle. Please finalise your answers 5-10 mins before the expiry of the quiz to avoid technical problems. Late submissions (without an extension) of any particular quiz are not accepted. If you are unable to complete the quiz due to extenuating and documented reasons, extension requests must be made before Friday 12 noon in the week of the missed quiz and directed to the central ANUCoL extensions decision-maker at https://law.anu.edu.au/current-students/policies-procedures/extensions-late-submission-and-penalties. Students with extensions will be offered make-up quizzes the following week between Thu 12 noon and Fri 12 noon. Exceptional circumstances beyond just being busy with routine work and study will need to exist before you apply for an extension (see guidance at the link above) to receive a make-up quiz.

Estimated return date: Feedback and grade on the multiple choice quiz will be revealed after all students have sat the quiz, via Wattle.

Assessment criteria: Multiple choice quiz answers will be marked as objectively right or wrong and will typically be assessing content of relevant law, and descriptions of psychological theory, experiment outcomes or experimental procedure as explained in focus readings, textbook readings or in class.

Assessment Task 4

Research Essay

Brief Details: Students will write an interdisciplinary legal psychological research paper and answer the question(s) or challenges set in one of 10 essay options. The essay topics may relate to one of the weekly topics in the course or combine topics from several weeks. Some of the questions will ask students to take on an explicit research role such as being a judge's associate doing research on a psychological issue that arose in a case, or, as a researcher for a law reform commission, or, government department (eg. the Attorney-General's Department) where interdisciplinary analysis is demanded to solve a problem. Other questions may prescribe the nature of the writing expected (eg. write a practice direction about accepting evidence from a particular type of witness or expert). Starter references will be given for each of the ten offered topics as a way into the relevant psychological and/or legal literature.

Nature of Task: Compulsory. Non submission will result in the award of 0 for this task.

Weighting: 50%.

Word limit: 2000 words.

Release: 4pm Monday 31 August (Week 6).

Due date: 5 pm Thursday 05 November (exam period) via Turnitin. Late submissions (without an extensions) are permitted, however late penalties will apply.

Estimated return date: After release of results via Turnitin.

Assessment Criteria:

• Ability to describe the controversy over procedural law, substantive law, or the law’s impact upon the psychology of those regulated by law;
• Ability to conduct research of the psychological literature to inform an interdisciplinary (legal-psychological) discussion of the relevant issues;
• Persuasiveness and coherence of the legal-psychological analysis; and an
• Ability to identify gaps in the existing legal-psychological research and suggest where more research is needed

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is a core part of our culture as a community of scholars. At its heart, academic integrity is about behaving ethically. This means that all members of the community commit to honest and responsible scholarly practice and to upholding these values with respect and fairness. The Australian National University commits to embedding the values of academic integrity in our teaching and learning. We ensure that all members of our community understand how to engage in academic work in ways that are consistent with, and actively support academic integrity. The ANU expects staff and students to uphold high standards of academic integrity and act ethically and honestly, to ensure the quality and value of the qualification that you will graduate with. The University has policies and procedures in place to promote academic integrity and manage academic misconduct. Visit the following Academic honesty & plagiarism website for more information about academic integrity and what the ANU considers academic misconduct. The ANU offers a number of services to assist students with their assignments, examinations, and other learning activities. The Academic Skills and Learning Centre offers a number of workshops and seminars that you may find useful for your studies.

Online Submission

You will be required to electronically sign a declaration as part of the submission of your assignment. Please keep a copy of the assignment for your records. Unless an exemption has been approved by the Associate Dean (Education) submission must be through Turnitin.

Hardcopy Submission

For some forms of assessment (hand written assignments, art works, laboratory notes, etc.) hard copy submission is appropriate when approved by the Associate Dean (Education). Hard copy submissions must utilise the Assignment Cover Sheet. Please keep a copy of tasks completed for your records.

Late Submission

Individual assessment tasks may or may not allow for late submission. Policy regarding late submission is detailed below:

• Late submission not permitted. If submission of assessment tasks without an extension after the due date is not permitted, a mark of 0 will be awarded.
• Late submission permitted. Late submission of assessment tasks without an extension are penalised at the rate of 5% of the possible marks available per working day or part thereof. Late submission of assessment tasks is not accepted after 10 working days after the due date, or on or after the date specified in the course outline for the return of the assessment item. Late submission is not accepted for take-home examinations.

Referencing Requirements

Accepted academic practice for referencing sources that you use in presentations can be found via the links on the Wattle site, under the file named “ANU and College Policies, Program Information, Student Support Services and Assessment”. Alternatively, you can seek help through the Students Learning Development website.

Returning Assignments

Comments on marked Casenotes/Empirical Report Comments, Essay and Reflection will be made available via the dropbox submitted to (eg. Turnitin for Casenotes/Empirical Report Comments or the Essay; WATTLE dropbox for the Reflection).

Extensions and Penalties

Extensions and late submission of assessment pieces are covered by the Student Assessment (Coursework) Policy and Procedure. The Course Convener may grant extensions for assessment pieces that are not examinations or take-home examinations. If you need an extension, you must request an extension in writing on or before the due date. If you have documented and appropriate medical evidence that demonstrates you were not able to request an extension on or before the due date, you may be able to request it after the due date.

Privacy Notice

The ANU has made a number of third party, online, databases available for students to use. Use of each online database is conditional on student end users first agreeing to the database licensor’s terms of service and/or privacy policy. Students should read these carefully. In some cases student end users will be required to register an account with the database licensor and submit personal information, including their: first name; last name; ANU email address; and other information.
In cases where student end users are asked to submit ‘content’ to a database, such as an assignment or short answers, the database licensor may only use the student’s ‘content’ in accordance with the terms of service – including any (copyright) licence the student grants to the database licensor. Any personal information or content a student submits may be stored by the licensor, potentially offshore, and will be used to process the database service in accordance with the licensors terms of service and/or privacy policy.
If any student chooses not to agree to the database licensor’s terms of service or privacy policy, the student will not be able to access and use the database. In these circumstances students should contact their lecturer to enquire about alternative arrangements that are available.

Distribution of grades policy

Academic Quality Assurance Committee monitors the performance of students, including attrition, further study and employment rates and grade distribution, and College reports on quality assurance processes for assessment activities, including alignment with national and international disciplinary and interdisciplinary standards, as well as qualification type learning outcomes.

Since first semester 1994, ANU uses a grading scale for all courses. This grading scale is used by all academic areas of the University.

Support for students

The University offers students support through several different services. You may contact the services listed below directly or seek advice from your Course Convener, Student Administrators, or your College and Course representatives (if applicable).

• ANU Health, safety & wellbeing for medical services, counselling, mental health and spiritual support
• ANU Diversity and inclusion for students with a disability or ongoing or chronic illness
• ANU Dean of Students for confidential, impartial advice and help to resolve problems between students and the academic or administrative areas of the University
• ANU Academic Skills and Learning Centre supports you make your own decisions about how you learn and manage your workload.
• ANU Counselling Centre promotes, supports and enhances mental health and wellbeing within the University student community.
• ANUSA supports and represents undergraduate and ANU College students
• PARSA supports and represents postgraduate and research students