Yvette Tinsley

Yvette Tinsley FRSNZ is a New Zealand law academic, and is a full professor at Victoria University of Wellington, specialising in the impacts of the justice system on its participants. In 2025 Tinsley was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

Yvette Tinsley FRSNZ
Awards	Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Birmingham
Thesis	Identification parades: upholding the integrity of the criminal justice process? (1999)
Academic work
Institutions	Victoria University of Wellington

Academic career

Tinsley completed a Bachelor of Laws and a PhD titled Identification parades: upholding the integrity of the criminal justice process? at the University of Birmingham.^[1][2] Tinsley then joined the Faculty of Law at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, rising to full professor. She is co-director of the Te Herenga Waka Centre for Justice Innovation New Zealand, and researches issues such as the experience of justice processes on participants, and their impact.^[3]

Tinsley is a member of the Principal Committee of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation, representing New Zealand.

In March 2025 Tinsley was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi for "her leading contribution to socio-legal research on jury decision-making, sexual offences, and lawyers’ well-being".^[3]

Selected works

• Yvette Tinsley; Claire Baylis; Warren Young (21 September 2021). ""I Think She's Learnt Her Lesson": Juror Use of Cultural Misconceptions in Sexual Violence Trials". Victoria University of Wellington Law Review. 52 (2): 463–486. doi:10.26686/VUWLR.V52I2.7128. ISSN 1171-042X. Wikidata Q133556674.
• Yvette Tinsley (2021). Pale Shelter, Cold Hands: Making Criminal Justice Better. Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, 52(3), 623–642. https://doi.org/10.26686/vuwlr.v52i3.7335 https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/vuwlr/article/view/7335
• Anna Carline; Clare Gunby; Vanessa Munro; Yvette Tinsley; Kirsty Duncanson; Heather Flowe (9 September 2024). "From Emotional Labour to Affectual Bodies: Moving Towards an 'Affective Ethnography' of the Criminal Court Space". Emotion review : journal of the International Society for Research on Emotion. doi:10.1177/17540739241278244. ISSN 1754-0739. Wikidata Q133556630.
• Elisabeth McDonald and Yvette Tinsley (eds) From Real Rape to Real Justice: Prosecuting Rape in New Zealand (2011 Victoria University Press, Wellington). ISBN 9780864736963 https://teherengawakapress.co.nz/from-real-rape-to-real-justice-prosecuting-rape-in-new-zealand/
• Benjamin Spivak; James Ogloff; Jonathan Clough; Yvette Tinsley; Warren Young (25 September 2019). "The Impact of Fact‐Based Instructions on Juror Application of the Law: Results from a Trans‐Tasman Field Study". Social Science Quarterly. 101 (1): 346–361. doi:10.1111/SSQU.12722. ISSN 1540-6237. Wikidata Q127219432.
• Yvette Tinsley, Science in the Criminal Courts: Tool in Service, Challenge to Legal Authority or Indispensable Ally? Oct 2013 New Zealand Universities Law Review 25(4):844-865 https://www.nzulr.com/archives/vol25no4.htm
• Kim R, Tyler N, Tinsley Y. "Wading through the worst that humanity does to each other": New Zealand Crown prosecutors' experiences of working with potentially traumatic material in the criminal justice system. Front Psychol. 2023 Jun 22;14:1164696. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1164696. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37425163/
• N. A. Moreham; Yvette Tinsley (3 July 2018). "The impact of grief journalism on its subjects: lessons from the Pike River mining disaster". The Journal of Media Law. 10 (2): 189–218. doi:10.1080/17577632.2019.1592337. ISSN 1757-7632. Wikidata Q128093943.
• Yvette Tinsley; Elisabeth McDonald (3 October 2011). "Use of Alternative Ways of Giving Evidence by Vulnerable Witnesses: Current Proposals, Issues and Challenges". Victoria University of Wellington Law Review. 42 (4): 705–742. doi:10.26686/VUWLR.V42I4.5112. ISSN 1171-042X. Wikidata Q133556672.
• Tinsley, Yvette (17 December 2023). "'A diet of the most awful things humans can do' – a criminal lawyer's life". Newsroom. Retrieved 27 March 2025.