This month at CJ Access it’s a Research Brief roundup featuring perceptions and how we perceive crime victims, perpetrators, suspects, and the police. So, explore whether victims’ ambiguous cues and level of physical attractiveness affect the labeling of offenses as sexual assault. Investigate the way bystanders perceive sexual assault and domestic violence and the factors that influence whether they intervene. Find out if factors that typically influence perceptions of police legitimacy in large cities work the same in a medium size city and check out an international view of how lay people perceive the truthfulness of suspects’ alibis. Also in Research Briefs, look into which restrictive firearm policies, if any, may reduce the number of mass shootings and be sure to follow up with research that discusses the differences in mass violence data sources, their limitations, and potential research directions.
