Effects of Gender and Culture on Jury Perception of Provocation Defence In Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

How people attribute blame in incidents of intimate partner violence (IPV) is an important research question, with legal Defences involving the use of provocation being successful in reducing the severity of sentences in Australian courts. We conducted a mock jury study that examines how manipulating the gender and culture of perpetrators and victims effects the application of the Provocation Defence (PD). Previous research has indicated that tenants of identity, such as gender and race, might be relevant to how people are judged. However, research into the relationship between gender of actors and the PD was inconclusive. The aims of this project are; 1) Investigate how the culture and gender of perpetrators and victims of domestic’s violence affect the acceptance/ rejection of the PD, and 2) Investigate how the application of the PD interacts with attitudes toward gender and culture. The strength and direction of relationships between PD measures and gender and culture manipulations are analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis test. Measures of attitude, which might be considered covariates, are also examined for relationship direction and strength. Additionally, measures of attitude towards culture, the Multiculturalism Color-Blind Scale (MCBS) and Race-Related Attitudes and Multiculturalism Scale (RRAMS), are compared. The results were non-significant across the board with the exception of measures of construct validity on the MCBS and RRAMS. However there was a pattern to the responses on the PD measure which reflects some of the trends described by the literature on juror perception of behaviour and blame attribution.