The Legal Needs of Local Media Reform Organizations: Report of a National Survey

This report summarizes a nationwide survey of media reform groups to gauge their needs for pro bono legal assistance. Conclusions are that local media democracy groups need legal help on multiple issues, ranging from municipal broadband to cable franchising to low-power radio

The roles of empathy, shame, and guilt in violence decision-making

The roles of shame and guilt, and their relationships to empathy, have not been modelled adequately as key factors in moral decision-making in the study of violence. This research will test the different roles of empathy, shame, and guilt in violence decision-making using a Situational Action Theory perspective. Qualitative in-depth interviews were carried out with a violent offender subsample taken from the longitudinal Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+) in order to explore the role of moral emotion in specific real-life violent events. In addition, quantitative questionnaire indices enable comparison of the violent offender subsample with the remaining PADS+ study sample. Persistent offenders report significantly lower levels of empathy, shame and guilt on the quantitative indices, and weak empathy, shame, and guilt in their detailed recollections of specific acts of violence, e.g., “there’s not much guilt involved in the whole situation to be honest” (Sam, interview 39). The primary conclusion is that individuals with weak empathy, shame, and guilt are more likely to commit acts of violence. These study findings give insight into the real world, situational application of empathy, shame, and guilt, and provide strong support for the role of weak morality in violence decision-making.PhD funded by ESR

The optimal application of empathy interventions to reduce antisocial behaviour and crime: a review of the literature

In recent decades, the relationship between weak empathy and the development of antisocial and offending behaviours has been well established. In the first review of its kind, this paper outlines the current implementation of empathy intervention programmes in a variety of disciplines. This paper will identify some key agents that are instrumental in empathy development and build a case to suggest that where such traditional sources of empathy development are inadequate, interventions are crucial to bridge the gap. To date, the few offender empathy interventions that have been implemented and assessed heed mixed results by crime type, sample type, gender, and empathy type. Novel, evidence-led recommendations will be made in relation to the timing, content, format, length, and location of future interventions, and the importance of the consideration of baseline empathy and individual differences will be outlined. Deficient empathy must be of central concern to criminal justice agencies and identified and addressed from infancy and throughout the life course. By using a combination of universal programmes with general populations and specific offender-targeted programmes, a holistic approach can be achieved

Does Empathy Attenuate the Criminogenic Effect of Low Self-Control in Late Life?

The present study investigates whether empathy shapes the criminogenic effect of low self-control in late adulthood. Based on the assumption that the capacity to understand and share the thoughts and emotions of other people moderates the significance of the capability to consider the distant consequences of behaviour on oneself, we posit that poor self-control is less consequential among senior citizens of high empathy. The results of a postal survey of 3,000 randomly selected older adults from Germany indicate that both low trait self-control and weak trait empathy increase offending in advanced age. Furthermore, the findings provide evidence of an interaction according to which the relationship between the risk-taking component of the self-control trait and criminal activity is stronger for older adults characterised by low empathy. Impulsivity, on the other hand, seems to mediate the association of empathy and offending in late life

The Combined Roles of Moral Emotion and Moral Rules in Explaining Acts of Violence Using a Situational Action Theory Perspective

The roles of shame and guilt, and their relationships to empathy, have not been modeled adequately as key factors in moral decision-making in the study of violence. The role of moral emotion has been neglected in existing criminological research and this study seeks to develop current explanations of the comprehensive myriad of factors that play a role in moral crime decision-making. This research will test the different roles of empathy, shame, and guilt in violence decision-making using a situational action theory (SAT) perspective. Data taken from the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+), a longitudinal study with a large representative sample, provide quantitative questionnaire indices to enable comparison of a persistent and frequent violent offender subsample (N = 48) with the remaining PADS+ study sample (N = 607). A striking majority of violent offenders report that they do not think it is wrong to commit violence, and do not care about it, that is, they lack shame and guilt, and report that violence comes as a morally acceptable and natural action alternative. Furthermore, violent offenders do not register the predicament of their victims; there is a distinct lack of empathy. This article demonstrates a key finding which has rarely been explored to date; regression analyses reveal an interaction effect whereby individuals with weak shame and guilt, combined specifically with weak moral rules, are more likely to commit acts of violence. The study findings provide strong support for the SAT of the role of weak morality in violence decision-making. To reduce the possibility of crime being seen as an action alternative, moral development programs should be developed and administered in childhood

Literature Review

A literature review of empathy, emotion, and morality interventions has been carried out (150+ studies) to identify what has and has not been effective in achieving positive behavioural outcomes

Literature Review

A literature review of empathy, emotion, and morality interventions has been carried out (150+ studies) to identify what has and has not been effective in achieving positive behavioural outcomes

The Compass Project: Moral attitudes, crime, and positive behavioural outcomes

The Compass Project: A randomised controlled trial examining the effect of a morality-strengthening programme on positive behavioural outcomes and the reduction of crim

Literature Review

A literature review of empathy, emotion, and morality interventions has been carried out (150+ studies) to identify what has and has not been effective in achieving positive behavioural outcomes

The Compass Project: Moral attitudes, crime, and positive behavioural outcomes

The Compass Project: A randomised controlled trial examining the effect of a morality-strengthening programme on positive behavioural outcomes and the reduction of crim