Research Areas

ADOLESCENT DECISION MAKING AND LEGAL COMPETENCIES

Adolescence is a developmental stage that is distinct from adulthood and characterized by substantial neurobiological and psychosocial change. We seek to understand the implications of developmental changes in decision making across adolescence for justice involved youth. We are particularly interested in decisions made under conditions of uncertainty (i.e., risk). Most recently our work has centered on guilty plea decision making, with specific emphasis on factors that put innocent youth at risk for pleading guilty. The overarching goal of our work is to encourage developmentally appropriate juvenile and criminal justice policies that promote rehabilitation of young people and maximize societal benefits.

GUILTY PLEAS

The vast majority of criminal convictions are a result of a guilty plea. In our lab, we are interested in understanding guilty plea decision making on the part of defendants, with a particular interest in what factors might contribute to innocent defendants pleading guilty. Current projects examine differences in youth and adult plea decisions, the effects of potential trial sentence, plea discount and the likelihood of conviction on plea decisions and differences in the ways that innocent and guilty participants evaluate evidence against them.

Modelling Plea Decisions

Dr. Zottoli is the principal investigator on an interdisciplinary project that will advance the pace of research in this area by utilizing computational modelling. A long-term goal of this work is to generate policy recommendations that will maintain a high rate of guilty pleas among the factually guilty, while preserving defendant autonomy and minimizing the risk that innocent defendants will plead guilty. The project is funded by the American Psychology and Law Society's Research to Enhance the Diversification of Psychology and Law program, and is in collaboration with Drs. Rebecca Helm (Exeter University), Michael Bixter, PhD (MSU), Vanessa Edkins and Michael King (Florida Institute of Technology).

Have you ever been charged with a crime? Watch this space for a survey coming soon.

SENTENCING REFORM

Two seminal decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States (Miller v. Alabama in 2012, and Montgomery v. Louisiana in 2016) allowed states to reconsider mandatory life without parole (LWOP) sentences for offenses committed by youth when they were under 18 (also known as juvenile lifers). This has led to the release of approximately 1000 individuals across the United States who were sentenced to LWOP as youth. Our lab las been working on documenting the recidivism and reentry experiences of juvenile lifers, which can be found here.

Current Work

Currently we are funded by the National Institute of Justice to conduct an implementation evaluation to better understand the variation and efficacy of resentencing models in four jurisdictions (NJ, MD, MI, PA) for juveniles who received lengthy sentences including LWOP, LWP (life with parole) and de fact life sentences; as well as the efficacy of one of the most inclusive models that has raised the age of resentencing to 24 (District of Columbia) to include a category of individuals commonly referred to as “emerging adults” (Arnett, 2000). Project activities include a state-by-state analysis of resentencing and second look legislation/case law; implementation evaluations of the implementation of resentencing in five jurisdictions, interviews with returning citizens on their resentencing and reentry experiences; and cost analyses of the impact of early release.

You can find our juvenile-lifer project page here.