Crime victims' perceived fairness of judge's behavior

Dissertational research was aimed at investigation of crime victims’ perceived fairness of judge’s behavior, the relationship between litigation process fairness and internal (personality traits) and external (congruence of judge’s behavior with procedural justice requirements) factors. The study was conducted in two stages: the participants of the first stage were 70 crime victims, the participants of the second stage were 392 university students. During the first stage in order to assess perceived fairness of crime victims, special interview program (based on cognitive interview method) was developed (perceived fairness of judge’s behavior, decision and judge’s behavior congruence with procedural justice judgments were assessed). During the second stage of the study quasi-experiment based on scenario method was conducted. The participants were divided to three groups. Each group was shown one of three 20-minute movies depicting trial process. The scenarios of the movies differed only in judge‘s behavior compliance with procedural justice requirements (totally complied, formally complied and did not comply). Afterwards the participants’ perceived fairness of judge‘s behavior, decision and personality traits were measured (Neo-Pi-R was used). The findings of the study suggest that crime victims perceive judge’s behavior and decision more frequently as fair (than unfair). It was also found that judge‘s behavior congruence with procedural justice requirements has a different effect on decision and judge‘s behavior fairness evaluations (the effect on judge’s behavior was greater). The study revealed that external factors (judge’s behavior congruence with procedural justice) are more important than internal (personality traits) factors, which have small effect only in some cases