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.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtual reality
• criminal justice practice
• risk assessment
• correctional rehabilitation
• reintegration

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council under Grant number 772911 — CRIMETIME.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 When embarking on the research for our paper we considered creating a systematic review consistent with PRISMA guidelines. However, strict review methods, such as PRISMA, appear to be not well-suited to identifying and discussing certain (innovative) trends in the literature. We therefore decided to select relevant literature to show the wide range of possibilities of VR technology for criminal justice practice.

2 An avatar is a graphical 3D representation of the user or other character controlled by the user.

3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upxzVJpANQo&t=76s

4 http://volveracasavr.org/

5 EU 2016/679

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council: [Grant Number 772911– CRIMETIME].