Virtual reality: a use case for criminal justice practice

Abstract

In recent years, virtual reality (VR) technology has convincingly demonstrated its potential for assessment, training, rehabilitation and treatment purposes in a variety of domains, including (mental) healthcare and education. This paper explores the possibilities for VR application within criminal justice practice. Criminological literature and literature of related disciplines on VR applications were reviewed with a special focus on risk assessment, correctional rehabilitation, and reintegration. We also devoted attention to the VR-based treatment of anxiety-related disorders among victims of crime. Literature shows that VR can provide safe learning environments that would otherwise involve risk, generate ethical and ecologically valid virtual alternatives for which real-life situations would be unethical to use, and develop environments that are impossible to create in the real life. These unique characteristics make VR a promising tool to expand the current toolbox of risk assessment instruments, and correctional rehabilitation and reintegration programs in important ways. Before implementing VR in criminal justice practice, an elementary understanding of both the advantages and disadvantages of VR technology is desirable but given a longstanding and effective VR tradition in other domains, the future of VR in criminal justice practice is bright.

The development of the Adapted Firesetting Assessment Scale

“…Alternative methods of assessment have been used in other areas of offending behaviour (e.g., sexual offending; Boardman & Bartels, 2018; Koegl et al, 2018; Trottier et al, 2019) and research into the assessment of firesetting is still in its infancy. Although consideration should be given to the disadvantages of using physiological measures, which are difficult to interpret and the ethical implications of using virtual reality technology (e.g., its validity, cost, physical discomfort, psychological and emotional side effects and data security; Cornet & Van Gelder, 2020).…”

Is Virtually Everything Possible? The Relevance of Ethics and Human Rights for Introducing Extended Reality in Forensic Psychiatry

“…Ligthart, Meynen, and Douglas, 2021). In addition, apart from intended mental alterations, XR experiences may also involve psychological and emotional side effects (Cornet and Van Gelder 2020).…”

“…Today, XR is used in a wide variety of settings, including gaming, design, engineering, and the military (Cornet and Van Gelder 2020). In addition, XR has been introduced into psychology, cognitive sciences and biomedicine for both basic research as well as diagnosing or treating neurological and psychiatric disorders such as dementia, psychosis, posttraumatic stress disorder, and pedophilia (Kellmeyer 2018;Kellmeyer, Biller-Andorno, and Meynen 2019;Renaud et al 2014;Rizzo, Thomas Koenig, and Talbot 2019).…”

“…In view of these unique characteristics-in particular feature 2 and, perhaps, most importantly feature 3-XR is thought to be a promising tool in the resocialization of criminal offenders 1 as well, more specifically for purposes of risk assessment and treatment of forensic patients. Moreover, different forensic psychiatric applications of XR have already been used in a research context (Cornet and Van Gelder 2020;Klein Tuente et al 2018Ticknor 2019). For example, XR may allow for safely monitoring sexual offenders in a virtual supermarket where they encounter a child (Fromberger, Jordan, and M€ uller 2018); it may enable to observe burglars reenacting a burglary in a virtual environment (Nee et al 2019); it may potentially contribute to training impulse control for aggression regulation (Klein Tuente et al 2018, and improving empathy of offenders convicted for domestic violence (Seinfield 2018).…”

“…Altogether, deploying XR in forensic settings raises ethical and legal intricacies which are not raised in case of usual healthcare applications. In fact, whereas a variety of ethical and legal issues of XR have been discussed in the context of medicine and consumer usage (Marloth, Chandler, and Vogeley 2020;Barfield and Blitz 2018;Kellmeyer 2018;Kellmeyer, Biller-Andorno, and Meynen 2019;Lemley and Volokh 2018;Slater et al 2020;Wassom 2015), the debate on XR in forensic settings is, as yet, straggling (Cornet and Van Gelder 2020). By discussing two general arguments in favor of employing XR in criminal justice, and two arguments calling for caution in this regard, the present article aims to broaden the current ethical and legal debate on XR applications to their use in the resocialization of criminal offenders, mainly focusing on forensic patients.…”