Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

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Copyright © 2008 by SAGE Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information: SAGE Publications, Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 E-mail: [email protected] SAGE Publications Ltd. 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP United Kingdom SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd. B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044 India SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of psychology and law/editor, Brian L. Cutler. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4129-5189-0 (cloth) 1. Law—Psychological aspects—Encyclopedias. 2. Law—United States—Psychological aspects—Encyclopedias. 3. Forensic psychology—Encyclopedias. 4. Forensic psychology—United States—Encyclopedias. I. Cutler, Brian L. K346.E53 2008 340′.19—dc22

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Rolf A. Janke Jim Brace-Thompson Diana E. Axelsen Leticia Gutierrez Kate Schroeder QuADS Prepress (P) Ltd. C&M Digitals (P) Ltd. Penny Sippel, Dennis Webb Janet Perlman Janet Foulger Amberlyn Erzinger

Contents Editorial Board vi List of Entries vii Reader’s Guide

xiii

About the Editors Contributors Introduction

xxi

xxii xxxiii

Entries Volume 1: A–K 1–444 Volume 2: L–Z 445–874 Index I-1–I-40

Editorial Board Editor Brian L. Cutler University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Associate Editor Patricia A. Zapf John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Managing Editor Sarah Greathouse John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Senior Advisory Board Members Brian H. Bornstein University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Steven D. Penrod John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Neil Brewer Flinders University

John Petrila University of South Florida

Mary Connell Private Practice

Ronald Roesch Simon Fraser University

I. Bruce Frumkin Forensic and Clinical Psychology Associates, P.A.

R. Barry Ruback Pennsylvania State University

Edith Greene University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Kirk Heilbrun Drexel University

Christopher Slobogin University of Florida

Margaret Bull Kovera John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Loretta J. Stalans Loyola University

Daniel J. Krauss Claremont McKenna College

P. J. van Koppen Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement

John Monahan University of Virginia

Aldert Vrij University of Portsmouth vi

List of Entries Ackerman-Schoendorf Parent Evaluation of Custody Test (ASPECT) Adjudicative Competence of Youth Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances in Capital Trials, Effects on Jurors Alcohol Intoxication. See Substance Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence; Substance Use Disorders Alcohol Intoxication, Impact on Eyewitness Memory Alibi Witnesses Alternative Dispute Resolution AMBER Alert System American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Amicus Curiae Briefs Antisocial Personality Disorder Appearance-Change Instruction in Lineups Automatism Bail-Setting Decisions Battered Woman Syndrome Battered Woman Syndrome, Testimony on Behavior Analysis Interview Bias Crime Capacity to Consent to Treatment Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI) Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights Capacity to Waive Rights Capital Mitigation Capital Punishment. See Death Penalty Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations Chicago Jury Project

Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory Child Custody Evaluations Child Maltreatment Children’s Testimony Children’s Testimony, Evaluation by Juries Child Sexual Abuse Civil Commitment Classification of Violence Risk (COVR) Clothing Bias in Identification Procedures Cognitive Interview Community Corrections Competence Assessment for Standing Trial for Defendants With Mental Retardation (CAST*MR) Competency, Foundational and Decisional Competency, Restoration of Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI) Competency for Execution Competency Screening Test (CST) Competency to Be Sentenced Competency to Confess Competency to Stand Trial Competency to Waive Appeals Competency to Waive Counsel (Proceed Pro Se) Complex Evidence in Litigation Computer-Assisted Lineups Conditional Release Programs Conduct Disorder Confession Evidence Confidence in Identifications Confidence in Identifications, Malleability Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) Conformity in Eyewitness Reports Consent to Clinical Research Coping Strategies of Adult Sexual Assault Victims Criminal Behavior, Theories of Criminal Responsibility, Assessment of vii

viii———Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

Criminal Responsibility, Defenses and Standards Crisis and Hostage Negotiation Critical Incidents Cross-Race Effect in Eyewitness Identification CSI Effect Cybercrime Damage Awards Danger Assessment Instrument (DA) Death Penalty Death Qualification of Juries Delusions Detection of Deception: Cognitive Load Detection of Deception: Event-Related Potentials Detection of Deception: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Detection of Deception: Nonverbal Cues Detection of Deception: Reality Monitoring Detection of Deception: Use of Evidence in Detection of Deception by Detection “Wizards” Detection of Deception in Adults Detection of Deception in Children Detection of Deception in High-Stakes Liars Developing Comprehensive Theories of Eyewitness Identification. See WITNESS Model Diminished Capacity Diplomates in Forensic Psychology Disability and Workers’ Compensation Claims, Assessment of Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact Evaluations Dissociative Identity Disorder Divorce and Child Custody Doctoral Programs in Psychology and Law Domestic Violence. See Intimate Partner Violence Domestic Violence Courts Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI) Double-Blind Lineup Administration Drug Courts “Dynamite Charge” Elder Abuse Elderly Defendants Elderly Eyewitnesses End-of-Life Issues Estimator and System Variables in Eyewitness Identification

Ethical Guidelines and Principles Ethnic Differences in Psychopathy Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial–Revised (ECST–R) Expert Psychological Testimony Expert Psychological Testimony, Admissibility Standards Expert Psychological Testimony, Forms of Expert Psychological Testimony on Eyewitness Identification Expert Testimony, Qualifications of Experts Exposure Time and Eyewitness Memory Extreme Emotional Disturbance Eyewitness Descriptions, Accuracy of Eyewitness Identification: Effect of Disguises and Appearance Changes Eyewitness Identification: Field Studies Eyewitness Identification: General Acceptance in the Scientific Community Eyewitness Memory Eyewitness Memory, Lay Beliefs About Facial Composites False Confessions False Memories Financial Capacity Financial Capacity Instrument (FCI) Fingerprint Evidence, Evaluation of Fitness-for-Duty Evaluations Fitness Interview Test–Revised (FIT–R) Forced Confabulation Forcible Medication Forensic Assessment Georgia Court Competence Test (GCCT) Grisso’s Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights Guardianship Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales Guilty but Mentally Ill Verdict Hallucinations Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R) Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV)

List of Entries———ix

Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) Hate Crime. See Bias Crime HCR–20 for Violence Risk Assessment Hearsay Testimony Homicide, Psychology of Hopkins Competency Assessment Test (HCAT) Hypnosis and Eyewitness Memory Identification Tests, Best Practices in Inadmissible Evidence, Impact on Juries Insanity Defense, Juries and Insanity Defense Reform Act (IDRA) Institutionalization and Deinstitutionalization Instructions to the Witness Interdisciplinary Fitness Interview (IFI) Interrogation of Suspects Intimate Partner Violence Involuntary Commitment. See Civil Commitment; Outpatient Commitment, Involuntary Jail Screening Assessment Tool (JSAT) Judges’ Nonverbal Behavior Juries and Eyewitnesses Juries and Joined Trials Juries and Judges’ Instructions Jury Administration Reforms Jury Competence Jury Decisions Versus Judges’ Decisions Jury Deliberation Jury Nullification Jury Questionnaires Jury Reforms Jury Selection Jury Size and Decision Rule Jury Understanding of Judges’ Instructions in Capital Cases Juvenile Boot Camps Juvenile Offenders Juvenile Offenders, Risk Factors Juvenile Psychopathy Juveniles and the Death Penalty Legal Authoritarianism Legal Negotiation Legal Socialization Leniency Bias

Lineup Filler Selection Lineup Size and Bias Litigation Stress MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research (MacCAT–CR) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT–CA) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT–T) MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study Malingering Malingering Probability Scale Mandated Community Treatment Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument–Version 2 (MAYSI–2) Master’s Programs in Psychology and Law Media Violence and Behavior Megan’s Laws. See Sex Offender Community Notification (Megan’s Laws) Mens Rea and Actus Reus Mental Health Courts Mental Health Law Mental Health Needs of Juvenile Offenders Mental Illness and the Death Penalty Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Assessment of Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M–FAST) Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory–III (MCMI–III) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2) Validity Scales Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R) M’Naghten Standard Mood Disorders Moral Disengagement and Execution Motions to Suppress Eyewitness Identification Mug Shots Multiple Personality Disorder. See Dissociative Identity Disorder Neil v. Biggers Criteria for Evaluating Eyewitness Identification Novaco Anger Scale

x———Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

Obscenity Optimality Hypothesis in Eyewitness Identification Outpatient Commitment, Involuntary Parens Patriae Doctrine Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI) Parenting Satisfaction Scale (PSS) Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Parole Decisions Patient’s Rights Pedophilia Personal Injury and Emotional Distress Personality Disorders Plea Bargaining Police as Eyewitnesses Police Decision Making Police Decision Making and Domestic Violence Police Interaction With Mentally Ill Individuals Police Occupational Socialization Police Psychologists Police Psychology Police Selection Police Stress Police Training and Evaluation Police Use of Force Polygraph and Polygraph Techniques Popout Effect in Eyewitness Identification Pornography, Effects of Exposure to Postdoctoral Residencies in Forensic Psychology Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Presence of Counsel Safeguard and Eyewitness Identification Presentence Evaluations Pretrial Publicity, Impact on Juries Prison Overcrowding Probation Decisions Procedural Justice Profiling Prosecutorial Misconduct Proxy Decision Making Psychiatric Advance Directives Psychological Autopsies Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) Psychopathy

Psychopathy, Treatment of Psychopathy Checklist–Revised. See Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R) Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version. See Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version. See Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) Psychotic Disorders Public Opinion About Crime Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration Public Opinion About the Courts Public Opinion About the Polygraph Race, Impact on Juries Racial Bias and the Death Penalty Rape Trauma Syndrome Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR) Reconstructive Memory Reid Technique for Interrogations Religion and the Death Penalty Repeated Recall Reporting Crimes and Victimization Repressed and Recovered Memories Response Latency in Eyewitness Identification Retention Interval and Eyewitness Memory Return-to-Work Evaluations Risk Assessment Approaches Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory (RSTI) Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (R–CRAS) Scientific Jury Selection Sentencing Decisions Sentencing Diversion Programs Serial Killers Sex Offender Assessment Sex Offender Civil Commitment Sex Offender Community Notification (Megan’s Laws) Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR) Sex Offender Recidivism Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG) Sex Offender Treatment Sex Offender Typologies

List of Entries———xi

Sexual Harassment Sexual Harassment, Jury Evaluation of Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20) Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) Showups Simultaneous and Sequential Lineup Presentation Source Monitoring and Eyewitness Memory Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA) STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 Instruments Stalking Stanford Prison Experiment Statement Validity Assessment (SVA) STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments Statistical Information, Impact on Juries “Stealing Thunder” Story Model for Juror Decision Making Stress and Eyewitness Memory Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) Substance Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence Substance Abuse Treatment Substance Use Disorders Suicide Assessment and Prevention in Prisons Suicide Assessment Manual for Inmates (SAMI) Suicide by Cop Supermax Prisons Tender Years Doctrine Termination of Parental Rights Terrorism Testamentary Capacity

Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) Therapeutic Communities for Treatment of Substance Abuse Therapeutic Jurisprudence Training of Eyewitnesses Transfer to Adult Court. See Waiver to Criminal Court Translated Testimony Treatment and Release of Insanity Acquittees Trial Consultant Training Trial Consulting Unconscious Transference Uniform Child Custody Evaluation System (UCCES) U.S. Supreme Court Validity Indicator Profile (VIP) Verbal Overshadowing and Eyewitness Identification Victim Impact Statements Victimization Victim-Offender Mediation With Juvenile Offenders Victim Participation in the Criminal Justice System Videotaping Confessions Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG) Violence Risk Assessment Voice Recognition Voir Dire Waiver to Criminal Court Weapon Focus WITNESS Model Witness Preparation Wrongful Conviction

Reader’s Guide This list is provided to assist readers in locating entries on related topics. Some entry titles appear in more than one category.

Criminal Competencies

Criminal Responsibility

Adjudicative Competence of Youth Capacity to Waive Rights Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations Competence Assessment for Standing Trial for Defendants With Mental Retardation (CAST*MR) Competency, Foundational and Decisional Competency, Restoration of Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI) Competency for Execution Competency Screening Test (CST) Competency to Be Sentenced Competency to Confess Competency to Stand Trial Competency to Waive Appeals Competency to Waive Counsel (Proceed Pro Se) Delusions Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial–Revised (ECST–R) Fitness Interview Test–Revised (FIT–R) Georgia Court Competence Test (GCCT) Grisso’s Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales Hallucinations Interdisciplinary Fitness Interview (IFI) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT–CA) Psychotic Disorders

Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty Automatism Battered Woman Syndrome Battered Woman Syndrome, Testimony on Criminal Responsibility, Assessment of Criminal Responsibility, Defenses and Standards Delusions Diminished Capacity Dissociative Identity Disorder Extreme Emotional Disturbance Guilty but Mentally Ill Verdict Hallucinations Insanity Defense Reform Act (IDRA) Mens Rea and Actus Reus Mental Illness and the Death Penalty Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty M’Naghten Standard Psychotic Disorders Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (R–CRAS)

Death Penalty Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances in Capital Trials, Effects on Jurors xiii

xiv———Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty Capital Mitigation Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations Competency for Execution Death Penalty Death Qualification of Juries Jury Understanding of Judges’ Instructions in Capital Cases Juveniles and the Death Penalty Mental Illness and the Death Penalty Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty Moral Disengagement and Execution Religion and the Death Penalty Victim Impact Statements

Divorce and Child Custody Ackerman-Schoendorf Parent Evaluation of Custody Test (ASPECT) Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory Child Custody Evaluations Child Maltreatment Child Sexual Abuse Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) Divorce and Child Custody Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI) Parenting Satisfaction Scale (PSS) Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Tender Years Doctrine Termination of Parental Rights Uniform Child Custody Evaluation System (UCCES)

Education and Professional Development Diplomates in Forensic Psychology Doctoral Programs in Psychology and Law Ethical Guidelines and Principles Master’s Programs in Psychology and Law Postdoctoral Residencies in Forensic Psychology Trial Consultant Training

Eyewitness Memory Alcohol Intoxication, Impact on Eyewitness Memory Appearance-Change Instruction in Lineups

Clothing Bias in Identification Procedures Cognitive Interview Computer-Assisted Lineups Confidence in Identifications Confidence in Identifications, Malleability Conformity in Eyewitness Reports Cross-Race Effect in Eyewitness Identification Double-Blind Lineup Administration Elderly Eyewitnesses Estimator and System Variables in Eyewitness Identification Expert Psychological Testimony on Eyewitness Identification Exposure Time and Eyewitness Memory Eyewitness Descriptions, Accuracy of Eyewitness Identification: Effect of Disguises and Appearance Changes Eyewitness Identification: Field Studies Eyewitness Identification: General Acceptance in the Scientific Community Eyewitness Memory Eyewitness Memory, Lay Beliefs About Facial Composites False Memories Forced Confabulation Hypnosis and Eyewitness Memory Identification Tests, Best Practices in Instructions to the Witness Juries and Eyewitnesses Lineup Filler Selection Lineup Size and Bias Motions to Suppress Eyewitness Identification Mug Shots Neil v. Biggers Criteria for Evaluating Eyewitness Identification Optimality Hypothesis in Eyewitness Identification Police as Eyewitnesses Popout Effect in Eyewitness Identification Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory Presence of Counsel Safeguard and Eyewitness Identification Reconstructive Memory Repeated Recall Repressed and Recovered Memories Response Latency in Eyewitness Identification Retention Interval and Eyewitness Memory Showups Simultaneous and Sequential Lineup Presentations

Reader’s Guide———xv

Source Monitoring and Eyewitness Memory Stress and Eyewitness Memory Training of Eyewitnesses Unconscious Transference Verbal Overshadowing and Eyewitness Identification Voice Recognition Weapon Focus WITNESS Model

Forensic Assessment in Civil and Criminal Cases Ackerman-Schoendorf Parent Evaluation of Custody Test (ASPECT) Adjudicative Competence of Youth Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Antisocial Personality Disorder Automatism Battered Woman Syndrome Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI) Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights Capacity to Waive Rights Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory Child Custody Evaluations Child Maltreatment Child Sexual Abuse Civil Commitment Classification of Violence Risk (COVR) Competence Assessment for Standing Trial for Defendants With Mental Retardation (CAST*MR) Competency, Foundational and Decisional Competency, Restoration of Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI) Competency for Execution Competency Screening Test (CST) Competency to Be Sentenced Competency to Confess Competency to Stand Trial Competency to Waive Appeals Competency to Waive Counsel (Proceed Pro Se) Conduct Disorder Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS)

Consent to Clinical Research Criminal Responsibility, Assessment of Criminal Responsibility, Defenses and Standards Danger Assessment Instrument (DA) Delusions Diminished Capacity Disability and Workers’ Compensation Claims, Assessment of Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact Evaluations Dissociative Identity Disorder Divorce and Child Custody Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI) Ethical Guidelines and Principles Ethnic Differences in Psychopathy Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial–Revised (ECST–R) Extreme Emotional Disturbance Financial Capacity Financial Capacity Instrument (FCI) Fitness-for-Duty Evaluations Fitness Interview Test–Revised (FIT–R) Forensic Assessment Georgia Court Competence Test (GCCT) Grisso’s Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales Guilty but Mentally Ill Verdict Hallucinations Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R) Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) HCR–20 for Violence Risk Assessment Hopkins Competency Assessment Test (HCAT) Insanity Defense Reform Act (IDRA) Interdisciplinary Fitness Interview (IFI) Jail Screening Assessment Tool (JSAT) Litigation Stress MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT–CA) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT–T) MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study Malingering Malingering Probability Scale

xvi———Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument–Version 2 (MAYSI–2) Mens Rea and Actus Reus Mental Illness and the Death Penalty Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Assessment of Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M–FAST) Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory–III (MCMI–III) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2) Validity Scales Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R) M’Naghten Standard Mood Disorders Novaco Anger Scale Parens Patriae Doctrine Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI) Parenting Satisfaction Scale (PSS) Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Pedophilia Personal Injury and Emotional Distress Personality Disorders Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Presentence Evaluations Psychological Autopsies Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) Psychopathy Psychopathy, Treatment of Psychotic Disorders Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR) Return-to-Work Evaluations Risk Assessment Approaches Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory (RSTI) Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (R–CRAS) Sex Offender Assessment Sex Offender Civil Commitment Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR) Sex Offender Recidivism Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG) Sexual Harassment

Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20) Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA) STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 Instruments STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) Substance Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence Substance Use Disorders Suicide Assessment and Prevention in Prisons Suicide Assessment Manual for Inmates (SAMI) Testamentary Capacity Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) Uniform Child Custody Evaluation System (UCCES) Validity Indicator Profile (VIP) Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG) Violence Risk Assessment Waiver to Criminal Court

Juvenile Offenders Adjudicative Competence of Youth Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights Juvenile Offenders Juvenile Offenders, Risk Factors Juvenile Psychopathy Juveniles and the Death Penalty Legal Socialization Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument–Version 2 (MAYSI–2) Mental Health Needs of Juvenile Offenders Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory (RSTI) Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) Victim-Offender Mediation With Juvenile Offenders Waiver to Criminal Court

Mental Health Law Capacity to Consent to Treatment Civil Commitment Consent to Clinical Research End-of-Life Issues

Reader’s Guide———xvii

Forcible Medication Guardianship Institutionalization and Deinstitutionalization Mandated Community Treatment Mental Health Courts Mental Health Law Mental Health Needs of Juvenile Offenders Outpatient Commitment, Involuntary Patient’s Rights Proxy Decision Making Psychiatric Advance Directives Substance Abuse Treatment Therapeutic Jurisprudence

Psychological and Forensic Assessment Instruments Ackerman-Schoendorf Parent Evaluation of Custody Test (ASPECT) Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI) Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory Classification of Violence Risk (COVR) Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI) Competency Screening Test (CST) Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) Danger Assessment Instrument (DA) Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI) Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial–Revised (ECST–R) Financial Capacity Instrument (FCI) Fitness Interview Test–Revised (FIT–R) Georgia Court Competence Test (GCCT) Grisso’s Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R) Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) HCR–20 for Violence Risk Assessment Hopkins Competency Assessment Test (HCAT) Interdisciplinary Fitness Interview (IFI)

Jail Screening Assessment Tool (JSAT) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research (MacCAT–CR) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT–CA) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCat–T) Malingering Probability Scale Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument–Version 2 (MAYSI–2) Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M–FAST) Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory–III (MCMI–III) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2) Validity Scales Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R) Novaco Anger Scale Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI) Parenting Satisfaction Scale (PSS) Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR) Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory (RSTI) Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (R–CRAS) Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR) Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG) Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20) Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA) STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 Instruments STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) Suicide Assessment Manual for Inmates (SAMI) Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) Uniform Child Custody Evaluation System (UCCES) Validity Indicator Profile (VIP) Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)

xviii———Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

Psychology of Criminal Behavior AMBER Alert System Battered Woman Syndrome Battered Woman Syndrome, Testimony on Bias Crimes Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory Child Maltreatment Child Sexual Abuse Classification of Violence Risk (COVR) Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) Criminal Behavior, Theories of Criminal Responsibility, Assessment of Criminal Responsibility, Defenses and Standards Cybercrime Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI) Elder Abuse Elderly Defendants Homicide, Psychology of Intimate Partner Violence MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study Media Violence and Behavior Obscenity Pedophilia Pornography, Effects of Exposure to Psychological Autopsies Public Opinion About Crime Serial Killers Sex Offender Civil Commitment Sex Offender Community Notification (Megan’s Laws) Sex Offender Treatment Sex Offender Typologies Stalking Substance Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence Suicide by Cop Terrorism Therapeutic Communities for Treatment of Substance Abuse Treatment and Release of Insanity Acquittees Victim-Offender Mediation With Juvenile Offenders

Psychology of Policing and Investigations Behavior Analysis Interview Competency to Confess

Confession Evidence Crisis and Hostage Negotiation Critical Incidents Detection of Deception: Cognitive Load Detection of Deception: Event-Related Potentials Detection of Deception: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Detection of Deception: Nonverbal Cues Detection of Deception: Reality Monitoring Detection of Deception: Use of Evidence in Detection of Deception by Detection “Wizards” Detection of Deception in Adults Detection of Deception in Children Detection of Deception in High-Stakes Liars False Confessions Fitness-for-Duty Evaluations Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales Interrogation of Suspects Police as Eyewitnesses Police Decision Making Police Decision Making and Domestic Violence Police Interaction With Mentally Ill Individuals Police Occupational Socialization Police Psychologists Police Psychology Police Selection Police Stress Police Training and Evaluation Police Use of Force Polygraph and Polygraph Techniques Profiling Public Opinion About the Polygraph Reid Technique for Interrogations Return-to-Work Evaluations Statement Validity Assessment (SVA) Suicide by Cop Videotaping Confessions

Sentencing and Incarceration Community Corrections Competency to Be Sentenced Conditional Release Programs Death Penalty Domestic Violence Courts Drug Courts Juvenile Boot Camps

Reader’s Guide———xix

Parole Decisions Presentence Evaluations Prison Overcrowding Probation Decisions Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration Sentencing Decisions Sentencing Diversion Programs Stanford Prison Experiment Substance Abuse Treatment Suicide Assessment and Prevention in Prisons Suicide Assessment Manual for Inmates (SAMI) Supermax Prisons Therapeutic Communities for Treatment of Substance Abuse Treatment and Release of Insanity Acquittees

Symptoms and Disorders Relevant to Forensic Assessment Antisocial Personality Disorder Automatism Battered Woman Syndrome Child Maltreatment Child Sexual Abuse Conduct Disorder Delusions Dissociative Identity Disorder Hallucinations Malingering Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Assessment of Mood Disorders Pedophilia Personality Disorders Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Psychopathy Psychotic Disorders Substance Use Disorders

Trial Processes Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances in Capital Trials, Effects on Jurors Alibi Witnesses Alternative Dispute Resolution Amicus Curiae Briefs Bail-Setting Decisions

Battered Woman Syndrome, Testimony on Chicago Jury Project Children’s Testimony Children’s Testimony, Evaluation by Juries Complex Evidence in Litigation Confession Evidence CSI Effect Damage Awards Death Qualification of Juries Domestic Violence Courts Drug Courts “Dynamite Charge” Elderly Defendants Expert Psychological Testimony Expert Psychological Testimony, Admissibility Standards Expert Psychological Testimony, Forms of Expert Psychological Testimony on Eyewitness Identification Expert Testimony, Qualifications of Experts Fingerprint Evidence, Evaluation of Hearsay Testimony Inadmissible Evidence, Impact on Juries Insanity Defense, Juries and Judges’ Nonverbal Behavior Juries and Eyewitnesses Juries and Joined Trials Juries and Judges’ Instructions Jury Administration Reforms Jury Competence Jury Decisions Versus Judges’ Decisions Jury Deliberation Jury Nullification Jury Questionnaires Jury Reforms Jury Selection Jury Size and Decision Rule Jury Understanding of Judges’ Instructions in Capital Cases Legal Authoritarianism Legal Negotiation Legal Socialization Leniency Bias Litigation Stress Mental Health Courts Parole Decisions Plea Bargaining

xx———Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

Pretrial Publicity, Impact on Juries Probation Decisions Procedural Justice Prosecutorial Misconduct Public Opinion About Crime Public Opinion About the Courts Public Opinion About the Polygraph Race, Impact on Juries Racial Bias and the Death Penalty Religion and the Death Penalty Scientific Jury Selection Sexual Harassment, Jury Evaluation of Statistical Information, Impact on Juries “Stealing Thunder” Story Model for Juror Decision Making Translated Testimony Trial Consulting U.S. Supreme Court Victim Impact Statements Voir Dire Witness Preparation Wrongful Conviction

Victim Reactions to Crime Battered Woman Syndrome Child Maltreatment Child Sexual Abuse Coping Strategies of Adult Sexual Assault Victims Danger Assessment Instrument (DA) Elder Abuse Intimate Partner Violence Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Rape Trauma Syndrome Reporting Crimes and Victimization Sexual Harassment Stalking Victimization Victim-Offender Mediation With Juvenile Offenders Victim Participation in the Criminal Justice System

Violence Risk Assessment Classification of Violence Risk (COVR) Danger Assessment Instrument (DA) Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI) Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R) Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) HCR–20 for Violence Risk Assessment Jail Screening Assessment Tool (JSAT) MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument–Version 2 (MAYSI–2) Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R) Novaco Anger Scale Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) Psychopathy Psychopathy, Treatment of Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR) Risk Assessment Approaches Sex Offender Assessment Sex Offender Civil Commitment Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR) Sex Offender Recidivism Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG) Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20) Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA) STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 Instruments STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) Substance Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence Substance Use Disorders Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG) Violence Risk Assessment

About the Editors General Editor Brian L. Cutler, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He conducts research on eyewitness identification and the effectiveness of safeguards designed to protect defendants from erroneous conviction resulting from mistaken identification. He is the author of Mistaken Identification: Eyewitnesses, Psychology, and the Law (with Steven Penrod, 1995) and over 60 book chapters and articles on eyewitness memory and legal safeguards. He serves as Editor-inChief of Law and Human Behavior, the official journal of the American Psychology-Law Society. He also serves as an expert witness and testifies on the psychology of eyewitness memory. He received his doctoral degree in social psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1987.

Associate Editor Patricia A. Zapf, Ph.D., is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the City University of

New York. She is Associate Editor of Law and Human Behavior and was appointed Fellow of the American Psychological Association in 2006 for outstanding contributions to the field of law and psychology. She has published over 60 articles and chapters, mainly on the assessment of criminal competencies. In addition to her research, she serves as a consultant to various criminal justice and policy organizations and maintains a private practice in forensic assessment. She received her doctoral degree in clinical forensic psychology from Simon Fraser University in Canada in 1999.

Managing Editor Sarah Greathouse, M.S., is currently working on her Ph.D. in psychology at the City University of New York. To date, her research has focused on issues relevant to jury decision making and eyewitness identification. She recently served as the editorial assistant for Law and Human Behavior, the official journal of the American Psychology-Law Society. She received her master’s degree in legal psychology from Florida International University.

xxi

Contributors Jeffrey Abracen Correctional Service of Canada

Trevor H. Barese Roger Williams University

Meera Adya Syracuse University

D. David Barnard Graduate Center, City University of New York

Ani A. Aharonian University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Patrick Bartel Youth Forensic Psychiatric Services of British Columbia

John J. B. Allen University of Arizona Scott W. Allen Miami-Dade Police Department Lia Amakawa Fordham University Paul S. Appelbaum Columbia University

Jennifer L. Beaudry Queen's University Michelle I. Bertrand Queen's University Peter Blanck Syracuse University Arthur W. Blume University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Elizabeth Arias John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Marcus T. Boccaccini Sam Houston State University

Julie E. Artis DePaul University

Douglas P. Boer University of Waikato

Else-Marie Augusti University of California, Davis

James Bopp Rockland Psychiatric Center

Stella Bain Glasgow Caledonian University

Brian H. Bornstein University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Nancy Lynn Baker Fielding Graduate University

Randy Borum University of South Florida

Albert Bandura Stanford University

Robert K. Bothwell University of Louisiana at Lafayette xxii

Contributors———xxiii

Bette L. Bottoms University of Illinois at Chicago

H. Lyssette Chavez University of Nevada, Reno

Neil Brewer Flinders University

Nicola Cheyne Griffith University

Jocelyn M. Brineman University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Makenzie Chilton University of British Columbia

Johann Brink BC Mental Health & Addiction Services, University of British Columbia

Jason M. Chin University of British Columbia

Jessica Broderick University of British Columbia Ray Bull University of Leicester Barry R. Burkhart Auburn University Tom Busey Indiana University, Bloomington Julia C. Busso John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York Brooke Butler University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee Lisa Callahan Sage Colleges Philip J. Candilis University of Massachusetts Medical School Nathalie Castano Florida International University Elizabeth Cauffman University of California, Irvine

M. Cherie Clark Queens University of Charlotte Steve E. Clark University of California, Riverside Jacqueline K. Coffman California State University, Fullerton Ellen S. Cohn University of New Hampshire Lois Oberlander Condie Harvard Medical School Mary Connell Private Practice Virginia G. Cooper University of South Carolina, South Carolina Dept. of Mental Health Ryan W. Copple John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York Mark Costanzo Claremont McKenna College Kellina M. Craig-Henderson National Science Foundation

Yoojin Chae University of California, Davis

Caroline B. Crocker John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Jared Chamberlain University of Nevada, Reno

Mark Douglas Cunningham Private Practice

Steve D. Charman Florida International University

Brian L. Cutler University of North Carolina at Charlotte

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Anne K. Cybenko University of California, Riverside

Eric York Drogin Harvard Medical School, Franklin Pierce Law Center

Tarika Daftary Graduate Center, City University of New York

Rachel Duros Nova Southeastern University

Michael R. Davis Monash University

G. Donald Dutton University of British Columbia

Kenneth Allan Deffenbacher University of Nebraska at Omaha Melissa Y. De Jesus University of Pennsylvania George J. Demakis University of North Carolina at Charlotte Susan Dennison Griffith University Sarah L. Desmarais Simon Fraser University

Jennifer L. Dvoskin Argosy University Joel A. Dvoskin University of Arizona Jennifer E. Dysart John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York John F. Edens Texas A&M University Eric B. Elbogen Duke University

Jennifer L. Devenport Western Washington University

Douglas L. Epperson Iowa State University

Dennis J. Devine Indiana University, Purdue University

Edna Erez Kent State University

Mandeep K. Dhami University of Cambridge

Caroline Everington Winthrop University

Shari Seidman Diamond Northwestern University

David L. Faigman University of California, Hastings College of the Law

Bridget M. Doane University of Alabama

Keith A. Findley University of Wisconsin

Catherine M. Dodson Southern Methodist University

Ronald Fisher Florida International University

Dennis M. Doren Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center

Heather D. Flowe University of California, San Diego

Kevin S. Douglas Simon Fraser University

Paul W. Foos University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Amy Bradfield Douglass Bates College

William E. Foote University of New Mexico

Contributors———xxv

Haley L. Ford University of Alabama

Gail S. Goodman University of California, Davis

Adelle E. Forth Carleton University

Pär Anders Granhag Gothenburg University

Nicci Bowman Fowler University of California, Irvine

Sarah Greathouse John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Patricia A. Frazier University of Minnesota Richard I. Frederick U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners

Edith Greene University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Michael P. Griffin University of Alabama

Mary Ellen Fromuth Middle Tennessee State University

Timothy Griffin University of Nevada, Reno

I. Bruce Frumkin Forensic and Clinical Psychology Associates, P.A.

Ross D. Grimes University of Alabama

Solomon M. Fulero Sinclair College

Jennifer Groscup John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Fiona Gabbert University of Abertay, Dundee Jennifer L. Gagné Nova Southeastern University Frank J. Gallo Western New England College Maryanne Garry Victoria University L. Beth Gaydon University of Nevada, Reno

John Louis Guidubaldi Kent State University Laura S. Guy Simon Fraser University Thomas L. Hafemeister University of Virginia Law School Craig Haney University of California, Santa Cruz Paula L. Hannaford-Agor National Center for State Courts

Simona Ghetti University of California, Davis

David J. Hansen University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Renée Gobeil Carleton University

Robert D. Hare Darkstone Research Group, Ltd.

Stephen Golding University of Utah

Andrew J. R. Harris Forensic Assessment Group

Naomi E. Sevin Goldstein Drexel University

Grant T. Harris Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene

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La Tonya Harris University of California, Davis

Kevin M. Jolly University of Texas at El Paso

Stephen D. Hart Simon Fraser University

Rachel Kalbeitzer Drexel University

Lisa E. Hasel Iowa State University Katina R. Hebert University of Alabama at Birmingham Krystal Hedge University of Denver Marsha Anne Hedrick Private Practice Kirk Heilbrun Drexel University Larry Heuer Barnard College, Columbia University Virginia Aldigé Hiday North Carolina State University Charles Robert Honts Boise State University Irwin A. Horowitz Oregon State University Harmon M. Hosch University of Texas at El Paso Matthew T. Huss Creighton University

Saul M. Kassin Williams College Patrick J. Kennealy University of California, Irvine Norbert L. Kerr Michigan State University Ryan P. Kilmer University of North Carolina at Charlotte Eva Kimonis University of California, Irvine Stuart M. Kirchner John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York Lauren L. Kong University of Arizona David Kosson Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science Margaret Bull Kovera John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City Universty of New York L. Thomas Kucharski John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City Universty of New York James Michael Lampinen University of Arkansas

Elizabeth L. Jeglic John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Edward E. Landis Federal Medical Center

Alayna Jehle University of Nevada, Reno

Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling University of South Alabama

Nicole M. Johnson University of Alabama

Martin Langhinrichsen-Rohling University of South Alabama

Contributors———xxvii

Daniel D. Langleben University of Pennsylvania Kimberly A. Larson Drexel University, Villanova School of Law G. Daniel Lassiter Ohio University Cindy Laub University of Nebraska Jennifer A. A. Lavoie Simon Fraser University Deah S. Lawson University of Alabama, Huntsville Sharon Leal University of Portsmouth Christie A. Ledbetter University of Alabama Zina Lee University of Alabama Jill S. Levenson Lynn University

Thomas R. Litwack John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City Universty of New York Elizabeth F. Loftus University of California, Irvine Vivian B. Lord University of North Carolina at Charlotte Jennifer Eno Louden University of California, Irvine Ruth Luckasson University of New Mexico Arthur J. Lurigio Loyola University Chicago Robert J. MacCoun University of California, Berkeley Doris Layton MacKenzie University of Maryland Otto MacLin University of Northern Iowa Roy S. Malpass University of Texas at El Paso

Lora M. Levett University of Florida

Sarah Manchak University of California, Irvine

Joel D. Lieberman University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Samantha Mann University of Portsmouth

Scott O. Lilienfeld Emory University

Jamal K. Mansour Queen's University

D. Stephen Lindsay University of Victoria

Jessica L. Marcon University of Texas at El Paso

R. C. L. Lindsay Queen's University

Diane Marsh University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg

Daniel Linz University of California, Santa Barbara

Dorothy F. Marsil Kennesaw State University

Paul D. Lipsitt Boston University

Daniel C. Marson University of Alabama at Birmingham

xxviii———Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

Mary-Lou Martin McMaster University

Gary Moran Florida International University

Hunter A. McAllister Southeastern Louisiana University

Sarah Mordell Simon Fraser University

Richard D. McAnulty University of North Carolina at Charlotte Kathy McCloskey University of Hartford Kaitlyn McLachlan Simon Fraser University Christian A. Meissner University of Texas at El Paso Amina Memon University of Aberdeen Cynthia Calkins Mercado John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City Universty of New York Anna Mestitz Research Institute on Judicial Systems Richard Metzger University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Richard L. Michalski Hollins University Peter Miene Winona State University Holly A. Miller Sam Houston State University

Jessica Morgan University of Alabama Stephen J. Morse University of Pennsylvania Pam Mueller Harvard University Bryan Myers University of North Carolina, Wilmington Lavita Nadkarni University of Denver Cynthia J. Najdowski University of Illinois at Chicago Kamela K. Nelan University of Virginia School of Law Kally J. Nelson University of California, Irvine Jeffrey S. Neuschatz University of Alabama at Huntsville Eryn Newman Victoria University of Wellington

Monica K. Miller University of Nevada, Reno

Tonia L. Nicholls British Columbia Mental Health & Addiction Services

Joel S. Milner Northern Illinois University

Raymond W. Novaco University of California, Irvine

Kathryn L. Modecki Arizona State University

Kevin M. O’Neil Florida International University

John Monahan University of Virginia

Maureen O’Sullivan University of San Francisco

Contributors———xxix

James R. P. Ogloff Monash University and Forensicare

Natalie H. Polvi Regional Psychiatric Centre (Prairies)

J. Gregory Olley University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Mina Popliger McGill University

Elizabeth A. Olson University of Wisconsin–Whitewater

Norman G. Poythress University of South Florida

Randy K. Otto University of South Florida

Joanna D. Pozzulo Carleton University

Barbara A. Oudekerk University of Virginia

Jennifer Pryor Hollins University

Ira K. Packer University of Massachusetts Medical School

Ethel Quayle University College Cork

Douglas Paton University of Tasmania

Vernon L. Quinsey Queen’s University

Pedro M. Paz-Alonso University of California, Davis

Jennifer J. Ratcliff Ohio University

Michael L. Perlin New York Law School

J. Don Read Simon Fraser University

John Petrila University of South Florida Kathy Pezdek Claremont Graduate University Amy Phenix Private Practice Janice Picheca Correctional Service of Canada Kerri L. Pickel Ball State University Lisa D. Piechowski Private Practice

Margaret C. Reardon Florida International University Allison D. Redlich Policy Research Associates Kim Reeves Simon Fraser University Alan Reifman Texas Tech University David Reitman Nova Southeastern University Michelle R. Resor Uniersity of North Carolina at Charlotte

Gianni Pirelli John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Marnie E. Rice Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene

Judith Platania Roger Williams University

Jennifer K. Robbennolt University of Illinois

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Julian Roberts Oxford University

Jonathan W. Schooler University of British Columbia

Amanda L. Robinson Cardiff University

Regina A. Schuller York University

Ronald Roesch Simon Fraser University

Carolyn Semmler Flinders University

Richard Rogers University of North Texas

Ralph C. Serin Carleton University

Barry Rosenfeld Fordham University J. Peter Rosenfeld Northwestern University David F. Ross University of Tennessee at Chattanooga David B. Rottman National Center for State Courts R. Barry Ruback Pennsylvania State University

Michael C. Seto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health John S. Shaw III Lafayette College Daniel W. Shuman Southern Methodist University Sarah L. Shurbert Winona State University Leigh Silverton University of California, Los Angeles

Melissa B. Russano Roger Williams University

Diane Sivasubramaniam John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Michael J. Saks Arizona State University

Jennifer L. Skeem University of California, Irvine

Karen L. Salekin University of Alabama

Candice A. Skrapec California State University, Fresno

Randall T. Salekin University of Alabama

Amy E. Smith San Francisco State University

C. Gabrielle Salfati John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Brian C. Smith Graceland University

Larissa A. Schmersal University of Texas at El Paso

Brooke A. Smith Univerity of Texas at El Paso

Bethany Schneider Indiana University–Bloomington

Samuel R. Sommers Tufts University

Contributors———xxxi

F. Caitlin Sothmann John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York Loretta J. Stalans Loyola University Barbara Stanley John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York; New York State Psychiatric Institute/Columbia University Nancy K. Steblay Augsburg College Dennis J. Stevens Sacred Heart University

Glenn Took University of New South Wales Joseph Toomey John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York Jennifer M. Torkildson John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York Colin G. Tredoux University of Cape Town John Turtle Ryerson University

Veronica Stinson Saint Mary's University

Lori Van Wallendael University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Tania Stirpe Correctional Service of Canada

John Vanderkolk Indiana State Police Laboratory

Leif A. Strömwall Göteborg University

Jose H. Vargas University of Nevada, Reno

Christina A. Studebaker ThemeVision LLC

Sarah Vidal University of California, Irvine

Alicia Summers University of Nevada, Reno

Jodi L. Viljoen Simon Fraser University

Kyle J. Susa University of Texas at El Paso

Gina M. Vincent University of Massachusetts

Jeffrey W. Swanson Duke University

Aldert Vrij University of Portsmouth

Marvin S. Swartz Duke University

Lenore E. Walker Nova Southeastern University

Victoria Talwar McGill University

Glenn D. Walters Federal Correctional Institution-Schuylkill

Tom N. Tombaugh Carleton University

Lezlee J. Ware Ohio University

Allison Tome Nova Southeastern University

Kelly A. Watt University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Christopher Webster Simon Fraser University, University of Toronto

Catherine M. Wilson Simon Fraser University

Rebecca A. Weiss Fordham University

Kathryn R. Wilson University of Nebraska

Gary L. Wells Iowa State University David B. Wexler University of Arizona, University of Puerto Rico Jennifer Wheeler Private Practice Karen E. Whittemore Forensic Psychiatric Services Michelle R. Widows Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc. Richard L. Wiener University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Bruce J. Winick University of Miami Roselle L. Wissler Arizona State University Dan Yarmey University of Guelph Matt C. Zaitchik Roger Williams University Patricia A. Zapf John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Tisha R. A. Wiley University of Illinois at Chicago

Heather Zelle Drexel University

Kipling D. Williams Purdue University

Philip G. Zimbardo Stanford University

Kirk R. Williams University of California, Riverside

Laura A. Zimmerman Klein Associates

Introduction Why an Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law? Psychology and law is a relatively young field of scholarship. Conceptualized broadly, the field encompasses diverse approaches to psychology. Each of the major psychological subdivisions has contributed to research on legal issues: cognitive (e.g., eyewitness testimony), developmental (e.g., children’s testimony), social (e.g., jury behavior), clinical (e.g., assessment of competence), biological (e.g., the polygraph), and industrialorganizational psychology (e.g., sexual harassment in the workplace). Scholars from university settings, research institutions, and various government agencies in several continents have contributed substantially to the growth of empirical knowledge of psychology-law issues. Though young, the field shows clear signs of maturation. These signs include scientific journals devoted exclusively to psychology-law research; the publication of psychology-law research in highly prestigious psychology journals; professional associations devoted to psychology and law in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia; annual professional conferences; and hundreds of books on psychology and law topics. Psychology and law is also a practice. Clinical psychologists who practice in forensic arenas provide assessment and treatment services in a wide variety of criminal and civil matters and in law enforcement. Social psychologists employ their knowledge of psychology and law as trial consultants, assisting attorneys with jury selection and trial preparation. Clinical and experimental psychologists serve as expert witnesses in criminal and civil trials. These are but a few examples of practice in psychology and law. Practitioners draw

on the tools and knowledge supplied by the traditional domains of psychological inquiry and the specialized domains of psychology and law. Psychology and law play a significant role in postgraduate education and professional development. Psychology-law courses are increasingly common in undergraduate psychology programs, and many such offerings are filled to capacity with undergraduate students weaned on justice- and crime-themed media and literature. Attracted by the compelling application of psychology to real-world criminal investigations and trials, undergraduate students frequently volunteer as research assistants in psychology and law laboratories. Master’s and doctoral programs focusing on various aspects of psychology and law have been developed and provide the research and service industries with additional intellectual capital. Postdoctoral training and professional certification options in forensic psychology support the development of a profession that is uniquely qualified to address mental health issues in a wide variety of legal contexts. The development of psychology and law as a field of scholarship, practice, and education has numerous societal benefits and is consistent with the trend toward interdisciplinary inquiry. Although welcome in these respects, the marriage between these two broad disciplines poses several boundary challenges. Psychology and law is interdisciplinary in that it encompasses the fields of psychology and law. It is also inter-subdisciplinary in that it encompasses all the traditional subdisciplines of psychology. Given the lack of “ownership” of this field by any one discipline or subdiscipline, the lack of comprehensive references sources (e.g., textbooks, handbooks, encyclopedias) is particularly acute. A comprehensive encyclopedia of psychology and law represents an attempt to help xxxiii

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fill this substantial gap in the holdings of academic, professional, and personal libraries. It is our hope that this resource will be of immense help for scholars, practitioners, and students of psychology and law.

Organization of the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law addresses the interface of the two named disciplines and draws from the related discipline of criminal justice. As is typical of encyclopedias, the entries in the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law are listed in letter-by-letter order, in this case from the Ackerman-Schoendorf Parent Evaluation of Custody Test (ASPECT) to Wrongful Conviction (our efforts to identify key concepts in “X,” “Y,” or “Z,” were unsuccessful). The enthusiastic reader who tackles this two-volume set from beginning to end will learn a great deal about the trees but little about the forest, for alphabetical order corresponds with no other meaningful organizing principle among these headwords. Readers are strongly advised, therefore, to study or at least consult the Reader’s Guide. The Reader’s Guide organizes the headwords into meaningful themes as follows: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Criminal Competencies Criminal Responsibility Death Penalty Divorce and Child Custody Education and Professional Development Eyewitness Memory Forensic Assessment in Civil and Criminal Cases Juvenile Offenders Mental Health Law Psychological and Forensic Assessment Instruments Psychology of Criminal Behavior Psychology of Policing and Investigations Sentencing and Incarceration Symptoms and Disorders Relevant to Forensic Assessment • Trial Processes • Victim Reactions to Crime • Violence Risk Assessment

Each entry falls into at least one of the Reader’s Guide categories, and many entries appear in multiple

categories. The Reader’s Guide itself provides one approach to partitioning the field of psychology and law. Although we make no claims that our list of headwords is exhaustive, the relative size of the Reader’s Guide categories probably provides an estimate of the relative attention paid to these topics in the scholarly literature. For example, Eyewitness Memory is a very popular field of study and a very well-populated Reader’s Guide category.

Brewing the Encyclopedia Developing the list of headwords was a most unusual task. We used somewhat of an “hourglass” approach in developing the headword list. First, we developed the Reader’s Guide—that is, the set of categories under which the entries would be classified. Guided by a variety of resources at our disposal (e.g., psychology and law textbooks, journals, library databases), we developed a set of categories that seemed to us to span the breadth of psychology and law. Using these categories, we developed several drafts of a headword list to the point at which we were ready to receive additional expert input. To obtain such input, we assembled an advisory board consisting of 17 distinguished scholars and practitioners from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. The scholarship and practice interests of this group are diverse and span the broad field of psychology and law. This distinguished group included previous and current editors of psychology and law journals, past presidents of professional organizations of psychology and law, authors of numerous books and articles on psychology and law topics, and experienced practitioners in the forensic arenas. Members of the advisory board were sent the draft list of headwords and asked to recommend additions, deletions, and modifications to the list and to nominate authors for the headword entries. Their responses were enormously helpful in refining the list of headwords and identifying experts as potential contributors. The advisory board played a very significant role in shaping the content of the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law. Its members also demonstrated strong enthusiasm for the project as a whole, confirming my belief that this resource will be important and useful. The suggestions provided by the advisory board were integrated, and a near-final draft of the headword

Introduction———xxxv

list was developed. We also developed our list of potential contributors. We sent contributors formal invitations to write entries, together with instructions and information on the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law. Many contributors graciously accepted our invitations; others, for a variety of reasons, were unable to do so. Fortunately, the rich information provided by the members of the advisory board contained numerous backup options, and over time we obtained commitments from contributors for all the entries. During this phase, the contributors, who had access to the full list of headwords, made additional excellent suggestions for new headwords, and we made some additional revisions to the headword list. The resulting list of contributors is impressive. The list includes distinguished scholars—individuals responsible for the first or most impressive scholarship on the topics about which they wrote. It also includes distinguished practitioners—psychologists and lawyers with extensive experience in these topics in actual cases. The list includes many junior and midcareer scholars and practitioners well on their way toward establishing distinguished careers in psychology and law. Finally, the list includes the very important voices of graduate students in psychology and law. The American Psychology-Law Society, a primary affiliation of many psychology and law scholars, has historically been warmly receptive and encouraging to graduate student members and continues to be so. Training the next generation of psychology and law scholars has been a very high priority for members of the Society. Many contributors to these volumes asked if their graduate students could be included as co-authors—sometimes as first authors—of their entries, and such requests were granted. We are delighted that the voices of graduate students are represented in this project. Well before all the invitations were accepted and the headword list completed, we started to receive draft entries. The Editor read each entry as it was received, occasionally requesting peer review from the Associate Editor or other scholars with relevant expertise. Modifications were requested as necessary. Once the entries were accepted, they were forwarded to our Developmental Editor, Diana Axelsen, for her expert review and were eventually submitted for copyediting

and publication. The quality of the entries is excellent. Contributors provided hundreds of well-organized, well-written, balanced descriptions of the numerous psychology and law topics covered in the Encyclopedia. Once the entries were complete we revisited the Reader’s Guide and made some modifications based on full knowledge of the content received. The end result is an outstanding collection of entries describing a very broad array of contemporary and historical psychology and law topics. It is our hope that these volumes will serve their intended purpose—that is, to inform scholars, practitioners, and students who share the interests of my editorial team, the advisory board, and the hundreds of contributors to this exciting field of scholarship and practice.

Acknowledgments Several individuals are due recognition for their efforts on behalf of this project. Michael Carmichael and Rolf Janke of Sage were instrumental in launching this project. Diana Axelsen, Developmental Editor, provided immense expertise, collegiality, and social support from the project’s inception to its completion. Sanford Robinson and Kate Schroeder lent their expertise as editors. Letitia Gutierrez, Reference Systems Manager at Sage, expertly managed the publication software that kept this project organized and on track. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte and John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, must be recognized for supporting the editorial team throughout this project. The Cutler, Zapf, and Greathouse families also supported the editorial team as they no doubt substituted family time for work time to pursue this project, and they deserve our gratitude. A special thanks is also due to Dr. Steven Rogelberg, a colleague and close friend, who as editor of the previously published Encyclopedia of Industrial and Organizational Psychology generously provided expertise and social support, which enhanced the quality and efficiency of our work. Brian L. Cutler Patricia A. Zapf Sarah Greathouse

A The ASPECT comprises 56 items to be answered by the evaluator after a series of interviews, observations, and tests have been completed. The tests include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2), the Rorschach, the Thematic Apperception Test/Children’s Apperception Test (TAT/CAT), projective questions, projective drawings, and intellectual and achievement testing. Parents also complete a 57item Parent Questionnaire. Selected data from the tests comprise the answers to 15 of the 56 evaluator questions; the other 44 questions address material to be deduced from the Parent Questionnaires, interviews, and observations. There are 12 critical items that are said to be significant indicators of parenting deficits. The 56 items are, according to the authors, equally weighted based on a rational approach and are combined to form a Parental Custody Index (PCI) for each parent. The three subscales, the Observational Scale, the Social Scale, and the Cognitive-Emotional Scale, have not proven to be useful, according to the authors, and should not be used for interpretation. The mean PCI is 78, and the standard deviation is 10. The authors suggest that if parents’ PCI scores are within 10 points of one another, joint custody with substantially equal placement is recommended; if they are more than 20 points apart, the higher-scoring parent is substantially more fit to parent, and primary placement with the possibility of sole custody should be explored. When scores are between 10 and 20 points apart, the authors recommend more closely scrutinizing collateral information to determine the appropriate custody arrangement. The standardization demographic (n = 200) of the ASPECT was predominately white and relatively homogeneous.

ACKERMAN-SCHOENDORF PARENT EVALUATION OF CUSTODY TEST (ASPECT) The Ackerman-Schoendorf Parent Evaluation of Custody Test (ASPECT) was among the first forensic assessment instruments developed specifically for use in the area of parenting disputes. Its design requires the user to develop multiple data sources. The ASPECT laid the foundation for further search for objective, data-intensive assessment in this highly complex area of forensic work.

Description of the Instrument The ASPECT is designed specifically to assist the evaluator in gathering information to be used in courtrelated assessments. It was one of the first instruments to be developed for the complex purpose of assessing a family when parenting time and responsibility are in dispute. This instrument relies on multiple data sources, including some psychological measures with good psychometric properties. It provides a structured approach to data collection and assimilation, ensures that the same evaluative criteria are applied to both parents, and attempts to quantify the results in a way that allows for comparison of their parental competency. In its conception and design, some effort was made to ensure that it was a reliable and valid measure that would convert the highly subjective child custody evaluation process to a more objective, deliberate, and defensible forensic technique. 1

2———Adjudicative Competence of Youth

The test manual for the ASPECT reports high levels of interrater reliability. As evidence of validity, the authors claim that in judicial dispositions of 118 of the 200 cases in the normative sample for which outcome data were available, there was a 91% hit rate of dispositions matching recommendations.

Heinze, M. C., & Grisso, T. (1996). Review of instruments assessing parenting competencies used in child custody evaluations. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 14, 293–313. Otto, R. K., & Edens, J. F. (2003). Parenting capacity. In T. Grisso (Ed.), Evaluating competencies: Forensic assessments and instruments (2nd ed., pp. 229–307). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

Limitations of the ASPECT There are significant weaknesses in the basic conceptualization and the psychometric properties of the ASPECT, as its authors concede. Critics have noted that there was inadequate research to establish the constructs to be measured and their relevance to competent parenting. Instrument selection for its component parts was done without sufficient analysis to determine whether the data collected added incremental validity to the assessment of parenting strengths. Although a number of the factors to be considered by the user may seem to be logically associated with parenting, some clearly lack such inferential connectedness, and no empirical link is provided. Further research is needed to support the cut score recommended by the authors, as well as to support the ideas that high PCI scorers are more effective parents, that sole custody is the best arrangement for children of parents who have disparate PCI scores, and that 20 points is sufficiently disparate for a recommendation of sole custody. Finally, further data are needed to support the implicit notion that the ASPECT takes into account all relevant data to be considered by the evaluator in formulating recommendations, if any, to be offered to the court for apportionment of parenting time and responsibility. The ASPECT’s relevance and reliability have not been adequately demonstrated to justify its use for the court-referred assessments for which it was designed. Mary Connell See also Divorce and Child Custody

Further Readings

Ackerman, M. J. (2005). The Ackerman-Schoendorf Scales for Parent Evaluation of Custody (ASPECT): A review of research and update. Journal of Child Custody, 2(1/2), 179–193. Connell, M. A. (2005). Review of “The AckermanSchoendorf Scales for Parent Evaluation of Custody” (ASPECT). Journal of Child Custody, 2, 195–209.

ADJUDICATIVE COMPETENCE OF YOUTH Although the early juvenile justice system did not require that adolescent defendants be able to understand and participate in their legal proceedings, courts have increasingly required that adolescent defendants, like adult criminal defendants, be competent to proceed to adjudication (competent to stand trial). This has raised a unique set of challenges for the courts and mental health clinicians. Research has indicated that young adolescents have high rates of deficits in competence-related legal capacities in comparison with adults. As described below, however, little is known about assessing and treating adjudicative incompetence in youth, and legal standards regarding youths’ adjudicative competence remain unclear.

Legal Standards for Juvenile Competence Since the 1700s, the legal system has required that adult defendants tried in criminal courts be competent to proceed to adjudication. More specifically, the law requires that criminal defendants be able to understand the nature of the legal proceedings, appreciate the significance and possible consequences of these proceedings, communicate with their attorney, and reason about relevant legal decisions, such as how to plead. If defendants lack these capacities, they can be found incompetent, in which case their adjudication is typically suspended, and they are treated in an effort to restore their competence. The early juvenile justice system, which was developed in Illinois in 1904, did not require that adolescent defendants be competent to proceed to adjudication. Because early juvenile justice was designed to be rehabilitative rather than punitive, it was not considered necessary that youth be able to understand and participate

Adjudicative Competence of Youth———3

in their legal proceedings. However, during the 1990s, public concerns about youth violence rose to significant levels and drove a series of key legislative changes that allowed the transfer of adolescents to adult court to become easier and more common and for juveniles tried in juvenile court to be given harsher penalties. Given the adultlike penalties that can now be given to youth, courts have increasingly required that adolescent defendants be competent to proceed to adjudication. At present, the specific nature of competence standards in juvenile courts remains unsettled. Although courts have generally required that adolescents have the same types of legal capacities as adults, some jurisdictions have held that lower levels of these capacities may suffice for adolescents in juvenile court. Another issue that remains undetermined pertains to possible bases for findings of incompetence among adolescents. Although mental disorders and mental retardation are the most commonly recognized sources of incompetence, some adolescents may be incompetent owing to developmental immaturity rather than mental disorders or mental retardation. However, it is currently unclear whether jurisdictions will recognize developmental immaturity as a legitimate basis for a finding of incompetence.

Possible Sources of Adjudicative Incompetence in Youth Legal deficits in youth may stem from very different sources. One possible cause of incompetence may be mental disorders. For instance, a young girl with a thought disorder may have a paranoid delusion that her attorney is conspiring against her and thus refuse to tell her attorney critical information regarding her case, a youth with symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder may have difficulty attending to court proceedings and managing his courtroom behavior, and a young girl with a depressive disorder may be unmotivated to adequately defend herself due to feelings of worthlessness. A second possible cause of incompetence is mental retardation or severe cognitive deficits. Research has found that youth who have cognitive deficits are much more likely than other youth to demonstrate deficits in legal capacities relevant to adjudication. In addition to mental disorders and cognitive deficits, however, adolescents may also have impaired legal capacities simply due to normal developmental immaturity. Evidence for maturity-related legal deficits is provided by the

MacArthur Juvenile Adjudicative Competence study. In this important study, Thomas Grisso and his colleagues examined the legal capacities of 927 adolescents and 466 adults from detained and community sites. Results indicated that young adolescents were more likely to demonstrate legal impairments than adults. Specifically, one third of youth aged 11 to 13 and one fifth of youth aged 14 to 15 demonstrated significant impairments in the understanding of legal proceedings and/or legal reasoning. In addition, young adolescents performed in a manner that suggested that they are less likely to recognize the risks and long-term consequences of legal judgments than older individuals. While it is often assumed that experience with the legal system will mitigate any limitations in youths’ legal capacities, this is not necessarily the case. Considerable research has indicated that simply having court experience does not equate to having adequate legal capacities. The high rates of legal deficits in young adolescents may, in part, stem from the fact that youths’ cognitive capacities may not yet have reached their adult potential. In addition, experts, including Elizabeth Scott, Lawrence Steinberg, and colleagues, have emphasized that psychosocial immaturity may also contribute to age-related impairments in competence-related legal capacities. Specifically, developmental psychology provides evidence that adolescents are more likely than adults to have difficulties in recognizing the consequences of their decisions, are more likely to be influenced by peers, and tend to act in an impulsive manner. The research findings on youths’ legal capacities raise a number of important issues for the legal system. While the legal system automatically assumes that adolescents, including young adolescents, are competent to stand trial unless proven otherwise, the high rate of legal impairments among young adolescents questions the appropriateness of this presumption. In addition, given that a high rate of young adolescents could show limited legal capacities, there is a considerable need for methods to assess adolescents who may be incompetent to proceed to adjudication and for strategies to remediate youths who are found incompetent.

Assessment of Youths’ Adjudicative Competence When an attorney or judge has concerns about a particular youth’s adjudicative competence, the court will

4———Adjudicative Competence of Youth

order that the youth be evaluated by a mental health professional to assess the youth’s competence. These assessments differ considerably from general mental health evaluations in that they focus on youths’ competence-related capacities as opposed to general mental health issues. In addition, juvenile competence assessments require procedures that differ somewhat from adult competence assessments. Specifically, juvenile evaluations should carefully assess youths’developmental maturity and consider contextual issues that are unique to adolescents, including possible caretaker involvement in legal proceedings. As described by the leading expert in this field, Thomas Grisso, a key goal of juvenile competence evaluations is to describe the youths’ functional legal capacities. In particular, competence reports should describe youths’ understanding of important aspects of legal proceedings (e.g., understanding of the role of judges and attorneys), appreciation of the significance of legal proceedings (e.g., appreciation of the possible penalties that could be applied to them if found guilty), ability to communicate with counsel (e.g., the ability to disclose important information about their cases to their attorneys), and legal reasoning (e.g., the ability to weigh various plea options). In evaluating youths’ functional legal abilities, evaluators should consider how a specific youth’s legal capacities match with the nature of his or her particular case. A finding of incompetence occurs when there is a significant mismatch between a particular defendant’s legal capacities and the demands created by his or her particular case. For instance, if a youth who is charged with aggravated assault is going to be tried in adult court, where he or she will likely have to testify for lengthy periods of time, it will be important that the youth have the capacity to testify relevantly, an understanding of the transfer process, and an appreciation of the types of penalties that may be given to him or her in adult court. In contrast, if this youth’s case was being handled in juvenile court and he or she had decided to accept a plea bargain instead of standing trial, it would not be as critical that he or she have a high level of testifying capacities, but it would be essential that he or she have a good understanding of plea bargains. If a youth is found to have significant legal deficits in one or more the relevant areas (e.g., understanding, appreciation, communication with counsel, reasoning), the evaluator should attempt to provide information on possible causes of these legal deficits, such as whether

the legal deficits appear to stem from a particular mental disorder and/or developmental immaturity. In addition, if a youth is found to have legal deficits, evaluators should offer opinions and recommendations regarding possible interventions to address these legal deficits. Until recently, there have been no tools specifically for assessing youths’ legal capacities. However, in 2005, Grisso developed a guide, called the Juvenile Adjudicative Competency Interview, to help structure assessments of youths’ competence. The Juvenile Adjudicative Competency Interview is not currently a standardized instrument but instead functions as a guide to help ensure that clinicians consider key developmental and legal issues in assessing juveniles’ adjudicative competence. While some instruments that have been developed for adult defendants may have relevance to juvenile competence evaluations, caution is needed in applying adult instruments to youth; instruments that have been found to be reliable and valid with adults cannot be assumed to be reliable and valid with adolescents. Research has provided some preliminary support for the psychometric properties of the Fitness Interview Test–Revised when used with adolescents. Also, a number of evaluators report using the Competence Assessment for Standing Trial for Defendants with Mental Retardation with adolescent defendants, because its format is thought to be easier for adolescents to understand. However, research has yet to examine the psychometric properties of this tool with adolescent defendants.

Interventions for Remediating Incompetent Youth After a competence evaluation has been conducted, the court must decide whether to find a youth incompetent. If a youth is found incompetent and is believed to be remediable, the trial will be suspended until he or she is considered to be competent. If the youth is considered to be unremediable, then his or her charges may be dropped and/or he or she may be referred to alternative services, such as inpatient mental health treatment. At the present time, very little is known about how to remediate youth who are found incompetent to stand trial. However, there is reason to believe that this process may be challenging, especially when youth are found incompetent on the basis of mental retardation and/or developmental immaturity. Some research, using data

Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)———5

from the MacArthur Juvenile Adjudicative Competence study, has found that young adolescents may be less likely than older individuals to benefit from brief teaching interventions targeted at improving their understanding of basic legal concepts, such as the role of judges and attorneys. It may be even more difficult to teach youth how to apply legal concepts to their own cases and how to reason about legal decisions. Given the high rates of legal deficits among young adolescents and the increasing numbers of adolescents who are being found incompetent, research in this area is greatly needed. Jodi L. Viljoen See also Capacity to Waive Rights; Juvenile Offenders; Mental Health Needs of Juvenile Offenders

Further Readings

Grisso, T. (2005). Evaluating juveniles’ adjudicative competence: A guide for clinical practice. Sarasota, FL: Professional Resource Press. Grisso, T., Steinberg, L., Woolard, J., Cauffman, E., Scott, E., Graham, S., et al. (2003). Juveniles’ competence to stand trial: A comparison of adolescents’ and adults’ capacities as trial defendants. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 333–363. Scott, E. S., Reppucci, N. D., & Woolard, J. L. (1995). Evaluating adolescent decision making in legal contexts. Law and Human Behavior, 19, 221–244. Viljoen, J. L., & Grisso, T. (in press). Prospects for remediating juveniles’ adjudicative incompetence. Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law.

ADULT ATTACHMENT INTERVIEW (AAI) The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), developed by Mary Main and associates, has been identified as an effective, psychometrically sound instrument with which to measure an individual’s internal working model or state of mind regarding childhood attachment. The potentially detrimental influences of poor recall, social desirability, and naive lying associated with self-report measures of childhood attachment are substantially bypassed with the AAI. The AAI does not make classifications based primarily on reported events in childhood but rather on the thoughtfulness and coherency with

which the adult is able to describe and evaluate these childhood experiences and their effects. The AAI is a structured, semiclinical 20-question interview designed to elicit the individual’s account of his or her childhood attachment experiences, together with his or her evaluations of those experiences on present functioning. It explores the quality of these childhood relationships and the memories that might justify them. The AAI is transcribed verbatim, with all hesitations carefully recorded and with only the transcript used in the analysis of the interview. The AAI results in five classifications of state of mind regarding childhood attachment, which parallel those derived from M. D. S. Ainsworth’s system, which is based on the “Strange Situation.” Briefly, this procedure entails having the child enter an unfamiliar laboratory setting with a stranger present, filled with toys, with his or her caregiver. The caregiver then leaves twice and returns twice over a 20-minute period. Based on their responses, individuals are classified into one of the five attachment categories described below. Individuals with a Secure state of mind regarding attachment value relationships and grow to desire intimacy with others. Individuals classified as Dismissing tend to be devaluing of relationships. Such individuals may idealize relationships from their past but are cut off from related feelings or dismiss their significance. They may also be derogating of attachment in that they demonstrate a contemptuous dismissal of attachment relationships. Individuals with a Preoccupied state of mind are described as confused and unobjective. They may seem passive, vague or angry, conflicted, and unconvincingly analytical. The Unresolved category deals specifically with loss and abuse, and the Cannot Classify category is used when an individual does not fit clearly into any of the other classifications. Individuals categorized into one of the two disorganized patterns (i.e., Unresolved or Cannot Classify) of attachment can always be assigned to a bestfitting organized (Secure, Dismissing, Preoccupied) classification as well. That is, all individuals are believed to have one overriding organized state of mind regarding childhood attachment. Several studies have examined the psychometric properties of the AAI (see Marinus H. van Ijzendoorn and Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1996, for a summary). The AAI state-of-mind classifications are stable across 5-year periods, within 77% to 90%. One study found that individuals’ response to the Strange Situation at 1 year of age was highly correlated (80%) to their AAI classification 20 years later. The AAI has

6———Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases

been found to be unrelated to measures of intelligence, to both long- and short-term memory, to discourse patterns when individuals are interviewed on other topics, to interviewer effects, and to social desirability. Metaanalytic work has also supported the use of the AAI across several populations, including high-risk groups. Tania Stirpe and colleagues employed the AAI with various groups of sexual offenders, examining five groups of subjects: extrafamilial child molesters (child molesters), intrafamilial child molesters (incest offenders), and sexual offenders against adult females (rapists) and two nonsexual offender comparison groups (violent and nonviolent). In addition, groups were compared with reference to normative data on the AAI. Results indicated that the majority of sexual offenders were insecure in their state of mind regarding attachment, representing a marked difference from normative samples. Although insecurity of attachment was common to all groups of offenders rather than specific to sexual offenders, there were important differences between groups with regard to the type of insecurity. Most notable were the child molesters, who were much more likely to be Preoccupied in their state of mind regarding attachment. Rapists, violent offenders, and, to a lesser degree, incest offenders, were more likely to have a Dismissing state of mind regarding attachment. Although still most likely to be judged Dismissing, nonviolent offenders were comparatively more likely than the other groups to be Secure. There were no differences between groups when Unresolved and Cannot Classify AAI classifications were considered. These findings provide evidence for the specificity of insecure attachment with regard to sexual offending, over and above its possibly more general influence on criminality.

Implications and Areas for Future Study Research using the AAI has implications for the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders. Identifying the state of mind regarding attachment, together with its associated beliefs and interpersonal strategies, may provide valuable insight into the motivational strategies underlying offenses. As S. W. Smallbone and associates have argued, the intimacy problems faced by an individual whose offending is characterized by a devaluing of attachment are very different from those faced by one who fears rejection and offends in an attempt to cultivate a “relationship” with the victim. Research suggests that early insecure attachment experiences may place some men at risk for later

offending. More specifically, some have suggested that these early experiences may contribute to sexual offending within a particular interpersonal context. Further research is required; however, the current empirical literature represents an important step in incorporating attachment theory into the etiology of sexual offending and in acknowledging that sexual offending may be constructively understood in terms of the relationship context in which it takes place. The AAI is the “gold standard” in attachment research but has rarely been used with forensic populations. Tania Stirpe, Jeffrey Abracen, and Janice Picheca See also Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI); Sex Offender Assessment; Sex Offender Treatment

Further Readings

Main, M., & Goldwyn, R. (1998). Adult attachment rating and classification systems: Adult attachment coding manual. Unpublished scoring manual, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley. Smallbone, S., & Dadds, M. (1998). Childhood attachment and adult attachment in incarcerated adult male sex offenders. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 13(5), 555–573. Stirpe, T., Abracen, J., Stermac, L., & Wilson, R. (2006). Sexual offenders’ state-of-mind regarding childhood attachment: A controlled investigation. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 18, 289–302. van Ijzendoorn, M. H., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J. (1996). Attachment representations in mothers, fathers, adolescents, and clinical groups: A meta-analytic search for normative data. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64(1), 8–21. Ward, T., Hudson, S., Marshall, W., & Siegert, R. (1995). Attachment style and intimacy deficits in sexual offenders: A theoretical framework. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 7(4), 317–335.

AGGRAVATING AND MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES, EVALUATION OF IN CAPITAL CASES If a defendant is found guilty of a capital crime, the triers of fact are called on to weigh the significance of the aggravating and mitigating factors of the case and to

Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases———7

use such judgments to decide whether the defendant will receive the death penalty or a life sentence. During the sentencing phase, the prosecution presents the relevant aggravating factors of the case, while the defense is charged with the duty of providing mitigation factors. Although no standard model exists to offer procedures for the investigation of mitigating factors, scholars, clinicians, and researchers have offered recommendations concerning the common types of information needed and the appropriate ways to present it to the jury. In all cases, a mitigation evaluation is conducted with the goal of humanizing the defendant to the jury, in the hope that they will not recommend the death penalty. During the penalty phase of a capital offense trial, the triers of fact (i.e., the judge or jury depending on the state) are presented with two types of information: (1) aggravating factors (i.e., facts from the case that make it especially serious or heinous) and (2) mitigating factors (i.e., facts from the case that may reduce the defendant’s moral culpability). As set forth in Ring v. Arizona (2002), to come forward with a recommendation for death, the jury must first be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the state has met its burden of proof with respect to the presence of one or more aggravating factors. Once this has been done, the defense is required to present mitigating factors with the goal of convincing the trier of fact that this individual does not deserve the penalty of death. The driving force behind this practice is the U.S. Supreme Court’s assertion in Furman v. Georgia (1972) that sentences in capital cases should be individualized and should not be disproportionate or inappropriate given the mitigating factors in the case. Aggravating factors in a capital case are often readily apparent from the circumstances of the crime. Like other states, the state of Texas has statutory aggravating factors that are precisely defined. Three examples of the criteria set forth by the Texas Penal Code are (a) if the person murders more than one person during the same criminal transaction; (b) if the person murders an individual under 6 years of age; and (c) if the person intentionally commits a murder in the course of committing (or attempting to commit) kidnapping, burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, arson, or obstruction or retaliation. In contrast to aggravating factors, which are established by statute, mitigating factors can be anything the defense chooses to present that it believes may sway the trier of fact to determine that life without parole is

the proper and just sentence in the particular case. The following list provides just a few examples of the most common mitigating factors that are brought forward in a capital trial: history of neglect and/or abuse during the formative years, the presence of a mental illness, youthfulness, and a limited history of involvement with the legal system. It was in Lockett v. Ohio (1978) that the U.S. Supreme Court decided that limiting the type and amount of mitigating factors that can be presented to the trier of fact is unconstitutional. When deciding the sentence for a defendant who has been found guilty, jurors are asked to weigh the aggravating circumstances against the mitigating circumstances of the case. Each state has its own laws regarding how jurors are instructed to weigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances, but in all states, each individual juror must weigh the circumstances and decide whether the defendant is sentenced to death or life in prison. In many states, the death penalty can be imposed only if the jury returns a unanimous decision. With respect to the process of conducting a mitigation evaluation, the onus is on the defense team to conduct a thorough investigation of all possible mitigating factors. To complete such an investigation, it is recommended that the defense team hire one or more professionals to carry out the various tasks required for the investigation and presentation of mitigating circumstances. In Wiggins v. Smith (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that failure on the part of the defense team to properly investigate and introduce mitigating evidence can result in a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel, leaving open the possibility that the verdict will be overturned on appeal. Perhaps the most traditional form of investigation is that carried out by a professional known as a mitigation specialist. Although social workers often serve in this role, other professionals, such as paralegals, legal researchers, and attorneys, also work in this capacity. Regardless of the profession, the role of the mitigation specialist requires a commitment to uncover all possible mitigating factors, and to do this, it is imperative that he or she has a wide repertoire of knowledge and skills. For example, it is expected that the specialist be well versed in the field of human development and be skilled in the areas of data collection, interviewing, and putting together a person’s life history. At a minimum, the mitigation specialist should request and receive records that are reflective of the defendant’s life history (e.g., medical records, mental health records, and school records),

8———Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases

conduct interviews with a variety of individuals who are familiar with the defendant (e.g., parents, siblings, friends, employers, teachers, therapists), and conduct multiple interviews with the defendant. In many cases, it is also critical that the mitigation specialist investigate the life histories of the defendant’s parents and other members of their immediate and extended family. Such information is important with respect to being able to evaluate both genetic and environmental influences on the defendant’s development. Given the breadth of the investigation required, it is recommended that it be initiated long before the trial is set to begin. The goal of the mitigation specialist is to compile information concerning the defendant’s life history that will offer insight into how the defendant’s life experiences have shaped his or her development. Presentation of such information is aimed at humanizing the individual to the degree that the trier of fact recommends a life sentence. It should be clear, however, that the goal of mitigation is not to excuse the defendant’s behavior but instead to explain how an individual can become the type of person who could be in a position to commit a capital offense. Depending on their credentials and the role that they have been asked to play, mitigation specialists may or may not testify as to the information gathered. In cases where they do not testify, the information they gather is provided to one or more appropriate professionals. These individuals not only will present the information to the court but also will be expected to present it in such a way that it is accessible to the jury. For example, a psychologist or a social worker may testify about the defendant’s childhood development, the impact of childhood abuse, the impact of being raised without a father figure in the home, and any mental illness he or she may have experienced. A neuropsychologist may provide expert opinions regarding the influence of traumatic brain injury on the defendant’s functioning, and an anthropologist or sociologist may testify to the effects of sociological or economic factors related to the defendant’s neighborhood that may have influenced the defendant’s developmental trajectory. Regardless of who presents the mitigation information to the court, recent literature has recommended that the presentation of such information be structured on the concepts of risk factors, protective factors, and resiliency. In brief, risk factors can be described as events in an individual’s life that have been scientifically linked to negative outcomes in functioning. Examples of common risk factors in capital defendants

include childhood or adult trauma, childhood abuse or neglect, poverty, substance abuse, negative peer groups, cognitive impairment, and a diagnosis of conduct disorder in childhood or adolescence. Research has shown that individuals who have experienced multiple risk factors during their development are at a greater likelihood of exhibiting dysfunction in multiple domains. The individuals who are retained to testify about such risk factors have an obligation not only to deliver their findings to the court but also to illustrate how those risk factors influenced the development of this defendant. To further the defense team’s endeavor of obtaining a non–death sentence, the mitigation expert(s) should also discuss the relevant protective factors that the defendant has experienced. Protective factors can be described as those events or experiences in the defendant’s life that may have lessened the likelihood that the defendant would have engaged in violent or dangerous behavior in the past. Examples of common protective factors include social support from family and friends, prior involvement in mental health treatments, and financial stability. It is quite typical for an expert to discuss how the absence of protective factors negatively affected the defendant’s developmental trajectory and if protective factors were present, why they did not buffer the defendant against the negative influence of the risk factors. The final dimension of mitigation presentation should include a discussion of the defendant’s lack of resilience in the context of his or her experience with risk and protective factors. Resilience refers to the ability of individuals who have experienced great adversity to overcome such experiences and live a functional life in adulthood. Since only a small minority of individuals who face great adversity during their development actually go on to exhibit severe dysfunction in adulthood, it is important to convey to the jury how the defendant’s unique combination of risk and protective factors, along with his or her response to them, led to the violent behavior for which the defendant has been convicted. To date, research has not found any one strategy that is successful in all cases, nor has research identified any one mitigating factor that influences juror decision making in all cases. On the contrary, it is likely that the success of mitigation relates to the quality of the investigation and the presentation of information that is unique to the case. As such, it would be inappropriate for defense attorneys and other members of the defense team to think that there is a template that can be applied to these investigations. Finally, it should be noted that

Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances in Capital Trials, Effects on Jurors———9

even the most eloquent presentation of mitigation evidence can be insufficient to counteract the effects of intrinsic juror biases, impairments in understanding the concept of aggravating and mitigating factors, and misinterpretation of instructions to the jury regarding how to weigh the evidence presented to them. Bridget M. Doane and Karen L. Salekin See also Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances in Capital Trials, Effects on Jurors; Death Penalty; Expert Psychological Testimony, Forms of; Mental Illness and the Death Penalty; Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty

the death penalty. Statutes across the United States list many aggravating and mitigating factors that could be presented at trial. The existing research in psychology and law shows that jurors are sensitive to some factors but not to others. Experimental research has compared hypothetical cases in which various aggravating and mitigating factors are either present or absent. Other research, especially the Capital Jury Project, has surveyed or interviewed jurors who served in a death penalty case about what factors they considered important when making their decision.

Aggravating Factors Further Readings

Connell, M. A. (2003). A psychobiographical approach to the evaluation for sentence mitigation. Journal of Psychiatry and Law, 31, 319–354. Fabian, J. M. (2003). Death penalty mitigation and the role of the forensic psychologist. Law and Psychology Review, 27, 73–120. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978). Miller, J. (2003). The defense team in capital cases. Hofstra Law Review, 31, 1117–1141. Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002). Salekin, K. L. (2006). The importance of risk factors, protective factors, and the construct of resilience. In M. Costanzo, D. Krauss, & K. Pezdek (Eds.), Expert psychological testimony for the courts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schroeder, J., Guin, C. C., Pogue, R., & Bordelon, D. (2006). Mitigating circumstances in death penalty decisions: Using evidence-based research to inform social work practice in capital trials. Social Work, 51, 355–364. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003).

AGGRAVATING AND MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES IN CAPITAL TRIALS, EFFECTS ON JURORS Aggravating factors are elements of the crime or the defendant’s prior criminal record that not only make the defendant eligible for the death penalty but also serve to make the defendant more likely to receive the death penalty. Mitigating factors are elements of the crime or the defendant’s character and background that could make the defendant less likely to receive

Jurors are more likely to sentence to death defendants who have committed a heinous, brutal, or cruel murder. Such crimes include those involving a single victim who suffers a lot of pain before death and also crimes with multiple victims. The brutality of a murder triggers jurors’ desire for retribution, or punishing someone for the harm that he or she has caused. Several lines of research show that jurors treat more severe crimes more harshly when assigning punishment in general, not just in death penalty cases. Jurors may not understand what the words heinous or atrocious mean, or they may believe that all murders are heinous. Thus, courts must instruct jurors that this aggravating factor is limited in some way, so that they are supposed to apply it only in cases involving torture, very serious physical abuse, or extreme depravity. However, even without such extreme case facts, jurors will sentence a defendant to death more often if the crime is more severe and causes more harm. Usually, in death penalty trials, a separate listed factor is included for murders with multiple victims, because heinousness is a specific legal term measuring how much suffering occurred before the victim’s death. Jurors also consider the future dangerousness of a defendant—whether he or she is likely to commit another serious crime. In some states, jurors are specifically asked to decide whether the defendant is likely to re-offend, but even when not asked, jurors often bring this issue up during deliberations. The more the jurors fear that the defendant could re-offend, or even be released on parole, the more likely they are to sentence the defendant to death. Similarly, if the defendant has a prior criminal record that includes violent crimes, he or she will be seen as more dangerous, and jurors are more likely to sentence that defendant to death than defendants with no prior record.

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Jurors are also affected by victim characteristics and victim impact statements. If the victim is a public figure or a policeman, jurors are more likely to sentence the defendant to death. The murder of such a person causes more harm to the community and deserves a more severe punishment. Furthermore, jurors are allowed to consider whether the victim was particularly vulnerable— for instance, because of young or old age or disability. Some research supports an increase in death verdicts in cases of child victims, but little research exists on other aspects of victim vulnerability. Jurors can also consider the effect that the murder has on the victim’s surviving family, friends, and the community. Several studies have found that jurors are more likely to give the death penalty when there is a large amount of suffering by the victim’s family and the community. Courts and researchers debate whether these effects are the result of jurors’ sensitivity to an increase in the amount of harm caused or instead an emotional reaction to the testimony. Victim characteristics can be important even without victim impact statements. Some legal scholars and social scientists worry that jurors may be improperly considering the “worth” of the victim, or distinguishing between a good victim and a bad victim, which the law says they are not supposed to do. However, interviews with jurors suggest that jurors’ verdicts are different not necessarily because of a distinction between a good victim and a bad one but rather because of the similarity between the victim and themselves. Jurors can identify or empathize more with a normal victim chosen at random than a victim who is part of the crime or involved in a risky situation. In fact, that the victim is the defendant’s accomplice or otherwise part of the crime is often a mitigating factor. Overall, victim characteristics are weighed heavily a lot by jurors. Many other aggravating factors exist in death penalty cases, such as committing the murder for financial gain, in the course of another felony, or after substantial planning. However, research has not yet addressed the effect of these aggravating factors on jurors’ decisions.

Mitigating Factors Although jurors have trouble understanding the legal definition of mitigating factors, there are some factors that affect their decisions. The factors that have the largest effect are, generally speaking, those that are out of the defendant’s control, are more severe, and reduce the defendant’s responsibility for the murder.

Mental illness is the most powerful mitigating factor, even if it is not enough to make the defendant legally insane. Recognizing this large effect, the American Bar Association has recently called for the exclusion of severely mentally ill defendants from eligibility for the death penalty. Jurors likewise believe that a mental disorder can make a defendant less responsible for his or her crime. However, all mental disorders are not the same. Severe and typical disorders, such as schizophrenia and delusional disorders, will reduce the likelihood of a death sentence. Most studies also show that low IQ and “borderline” mental retardation also reduce death sentences, and defendants who are legally mentally retarded are not eligible for the death penalty at all. Disorders such as depression, antisocial personality disorder, or bipolar disorder have less effect on jurors, if any. Not much research has addressed these types of mental illness. Researchers and courts recognize the fact that some mental disorders can be aggravating factors. The fact that a defendant has an antisocial personality disorder or a low IQ may cause jurors to think that that the defendant is dangerous, so jurors may be more likely to impose the death sentence. Specific symptoms that may influence jurors are the defendant’s inability to control violent impulses or to learn from mistakes. Not enough research currently exists to clarify when these disorders will be treated as aggravating and when they will be treated as mitigating. Drug or alcohol addiction and intoxication are forms of mental disorder because drug use impairs the decision-making capacity of the defendant and can induce other disorders. In many states, voluntary intoxication cannot be used as a legal defense to a crime but can still be a mitigating factor. Two studies have shown that intoxication at the time of the crime can reduce the likelihood of the death penalty. Having been abused as a child or having had a difficult childhood and background is also commonly presented as a mitigating factor, but again, this factor could produce mixed reactions in jurors. Very severe physical and verbal abuse reduces the likelihood of a death sentence, but less severe abuse or a troubled childhood may not affect verdicts. Some courts, legal scholars, and social scientists assert that a troubled childhood could also be seen as an aggravating factor if the defendant’s background includes violent acts or previous arrests. This again suggests that jurors are more concerned about a defendant’s dangerousness than about a defendant’s mitigating evidence.

Alcohol Intoxication, Impact on Eyewitness Memory———11

Because jurors are concerned about the defendant’s dangerousness and likelihood to be violent, evidence that the defendant has been or will be a well-behaved and model prisoner can also reduce the likelihood of the death verdict. Only one (as yet unpublished) study has found this result, but this could be a very important mitigating factor. Likewise, the lack of a prior criminal record reduces jurors’ perceptions of dangerousness and, therefore, also decreases jurors’ likelihood of sentencing the defendant to death. Interviews with jurors who have given a verdict of death penalty show that jurors will give the death penalty less often if the defendant expresses remorse for his or her crime. However, no experimental study has found an effect of remorse in death penalty trials. A defendant’s silence, or even a statement that he or she is not remorseful, could have an aggravating effect, producing more death penalty verdicts. A defendant’s remorse is often presented along with a religious plea, or testimony that the defendant has become more religious while in prison and is asking for forgiveness. At least one study suggests that a defendant’s conversion to religion can affect jurors and sensitize them to other mitigating factors as well. Little research has addressed the effect of a defendant’s “good character,” such as serving the community, going to church, or previous good acts. Jurors may have difficulty considering this evidence if there are serious aggravating factors. Research shows that, during their deliberations, jurors focus much more on the crime than on the defendant’s character. Jurors also tend to focus on the circumstances that formed a defendant’s character rather than examples of previous good acts. In the case of Roper v. Simmons in 2005, the Supreme Court banned the execution of defendants who committed their crime before the age of 18. Research conducted before that decision found that jurors did give the death penalty less often to juvenile offenders. Research also suggests that an 18- or 19-year-old defendant will be sentenced to death less often, but the mitigating effect of being a youthful defendant declines quickly beyond the age of 20. Interviews with death penalty jurors have also found that jurors give the death penalty less often if there is any lingering or residual doubt about the defendant’s guilt, though in most cases, there is no such doubt. This type of evidence can be restricted in death penalty sentencing hearings, but jurors may carry over such doubt from the guilt phase of the trial. Kevin M. O’Neil

See also Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases; Death Penalty; Juries and Judges’ Instructions; Jury Understanding of Judges’ Instructions in Capital Cases; Juveniles and the Death Penalty; Mental Illness and the Death Penalty; Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty

Further Readings

Durham, A. M., Elrod, H. P., & Kinkade, P. T. (1996). Public support for the death penalty: Beyond Gallup. Justice Quarterly, 13, 705–736. Garvey, S. P. (1998). Aggravation and mitigation in capital cases: What do jurors think? Columbia Law Review, 98, 1538–1575. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). Sundby, S. E. (2003). The capital jury and empathy: The problem of worthy and unworthy victims. Cornell Law Review, 88, 343–381.

ALCOHOL INTOXICATION See SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE; SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS

ALCOHOL INTOXICATION, IMPACT ON EYEWITNESS MEMORY Alcohol consumption has a significant effect on eyewitness identification abilities, including the accuracy of perpetrator descriptions and identification accuracy in showups (an identification procedure where only one individual is shown to the witness) and lineups (an identification procedure where several individuals, usually six in the United States, are shown to the eyewitness). Understanding the effects of alcohol consumption on memory is critical for the police, investigators, prosecutors, defense counsel, judges, and jurors to be able to judge the veracity of statements and evidence that are put forward in cases where alcohol consumption was present. The research to date that has examined the effects of moderate levels of alcohol intoxication on eyewitness

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memory and identification accuracy has found that intoxicated witnesses are less likely to be accurate in their descriptions of events and people but are just as likely as sober witnesses to make a correct identification decision. In addition, intoxicated witnesses may be more susceptible to suggestion and suggestive procedures than are sober witnesses. However, as research has suggested, this finding should not necessarily be taken to imply that intoxicated witnesses are always less reliable than their sober counterparts. Ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, is a depressant that is produced by the fermentation of yeast, sugars, and starches and is most commonly found in beer, wine, and liquor. After it is ingested, alcohol is metabolized by enzymes in the liver. However, because the liver can only metabolize small amounts of alcohol at a time, the remaining alcohol is left to circulate through the body until it can be processed. Alcohol impairs judgment and coordination as well as attention level, and the more alcohol consumed, the greater the impairment. For example, in all states in the United States, the maximum level of blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) that is permitted to be under the “legal limit” for driving a motor vehicle is 0.08% (80 mg/dl). However, the effects of alcohol intoxication as described above are likely to be present at BACs much lower than is set by the legal limit. Although scientists and researchers know that alcohol consumption causes reduced coordination and impaired judgment, the effects of alcohol intoxication on memory has received little attention from psychology and law researchers. One of the potential reasons for this is that previous research has focused on the effects of alcohol from a public safety perspective (i.e., setting legal limits for driving) and not from a victim or witness perspective. However, given that there are more than 450,000 violent crimes in bars and nightclubs every year in the United States (and therefore more than 450,000 victims/witnesses who are likely to have consumed at least some alcohol), research on this topic is extremely valuable. The general findings from the few research studies that have investigated the memory and identification abilities of intoxicated witnesses are described below after a brief review of alcohol decision-making theory and a description of the research methodologies that are used in this field of research.

Theoretical Review Not long ago, researchers believed that alcohol acted as a general disinhibitor that resulted in risky decision

making, best characterized by the phase “throwing caution to the wind.” However, the disinhibition hypothesis was unable to account for the finding that in some situations an intoxicated individual would become aggressive, whereas at other times the same individual would become depressed or happy. In an attempt to account for these disparate reactions to alcohol consumption, alcohol myopia theory was proffered. According to this theory, intoxicated persons, due to their limited cognitive capacity as a result of their alcohol consumption, are able to attend only to the most salient aspect in their environment. For example, a sober person is capable of having a conversation with another person while attending to other events in the surroundings, such as a new person entering the room. An intoxicated person having the same conversation, however, is much less likely to notice peripheral details in the environment. Similarly, intoxicated persons are more likely than sober persons to take into account only the immediate cues in their environment and to have a limited capacity to consider or bring to awareness other information, such as the consequences of their behavior.

Alcohol Research Methodologies Although the research literature on this topic is limited, a discussion of the types of research methodologies that are most common when investigating the effects of alcohol on eyewitness memory is warranted. Two of the most common techniques are laboratory research and field studies. Laboratory Research

Laboratory research on this topic involves (a) prescreening participants for any factor that would make them ineligible for alcohol consumption research (e.g., underaged participant or pregnant female), (b) obtaining the consent to participate, and (c) administering alcohol. The amount of alcohol given is calculated on a participant-by-participant basis and takes into consideration the following factors: the desired BAC, the concentration of the alcohol being administered, and the participant’s sex and weight. The alcohol is generally administered over a period of 30 to 45 minutes, and after a short period of time (for adsorption), the stimulus (e.g., video clip of a taped mock crime or an interaction with a confederate) is then presented to the participant. Next, depending on the particular research question, the participants may be asked to complete the dependent measures while still intoxicated, or they may be asked to return for a follow-up

Alcohol Intoxication, Impact on Eyewitness Memory———13

session, where they will be sober when they complete the dependent measures. Regardless of the research question, for safety purposes, all participants in this type of research must be relatively sober before they are permitted to leave the research lab. To ensure that participants’ BAC is low enough for them to be excused (usually 0.03% or lower, as set by individual institutional review boards), a breathalyzer is used. It should be noted that although a blood-test analysis could also be conducted in lieu of a breathalyzer, this practice is not normally used by psychology and law researchers. Also, laboratory research is limited with regard to the amount of alcohol that can be safely administered to participants. Although there may be exceptions depending on the location (country) of data collection, the research question, and individual IRBs, generating BACs in the lab greater than 0.08% is rarely permitted. Field Studies

Field studies, on the other hand, do not normally screen participants for characteristics that would make them ineligible for lab studies because participants in field studies are obtained in bars or drinking establishments and have consumed alcohol, presumably on their own volition, prior to taking part in the research study. Also, because participants have consumed alcohol on their own, obtaining participants with BACs higher than 0.08% is common. Overall, there are few differences between field and lab research with regard to the presentation of stimuli or measuring of dependent variables. One important difference, however, should be noted. Due to the fact that participants in field studies are intoxicated at the time when consent to participate is given, they must be provided with an opportunity to withdraw their participation at a later time (i.e., when they are sober).

during the critical encoding period than were sober witnesses. However, participants who were intoxicated during encoding were just as accurate at identifying a target person in an identification task as witnesses who had not consumed alcohol. Although these studies were not specifically testing alcohol myopia theory, the results are consistent with alcohol myopia theory predictions. Later research examined the effects of alcohol intoxication at the time of encoding and at the identification task. Although it is possible to conduct this research by having participants return to the lab a second time to become intoxicated again (i.e., context reinstatement), this body of research administered the dependent variables (e.g., a showup) relatively soon after the viewing of the target person and while the participants were still intoxicated. This research was unique from earlier studies in that it allowed researchers to study alcohol myopia theory by manipulating (a) the behavior of the investigator and (b) the identification procedure. This research was relevant to real police practice because the police often encounter intoxicated individuals in the course of their investigations and there had been no research on the potential vulnerabilities of intoxicated witnesses to police practices. The findings of these studies suggest that intoxicated participants are more susceptible to minor changes in police procedure, such as the instructions that are given to a witness prior to viewing a showup (e.g., “Please be careful when making your decision.”) and biased identification procedures (e.g., when the suspect is shown wearing similar clothes to those worn by the perpetrator). Ultimately, however, intoxicated witnesses could, under the circumstances of these research studies, be more accurate than sober witnesses. In addition, correct identification decision rates were in the neighborhood of 90%—a notably high rate even for sober witnesses in eyewitness identification research.

Intoxicated Eyewitnesses: Experimental Findings Researchers have been examining the effects of alcohol on eyewitness memory since the early 1990s. Early experiments examined the effects of alcohol on memory by comparing groups that were either sober or intoxicated at the time of encoding and then testing all participants on a different day when all participants were sober. The results from these studies suggested that intoxicated participants were less accurate when asked to recall the features of a target person and less accurate about describing the events that took place

Jennifer E. Dysart See also Eyewitness Descriptions, Accuracy of; Eyewitness Memory; Identification Tests, Best Practices in

Further Readings

Dysart, J. E., Lindsay, R. C. L., MacDonald, T. K., & Wicke, C. (2002). The intoxicated witness: Effects of alcohol on identification accuracy. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 170–175. Read, J. D., Yuille, J. C., & Tollestrup, P. (1992). Recollections of a robbery: Effects of arousal and alcohol

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upon recall and person identification. Law and Human Behavior, 16, 425–446. Steele, C. M., & Josephs, R. A. (1990). Alcohol myopia: Its prized and dangerous effects. American Psychologist, 45, 921–933. Yuille, J. C., & Tollestrup, P. (1990). Some effects of alcohol on eyewitness memory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 268–273.

ALIBI WITNESSES An alibi, in its most basic form, is a plea that one was not present when a crime was being committed. In practice, alibis can be considerably more complex than a simple narrative story. In the criminal justice system, alibis function as exculpatory evidence—a good alibi should rule out the alibi provider as a potential suspect in a case or provide reasonable doubt as to a defendant’s guilt in a criminal trial. Psychological research into the study of alibis is a relatively new area in psychology and law. This entry summarizes some of the major findings and introduces the terminology of the existing psychological literature. It is unclear how alibis are used in the early stages of criminal investigations, and the rules about how and when alibi evidence can be used in the court system vary greatly across jurisdictions. To function as exculpatory evidence, alibis must contain both a believable story and credible proof of the alibi provider’s whereabouts. Psychology is in a unique position to study alibis from both sides of the criminal process: Alibi generation relies largely on the memory of alibi providers and corroborating witnesses, and alibi evaluation occurs as the police, attorneys, and jurors decide the exculpatory worth of the alibi. The study of alibi generation can be informed by autobiographical memory research, and alibi evaluation can benefit from deception detection and suspect interrogation research. However, psychological research on alibis specifically is still relatively new and has focused thus far on the evaluation of alibis. Alibis are evaluated according to their believability by detectives, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and jury members at different stages of the criminal process. For an alibi to be judged believable, credible proof of the alibi provider’s whereabouts is essential, and it can take one of two forms: physical evidence and person evidence. Credible physical evidence ties the alibi provider

to a specific place and time; for example, an airline boarding pass includes time and location information and requires identification, making it highly unlikely that someone other than the ticket holder would be able to obtain the pass. The research to date has indicated that physical evidence corroborating an alibi carries considerable weight with alibi evaluators; mock jurors have rated alibis with supporting physical evidence as more believable than alibis without such evidence. However, evaluators do not seem to differentiate between physical evidence that might be easily fabricated, such as a cash receipt, and evidence that is more difficult to fabricate, such as a security video. Person evidence consists of testimony by an alibi corroborator, or alibi witness, as to the whereabouts of the alibi provider. Preliminary research has shown that mock jurors are quick to distinguish among alibi corroborators according to the corroborator’s relationship to the alibi provider. Specifically, corroborators who could conceivably have a motivation to lie for the alibi provider (such as a close relative or a good friend) are viewed as less credible than corroborators who have no relationship to the alibi provider. Some research has suggested that having someone close to a defendant as an alibi corroborator could be no better than having no alibi at all—mock jurors voted guilty just as often when the corroborating witness was a motivated other as when the defendant had no alibi defense at all. Skepticism on the part of alibi evaluators may work well when evaluators are dealing with fabricated alibis offered by guilty defendants. However, difficulties may arise when evaluators are faced with alibis offered by innocent alibi providers. Innocent alibi providers could potentially fall a victim to normal memory errors, such as misremembering a date or time for a particular activity or failing to correctly recall their companions for a particular day. Unlike in a normal recollection situation, however, a normal memory mistake could look suspicious in the context of a criminal investigation. Preliminary investigations into the strength of alibis produced by innocent alibi providers suggest that people frequently misremember their actions for a previous date and have considerable difficulty producing any kind of proof for their whereabouts. Anecdotal evidence from past criminal cases suggests that evaluators may use a weak alibi as incriminating evidence, which could be especially worrisome for innocent alibi providers. Continued research into the psychology of alibis will shed additional light on how police detectives, attorneys, and jury members deal with alibis in the

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context of more complex criminal cases. For example, it is unclear how evaluators would deal with multiple pieces of alibi evidence or how they would look upon innocent alibi providers who need to change their alibis in some way. Although the psychological research is limited at present, the literature is growing and will continue to uncover how alibis interact with other pieces of evidence in criminal trials. Elizabeth A. Olson See also Detection of Deception: Use of Evidence in; Detection of Deception in Adults; Interrogation of Suspects; Police Decision Making; Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory; Reconstructive Memory

Further Readings

Burke, T., Turtle, J., & Olson, E. A. (2007). Alibis in criminal investigations and trials. In M. Toglia, J. D. Read, M. Ross, & R. C. L. Lindsay (Eds.), The handbook of eyewitness psychology: Vol. 1. Memory for events (pp. 157–174). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Culhane, S. E., & Hosch, H. M. (2004). An alibi witness’ influence on mock jurors’ verdicts. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34, 1604–1616. Olson, E. A., & Wells, G. L. (2004). What makes a good alibi? A proposed taxonomy. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 157–176.

ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) has come to refer broadly to a range of processes (e.g., bilateral negotiation, fact finding, mediation, summary jury trial, arbitration) that are used in transactional (e.g., design contracts, develop regulations), dispute prevention, and dispute resolution contexts. ADR processes operate in public and private settings, such as courts, government agencies, community mediation centers, schools, workplaces, and private providers, to address an array of substantive issues (e.g., custody, torts, contracts, misdemeanors, environmental issues). This entry focuses on a subset of ADR processes: those that involve a neutral third party and serve as an alternative to court adjudication of civil, divorce, and minor criminal disputes. The processes that are most commonly used are described in the following section.

The goals and asserted benefits of ADR include enhancing disputants’ satisfaction with the resolution process and its outcome; producing better outcomes and increased compliance; improving the disputants’ relationship and reducing future disputes; providing faster, less expensive, and confidential case resolution; increasing disputants’ access to a hearing on the merits; and reducing caseloads and the use of court resources. These goals do not all apply to, and are not of equal importance in, every ADR process and setting. Criticisms of ADR, particularly when its use is mandatory, include that it lacks procedural safeguards, decreases public participation and scrutiny, reduces the available legal precedents and reference points, creates pressures to settle, provides secondclass justice, and impedes access to trial by adding another step in the litigation process. Empirical field research on the efficacy of ADR, and on the impact of process, third-party, and dispute characteristics, is discussed in a subsequent section.

Third-Party ADR Processes Third-party ADR processes fall into two main categories. The first involves processes such as arbitration, in which the third party decides the case for the disputants. The second category involves processes such as mediation, in which the third party assists the disputants in reaching their own resolution. If the disputants reach an agreement, it is legally enforceable; if they do not, the case continues in litigation. Although most disputes settle before trial, a neutral third party can help disputants overcome the logistical, strategic, and cognitive barriers to bilateral negotiation that often impede early or optimal settlements. Disputants can enter ADR as the result of a predispute contractual agreement to use ADR or, after a dispute has arisen, as a result of mutual agreement, judicial referral of a specific case, or court-mandated use for an entire category of cases. In both court-connected and private ADR, the proceedings are private, and the content of any agreement reached is confidential and not reported to the court. Below is a general description of several commonly used processes. How each is implemented varies with the type of setting and disputes, as well as with the specific ADR provider. Arbitration involves a hearing during which the disputants’ lawyers present evidence and arguments to a single arbitrator, or sometimes a panel of three arbitrators, who renders a decision. In voluntary private arbitration,

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the arbitrator’s decision typically is binding, but the disputants determine that as well as other features of the process by agreement. Mandatory court-connected arbitration is nonbinding: The disputants may reject the arbitrator’s decision and proceed to trial de novo. If they accept the arbitrator’s decision, it becomes a court judgment. The arbitration hearing typically is held after discovery has been substantially completed. Compared with a trial, an arbitration hearing tends to be less formal and to permit the broader admissibility of evidence. Courtconnected arbitration usually involves a single session lasting several hours; private arbitration can involve multiple daylong sessions spread over weeks. Arbitrators are either lawyers or nonlawyers with expertise in the subject matter of the dispute. Although disputants often attend arbitration hearings, their participation is limited to providing evidence. Mediation is a process in which a mediator, or sometimes a pair of mediators, facilitates the disputants’ discussion of issues and options to help them reach a mutually acceptable resolution of their dispute. Accordingly, disputant participation in the mediation process and in determining the outcome is viewed as critical. The mediator’s approach can vary with the setting, as well as with the individual mediator’s preferences and the nature of the particular dispute. Some mediators view their primary objective as enabling the disputants to better understand their own interests and the other side’s perspective. Most mediators, however, do not consider enhancing the disputants’ understanding as an end in itself but as a means to helping them reach an agreement that meets their needs. Mediators differ in how actively they intervene during the session: whether they focus the disputants’ discussion narrowly on the instant dispute and legally relevant issues or expand it to include broader issues and considerations and whether they help the disputants assess various options or offer their own evaluation of the merits of the disputants’ positions and proposals. The timing of mediation (e.g., before a claim is filed, shortly after filing, after discovery is completed), the number and length of sessions, who the mediators are (e.g., lay people, mental health professionals, lawyers), and whether the attendance of the disputants’ lawyers is required or prohibited vary with the setting and types of disputes. Neutral case evaluation is used less frequently than mediation. Following each lawyer’s brief presentation of the case, the third party assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each disputant’s position and facilitates settlement discussions. The evaluator, who usually is

a lawyer, also might offer an assessment of liability and a valuation of damages, suggest a reasonable settlement value, or predict the likely trial outcome to facilitate settlement. If no settlement is reached, the evaluator might explore ways to streamline pretrial discovery and motions. Neutral case evaluation typically involves a single several-hour session that is held relatively early during litigation and is attended by the disputants and their lawyers. Judicial settlement conferences may be conducted by the judge assigned to the case or by another judge and usually take the form of neutral case evaluation or narrow, settlement-focused, evaluative mediation. A settlement conference typically involves a single session that lasts several hours and is held when the case is essentially ready for trial. Although some judges require disputants to attend, usually only the lawyers are present and participate in the discussions. Courts generally consider judicial settlement conferences to be ADR, but some commentators regard them as a component of traditional litigation.

Empirical Field Research on ADR Few general statements about the research findings can be made that apply consistently across ADR processes, settings, and dispute types. Even within the same process and setting, the findings are mixed as to whether ADR performs better than, or simply as well as, litigation. Most of the research has examined mediation and arbitration in court-connected programs; few published studies have examined other ADR processes or private ADR. The primary data sources include court or ADR program records and questionnaires completed at the end of the session by disputants, lawyers, and neutrals. Few studies have included observations of sessions or long-term follow-up with disputants. Many studies do not include a comparison group of non-ADR cases; those that do seldom assign cases randomly to ADR and non-ADR groups. Drawing conclusions across studies is further complicated because different studies use different non-ADR comparison groups: Some use only cases settled via negotiation, others use only tried cases, and still others include all disposition types.

The Efficacy of ADR In divorce, small claims, and community mediation, from 50% to 85% of cases settle. In general jurisdiction civil cases, from one fourth to two thirds of cases

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that use mediation, neutral evaluation, or arbitration settle. A majority of studies find that the settlement rate in mediation cases is higher than in comparable cases that do not use mediation, but other studies find no differences between mediated and litigated cases in settlement rates. Studies of court-connected arbitration tend to find a lower settlement rate in arbitrated cases than in comparable nonarbitrated cases. Because arbitration hearings divert cases from settlement but not from trial, arbitration increases disputants’ access to a hearing on the merits. Studies generally find that judicial settlement conferences do not increase the rate of settlement but that lawyers think they do. Some studies find that compared with traditional litigation, ADR resolves cases faster; reduces discovery, motions, pretrial conferences, and trials; and reduces disputants’ legal fees and litigation costs. Other studies, however, find no differences between ADR and litigation in these measures. No study has found that judicial settlement conferences resolve cases faster. In mediation and neutral evaluation, time and cost savings are more likely in cases that settle than in cases that do not settle. In court-connected arbitration, however, cases that settle before the arbitration hearing often are not resolved more quickly than cases resolved by the arbitrator’s decision; cases that appeal the decision take substantially longer to conclude, regardless of whether they eventually settle or are tried. Most disputants and lawyers who participate in ADR have highly favorable assessments of the process (e.g., they feel that it was fair and gave them sufficient opportunity to present their case), the third party (e.g., they think that she or he was neutral, understood their views and the issues, did not pressure them to settle, and treated them with respect), and the outcome (e.g., they feel that it was fair, and they were satisfied with it). Thus, ADR tends to get high ratings on procedural justice and its correlates. Whether ADR participants’ assessments are as favorable as or more favorable than those of non-ADR participants, however, varies across studies and settings. In most settings, disputants in mediation who settle have more favorable assessments than disputants who do not settle. Disputants in arbitration who have a hearing have more favorable views of the process, but not necessarily of the outcome, than disputants who settle before the arbitration hearing. Studies involving divorce and small claims cases tend to find that disputants in mediated cases report a higher rate of compliance with the outcome, less anger, improved relationships, and less relitigation

than disputants in litigation. These benefits associated with divorce mediation tend to disappear after several years, although disputants remain more satisfied. In general civil cases, most studies find no differences between mediated and nonmediated cases in terms of postresolution compliance or relationships. Several studies suggest that postresolution outcomes are less strongly influenced by whether disputants use mediation or litigation than by antecedent characteristics of the disputants, such as their ability to pay or their level of anger or adjustment. The few studies that have examined the relative efficacy of different ADR processes tend to find no differences among them. However, because these studies do not involve the random assignment of cases to processes, these findings might simply reflect the “correct” matching of disputes to processes for which they are best suited. Despite ADR performing at least as well as litigation, there is relatively little voluntary use of ADR after disputes have arisen. This appears to say less about disputants’ or lawyers’ preferences regarding dispute resolution procedures and more about the logistical, strategic, cognitive, and economic barriers to using ADR once litigation has begun. Rules designed to overcome these barriers by requiring lawyers to inform their clients about ADR or to discuss ADR with opposing counsel have had mixed success in increasing early settlements or voluntary ADR use.

The Effect of Process, Third-Party, and Dispute Characteristics The mixed research findings regarding ADR’s efficacy might reflect, in part, differences across studies in how the ADR process was implemented or in the mix of disputes handled. A small number of studies have examined the relationships between ADR outcomes and characteristics of the process, third party, and disputes, though few have systematically varied these characteristics. Process Characteristics

Studies find that several benefits are associated with holding the ADR session sooner after the legal complaint is filed: Cases are resolved faster; fewer motions are filed; and, as found in some studies, more cases settle. Delaying ADR until after discovery is substantially completed is not associated with an increased rate of settlement. Most studies find no differences in settlement rates

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or participants’ assessments associated with whether mediation use is voluntary or mandatory, but some studies find that voluntary use of mediation is associated with more favorable outcomes. Third-Party Characteristics

A majority of studies find that when the mediator or neutral evaluator plays a more active role during the session in helping disputants identify issues and options, settlement is more likely and disputants have more favorable assessments of the process. Mediator actions associated with these positive outcomes include actively structuring the process, getting disputants to express their views and to assess different options, and providing their own views about the disputants’ positions and proposals. If the mediator recommends a specific settlement, however, disputants are more likely to settle but less likely to view the mediation process as fair. Only a few studies have examined whether the third party’s general approach or specific actions appear to be differentially effective in different types of disputes. These studies show, for instance, that some mediator approaches that are effective in resolving less intense conflicts are not effective in resolving more intense conflicts and some approaches that are effective in divorce cases are not effective in general civil cases. Greater third-party familiarity with the substantive issues in the case is related to lawyers’ viewing the arbitration process and decision as more fair. In mediation, the third party’s substantive expertise is not related to settlement or to disputants’ or lawyers’ assessments. How well the mediator understood the disputants’ views, however, is related to their assessments. Disputants’ and lawyers’ perceptions that the third party was not biased and was prepared for the session are associated with favorable assessments of the process and outcome of all ADR processes. Dispute and Disputant Characteristics

Research examining which dispute and disputant characteristics are associated with better outcomes has been conducted primarily on the mediation process. The contentiousness of the disputants’ relationship impedes settlement in divorce and community mediation but not in general civil and small claims mediation, which involves few intimate or ongoing relationships. In addition, divorcing couples with a more contentious relationship are more likely to be dissatisfied with the settlement, remain bitter, and bring subsequent lawsuits.

Across mediation settings, other indicators of more intense conflicts, such as poor communication, greater disparity in the disputants’ positions, and the denial of liability, also are associated with a lower likelihood of settlement. Not surprisingly, the greater the disputants’ motivation to settle and the less disparity between the disputants in that motivation, the more likely they are to settle. Disputants who misunderstand the goals of mediation or whose goals are inconsistent with those of mediation are less satisfied and less likely to settle. Similarly, lawyers whose expectations about how the neutral case evaluation session will be conducted are closer to the approach actually used are more satisfied with the process. Disputants who are better prepared for mediation by their lawyers tend to be more likely to settle and to feel that the process is fair, perhaps because preparation modifies their expectations or their actions during the session. Few studies have examined how antecedent dispute characteristics affect what goes on during the mediation session and how that, in turn, affects outcomes. These studies find that disputants who have a less contentious relationship or who are more motivated to settle are more likely to be cooperative and to engage in productive joint problem solving during mediation. These behaviors, in turn, are associated with disputants being more likely to settle, view the mediation process and outcome as fair, and report improved relationships. More active disputant participation during mediation also is associated with more favorable outcomes. The few studies that have examined lawyers’ impact on mediation suggest that how cooperative the lawyers are during the session is related to settlement and to disputants’ assessments of the process. The research findings are mixed with regard to whether or not there is a relationship between settlement and dispute complexity, which has been defined in different studies as the number of disputants, the number of disputed issues, or the complexity of the issues in dispute. A majority of mediation studies find that legal case type categories (e.g., tort, contract) and the size of the monetary claim are not related to settlement or to disputants’ assessments of mediation. A majority of arbitration studies, however, find that disputants are more likely to appeal the arbitrator’s decision in cases involving larger dollar claims and in tort rather than contract cases. Roselle L. Wissler See also Legal Negotiation; Procedural Justice

AMBER Alert System———19

Further Readings

ADR and the vanishing trial [Special issue]. (2004, Summer). Dispute Resolution Magazine, 10. Brazil, W. A. (1985). Settling civil suits: Litigators’ views about appropriate roles and effective techniques for federal judges. Chicago: American Bar Association. Conflict resolution in the field: Assessing the past, charting the future [Special issue]. (2004, Fall–Winter). Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 22. Folberg, J., Milne, A. L., & Salem, P. (Eds.). (2004). Divorce and family mediation: Models, techniques, and applications. New York: Guilford. Menkel-Meadow, C. J., Love, L. P., Schneider, A. K., & Sternlight, J. R. (Eds.). (2005). Dispute resolution: Beyond the adversarial model. New York: Aspen. Wissler, R. L., & Dauber, B. (2005). Leading horses to water: The impact of an ADR “confer and report” rule. Justice System Journal, 26, 253–272. Wissler, R. L., & Dauber, B. (2007). Court-connected arbitration in the Superior Court of Arizona: A study of its performance and proposed rule changes. Journal of Dispute Resolution 1, 65–100.

AMBER ALERT SYSTEM The AMBER Alert system was designed to help rescue missing children. Law enforcement entities release information about the child and the perpetrator through public announcements on television, roadside signs, and the Internet. Citizens are expected to remember the information and report sightings to the police. Although the system has not been well evaluated, a number of social science methods used in other areas (e.g., eyewitness memory research, bystander effect) may be applicable. Concerns have been raised that the program has been overused by the authorities, who issue alerts in nonserious cases, and that alerts are most “effective” when relatively little threat is posed, such as when a child is abducted by a parent.

AMBER Alert and Social Science The AMBER Alert system makes many assumptions about human behavior that remain untested. The system assumes that individuals have the ability to remember the information presented in the alert and to identify the perpetrator or the child at a later time. Research on cognitive load and exposure duration suggests that brief messages presented while the recipient is busy (e.g.,

driving a car) may not be acquired, although these notions have not been tested with AMBER Alert messages. Retention failure and memory reconstruction may also make it difficult to properly remember the alert message. Retrieval problems, such as source attribution errors, may also make it difficult for citizens to fulfill their role in the AMBER Alert system. Eyewitness memory research has indicated that individuals are not always able to recognize a face seen before; this can be especially true for faces of another race. These research techniques could be used to test citizens’ ability to become informants. Social influences and individual differences could affect one’s willingness to report. Informants may feel that they are too busy to get involved with an investigation, or they could decide that because other citizens will report the sighting, there is no need for them to report (i.e., the bystander effect). The people around informants could doubt their memory, influencing them not to report. On the other hand, the high severity of a crime may make informants more likely to report. Gender, race, and past experiences with the police have also been shown to affect one’s willingness to help. Although these studies were not conducted using AMBER Alert as a framework, they may suggest avenues for future study. There is also concern that AMBER alerts will lead to “AMBER fatigue,” a phenomenon in which individuals stop paying attention to the alerts because they have seen so many of them. There is also concern that the great number of alerts could lead to a heightened level of public fear and to perceptions that abductions are more common than they actually are, as suggested by research on the availability heuristic and social construction of fear by the media. Alternately, the presence of the AMBER Alert system could convince people that the system is deterring abductions; this could lead to a reduction in the perceived need for prevention programs. Stories of abductions by strangers (which AMBER Alert was designed to address) may lead to a neglect of the more frequent problem of abductions by family members. Counterfactual thinking and hindsight bias can affect perceptions of the system: A rescue after an alert was issued or a child’s death after a failure to issue an alert may seem like inevitable outcomes, thus bolstering the system’s perceived effectiveness. Finally, AMBER alerts can affect perpetrators. It is possible that alerts can deter criminals or encourage them to return the child safely. It is, however, also possible that they will encourage copycat abductions by publicity-seeking criminals. Seeing an alert could also

20———American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty

lead a criminal to kill and dispose of the child more quickly than he or she had planned.

AMBER Alert Research A few researchers have attempted to test the effectiveness of the system. An examination of 233 AMBER alerts issued in 2004 revealed that, despite the intention of focusing AMBER alerts on only serious abduction cases (which generally involve strangers), 50% of the alerts studied involved familial abductions, another 20% involved hoaxes or confusions, and only 30% actually involved abduction by strangers. The researchers recommended stricter adherence to the restrictive issuance criteria recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid overuse of the system. There has also been one attempt to determine how effective AMBER Alert is in accomplishing its key goal, which is saving abducted children’s lives in the worst cases (often called “stereotypical” abductions). The researchers found that, despite claims by some practitioners that AMBER alerts have helped rescue hundreds of children, successful recovery is most likely when the victim is abducted by a parent and least likely when the child is abducted by a stranger. Since prior research has shown that most children abducted by parents are not harmed (regardless of whether an alert was issued or not), researchers questioned the effectiveness of alerts and their ability to “save” lives. In addition to these issues, there might be obstacles to AMBER alerts routinely functioning as intended. For practical reasons, it is very difficult to learn of an abduction and issue an alert within the small, critical window of opportunity that exists in the worst cases. Despite the reasonableness of insisting that AMBER alerts only be issued in serious scenarios, there is an inherent dilemma in determining the level of threat actually posed when a child is missing and might or might not have been abducted. Monica K. Miller and Timothy Griffin See also Eyewitness Memory; Reporting Crimes and Victimization; Sex Offender Community Notification (Megan’s Laws); Victimization

Further Readings

Griffin, T., Miller, M. K., Hammack, R., Hoppe, J., & Rebideaux, A. (2007). A preliminary examination of AMBER Alert’s effects. Criminal Justice Policy Review.

Hargrove, T. (2005). False alarms endangering future of Amber Alert system. New York: Scripps Howard News Service. Miller, M. K., & Clinkinbeard, S. S. (2006). Improving the AMBER Alert system: Psychology research and policy recommendations. Law and Psychology Review, 30, 1–21. Miller, M. K., Griffin, T., Clinkinbeard, S. S., & Thomas, R. M. (2006, April). The psychology of AMBER Alert: Unresolved issues and policy implications. Paper presented at the Western Social Science Association Conference, Phoenix, AZ.

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION RESOLUTION ON MENTAL DISABILITY AND THE DEATH PENALTY The question of how individuals with severe mental disabilities should be sentenced when they are convicted of capital (death penalty) crimes is a vexing one in U.S. society. On one hand, the death penalty is an established part of the criminal justice system in the United States, which exists in part as a reflection of our society’s outrage in response to certain kinds of violent crime. On the other hand, in the words of former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, a society’s “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” require that we recognize that there must be exceptions to this most extreme form of punishment. This entry describes the Resolution of the American Bar Association on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty, which was endorsed by the American Psychological Association and other professional organizations, and the Resolution’s approach to the difficult problem of mental disability and capital punishment. The American Bar Association (ABA) formed an interdisciplinary task force to consider this problem. The Task Force on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty (hereinafter “Task Force”) was established by the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities and chaired by Ronald Tabak (Task Force, 2006). Many of the 24 members of the Task Force were attorneys, including representation from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, but there were also representatives from the American Psychological Association (the three authors of this entry) and the American Psychiatric Association. The Task Force worked for 2 years

American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty———21

(April 2003 to March 2005) on considering, debating, and crafting the Resolution that is quoted in this entry. It was approved by the ABA in August 2006, after having previously been endorsed by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. One of the important initial questions facing the Task Force was whether mental disability should constitute a per se bar to capital punishment—that is, whether individuals with certain kinds of mental disability should not need to demonstrate anything further in order to be excluded from consideration for the death penalty. There were differing views among Task Force members on this question. The vast majority of questions in mental health law require consideration not only of mental disability but also of specific functional legal capacities that vary according to the legal question, and the relationship between the mental disability and the functional capacities. For example, an individual with a severe mental disability would not be adjudicated incompetent to stand trial only on the basis of that disability; the court would also consider the functional legal criteria involving a rational and factual understanding of the individual’s legal situation and the capacity to assist counsel in his or her own defense. The defendant who experiences deficits in these functional legal capacities that are caused by symptoms of a severe mental disability is much more likely to be adjudicated incompetent to stand trial by a court. So it did not appear sufficient to craft a resolution on the theme that those with mental disability should be excluded from the death penalty on that basis alone. Throughout most of the Resolution, the Task Force used the consideration of mental disability, functional legal criteria, and causal connection in formulating its language. To complicate matters further, however, there is some important case law, in the form of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, indicating that in some instances the defendant’s mental condition or age is sufficient by itself to exclude that individual from capital punishment. In Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bars capital punishment for individuals with mental retardation on the basis that it is a cruel and unusual punishment. This decision was followed by another case, Roper v. Simmons (2005), in which the Supreme Court held that execution of those under the age of 18 at the time of the offense was also constitutionally prohibited under the Eighth Amendment.

Faced with the choice of whether to apply “mental disability” to capital punishment as the Supreme Court did in Atkins and Roper, with the disability itself constituting sufficient grounds for an exclusion, or to use the more established approach used in virtually all other questions in mental health law, the Task Force adopted a two-dimensional approach. Consistent with Atkins, the first prong of this Resolution proposes that those with significant limitations in their intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior (criteria associated with mental retardation) be excluded from consideration for capital punishment on that basis alone. However, individuals with “severe mental disorder or disability” would need to demonstrate both the existence of such a disorder/disability and the resulting impairment in functional legal capacities at the time of the offense (the Resolution’s second prong) or following sentencing (the third prong). This two-dimensional approach has the advantage of not only recognizing the Court’s holding that a specific kind of disability (mental retardation) is sufficient in itself to exclude defendants with this disability from capital sentencing but also acknowledging the longstanding demand for considering both nature of disability and relevant functional legal capacities in other areas of mental health law. Finally, the Task Force sought to fill an important gap in the law regarding competence for execution, which applies when a defendant who receives a death sentence begins to demonstrate symptoms of a severe mental disability after sentencing but before execution. In Ford v. Wainwright (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court held that execution of an incompetent prisoner constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, which is proscribed by the Eighth Amendment. However, the Court did not specify what criteria should be used to determine whether the prisoner is incompetent for execution. The Resolution provides suggested criteria that expand on the language used by Justice Lewis Powell, in his concurring opinion in Ford, to the effect that the prisoner’s understanding of the nature of capital punishment and why it is imposed in this particular case ought to be the relevant test. (Since Justice Powell’s opinion concurred with the majority on many points but was not part of the majority opinion, his language regarding the criteria for competence for execution did not become officially recognized as part of the Ford decision and hence applicable to other cases involving competence for execution. Some states have adopted this language as part of their law in this area, but they are not required to do so as they

22———American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty

would have been if the language had been included in the majority’s decision.)

The Resolution (Quoted From the Task Force) RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association, without taking a position supporting or opposing the death penalty, urges each jurisdiction that imposes capital punishment to implement the following policies and procedures: 1. Defendants should not be executed or sentenced to death if, at the time of the offense, they had significant limitations in both their intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills, resulting from mental retardation, dementia, or a traumatic brain injury. 2. Defendants should not be executed or sentenced to death if, at the time of the offense, they had a severe mental disorder or disability that significantly impaired their capacity a. to appreciate the nature, consequences or wrongfulness of their conduct, b. to exercise rational judgment in relation to conduct, or c. to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law.

A disorder manifested primarily by repeated criminal conduct or attributable solely to the acute effects of voluntary use of alcohol or other drugs does not, standing alone, constitute a mental disorder or disability for purposes of this provision. 3. Mental Disorder or Disability after Sentencing a. Grounds for Precluding Execution. A sentence of death should not be carried out if the prisoner has a mental disorder or disability that significantly impairs his or her capacity i. to make a rational decision to forgo or terminate post-conviction proceedings available to challenge the validity of the conviction or sentence; ii. to understand or communicate pertinent information, or otherwise assist counsel, in relation to specific claims bearing on the validity of the conviction or sentence that cannot be fairly resolved without the prisoner’s participation; or

iii. to understand the nature and purpose of the punishment, or to appreciate the reason for its imposition in the prisoner’s own case.

Procedures to be followed in each of these categories of cases are specified in (b) through (d) below. b. Procedure in Cases Involving Prisoners Seeking to Forgo or Terminate Post-Conviction Proceedings. If a court finds that a prisoner under sentence of death who wishes to forgo or terminate post-conviction proceedings has a mental disorder or disability that significantly impairs his or her capacity to make a rational decision, the court should permit a next friend acting on the prisoner’s behalf to initiate or pursue available remedies to set aside the conviction or death sentence. c. Procedure in Cases Involving Prisoners Unable to Assist Counsel in Post-Conviction Proceedings. If a court finds at any time that a prisoner under sentence of death has a mental disorder or disability that significantly impairs his or her capacity to understand or communicate pertinent information, or otherwise to assist counsel, in connection with post-conviction proceedings, and that the prisoner’s participation is necessary for a fair resolution of specific claims bearing on the validity of the conviction or death sentence, the court should suspend the proceedings. If the court finds that there is no significant likelihood of restoring the prisoner’s capacity to participate in post-conviction proceedings in the foreseeable future, it should reduce the prisoner’s sentence to the sentence imposed in capital cases when execution is not an option. d. Procedure in Cases Involving Prisoners Unable to Understand the Punishment or Its Purpose. If, after challenges to the validity of the conviction and death sentence have been exhausted and execution has been scheduled, a court finds that a prisoner has a mental disorder or disability that significantly impairs his or her capacity to understand the nature and purpose of the punishment, or to appreciate the reason for its imposition in the prisoner’s own case, the sentence of death should be reduced to the sentence imposed in capital cases when execution is not an option.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)———23

Discussion This Resolution does not take a position on the death penalty generally. Neither the ABA, which organized the Task Force and ultimately approved the Resolution, nor organizations such as the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, or the National Alliance on Mental Illness intended their endorsement to reflect a broader position on capital punishment applicable beyond the scope of the Resolution. In some respects, this Resolution is largely consistent with established law. In Prong 1, for example, the Resolution language is quite consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Atkins, although it does expand the possible reasons for significantly limited intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior so that it now includes mental retardation as well as other possible sources of deficit (e.g., dementia, brain injury). In other respects, however, the Resolution goes well beyond what is presently established under the law. It proposes to exempt from capital punishment those who, at the time of the offense or prior to execution, display both severe mental disability and impaired functional legal capacities. It does so in a traditional fashion, without the per se bar of a specific kind of mental disability or the defendant’s age. However, there is no question that what is proposed in the Resolution’s second and third prongs would change the law in some significant ways if the Resolution’s language were adopted by state legislatures and used by appellate courts. This Resolution should not be interpreted as an attempt to absolve offenders of responsibility for their actions or exempt them from punishment. But it does recognize that there are degrees of culpability for very serious offenses and that severe mental disability may reduce that culpability somewhat. Even for those who might meet the criteria described in this Resolution, however, the reduction in sanction is from a death sentence to life incarceration—an attempt to balance our society’s interest in punishing the guilty with the importance of punishing them as culpability and fairness dictate. Kirk Heilbrun, Joel Dvoskin, and Diane Marsh See also Competency for Execution; Death Penalty; Mental Illness and the Death Penalty

Further Readings

Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). Bonnie, R. (2005). Mentally ill prisoners on death row: Unsolved puzzles for courts and legislatures. Catholic University Law Review, 54, 1169–1193. Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986). Heilbrun, K., Radelet, M., & Dvoskin, J. (1992). The debate on treating individuals incompetent for execution. American Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 596–605. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). Task Force on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty. (2006). Recommendation and report on the death penalty and persons with mental disabilities. Mental and Physical Disability Law Reporter, 30, 668–677. Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958).

AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT (ADA) Psychologists may become involved with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) through consultations with employers and workers or as an expert witness in litigation involving the act. In all these roles, the psychologist must gain an understanding of the many definitions in the act and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulations mandated by it. The ADA not only is a valuable tool for use by disabled people against discrimination but also an arena of practice for forensic psychologists. Although the ADA is a complex mixture of definitions and rules, the forensic practitioner may enter this arena using many of the skills developed in tort cases or in civil rights cases involving sex or race. This entry describes the ADA, discusses the roles that psychologists may play in workplace consultations, and examines the use of psychological evaluations in litigation related to disability.

Background of the ADA The ADA was signed into law in 1990 and came into effect 2 years later. The law was designed to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities. The statute (42 U.S.C. 12101, Section 2 b (1), 1992) enabled the development of regulations by the EEOC and has been shaped by a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The most obvious impact of the ADA

24———Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

is seen in its transformation of buildings, roads, sidewalks, buses, and restrooms into places where people with disabilities may function with fewer barriers. However, the advocates of disabled people who framed the ADA were more ambitious. The law intends to prevent individuals with disabilities from being discriminated against in hiring, training, compensation, and benefits. Under the ADA, it is illegal to classify an employee on the basis of disability or to participate in contracts that have the effect of discriminating against people with disabilities. The use of tests or other qualification standards that are not job related but result in screening out individuals with disabilities is also banned. Like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the ADA protects workers who file complaints with the EEOC or other agencies from retaliation by their employers. Under the ADA, employers are required to provide “reasonable accommodation” for workers with disabilities who could qualify for jobs with appropriate assistance.

Mental Disabilities in the ADA Forensic psychologists working in cases involving the ADA must have an understanding of the specific definitions that shape how the act is used. An important definition in the act is the definition of disability: (1) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of an individual, (2) a record of such an impairment, or (3) being regarded as having such an impairment. A qualified individual with a disability is a person with a disability who has the basic qualifications for the job, including the skills, experience, education, and other job-related requirements required for the position the person either currently holds or wishes to obtain. In the context of the ADA, a qualified individual with a disability, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of that job. An impairment becomes a disability when it adversely affects one or more major life activities. One first considers the impact of the disability on non-workrelated activities, which include self-care, sleeping, reading, and concentrating. If none of those basic human activities are affected, the inquiry shifts to workrelated activities. The impairment must be considered severe enough to “substantially limit a major life activity.” How much restriction on essential life activity is caused by the disability is one metric, but the act also

allows for consideration of the duration of the disability. Temporary disability is not considered, and chronic and recurring conditions must be considered substantially limiting while they are active. Mental impairment refers to “any mental or psychological disorder, such as . . . emotional or mental illness.” The ADA provides examples of mental or emotional illnesses, such as major depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia. Although not listed in the ADA itself, EEOC regulations also include personality disorders as potentially disabling conditions and point to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (currently the DSM-IV-TR) as the appropriate reference for determining the symptoms associated with mental disorders. The ADA specifically excludes conditions related to sexuality, such as homosexuality, bestiality, transvestism, transexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, or gender identity disorders not related to physical impairments. In addition, the act excludes other behaviors of which Congress did not approve, including compulsive gambling, kleptomania, pyromania, and psychoactive substance abuse disorder resulting from the illegal use of drugs. In general, the disabled worker must conduct himself or herself in the workplace just like other workers, unless the disability is causing conduct problems on the job. In those situations, the employer must provide reasonable accommodations that would allow the worker to meet conduct requirements. If a worker’s behavior constitutes “a significant risk of substantial harm to the health and safety of the individual or others that cannot be eliminated or reduced by reasonable accommodation,” it may be considered a direct threat. The ADA allows workers who pose a direct threat to be fired or removed from the affected position. The ADA treats the abuse of illegal substances differently than the abuse of legal ones. Current illegal drug use, including abuse of prescription drugs, is not protected by the ADA. Rehabilitated illegal drug users are protected, and the existence of a history of illegal drug use may not be a basis for discharge or discipline, although a relapse may legitimately trigger discharge. Workers who have addictions to legal drugs, such as alcohol, must experience a substantial limitation in a major life activity to be covered by the ADA. Alcohol-dependent workers with excessive absenteeism who report to work drunk or who endanger other workers because of their dependence are subject to the same discipline as other workers.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)———25

Psychological Consultations With Employers and Workers Accommodation Plans

The ADA mandates that an employer work with each disabled employee to develop a plan that takes into account the worker’s disability, the worker’s strengths, and the nature of the job. Psychologists may assist the employer to help craft an accommodation plan to allow the worker to function in the workplace. This may be done through changes in work hours or supervision levels or by simply providing time off for psychotherapy sessions. Return-to-Work Evaluations

Workers with mental disabilities may experience fluctuations in their illnesses that result in extended absences from the workplace. In these situations, the employer may require that the worker undergo a psychological evaluation to determine if the worker may effectively return to the workplace without irremediable deficits in work functioning or dangers to the worker or others. In these situations, the psychologist obtains information concerning the demands of the job. The next task is to determine if the worker can perform essential job functions with or without reasonable accommodation. The psychologist may provide information about what accommodations may be made, which might include altering the interpersonal demands of the workplace, changing the environmental conditions, changing the worker’s shift, and eliminating distractions. In addition to reviewing the worker’s documented medical and mental records, the examining psychologist may administer a battery of tests. Cognitive assessment may be required in situations in which the mental disability may affect attention, concentration, or the ability to work quickly. Personality assessment may add additional information about existing patterns of psychopathology in relation to the worker’s history or the symptom picture that predicated the worker’s departure from the workplace. A full clinical history and interview is part of this assessment and should include a detailed vocational history to determine whether the presented impairments have caused the worker problems in the past. A history of relationships, both on and off the job, will illuminate the existence of interpersonal impairments that could limit vocational functioning.

The assessment should result in the psychologist’s opinion about whether the worker is disabled under the definitions of the ADA. Then, the psychologist determines if the worker’s disability is amenable to reasonable accommodation within the range of alternatives that are feasible for that employer. This decision, as all others in relation to the ADA, is related to the nature of the employer’s business, the number of employees, the cost of the accommodations, and other factors. For a small employer, changes in the worker’s schedule may not be reasonable, while for a large employer, more extensive changes in the workplace may be practical. The psychologist’s active participation in discussions with the employer and the worker can result in a return-to-work plan that meets the worker’s needs and allows for the employer to return a trained and functioning employee to duty. The psychologist should listen to all the parties to craft a viable course of action for the employee’s return to work.

Litigation-Related Evaluations and Consultations Failure to Provide Reasonable Accommodation

The ADA allows workers to sue employers for a number of acts and omissions in relation to the ADA. The worker may claim that the employer has failed to provide reasonable accommodation for a disability or has refused to hire a disabled employee. Assessment of plaintiffs in these cases involves evaluations similar to those used in return-to-work contexts because the psychologist is called on to compare the worker’s skills with the job requirements to determine if changes in the workplace would allow the worker to perform essential job functions. Employers may claim that no amount of accommodation would bring the worker up to a functional level, that the proposed accommodations are not feasible or would impose an undue hardship on the employer, that reasonable accommodation has been offered to the worker but was rejected, or that no effective accommodation exists for that worker in that job setting. These evaluations should meet the standards for any litigation-related evaluation and include gathering a thorough history, reviewing the appropriate job, mental health, and medical records, appropriate psychological testing, and collateral interviews. The psychologist

26———Amicus Curiae Briefs

should prepare a report consistent with professional standards and be prepared to be questioned in deposition or in open court.

employer failed to take prompt remedial action to stop the harassment. Evaluations for hostile work environment would follow the same pattern as outlined above. William E. Foote

Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact Evaluations

If a worker is disabled according to the ADA and has not been hired, has been denied promotion, or has been fired, and nondisabled workers who are similarly situated have been treated more favorably, the disabled worker may have a claim for disparate treatment. If the disabled worker has experienced an adverse job action that is not a result of the employer’s overt discrimination but is a result of a policy that was designed to be neutral toward people with disabilities, the worker may have a claim for disparate impact. Psychological evaluation in these cases focuses on the impact of the nonhire, firing, or nonpromotion. Emotional damages may flow from these adverse job actions, and the impact of changes in income and lost future job opportunities may be considered. Psychological evaluations in these cases may more closely resemble evaluations in personal injury or workers’ compensation cases, as reasonable accommodation is not an issue. Interviews with family members and friends may assist in determining if the worker has suffered emotional harm because of the employer’s actions. Reprisal for Protected Conduct

If a worker files a complaint with the EEOC or other similar agency and is subsequently the recipient of adverse treatment or discharge from his or her employer, that employee may file a claim for reprisal. Psychological evaluation of these cases may follow the parameters of evaluations in disparate treatment and impact cases. Disability Harassment and Hostile Work Environment

In some situations, disabled individuals experience harassment or hostile work environments because of their disability status. In these situations, the plaintiff must show that he or she is disabled and that because of the disability, he or she was subjected to physical or verbal conduct so offensive that a reasonable person would consider the work situation to be a hostile work environment. Also, the plaintiff must show that the

See also Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact Evaluations; Forensic Assessment; Return-to-Work Evaluations

Further Readings

Foote, W. E. (2000). A model for psychological consultation in cases involving the Americans with Disabilities Act. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 31(2), 190–196. Foote, W. E. (2003). Forensic evaluation in Americans with Disabilities Act cases. In A. D. Goldstein & I. B. Weiner (Eds.), Comprehensive handbook of forensic psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology. New York: Wiley. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2000). Questions and answers on amending the interpretive guidance on Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Retrieved June 4, 2007, from http://www.eeoc.gov/ policy/regs/1630-mitigating-qanda.html

AMICUS CURIAE BRIEFS Amicus curiae literally means “friend of the court,” and the author of an amicus curiae brief is an entity who wishes to provide legal, scientific, or technical information to a court to aid its decision. An amicus is not a party to the case entitled to be heard as a matter of right but an individual or an organization granted discretionary leave to file a written brief to provide insight into an issue that the parties to the case may not be able to have because of lack of time, space, or expertise. Amicus curiae briefs have influenced the outcomes of many landmark legal cases. The American Psychological Association (APA) regularly seeks leave to file amicus briefs, as do a host of other individuals and organizations.

Overview The U.S. adversarial legal system looks to the parties to present the information necessary for the judge or jury to decide the questions presented by a case. The amicus curiae brief is a vehicle for people or

Amicus Curiae Briefs———27

organizations, not joined as parties or otherwise entitled to be heard in the case, to provide the judiciary with insights or analysis that would otherwise be lacking in decisions of significant import. Amici lack important rights that parties enjoy. For example, amici have no right to settle or refuse to settle claims, to raise a claim or a defense that the parties did not, or even to join a person that the parties did not. There is no constitutional right to file an amicus brief. The opportunity to be heard as an amicus rests with the discretion of the court before whom the case is pending or, in federal court, the consent of the parties or permission of the court. Typically, amicus briefs are thought to address transcendent questions of law decided at the appellate stage of a case. But it is within the discretion of the court to accept an amicus brief at trial as well as on appeal, whether labeled a pure or a mixed question of law or fact.

A Brief History Authors such as Simpson and Vasaly have traced the roots of the amicus curiae brief to ancient Rome, where briefs were submitted to provide legal expertise directly to the judiciary at their discretion. Seventeenth-century England provides the first known occurrence of what is now understood as an amicus brief to aid judges in avoiding legal errors and maintaining judicial honor. The first known instance in the United States was when an amicus curiae brief was requested of House Speaker Henry Clay in 1812 by the Supreme Court to aid the Court in the application of law to a land dispute between two states. It was not long after this use of an amicus curiae brief that the practice of filing amicus briefs in appellate courts began in earnest. Although the core purpose of the amicus curiae brief has always been a nonpartisan effort to educate the court and not to advance the interests of a specific party, there has always been a tension between these motivations. The amicus curiae brief may seek to serve numerous functions categorized by Simpson, include the following: (a) to address issues of policy; (b) to provide a more appealing advocate; (c) to support the granting of a Supreme Court review; (d) to supplement the brief of a party; (e) to give a historical perspective; (f) to provide technical or scientific aid; (g) to endorse a particular party in the case; and (h) to try and correct, limit, publish, or “depublish” an issued judicial opinion. These functions are not mutually exclusive; thus an amicus curiae brief may serve multiple purposes.

Prevalence and Influence of the Amicus Curiae Brief

The prevalence of amicus curiae briefs submitted to the courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, has increased over time. During the first few decades of the 20th century, Kearney and Merrill found that amicus curiae briefs were only filed in approximately 10% of the Supreme Court’s cases. This practice has increased dramatically. For example, in the most recent decades, at least one amicus curiae brief has been filed in at least 85% of the Court’s cases that incorporated oral arguments. Thus, today, cases with no amicus curiae filings have become the anomaly. As the number of amicus curiae briefs filed has increased over time, so has the ability of the amicus curiae brief to influence the outcome of court cases, especially where there are many amicus curiae briefs that aid the parties in strong calls for change in the areas of social policy. Amicus curiae briefs that focus on social policy instead of pure legal argument have come to be known as “Brandeis briefs,” named for the first filing by Louis Brandeis, later appointed a Supreme Court justice. Brandeis’s use of a nonlegally oriented brief to highlight social science data has become a model for presenting such information.

Perceptions of the Amicus Curiae Brief Perceptions of the use and utility of amicus curiae briefs vary widely within the legal profession. From one point of view, the amicus curiae brief is a beneficial vehicle, providing arguments, technical information, or authorities not included by the parties. Those agreeing with this view point to the numerous references to amicus curiae briefs in many court opinions to suggest that courts find amicus curiae briefs helpful. Some members of the legal community hold an opposite view. Many judges report that amicus curiae briefs replay the arguments put forth by the parties and provide the court little or no assistance. Those who subscribe to this view contend that amicus curiae briefs are a nuisance, burdening judges and their staffs yet providing few, if any, benefits. For those who view the amicus curiae brief in this way, either prohibiting or limiting the submission of amicus curiae briefs would improve the judicial system. Finally, a middle ground regarding the amicus curiae brief acknowledges its prevalence and its potential

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utility but cautions that amicus curiae briefs are most often filed by large, resourceful organizations. While amicus curiae briefs may prove helpful, researchers including Kearney and Merrill caution that inequality in organizational power, interest, and influence should be considered when contemplating an amicus curiae brief.

The APA as a Friend of the Court The APA has been a prolific author of amicus curiae briefs. It has submitted amicus curiae briefs in cases presenting issues that can potentially affect the internal practices of the APA or its membership as well as external issues of social import that may affect the welfare of populations served by the APA. The topics of APA amicus briefs cover a wide gamut, ranging from scientific research and testing, psychological practice, and treatment of the mentally ill to abortion, sexual orientation, affirmative action, and the death penalty. While the wide range of amicus curiae brief topics are as diverse as the United States itself, in each specific case, the APA perceived either an important social value or an internal necessity in speaking as a “friend of the court.” The APA offers full-text copies of numerous amicus curiae briefs on its Web site, including briefs submitted in “landmark” cases. As an example, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the APA presented amicus briefs containing extensive psychological research to assist the Supreme Court’s scrutiny of a Pennsylvania law requiring married women to obtain consent from their husbands before obtaining an abortion. The APA’s amicus brief presented research that such a restriction supplants a woman’s rational choice and places an unfair and potentially harmful burden on women who have compelling reasons not to inform their husbands of their choice. The Supreme Court found that the Pennsylvania law placed an unacceptable burden on women and declared the law unconstitutional. In the Court’s 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons, which presented the constitutionality of imposing the death penalty on someone who was under 18 when the murder was committed, the APA presented research on juvenile behavior, maturity, decisionmaking ability, and criminology. In a 5:4 decision, in which the research presented by APA was central, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits the imposition of the

death penalty on juveniles under the age of 18 when the crime was committed. Daniel W. Shuman See also Expert Psychological Testimony; U.S. Supreme Court

Further Readings

Barrett, G. V., & Morris, S. B. (1993). The American Psychological Association’s amicus curiae brief in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins: The values of science versus the values of the law. Law and Human Behavior, 17, 201–215. Ennis, B. J. (1984). Symposium on Supreme Court advocacy: Effective amicus briefs. Catholic University Law Review, 33, 603. Fiske, S. T., Bersoff, D. N., Borgida, E., Deaux, K., & Heilman, M. E. (1991). Social science research on trial: Use of sex stereotyping research in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. American Psychologist, 46, 1049–1060. Kearney, J. D., & Merrill, T. W. (2000). The influence of amicus curiae briefs on the Supreme Court. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 148, 743. Krislov, S. (1963). The amicus curiae brief: From friendship to advocacy. Yale Law Journal, 72, 694. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). PsycLAW: APA’s amicus briefs. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2007, from http://www.apa.org/psyclaw/amicus.html Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). Simpson, R. W., & Vasaly, M. R. (2004). The amicus brief: How to be a good friend of the court (2nd ed.). Chicago: American Bar Association. Walbot, S. H., & Lang, J. H. (2003). Amicus briefs: Friend or foe of Florida courts? Stetson Law Review, 32, 269.

ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is characterized by a lifelong pattern of behavior that violates the law and other people’s rights. Its primary relevance to the field of psychology and law stems from its association with criminal and violent behavior, as well as its implications for attempting to reduce the risk thereof through treatment. This entry reviews the diagnostic criteria for ASPD, its phenomenology (common attitudinal, cognitive,

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emotional, and behavioral features), assessment approaches, treatment issues, etiological factors, and current controversies.

Description There are a number of definitional elements to personality disorder (PD) generally that apply to ASPD. A PD is a pattern of inflexible interpersonal relations, behavior, and internal experiences (emotional, cognitive, or attitudinal tendencies) that is stable across the life span and starts in adolescence (or early adulthood). It is inconsistent with cultural norms or expectations and involves distress or impairment to the individual. The core of ASPD involves consistently disregarding social norms or rules and violating other people’s rights. The official diagnostic criteria for ASPD, as with all PDs, are provided by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, currently in its fourth edition, which includes a textual revision (DSM-IVTR), published by the American Psychiatric Association. To receive a diagnosis of ASPD, an individual must be at least 18 years old; there must be evidence of conduct disorder (CD) with an onset before the age of 15; antisocial behavior must not be limited in its occurrence solely within the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode; and there must be a pattern of violating or disregarding others’ rights since the individual was 15 years old. More specifically, an individual must meet three of seven diagnostic criteria—as specified in the DSM-IVTR—since the age of 15. Paraphrasing, these include (1) repeated criminal behavior; (2) frequent lying or manipulation; (3) impulsive behavior; (4) aggression, including physical violence; (5) jeopardizing other people’s safety (e.g., driving while intoxicated); (6) being irresponsible (i.e., refusing to pay one’s bills or debts); and (7) not experiencing remorse for one’s harmful behaviors. In addition to meeting at least three of these seven criteria since age 15, an individual must also have shown evidence of CD prior to the age of 15. Although the DSMIV-TR does not specify the number of CD symptoms required to satisfy this diagnostic criterion, some experts, and common assessment instruments (see below), have suggested that as few as 2 (of 15) CD symptoms would suffice. The 15 symptoms of CD include, among others, aggressive behaviors (e.g., stealing, fighting, using weapons, robbery, sexual assault), destroying property, lying, and other rule-breaking behavior (e.g., skipping school, running away from home).

Phenomenology, Associated Features, and Correlates Attitudinally, individuals with ASPD may hold disparaging views of others and consider them to be avenues to fulfill their own needs (e.g., for money, sex, pleasure). They tend to have a hostile and distrustful view of the world, believing that others may be out to harm or deceive them and hence their own harmful or deceptive behavior is justified. ASPD is associated with negative views of societal institutions such as law enforcement, the judiciary, or the government. Procriminal attitudes that support, condone, or justify criminal behavior are common. Cognitively, ASPD is associated with impulsive decision making involving little forethought, even if negative consequences are serious and probable. People with ASPD also may show poor concentration abilities and an impaired ability to devote sustained attention to routine activities. On the other hand, they may indeed be able to devote attention to activities that they consider pleasurable or exciting (e.g., gambling). Emotionally, some, though not all or even the majority of, people with ASPD show serious deficits in the depth and breadth of emotional experience. That is, they tend not to experience extremes (positive or negative) of emotion, such as despair or love, to the same degree as people without ASPD. This type of emotional poverty would be most likely to occur in individuals with ASPD who also meet definitions of the more classic form of antisocial personality pathology—namely, psychopathy, a hallmark of which is emotional detachment. People with ASPD commonly are prone to negative emotionality, or the tendency to have feelings of anger, irritability, hostility, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, displeasure, and anxiety. Such an emotional disposition may account, in part, for the tendency of people with ASPD to have problems initiating or sustaining positive interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, such emotional tendencies could explain the increased risk of suicide-related behavior in ASPD. Behaviorally, there are numerous correlates of ASPD that span all domains of life functioning. Perhaps most notably, ASPD is commonly associated with criminal and violent behavior. This observation is complicated by the fact that crime and violence form part of its diagnostic criteria, and hence, not surprisingly, individuals with ASPD have more crime and violence in their histories than those without ASPD. However, ASPD also is predictive of future criminal behavior

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once persons are released from prisons or forensic institutions. In addition to criminal behavior, risk-taking behavior is common. This can take a variety of forms, such as problematic substance use that is associated with adverse outcomes, such as crime, injury, personal neglect, or financial difficulties. It also may include irresponsible behaviors, such as reckless driving, failing to care for children adequately, sexual behavior that puts others’ safety at risk, or gambling problems. In terms of more general life functioning, the effects of ASPD are notable as well. For instance, ASPD is associated with low socioeconomic attainment, poor employment records and performance, low educational attainment and success, and unstable interpersonal relationships. The latter may include broken ties with one’s family, abuse and other mistreatment within romantic relationships, and having only friends of convenience. Furthermore, ASPD predicts increased morbidity and mortality associated with accidental death and injury, as well as suicide. Association With Other Disorders

Most PDs are associated with other PDs, and ASPD is no exception. It is common for people with ASPD to show symptoms of other PDs involving dysregulation of affect and impulsive behavior, such as borderline, narcissistic, or histrionic PDs. In addition, perhaps stemming from the high degree of negative emotionality commonly present in ASPD, some depressive and anxiety disorders are overrepresented in ASPD. Substance-related disorders also are disproportionately present in persons with ASPD relative to those without.

Assessment Both self-report and interview-based measures are available to assess ASPD. Although conducting an interview is regarded as meeting a higher standard of clinical care when assessing personality (or other) pathology, self-report tools may be desirable additions to an assessment because they tend to be relatively brief, may be appropriate for group administration, and do not require an examiner with advanced credentials. On the other hand, self-reports require cooperation from the examinee and a minimum level of literacy. Several (semi)structured interviews exist for assessing ASPD, including the Diagnostic Interview for DSMIV Personality Disorders, the Structured Interview for

DSM-IV Personality Disorders, the Personality Disorder Examination, the Diagnostic Interview Schedule, and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Perhaps the most widely used and researched semistructured interview schedule for use by trained clinicians in assessing ASPD (and other PDs) is the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders (SCID–II). Each symptom criterion is assessed by an item that the interviewer rates using a 3point scale (1 = absent or false; 2 = subthreshold; and 3 = threshold or true). Research indicates acceptable levels of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and interrater reliability for the SCID–II ASPD module. Several self-report measures that include modules for assessing ASPD also have been developed, such as the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire–4 (PDQ–4), the Assessment of DSM-IV Personality Disorders Questionnaire, and the Wisconsin Personality Disorders Inventory. Self-reports whose items closely track the diagnostic criteria, such as the PDQ–4, have greater clinical relevance to the assessment of ASPD than those that do not. Although many self-report personality measures and diagnostic inventories include scales for assessing features of ASPD (e.g., the California Psychological Inventory, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2, the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory–III, and the Personality Assessment Inventory), they often emphasize conceptualizations of delinquent personality other than ASPD (e.g., psychopathy). These scales typically demonstrate low concordance with SCID–II diagnoses of ASPD, which likely is related to their lack of representation of the DSM criteria for ASPD. Compared with interview-based measures, self-reports tend to yield elevated prevalence rates of ASPD. Furthermore, an actual diagnosis of ASPD must be made by a qualified mental health professional, who interprets whatever tests and measures are used, rather than simply relying on scores on a test or measure. Research studies comparing the utility of self-report and interview measures for ASPD generally conclude that whereas agreement for dichotomous diagnostic classification tends to be poor, concordance is much higher when a dimensional perspective is considered. Although knowing the rates of categorical classification is attractive from a clinical perspective, there nevertheless is substantial empirical support for the use of dimensional representations of PDs. In terms of relevance to applied practice, information regarding the severity of symptoms (i.e., a dimensional perspective) can be useful for treatment planning and case management.

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Despite the ease of use and availability of self-report measures and (semi)structured interviews, clinicians should be aware of the circumstances under which a diagnosis of ASPD is not warranted. First, a diagnosis of ASPD should not be given to individuals who display antisocial behavior only during acute phases of psychotic or mood disorders (e.g., a manic episode). In cases where the examinee has a substance use disorder and adult antisocial behaviors are observed, ASPD should be diagnosed only if features of the disorder were present during childhood. Also, given the high degree of comorbidity between PDs, differentiating between features of ASPD that are similar to those of other PDs is critical. Of course, ASPD also needs to be differentiated from certain Axis I disorders with similar symptoms (e.g., grandiosity and impulsivity, observed in bipolar disorder). Finally, collateral information is useful to consider in assessments in light of the characteristic deceitfulness of individuals with the disorder.

Treatment ASPD is extremely difficult to treat, and at present, the prognosis for antisocial individuals typically is considered poor. The empirical treatment literature bearing on ASPD is in its infancy, with few controlled studies having been conducted. In addition, research in this area tends to examine the outcomes of interventions for behaviors associated with ASPD, such as substance abuse and violence, rather than treatments aimed at altering the underlying personality features of the disorder. In addition, relatively little research has examined intervention outcomes with women— and when women are included in samples, results typically are not disaggregated by gender. Nevertheless, the body of literature on this topic has grown over the past decade, and some broad trends are apparent. Several studies have investigated the outcomes of substance abuse treatment among individuals with ASPD. Most results indicate that persons with cooccurring substance abuse problems and ASPD make treatment gains on par with those of individuals in substance abuse treatment without ASPD. However, other studies on this topic suggest less improvement in individuals with ASPD than in others. Furthermore, research suggests that broad classifications such as “substance abuser” may be too generic and that differences based on an individual’s drug of choice and the severity of the impact on daily functioning may be important to treatment outcome.

Given the nature of the diagnosis, it is not surprising that most treatment outcome studies on ASPD have been conducted with offender samples. Although at this time, research data do not endorse a specific type of treatment for ASPD, there is strong empirical support for the effectiveness of certain guiding principles. The principles of risk, need, and responsivity indicate that treatment outcome will be maximized as a function of a treatment program’s match with an individual’s level of risk, criminogenic needs (changeable risk factors), and learning style. Meta-analytic reviews indicate that the strongest predictor of success across different correctional programs and offender groups—including both men and women—is treatment that adheres to these three principles. Another aspect of treatment with empirical support is the multimodal hypothesis, which suggests that correctional treatment is most effective when multiple need areas of an offender are targeted. Research demonstrates that multimodal programs that incorporate cognitive-behavioral and social learning strategies are associated with substantially larger treatment gains than are nonbehavioral interventions. In addition, there is a positive association between the number of criminogenic needs targeted for intervention and subsequent reductions in recidivism. In contrast, approaches that are contraindicated for treating ASPD because they are viewed as unresponsive to offenders’ criminogenic needs and/or learning style include traditional “talk” psychotherapy of the psychodynamic, client-centered, and insight-oriented ilk. Programs that include a relapse prevention element are associated with enhanced reductions in recidivism. Relapse prevention is a cognitive-behavioral approach to self-management that entails teaching individuals alternate (more effective) responses to highrisk situations. Components of relapse prevention that seem to be especially effective in reducing recidivism include identifying one’s offense-chain and high-risk situations and, subsequently, role-playing alternate (more effective) ways of handling such situations.

Etiology Specifying etiological mechanisms for ASPD is difficult because of the nonspecificity of the disorder. That is, there are innumerable symptom combinations that can give rise to a diagnosis. Furthermore, a diagnosis can arise almost solely from a person having engaged in chronic criminal and violent behavior. That is, there are no pathognomonic, necessary, or sufficient signs

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of ASPD. Therefore, almost anything that predicts chronic crime and violence ostensibly could be considered a candidate etiological factor for ASPD. Nevertheless, there is evidence for certain genetic, biological, and environmental etiological mechanisms in ASPD. Large-scale twin and adoption research shows a high degree of heritability for PDs generally, as well as for ASPD specifically. An interesting line of research by Robert Krueger and colleagues has shown that ASPD might be construed as part of a heritable externalizing spectrum of psychopathology that includes antisocial personality features and behavior, substance use problems, conduct problems, sensation seeking, and low constraint. Potential biological mechanisms include neurochemical imbalances, such as low serotonin levels, that are related to impulsive and aggressive behavior. Some biological etiological mechanisms have been advanced more specifically for psychopathy, which includes additional interpersonal and emotional deficits. For instance, some experts propose that psychopathy, and as such some cases of ASPD, is associated with functional brain deficits, such as a diminished ability to process emotion or impaired information processing. Other mechanisms could include temperamental deficiencies, such as decreased startle potentiation. Structural, as opposed to functional, neuroanatomic models have been proposed as well, including deficits in prefrontal and temporal lobe gray matter. It is important to note that all such research on the biological mechanisms of psychopathy and ASPD is in its infancy and cannot yet support definitive statements about clear etiological factors. Environmental factors also may elevate the risk of development of ASPD. For instance, abusive, inconsistent, or permissive parental disciplinary styles predict delinquency and adult criminality. Similarly, other family-of-origin and formative experiences predict delinquent and criminal behavior, such as parental criminality, violence, and substance use problems. Social learning theory would posit that such parental behaviors model criminal behavior for children, who then learn to use crime and violence in their own lives. Of course, many such parental factors could be acting as mere proxies for genetic etiological mechanisms, and future research will need to disentangle genetic from environmental risk factors. Some interesting emerging research has started to do so. For instance, parental physical maltreatment of children has been found to predict antisocial behavior above and beyond the heritable aspects of parental antisociality. Furthermore, research is starting to address

gene-environment interactions vis-à-vis antisocial behavior and personality, which posit that genetic and environmental factors might be multiplicative in their influence on such outcomes rather than merely additive.

Controversies The ASPD diagnosis has generated controversy on several fronts. The debate that has received the most commentary pertains to whether the diagnostic criteria should emphasize objective behaviors or personality features. The introduction of ASPD into the DSM was intended to reflect the clinical disorder known as psychopathy, which includes features such as callousness, remorselessness, guiltlessness, superficiality, and shallow affect. The ASPD criteria were written with a behavioral focus in the service of the decreasing subjectivity involved in rating personality features, thereby increasing reliability. In the current diagnostic nomenclature, ASPD is presented as being largely the same as psychopathy—even though many of the descriptors traditionally associated with psychopathy are absent from the diagnostic criteria. That the two disorders are not in fact synonymous is highlighted by the results of contemporary prevalence studies demonstrating that about three quarters of prisoners meet the criteria for ASPD whereas only about one quarter, or less, meets the criteria for psychopathy. Additionally, the criteria have been criticized for lacking specificity; for instance, meeting diagnostic criteria may arise from a boggling number of permutations of the 7 adult disorder and 15 CD symptoms. An important impact of the imprecision with which the outcome of ASPD is delineated is that it renders investigation into the disorder’s causal factors much more challenging, as noted above. Moreover, the validity of ASPD has been challenged in light of the paucity of available longitudinal data. Critics of the ASPD criteria also argue that they are underinclusive (in that individuals will not be identified who have the core antisocial personality features but have not been criminally sanctioned or who demonstrate antisociality during adulthood but for whom there is no evidence of CD). In contrast, others advance concerns that the criteria are overinclusive (in that there likely are several etiological bases for antisociality, only one of which may be psychopathy). As noted earlier, the criteria largely reflect the behavioral difficulties associated with crime and substance use. This is noted to be problematic because behaviors can be influenced by external circumstances, whereas personality traits are viewed as being more reflective of underlying pathology.

Appearance-Change Instruction in Lineups———33

Another controversy surrounding the diagnostic criteria is the apparent diagnostic biases they invoke. Although the prevalence of ASPD genuinely may be higher among men (estimated at 3% of the population) than among women (estimated at 1%), research has documented elevated rates among men even when men and women do not differ in symptomatology. Some researchers have argued in favor of amending the diagnostic criteria to include behaviors associated specifically with antisociality in women in an effort to make the criteria more gender neutral. Finally, concerns also have been raised that ASPD may be disproportionately overdiagnosed among prisoners and persons with substance use problems in light of the behavioral focus of the criteria. Kevin S. Douglas and Laura S. Guy See also Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases; Alcohol Intoxication; Community Corrections; Conduct Disorder; Criminal Behavior, Theories of; Ethnic Differences in Psychopathy; Forensic Assessment; Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R); Juvenile Offenders, Risk Factors; Juvenile Psychopathy; Personality Disorders; Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI); Psychopathy; Psychopathy, Treatment of; Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version; Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text revision). Washington, DC: Author. Fowler, K. A., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2006). Antisocial personality disorder. In J. E. Fisher & W. T. O’Donohue (Eds.), Practitioner’s guide to evidence-based psychotherapy (pp. 57–67). New York: Springer. Krueger, R. F., Markon, K. E., Patrick, C. J., & Iacono, W. G. (2005). Externalizing psychopathology in adulthood: A dimensional-spectrum conceptualization and its implications for DSM-V. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 537–550. Moffitt, T. E. (2005). The new look of behavioral genetics in developmental psychopathology: Gene-environment interplay in antisocial behaviors. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 533–554. Patrick, C. J. (2006). Handbook of psychopathy. New York: Guilford. Widiger, T. A., Cadoret, R., Hare, R., Robins, L., Rutherford, M., Zanarini, M., et al. (1996). DSM-IV antisocial personality disorder field trial. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105, 3–16.

APPEARANCE-CHANGE INSTRUCTION IN LINEUPS Prior to viewing a lineup, eyewitnesses to crimes are often given various instructions by lineup administrators. Among these is the appearance-change instruction, which is used to inform the eyewitness that the criminal’s appearance in the lineup may be different from his or her appearance at the time of the crime. Generally, this alteration in appearance would be the result of features that might have changed over time (such as head or facial hair). This instruction is especially likely to be given, and is presumed to be most beneficial, if a significant period of time has passed between the crime and the lineup or if the suspect’s appearance is somehow at odds with the witness’s description of the criminal. Although frequently administered in an attempt to increase identifications of the criminal, preliminary research suggests that the appearance-change instruction does not increase correct identifications but instead increases false identifications of innocent lineup members. Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement (a set of guidelines distributed to all law enforcement agencies across the United States) recommends that lineup administrators instruct a witness that “individuals present in the lineup may not appear exactly as they did on the date of the incident because features such as head and facial hair are subject to change” (p. 32). Although recommended, this instruction is not mandatory; consequently, various police departments and individual lineup administrators may word the instruction differently or may omit it altogether. The purpose of this instruction is to ensure that the witness does not fail to identify the criminal simply because the witness does not appreciate that the criminal’s appearance might have changed since the crime. Therefore, it is implicitly assumed that administering the appearance-change instruction will lower witnesses’ expectations that the criminal’s appearance in the lineup will exactly match his or her appearance at the time of the crime. This should, in turn, increase the probability of correctly identifying the actual criminal when the criminal is in fact in the lineup. Empirical research on the effects of the appearance-change instruction is scarce. Preliminary studies suggest, however, that the instruction may not be as beneficial as previously assumed. Although it has

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been shown experimentally that witnesses who receive an appearance-change instruction do make more lineup identifications, this did not result in an increased number of correct identifications. Instead, the appearance-change instruction was shown to increase the number of incorrect identifications of fillers (i.e., lineup members who are known to be innocent) without increasing the number of correct identifications of the criminal. Although it is uncertain whether these findings will be replicated by future studies, they do nonetheless challenge the basic assumption underlying the use of the appearancechange instruction. Such an increase in false identifications without a concomitant increase in correct identifications means that lineup identifications made following an appearance-change instruction were, as a whole, less accurate than identifications made without an appearance-change instruction. Additionally, the appearance-change instruction has been shown to increase the length of time it takes witnesses to make an identification and to decrease the confidence with which witnesses report making an identification. Although it is as yet not known why the appearance-change instruction increased false identifications without a concomitant increase in correct identifications, two hypotheses have been advanced. Both are predicated on the assumption that a lineup identification occurs when the similarity of a lineup member to the witness’s memory of the criminal surpasses a minimum level. The first hypothesis is that the instruction may simply lower a witness’s decision criterion (the minimum level of similarity needed to result in an identification). Witnesses who are given an appearance-change instruction might conclude that due to possible appearance change they should not expect a high degree of similarity between the criminal in the lineup and their memory of the criminal. However, because even innocent lineup members may bear some moderate resemblance to the criminal, if a witness’s decision criterion is low enough, even these innocent people may be falsely identified. The second hypothesis that explains the effects of the appearance-change instruction is that the instruction may lead witnesses to mentally alter various facial features of the lineup members. For example, witnesses may imagine what the lineup members would look like with different facial hair, different hairstyles, or a chubbier face. If witnesses mentally alter the various lineup members’ appearance in an effort to match the lineup members to their memory of

the criminal, then even innocent lineup members may come to resemble the actual criminal. Thus, the appearance-change instruction would make it even more likely that the similarity between an innocent lineup member and the criminal surpasses the witness’s decision criterion, thereby leading to a false identification. Whether the effects described here are replicable and whether they generalize across variations in the wording of the appearance-change instruction, across different witnessed events, and across various other lineup manipulations remain open empirical questions. A greater understanding of the effects of the appearance-change instruction, and the explanation of those effects, awaits further research. Steve D. Charman See also Estimator and System Variables in Eyewitness Identification; Eyewitness Identification: Effect of Disguises and Appearance Changes; Eyewitness Memory; Instructions to the Witness; WITNESS Model

Further Readings

Charman, S. D., & Wells, G. L. (2007). Eyewitness lineups: Is the appearance-change instruction a good idea? Law and Human Behavior, 31, 3–22. Douglass, A. B., & Gerety, M. (2005). Eyewitness accuracy as a function of lineup instruction and expectation. Unpublished manuscript. Technical Working Group for Eyewitness Evidence. (1999). Eyewitness evidence: A guide for law enforcement. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.

AUTOMATISM Automatism is an excuse defense against criminal liability for defendants who committed a presumptively criminal act in a state of unconsciousness, semiconsciousness, or unawareness. Medically, the term automatism refers to motor behavior that is automatic, undirected, and not consciously controlled. The use of automatism as a legal defense is relatively rare and is typically claimed in cases where the defendant’s conscious awareness is compromised by epilepsy, brain injury, somnambulism (sleepwalking), or trauma. The automatism defense is recognized as a viable defense in U.S. and British courts, but the definitions and

Automatism———35

applications of the defense vary widely and are often inconsistent. The basis for the defense is that a defendant should not be held responsible for presumptively criminal actions because of the involuntary nature of the behaviors, leading to lack of criminal intent and voluntary criminal action.

Excuses and Justifications In criminal law, there is a general rule that individuals are to be held legally responsible for their actions. Our fundamental and longstanding societal values and moral traditions allow for several exceptions in situations in which it would not be fair or just to hold persons criminally liable. These exceptions are discussed under the general heading of defenses, which, in turn, have been distinguished as justifications and excuses. Justifications seek to establish that even though the prosecution may have fulfilled its required burden to prove the basic facts of the offense, the act committed by the defendant was not criminal because, for example, it was done in defense of self, others, or property. Excuses essentially concede the wrongfulness of the act but seek to establish that the defendant is not criminally responsible because the act took place, for example, under conditions of duress or compulsion, immaturity, or insanity. Automatism is an excuse defense that has been characterized as similar to the excuse of ignorance. That is, an automatism can be defined as an action taken without any knowledge of acting or without consciousness of what is being done. Automatism, however, is not simply a matter of acting out of ignorance. In the case of ignorance, a defendant may be acting based on an erroneous belief (e.g., the defendant believes that he or she is administering first aid but is, rather, exacerbating a medical condition of the victim), but in the case of automatism, the defendant is unaware that he or she is acting at all.

Actus Reus and Mens Rea Except in cases of strict liability, any crime contains two elements: the actus reus (“guilty act”) and mens rea (“guilty mind”). The automatism defense seeks to prove that the defendant made physical actions (automatisms) that led to a bad outcome but did not perform a guilty act. As such, the automatism defense is the only excuse defense that is based on the actus reus element rather being purely a mens rea excuse defense (e.g., insanity). In an insanity defense, the defense acknowledges the guilty act but claims that the

defendant should not be held blameworthy due to the lack of a guilty mind or intent. Another way of understanding these two elements would be to consider if the presumptively criminal act was intentional or voluntary. Actions directed toward a goal are typically considered to be intentional. An automatism defense, however, claims that the actions taken are automatic and, therefore, not intentional. In the case of some automatic movements (e.g., loss of muscular control during a grand mal seizure), the absence of intentionality is obvious. In some cases, however, this judgment can be exceedingly difficult. For example, intentionality is far less obvious in a defendant who engaged in goal-directed aggression during a period of postictal confusion following a nocturnal partial complex seizure when the defendant appeared to be sleepwalking. The issue of volitional control (voluntariness) goes directly to the heart of the automatism defense. The Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute states that a defendant is not criminally liable if he or she does not commit a “voluntary act,” which is defined to exclude “reflex or convulsion” or actions taken during “unconsciousness.” There can be no actus reus when the defendant does not commit a voluntary act. Typically, courts have required that volitional dyscontrol be total; that is, the actor (defendant) has no control over his or her actions.

The Automatism Defense: Case Law Although its use is relatively rare, the automatism defense has been established as a criminal defense in courts in the United States and Britain. Courts vary widely, however, in definitions and applications of the defense. In the United States, for example, some courts have applied the rationale of an insanity defense, interpreting the involuntary behaviors associated with automatisms as a defect in reason that prevented the defendant from knowing the nature and quality of his or her act, therefore making an automatism defense a mens rea defense. Other courts have stressed the involuntary nature of the defendant’s actions, focusing on the lack of actus reus. British courts have made a distinction between sane and insane automatism. A defense of insane automatism requires that the defendant meet all three conditions of the British insanity defense (the M’Naghten standard), where the automatism would be the “disorder of reason” caused by a “disease of the mind,” leading

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to the defendant not knowing the “nature and quality of his act or that it was wrongful.” Defendants who raise an automatism defense and who meet M’Naghten standards would be adjudicated under the “not guilty by reason of insanity” (NGRI) standard. The defendant who raises the defense and who does not meet the standard would be claiming sane automatism, seeking to challenge that his or her behavior was simply not a voluntary act. If such a defense were successful, the defendant would be acquitted and not subjected to the possible consequences (e.g., commitment to a psychiatric facility) faced by an NGRI acquittee. British courts have indicated that sane automatism is an acceptable defense when the defendant has suffered from a defect of reason but not a disease of the mind, usually due to some external physical factor. The sequelae of a head injury or confusion as a result

of the administration of drugs would be examples of such external causes of automatisms. Matt C. Zaitchik See also Criminal Responsibility, Assessment of; Criminal Responsibility, Defenses and Standards; Insanity Defense, Juries and Further Readings

Borum, R., & Appelbaum, K. L. (1996). Epilepsy, aggression, and criminal responsibility. Psychiatric Services, 47(7), 762–763. Reznek, L. (1997). Evil or ill? Justifying the insanity defense. London: Routledge. Schopp, R. F. (1991). Automatism, insanity, and the psychology of criminal responsibility: A philosophical inquiry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

B who agrees to pay the forfeited amount to the court.) Nonfinancial conditions, such as curfew and surrendering firearms, may also be applied to bail. In the United Kingdom, defendants can be bailed (released) unconditionally; bailed with nonfinancial conditions or financial conditions, such as surety or security; or denied bail and remanded into custody. Whereas in the United States the bail decision is commonly measured on a continuous scale reflecting the monetary amount at which bail is set, in the United Kingdom the decision is typically measured as categorical because financial bail is uncommon. In most jurisdictions, bail jumping (skipping bail or absconding) is an offense. The bail decision-making process is often governed by legislation, which is periodically revised. For instance, in the United States, currently there is the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1984 (state laws vary); in the United Kingdom, there is the Bail Act of 1976. It has often been recommended that the practice of bail decision making should adhere to the principles of due process rather than crime control. Thus, there is typically a general right to bail or pretrial liberty. However, there are exceptions if the court decides that the defendant may pose a risk of absconding or offending. The laws typically recommend that the court considers several factors (e.g., the defendant’s offense, community ties, previous convictions, prior bail record, and strength of the prosecution’s case) when judging these risks and consequently making bail decisions. Beyond this, the court is afforded considerable latitude in making bail decisions in terms of how it weights and integrates these and other factors. The bail decision can have significant negative ramifications for defendants and their families if a defendant is denied bail or cannot raise the bail amount. For

BAIL-SETTING DECISIONS The bail-setting decision is one of the early court decisions made in a case, and it has attracted attention from researchers studying legal decision making. When a case is adjourned (postponed), the court must decide what to do with the defendant until the next hearing of the case—basically, should the defendant be released on bail or not? The main goal of the bail decision is to ensure that the defendant appears at court for the next hearing. The bail decision also can affect later decisions in a case. Although laws govern the bail decision-making process, they are typically vague and ill defined, thus allowing courts considerable discretion. Past research on bail decision making has mostly been conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom; researchers have aimed to describe how courts make bail decisions as well as to evaluate efforts to improve bail decision making. Because it arises each time a case is adjourned for trial, sentence, or appeal, the bail decision is one of the most frequent legal decisions made by the criminal courts. The primary goal is to ensure that the defendant surrenders to the court at the next hearing of the case and so does not abscond. A secondary goal is that the defendant does not threaten community safety (e.g., offend) while released on bail. In the United States, the court sets a monetary amount of bail. A defendant may either be required to provide a security (deposit the amount with the court) before release, which is forfeited if he or she fails to appear in court, or be released on recognizance, which is a promise to appear, so the amount is paid only if he or she fails to appear. (For a fee, bail bondsmen can act as a surety, a third party 37

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instance, defendants may lose their homes, employment, contact with their families, and their reputations, as well as experience the adverse effects of custody. In addition, evidence suggests that the bail decision may influence later decisions on a case, such as the decision to plea, convict, and sentence. Here, defendants who do not get bail are more likely to plead guilty or be convicted and are also more likely to receive a custodial sentence than their bailed counterparts. Much of the past research, as noted previously, has investigated bail decision making in the United States and the United Kingdom. Studies have been conducted by psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, and legal scholars using methodologies such as experiments involving decision makers being presented with simulated cases, interview and questionnaire surveys of decision makers, courtroom observations of bail hearings, analyses of bail records and statistics, and analyses of bail laws. While most of this body of research has aimed to describe and explain how bail decisions are made, several studies have explored efforts to improve bail decision making. Overall, the research has yielded consistent findings.

Describing and Explaining Bail Decisions Researchers have aimed to describe and explain bail decisions in terms of the variations in decision making and the factors that influence bail decisions. Studies have documented the variation in bail decisions made across cases and across jurisdictions (courts or decision makers), as well as within jurisdictions (courts or decision makers). There are apparent disparities in how cases that vary in their extralegal characteristics, such as the defendant’s gender and race, are dealt with. In addition, different jurisdictions (courts or decision makers) may disagree on how to deal with cases that are similar. Beyond this, there is variability where the same jurisdiction (court or decision maker) is inconsistent in dealing with similar cases on different occasions. Research has shown that bail decisions may be influenced by both legal and extralegal factors. Legal factors include the nature and seriousness of the offense the defendant is charged with, the defendant’s previous convictions, and the strength of his or her community ties. Specifically, bail is more likely to be denied or set at a high amount if the defendant is charged with a serious offense, has previous convictions, or has weak community ties. The extralegal factors that have been

found to affect bail decisions include the defendant’s gender and race and the police and prosecution’s recommendations. Here, denial of bail or its high amount is more likely to be associated with the defendant being male or non-White and a recommendation to deny bail. In addition to identifying the factors that may influence bail decision making, some psychological studies have examined how the information is processed to form a decision. Here, there is evidence to suggest that the bail decision is the result of a simple strategy where only a few factors are considered rather than a more complex strategy involving weighting and integration of several factors.

Improving Bail Decisions Researchers and policymakers have attempted to improve bail decision making by reducing discretion and increasing the availability of relevant information. As mentioned, the law affords the court considerable discretion in how it makes bail decisions. There have been attempts to reduce variability in bail decisions and the influence of extralegal factors as well as increase the accountability, transparency, and equity of bail decisions by limiting this discretion through the introduction of more precise guidelines. For example, in the United States, bail guidelines that specify the factors that the court should use and how they should make their risk assessments have been developed and implemented in several jurisdictions since the early 1980s. John Goldkamp and colleagues have evaluated the utility of such guidelines using randomized controlled trials and pre-post analyses. They found that decisions made under guidelines differed from those made without guidelines in several respects, including that under guidelines the bail amount was lower, there was an increase in the use of nonfinancial conditions, and there was a reduction in the time in pretrial custody. However, the impact of guidelines appears to differ across jurisdictions as they are applied and used differently. There have also been efforts to increase the effectiveness of bail decisions by improving the court’s ability to judge the defendant’s risk of absconding on bail. The idea is that low-risk defendants, such as those who have strong ties to the community and thus may be unlikely to abscond, can be appropriately released. For example, in the United States, the Manhattan Bail Project (later renamed the New York Release on Recognizances Project) involved the collection, verification, and scoring of information on a defendant’s community ties (e.g., residence, employment, and family situation)

Battered Woman Syndrome———39

and then providing a recommendation directly to the court concerning the defendant’s suitability for bail. In a randomized controlled trial involving real cases, the Vera Institute of Justice in 1963 found that defendants in the experimental group for whom a recommendation was provided were more likely to be bailed than those in the control group for whom the recommendation was withheld. In the United Kingdom, Bail Information Schemes provide largely positive information about a defendant’s community ties to the prosecution and defense, who then can relay it to the court. In 2002, in an experiment involving simulated cases, the author found, however, that such schemes did not have a statistically significant effect on the bail decisions made. Mandeep K. Dhami See also Parole Decisions; Probation Decisions; Sentencing Decisions

Further Readings

Dhami, M. K. (2002). Do bail information schemes really affect bail decisions? Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 41, 245–262. Dhami, M. K. (2005). From discretion to disagreement: Explaining disparities in judges’ pretrial decisions. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 23, 367–386. Dhami, M. K., & Ayton, P. (2001). Bailing and jailing the fast and frugal way. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 14, 141–168. Goldkamp, J. S., & Gottfredson, M. R. (1985). Policy guidelines for bail: An experiment in court reform. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Goldkamp, J. S., Gottfredson, M. R., Jones, P. R., & Weiland, D. (1995). Personal liberty and community safety. Pretrial release in the criminal court. New York: Plenum Press.

BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME Battered woman syndrome (BWS), first proposed in the 1970s after research demonstrated the psychological impact from domestic violence on the victim, has undergone further clarification since its inception. This entry reviews the historical issues concerning domestic violence and its victims in the criminal justice system (including the criminal and family courts), describes psychological theories about domestic violence victims and the BWS, and discusses the application of the BWS in legal context.

History of Domestic Violence and the Law Domestic violence is defined as the physical, sexual, and/or psychological abuse by one person (mostly men) of another person (mostly women) with whom there is an intimate relationship, in order to get that person to do what the abuser wants without regard for that person’s rights. Domestic violence is also called intimate partner violence by some, while the term family violence encompasses child and elder abuse as well as intimate partner abuse. Some have suggested that the family and monogamous relationships originated to protect women and children from physically and sexually aggressive nomadic men. Unfortunately, the family has not been a safe haven for some women and children. Laws condoning the practice of wife beating were common in the United States and other countries until very recently. Since men were given the legal responsibility of protecting their wives and children, they also had the right to discipline them. When women demanded their own legal and social rights during the renewed women’s movement that began in the early 1970s in the United States, they also began to demand that the laws better protect them from men’s physical and sexual violence.

Battered Women in the Criminal Justice System

The first area that received attention was the need for law enforcement to better protect women who were being abused by intimate partners. Typical reports were that the man would batter the woman and leave the scene if the police were called. Even if he was still present, the police would hesitate to intervene and make an arrest in what was said to be a family matter and instead would typically take the man for a walk around the block in an attempt to calm him down. Women told of how this rarely worked and that they would be beaten even worse after the law enforcement officers left. Police officers complained that prosecutors didn’t take these cases seriously; but prosecutors claimed that women dropped the charges and refused to cooperate and judges didn’t know how to handle these domestic matters. Two areas for reform became clear. First, domestic assaults should be prosecuted just like any other assault, without placing the burden on the woman to file or drop charges. Second, women needed protection from further abuse from all legal, social, and medical institutions and agencies. The barriers that women

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faced in all society’s institutions became more visible as cases began to be heard in courts around the world. It became clear that it would require cooperation from all levels of society to better protect women and children. The criminal justice system began to introduce several different reforms, including vertical prosecution of domestic violence cases and the development of proprosecution strategies, including special problem-solving domestic violence courts where perpetrators could be diverted into treatment. Other reforms included making restraining orders easier to obtain and strengthening their enforcement with penalties, as well as removing the ability of those arrested to bond out without first being in front of a judge. Research suggested that spending the night in jail and getting a stern message from the judge was a sufficient deterrent for most known batterers, and pro-arrest policies began to be adopted in many cities across the United States. Later research showed that some batterers, particularly those who had few community ties, such as a job or a social network, might actually become more violent after an arrest, and as batterers began to enter treatment programs, it became clear that they were as demographically diverse a population as were the women they abused. Dependency and Family Courts

It also became clear that both men and women involved in domestic violence often had psychological and substance abuse problems. Although battered woman advocates in shelters and support groups disagreed about the origin of these problems, most agreed that availability of appropriately trained mental health providers was important. In the beginning, few psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, or psychiatric nurses were trained in working with domestic violence victims or perpetrators. Protocols were developed for those in the medical and psychology fields, and largescale government funding went into training victim advocates, shelter workers, and legal and mental health professionals. The battered woman shelter became the organizing point for policies and services in the United States and other countries. In the United States, the legal system and, in particular, the criminal justice system remained the gatekeeper for services for both perpetrators and victims, while in other countries, where the public health system had more impact, services were provided through that system. Although the emphasis had been on protection of women from abusers, it was also necessary to focus on

protection of children from abuse. Studies found that an overlap of anywhere from 40% to 60% of cases of child abuse occurred in families with known domestic violence. Child protection workers who had been trained to blame the mother for the actual abuse or failure to protect the child had to relearn how to work with moms who were also being battered and who tried to protect their children with little help from agencies in the community. The issue of protection of children is still unsolved, with cases going between criminal, dependency and neglect, and family courts, and children are often inadequately served by any of them. Many advocates for battered women believe that batterers often use the family courts to continue their contact and control over the woman long after the marriage is dissolved by insisting on shared parental responsibility. They further believe that the court declines to use its power to empower the battered woman and assist her in the protection of the child. When the court does not intervene, the batterer is not stopped from his continued psychological abuse of both the woman and the child. An example of how batterers may use the court to their advantage is by filing numerous court motions, which become a major psychological and financial drain on women who earn less money than do men. To further complicate matters, mental health professionals hired by lawyers on both sides of highly contested divorce and custody cases may introduce constructs, such as Parental Alienation Syndrome and Psychological Munchausen by Proxy, that have questionable validity. These questionable constructs have been ruled inadmissible in criminal courts but are admissible in family courts.

Women Who Kill in Self-Defense Approximately 1,000 women in the United States are known to have killed their abusive partners in what they claim was self-defense. In contrast, more than 4,000 women are reportedly killed by their partners each year. The self-defense laws had to be re-formed to enable these women to plead not guilty using a justification defense in criminal court. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, states began the admissibility process through case law and legislation, so that women’s perception of danger and, in particular, the battered woman’s perception of danger would be accepted at trial. Until these cases began to be heard, self-defense was thought to be similar to two men having a fight in a bar. To help the triers of fact—the judges and juries who heard these cases—better understand the battered woman’s perception of danger,

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especially when the woman killed the man when he was asleep or was just starting his dangerously escalating abuse, the dynamics of domestic violence and psychological theories, such as learned helplessness and BWS, were introduced into court testimony.

Psychological Theories About Domestic Violence and Battered Women Dynamics of Domestic Violence

In the past 30 years, the assessment of behavior that is or is not considered to be domestic violence has been a major challenge for advocates and professionals. This difficulty may in large part be due to battered women having to maintain secrecy in order to protect themselves from their abuser, which leads them to minimize or cover up their pain, both emotional and physical. However, as the women began to receive legal protection and services, they have been able to describe the dynamics that occur in their homes, and as batterers began to talk in the offender-specific intervention programs into which they were sent by the courts, they confirmed much of the women’s descriptions. Lenore Walker first found that battering did not occur all the time in homes where domestic violence existed but that it was not random either. Rather, the women described a cycle of violence that followed a courtship period that was mostly made up of loving behavior. This cycle included three phases: (1) the tensionbuilding period, (2) the acute battering incident, and (3) a period of loving contrition or absence of battering. Each time a new battering event occurred, the memory of fragments of the previous battering incidents added heightened fear, which guided the woman’s response, usually to try to calm down the batterer and prevent further escalation of the violence. However, at times, when the woman saw signs that the batterer’s violence was escalating no matter what she did, she engaged in actions to protect herself. Occasionally, this resulted in her intentionally or unintentionally killing the abuser. Learned Helplessness

When evaluating battered women who killed their abusers, it became necessary to understand why a woman would use a gun or a knife against a man who was sleeping or at the beginning of a violent event. Why wouldn’t she simply leave? The answer to this question is most important, both for specific cases and

generally. The theory of learned helplessness helps explain how someone can learn to believe that her actions will not have a predictable effect and, therefore, that leaving will not stop the violence toward her. Research shows that many women are seriously injured or killed at the point of separation. The batterer who tells his partner that he will follow and harm her wherever she goes and who uses his power and control to enforce isolation, intrusiveness, and overpossessiveness reinforces her belief in his omnipotence. When battering continues unabated and the batterer suffers no consequences for his actions, he confirms her belief in his dominance over her. The loss of contingency between the victim’s behavior and the battering leads to learned helplessness. Battered women who experience learned helplessness experience the loss of their belief that they can escape to protect themselves. This learned helplessness is sometimes misunderstood as actual helplessness or the actual inability to escape the battering. The theory of learned helplessness, together with the cycle theory of violence and the BWS, has helped juries understand why women do not simply walk out of their homes and leave the batterer. In some of the legal opinions, the BWS is actually described as including the dynamics of abuse together with learned helplessness rather than the collection of psychological signs and symptoms that typically make up a syndrome according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fourth edition, text revision; DSM-IV-TR; American Psychological Association, 2000). However, this is part of the tension between the advocates who wish to eliminate any discussion of mental disorders as part of BWS and psychologists who understand that exposure to repeated trauma may well cause emotional difficulties, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), of which BWS is considered a subcategory. Trauma Theory and Battered Woman Syndrome

The complexity of symptomatology and the clinical presentation of battered women has made it challenging for both legal and clinical disciplines. Over the years, these complexities have been widely studied, and a trend across cultures has been identified in the way women experience various forms of violence against them, including sexual assault and rape, domestic violence and sexual exploitation, and harassment. These abuses are perceived by most women as traumatic events, and therefore, a combination of

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feminist theory, to attempt to account for the power and control issues, and trauma theory, to deal with the abuse underlying BWS, is required. BWS can best be conceptualized as a combination of posttraumatic stress symptomatology, including reexperiencing a traumatic event (i.e., battering episode); numbing of responsiveness; and hyperarousal, in addition to a variable combination of several other factors. These additional factors include, but are not limited to, disrupted interpersonal relationships, difficulties with body image, somatic concerns, as well as sexual and intimacy problems. Over the past few years, an attempt has been made to clearly define the hypothesized constituents of BWS for research purposes. As such, some variables were isolated and include PTSD symptoms, power and control issues, body image distortion, and sexual dysfunction, using data collected with the use of the Battered Woman Syndrome Questionnaire developed by Lenore Walker. In the literature from the past 30 years, one of the most contemplated components of BWS is PTSD. When the original research was designed, PTSD had not yet been tested and entered into the DSM diagnostic system. In general, criticisms suggest that the trauma model does not include sufficient context of the woman’s life so that it makes it appear that she has a mental illness rather than her symptoms being a logical response to being abused. While that is true for some women, studies indicate that there are numerous women who come to a therapist because the symptoms do not go away despite the fact that they are no longer being battered. PTSD, which is characterized by reexperiencing of the trauma from stimuli that are both physically and not physically present, can account for this phenomenon.

The Battered Women Syndrome Questionnaire To gain insight into BWS and its effect on women across cultures, Lenore Walker and colleagues are continuing the validation process for the Revised Battered Woman Syndrome Questionnaire 2003 (BWSQ–3). Given the violence against women as a universal phenomenon, it is essential to interview women from various cultures. Consequently, data from interviews have been gathered from Russia, Spain, Greece, Colombia, and South Florida. Furthermore, the research has recently begun to take into account incarcerated women who report a history of battering relationships.

The original version of the Battered Women Syndrome Questionnaire was developed more than 25 years ago by Lenore Walker. The most recent version, the Battered Women Syndrome Questionnaire–3, and its predecessors serve as comprehensive tools to gather valuable information regarding the field of domestic violence research and treatment. Establishing the reliability and validity of BWSQ–3 will enable future clinicians to use a semistructured clinical interview to assess women who report a battering relationship. The assessment also has the potential to help guide clinicians treating battered women, as the interview allows for an individualized overview of the woman’s history and battering relationship. In addition, researchers have begun to investigate the dynamics of battering relationships as experienced by women who become involved in the criminal justice system, for the purpose of identifying the unique needs of this population. Current research by the authors and their colleagues using the BWSQ–3 has shown similar patterns of experience, including a high endorsement of PTSD symptomatology, across cultures.

Application of Battered Woman Syndrome in Legal Contexts As was described above, in a legal context, the term battered woman syndrome is most frequently used as an explanation of a woman’s perception of threat leading her to commit a criminal offense in self-defense. Criminal offenses may also include spousal assault (i.e., in cases in which battered women fight back without killing their partners) or any other crime they may co-commit under the influence of their battering partners. In fact, the use of BWS extends beyond the criminal justice system, to include family court (e.g., child custody cases) or even civil court (e.g., in rare cases when the woman is suing the batterer for physical and emotional damages). BWS is generally applied in the form of evidence being presented during a criminal trial where the battered woman killed her abusive partner in self-defense. The goal of introducing BWS is to obtain either an acquittal or a downgrading of a first-degree murder charge to second-degree murder or manslaughter. The burden carried by the defense includes presenting evidence that the woman was—or perceived herself to be—in imminent danger. The defense usually attempts to establish this with the help of an expert witness who testifies concerning the dynamics of an abusive

Battered Woman Syndrome, Testimony on———43

relationship and how a woman’s perception can be influenced by a history of abuse and PTSD symptomatology. In addition, because the expert conducts a comprehensive assessment of the defendant, he or she is likely able to discuss possible comorbid mental health disorders. Because of BWS’s broad range of applications within the legal system, and the need for psychological evaluation and/or expert testimony across legal settings, the term battered woman syndrome has traditionally been used in both a legal and a clinical context, with an understanding that the wide-ranging effects of battering are physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and emotional. Lenore E. Walker, Rachel I. Duros, and Allison Tome See also Domestic Violence Courts; Intimate Partner Violence; Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Victimization

Further Readings

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text revision). Washington, DC: Author. Browne, A. (1987). When battered women kill. New York: Free Press. Brownmiller, S. (1975). Against our will: Men, women and rape. New York: Simon & Schuster. Koss, M. P., Goodman, L. A., Browne, A., Fitzgerald, L. F., Keita, G. P., & Russo, N. F. (1994). No safe haven: Male violence against women at home, work, and in the community. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Walker, L. E. (1979). The battered woman. New York: Harper & Row. Walker, L. E. A. (1984/2000). The battered woman syndrome. New York: Springer. Walker, L. E. A., Arden, H., Tome, A., Bruno, J., & Brosch, R. (2006). Battered Woman Syndrome Questionnaire: Training manual for interviewers.

BATTERED WOMAN SYNDROME, TESTIMONY ON The most common form of syndrome testimony that has been introduced in the courtroom is battered

woman syndrome testimony. For the most part, this testimony has been offered in homicide trials of battered women who have killed their abusers. Most often, the expert witness, typically a clinical psychologist, offers the testimony on behalf of the defense, with the testimony being of relevance to jurors’ evaluation of the woman’s claim of self-defense. The courts have been quite receptive to this form of expert testimony, and it has now been admitted with some frequency in not only courtrooms across the United States but also in courtrooms in Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Battered woman syndrome evidence has been used in other contexts as well (e.g., duress defenses, sentencing, civil actions), but the research examining its impact on jurors is confined primarily to cases involving battered women who have killed their abusers. This research suggests that the introduction of battered woman syndrome evidence is associated with positive effects for a battered woman on trial, but findings also point to some shortcomings of its use. The term battered woman syndrome was first coined in the late 1970s by Dr. Lenore Walker, who pioneered much of the research on the topic. The syndrome describes the pattern of violence found in abusive relationships and the psychological impact that this violence can have on a woman. Drawing on her clinical work, as well as on interviews she conducted with hundreds of battered women, Walker identified a repetitive three-phase cycle that characterizes the battering relationship. The first phase, referred to as the tensionbuilding phase, is characterized by “minor” abusive incidents (e.g., outbursts, verbal threats). These more minor incidents of abuse, however, eventually build up to the second, acute battering phase, which is then followed by the third, loving contrition phase. It is in this final phase that the abuser professes his love, promising never to harm the woman again. Believing his promises, the woman is provided some hope that the violence will cease. Eventually, however, the cycle repeats itself. Alongside the cycle of violence theory, Walker proposed a psychological rationale to explain how battered women can become psychologically trapped in an abusive relationship. Given the repetitive, yet unpredictable nature of the violence and the impending imminence of harm that it presents to the woman, she is eventually reduced to a state of psychological helplessness, perceiving that there is little she can do to alter the situation. In her more recent writings, Walker characterizes the battered woman syndrome as

44———Battered Woman Syndrome, Testimony on

a subcategory of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a clinical diagnostic disorder included in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV. Since its inception in the psychological literature in the late 1970s, psychologists have been asked to provide expert testimony pertaining to battered woman syndrome in homicide trials of battered women who have killed their abusers. As the content of the testimony suggests, battered woman syndrome testimony speaks of the woman’s mental state and provides a context for understanding why she perceived herself to be in imminent danger at the time of the killing. The courts have also found the expert testimony on battering and its effects to be relevant to the jurors’ understanding of the seemingly puzzling behavior and actions of the woman, most notable among these being why she remained in the relationship. In contrast to its reception in the courts, within the psychological and legal communities, the admissibility of this form of expert testimony has sparked much debate and controversy. Since its introduction into the courtroom, some scholars and battered women’s advocates have challenged the validity and applicability of the syndrome evidence to battered women’s claims of self-defense. Methodological shortcomings in the research as well as the theories underlying the syndrome evidence have been critiqued by various researchers and legal scholars. Although numerous studies have documented the profound impact of battering and its effects on a woman’s physical and mental health, there does not appear to be overwhelming support for a singular profile. As researchers have noted, the singular portrayal of the battered woman as a passive and helpless victim conveyed via battered woman syndrome testimony fails to take into account the variability in battered women’s reactions and responses and is at variance with the help-seeking behavior of battered women. As such, scholars have warned against the dangers of adopting such a restrictive conceptualization of the responses of battered women. As early as the mid-1980s, critics of the testimony voiced the concern that the “syndrome” terminology was likely to be interpreted by the jurors as an illness or a clinical disorder. Thus, as opposed to providing a framework that normalizes the battered woman and her actions, she is characterized as an “irrational and emotionally damaged” woman. As suggested below, a review of the empirical research examining the impact of battered woman syndrome evidence on jurors’ judgments and verdict decisions indicates that there may be some validity in these concerns.

Empirical research on the impact of battered woman syndrome evidence began in the late 1980s, with much of this work employing juror simulation techniques. Using this methodology, mock jurors are presented with a simulated or mock trial and asked to render a verdict and provide various judgments about the defendant and the case. Within the trial presentation, the presence or absence of the expert testimony is varied, and comparisons of the mock jurors’ responses (e.g., judgments, verdicts) across these different versions of the trial are made to assess the impact of the testimony. The findings of this research are somewhat mixed. While some simulation studies have found little evidence for the impact of battered woman syndrome evidence, studies conducted by Regina Schuller and her colleagues suggest that exposure to the testimony does result in more lenient verdicts and more favorable evaluations of the defendant. In a series of studies, these researchers found that compared with mock jurors who were not exposed to battered woman syndrome evidence, mock jurors provided with expert testimony pertaining to battered woman syndrome were more likely to believe the defendant’s claim of self-defense (e.g., perceptions of fear, few options) and more likely to render a not guilty verdict. Although verdict decisions were more favorable to the defendant when battered woman syndrome evidence was presented, there was also evidence consistent with the notion that battered woman syndrome evidence is likely to be associated with interpretations of psychological dysfunction. Lending some support to the concern that battered woman syndrome evidence may lead to interpretations of dysfunction, mock jurors provided with the battered woman syndrome evidence, as opposed to no expert testimony, viewed the woman as more psychologically unstable and were more likely to support a plea of insanity. In response to the criticism that battered woman syndrome evidence characterizes battered women as psychologically damaged and fails to capture the variation in battered women’s experience, Mary Ann Dutton recommends that the term battered woman syndrome itself be dropped from the testimony and reference instead be made to expert testimony on “battering and its effects.” Moreover, Dutton, one of the authors of a review of battered woman syndrome evidence undertaken at the direction of Congress, notes that the testimony should incorporate the diverse range of traumatic reactions described in the psychological literature and should not be limited to an examination of learned helplessness, PTSD, or any other single reaction or “profile.”

Behavior Analysis Interview———45

Using juror simulation techniques, researchers have explored the impact of such a reformulation of the expert testimony. Specifically, the impact of an alternative form of testimony that eliminated reference to the syndrome terminology, as well as references to learned helplessness and PTSD, on mock jurors’ decisions was examined in a series of studies conducted by Schuller and her colleagues. This alternative form of the testimony placed greater emphasis on the battered woman’s agency (i.e., effortful and active rather than passive and helpless) and social realities (e.g., lack of social support). The results of this research indicate that, like the battered woman syndrome evidence, the inclusion of this expert evidence resulted in more lenient verdicts than when this evidence was omitted. Moreover, the presence of the expert testimony, compared with the no-expert condition, led to more favorable evaluations of the defendant’s claim. Finally, and in contrast to the impact of battered woman syndrome evidence on mock jurors’ evaluations of the defendant’s psychological stability, the alternative form was not associated with interpretations of psychological dysfunction. In short, the research suggests that an alternative form of testimony that emphasizes the social aspects of the battering relationship and omits references to the term battered woman syndrome, learned helplessness, and PTSD may be as successful as battered woman syndrome evidence in terms of verdict decisions. Also, it appears to avoid some of the potential pitfalls associated with the syndrome evidence. Regina A. Schuller See also Battered Woman Syndrome; Expert Psychological Testimony; Expert Psychological Testimony, Admissibility Standards; Expert Psychological Testimony, Forms of; Expert Testimony, Qualifications of Experts

Further Readings

Dutton, M. (1993). Understanding women’s responses to domestic violence: A redefinition of battered women syndrome. Hofstra Law Review, 21, 1191–1242. Parrish, J. (1996). Trend analysis: Expert evidence on battering and its effects in criminal cases. In The validity and use of evidence concerning battering and its effects in criminal trials (Section 2). Washington, DC: DOJ, NIJ, USDHHS, and NIMH. Retrieved January 3, 2007, from http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/batter.pdf Schuller, R. A., & Jenkins, G. (2007). Expert evidence pertaining to battered women: Limitations and reconceptualizations. In M. Costanzo, D. Krauss, &

K. Pezdek (Eds.), Expert psychological testimony for the court (pp. 203–225). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schuller, R. A., & Rzepa, S. (2002). The battered women syndrome and other psychological effects of domestic violence against women. In D. L. Faigman, D. H. Kaye, M. J. Saks, & J. Sanders (Eds.), Modern scientific evidence: The law and science of expert testimony (Vol. 2, 2nd ed., chap. 11, pp. 37–72). St. Paul, MN: West. Walker, L. E. (1992). Battered women syndrome and selfdefense. Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy, 6, 321–334. Walker, L. E. (2000). The battered woman syndrome (2nd ed.). New York: Springer.

BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS INTERVIEW The behavior analysis interview (BAI) is a set of 15 predetermined standardized questions designed to elicit differential responses from innocent and guilty suspects at the outset of a police interview. Police investigators who are reasonably certain of a suspect’s guilt may submit the suspect to persuasive interrogation techniques meant to break down the suspect’s resistance; because such interrogation techniques may lead to false confessions, it is important not to submit innocent suspects to these techniques. For this reason, BAI forms an important first step in police interviewing. Some evidence, however, refutes the basic assumptions of the BAI that guilty suspects will feel less comfortable and be less helpful than innocent suspects. This raises doubts about the ability of the BAI protocol to determine successfully which suspect is guilty and which suspect is innocent. The BAI starts with the question “What is your understanding of the purpose of this interview?” followed by questions such as “Did you commit the crime?” or “Do you know who committed the crime?” or “Who would have had the best opportunity to commit the crime if they had wanted to?” and “Once we complete our entire investigation, what do you think the results will be with respect to your involvement in the crime?” Despite its name, behavior analysis interview, the BAI predicts that guilty and innocent suspects will differ in their nonverbal behavior and also in their verbal responses. Regarding the nonverbal responses, it is assumed that liars feel more uncomfortable than truth tellers in police interviews. Guilty suspects should therefore show more nervous behaviors, such as crossing their

46———Behavior Analysis Interview

legs, shifting about in their chairs, performing grooming behaviors, or looking away from the investigator while answering questions such as “Did you commit the crime?” Regarding the verbal responses, it is assumed that compared with guilty suspects, innocent suspects expect to be exonerated and therefore should be more inclined to offer helpful information. Thus, truth tellers should be less evasive in describing the purpose of the interview, more helpful in naming possible suspects when asked who they think may have committed the crime, and more likely to divulge who had an opportunity to commit the crime, and they should express more confidence in being exonerated when asked what they believe the outcome of the investigation will be. Investigators who use the BAI protocol acknowledge that not every response to a BAI question will consistently match the descriptions presented for guilty and innocent suspects. Consequently, investigators should evaluate the responses to the entire BAI rather than to the 15 questions individually. There is only one study with real-life suspects that used the BAI protocol successfully. When only conclusive decisions were scored, 91% of the deceptive suspects and 80% of the innocent suspects were classified correctly. Although these results appear impressive, the authors themselves noted an important limitation of the study: They could not establish with certainty that the guilty suspects were truly guilty and the innocent suspects were truly innocent. The BAI assumption that guilty suspects will feel less comfortable than truth tellers in a police interview is not universally accepted by the scientific community. For instance, in situations where the consequences of being disbelieved are severe, both liars and truth tellers will be concerned about not being believed. The prediction that guilty suspects will show more nervous behaviors than innocent suspects is not supported by deception research. In a mock theft laboratory study, where guilty and innocent suspects were interviewed via the BAI protocol, guilty suspects (those who had taken the money) did not differ from innocent suspects (those who had not taken the money) in eye contact. With other behaviors, just the opposite of the BAI prediction occurred: Guilty suspects displayed fewer movements than innocent suspects. A meta-analysis reviewing more than 100 deception studies showed exactly the same pattern: Eye contact is not related to deception, and liars tend to decrease rather than increase their movements. This pattern was also obtained in a real-world study

examining the nonverbal responses of suspects in police interviews. The decrease in movements often found in deception research could be the result of liars (guilty suspects) having to think harder than truth tellers (innocent suspects). Numerous aspects of lying add to mental load. For example, liars must avoid making slips of the tongue, should not contradict themselves, and should refrain from providing possible leads. If people are engaged in cognitively demanding tasks, their overall animation is likely to decrease. An alternative explanation of liars’ decreased movements is that liars typically experience a greater sense of awareness and deliberateness in their performance, because they take their credibility less for granted than do truth tellers. Although truth tellers are also keen to be seen as truthful, they typically do not think that this will require any special effort or attention. As a result, liars are more inclined than truth tellers to refrain from exhibiting excessive movements that could be construed as nervous or suspicious. This latter impression management explanation (liars put more effort into making a convincing impression than truth tellers) conflicts with the BAI’s prediction that guilty suspects will be less helpful than innocent suspects. The impression management hypothesis states that guilty suspects will be keener than innocent suspects to create a favorable impression on the investigator, because liars will be less likely to take their credibility for granted. Indeed, the results from the mock theft laboratory study in which the BAI protocol was used showed just that pattern: Guilty suspects were more helpful than innocent suspects. Aldert Vrij, Samantha Mann, and Ronald Fisher See also Detection of Deception: Nonverbal Cues; Detection of Deception in High-Stakes Liars; False Confessions; Interrogation of Suspects; Reid Technique for Interrogations

Further Readings

Horvath, F., Jayne, B., & Buckley, J. (1994). Differentiation of truthful and deceptive criminal suspects in behavior analysis interviews. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 39, 793–807. Inbau, F. E., Reid, J. E., Buckley, J. P., & Jayne, B. C. (2001). Criminal interrogation and confessions (4th ed.). Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen. Vrij, A., Mann, S., & Fisher, R. (2006). An empirical test of the behaviour analysis interview. Law and Human Behavior, 30, 329–345.

Bias Crime———47

BIAS CRIME Bias crime represents the nadir of intergroup relationships and contact. Prejudice and bigotry give rise to bias crime, and bigotry accompanies bias offenses. Protected categories of victims according to the bias crime statutes include ethnic, racial, religious, and sexual minorities as well as those with mental or physical disability status. Although debate about the criminalization of bias motives abounds, most of those who study bias crime agree that combating these types of offenses is important. This is because bias crime is different from similarly egregious crimes; the effects of bias crime extend well beyond the initial victim. There are physical, psychological, financial, and societal costs associated with this from of criminal activity. Most people have a sense of what is meant by prejudice, and social scientists use the term to refer to a negative attitude that occurs when people prejudge disliked others. Those who are the targets of prejudice are disliked and perceived to be members of a particular social group. The term bigotry refers to extreme, and often blatant, forms of prejudice. Although both terms refer to a bias in the perception of others, prejudice can in rare cases refer to positive attitudes and reactions, whereas bigotry is exclusively reserved for negative attitudes. It is the latter set of reactions to a disliked individual or group of individuals (i.e., bigotry) that is most likely to spawn bias crimes. Bias crimes involve a unique form of illegal, antisocial (and sometimes aggressive) behavior perpetrated primarily because of what the intended target represents. Definitions of bias crime vary, but definitions such as that of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL) tend to focus on the motivation of the offender as well as the group status of the targeted victim. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the U.S. Department of Justice, a bias crime is “a criminal act that targets a person, property, or society and is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.” Bias crimes “are traditional offenses motivated by the offender’s bias.” The negative sentiment that drives bias crime offenders is so central and distinguishing a feature that the term hate crime is often used to describe these actions. Hate crime puts the extreme negative emotion (i.e., the affective state) front and center. Although

most people can readily identify with an offense characterized as a hate crime because of an almost visceral familiarity with that very negative emotion, some scholars debate the accuracy of this label. They argue that it is not always the case that the sentiment that motivates bias crime offenders is hate. Indeed, as the specialists James Jacobs and colleagues contend, hate crime is less about “hate” per se and more about bias or prejudice. To be sure, the problem of bias crime is real, and because of the inherently social aspect of these offenses, they must be viewed within a particular context. According to Gregory Herek and colleagues, bias offenses generally occur “against a backdrop of intolerance.” They represent the manifestation of deep-seated resentment and bigotry coupled with opportunity and disinhibition. Disinhibition has long been regarded as a necessary psychological feature in a person’s decision to actually commit an antisocial or aggressive action. For the bias crime offender, disinhibition can occur in several ways. Potential bias crime offenders become disinhibited (i.e., releasing the proverbial brake) when they are prompted by like-minded others, when they can rationalize and justify their aggression, or when they believe that conventional authority figures condone their actions.

Bias Crime in the United States According to recent statistics released by the FBI, 7,163 criminal incidents involving 8,380 offenses were reported in 2005 as a result of an extreme prejudice or bias. The greatest proportion of these incidents resulted from racial and ethnic animus (there were 3,919), with African Americans representing the most frequently targeted racial group. This is not surprising given that racial (i.e., anti-Black) prejudice has played so prominent a role in determining the nature of intergroup relations within the United States and because skin color represents a primary and salient marker for racial status. Bias crimes in the United States have assumed many forms and have ranged from nonviolent to egregious and harmful. They include physical and verbal transgressions stemming from a perpetrator’s bigotry or extreme prejudice. These transgressions can include defamation, threat and intimidation, verbal abuse, and physical assault or homicide, as well as offenses to property including arson, defacement, and vandalism. Many bias crimes against property assume

48———Bias Crime

the form of obscene or hurtful verbiage spray painted on private or public property. Victims of bias crime are targeted because of their perceived race, ethnicity/national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, and physical disability. Whether victims actually are members of the targeted group matters little to their offenders; it is the perception that they do that drives offenders. Most targeted groups also tend to be singled out for negative stereotypes. Given the established relationship between stereotypes and prejudice, it is not surprising that members of the most negatively stereotyped social groups are also members of groups most frequently targeted by bias crime offenders. Thus, victims of bias crime disproportionately involve racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious minorities. In the FBI’s 2005 Hate Crime Statistics report, of the 8,380 reported bias offenses, 4,691 were racially motivated, 1,171 were instigated because of offenders’ perceptions about their victims’ sexual orientation, 1,314 resulted from religious prejudice, 1,144 were due to ethnicity/national origin prejudice, and 53 targeted victims because of a disability they were believed to possess. These numbers remain relatively consistent, although they reveal a slight drop from the 9,035 offenses reported in the 2004 statistics report. It is worth noting that reluctance and fear on the part of certain immigrants and ethnic minorities may serve to stifle reports of certain bias offenses. Indeed, like many forms of criminal activity, many bias crimes that occur are not reported. Additionally, underreporting may be particularly likely in the case of victims of antigay bias crimes who, like rape victims, may not be willing to risk disclosure or be subjected to investigation by insensitive or unhelpful law enforcement personnel. Moreover, whether an actual bias crime is recorded as such is very much at the discretion of the individual law enforcement officer. Findings from one federally funded study, reported in Lu-in Wang’s published work, found significant variation among police officers in their decisions to categorize incidents as bias crimes as well as within the state agencies charged with reporting to federal agencies.

Criminalizing Bias Crime In recent years, criminologists and legal scholars have debated the usefulness of criminalizing bias, and debates about the constitutionality of legislation that penalizes

it abound. Of course, crimes that are motivated by bias are not new. The history of bias as an instigator and motive in criminal activities occurring within the United States predates the establishment and enactment of any legislation in the country. The legal scholar Brian Levin notes that “status-based deprivations” such as slavery were in place at the very same time that deliberations about the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were under way. What is new about today’s form of bias crime, however, is the existing legislation as well as the corresponding efforts aimed at enacting additional legislation penalizing these activities. The term bias crime, first used by journalists and politicians, is well entrenched in today’s academic and juridical circles. Most jurisdictions see bias crime as emanating from a perpetrator’s bias targeting some feature of the victim (e.g., racial status or sexual orientation). Although the Hate Crime Statistics Act (initially promulgated in 1990) mandates that all jurisdictions report the number of bias offenses that have occurred, there is substantial variance in the extent of participation across states. Like other offenses included in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, bias crimes are voluntarily reported by local jurisdictions. In 2005, several members of the House of Representatives introduced a bill that would represent an amendment to the law that mandates the FBI’s collection of bias crime information to include gender as a protected category (called the Hate Crime Statistics Improvement Act of 2005). Historically, gender has not been included in the FBI’s definition of bias crime. The bill never became a law, and the current Federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act does not require the FBI to collect data on crimes that may manifest evidence of a gender bias. However, of the 41 states that have crime statutes, 19 of them include genderbased hate crimes in their hate crimes laws. Importantly, where bias crimes were formerly limited to the actual physical presence of an offender (e.g., an assault) or the offender’s sentiment (e.g., graffiti or vandalism), widespread usage of the Internet has enabled offenders to transcend the boundaries of space and time. According to a representative of the ADL, “the majority of Internet hate crime cases result from e-mails containing threats.” Indeed, because of the proliferation of biased sentiment throughout the Internet, “cyber hate” is now investigated and tracked by advocacy groups, such as the ADL, as well as the FBI.

Bias Crime———49

Bias Crime Versus “Normal” Offenses Bias offenses differ from other similarly egregious offenses in several ways. First, because bias crimes indicate an offender’s bias, they serve symbolic and instrumental functions. The targeted victim is symbolic of a despised out-group. An out-group is a social group composed of people whom an offender perceives to be outsiders. Symbolically, the bias crime effectively communicates a message to an entire community, neighborhood, or group. The message is extremely negative and reminds anyone who identifies as a member of the victim’s social group of their own vulnerability. Bias crime serves an instrumental function in that it curtails the behaviors and movement of members of large numbers of people, including members of the victim’s and offender’s groups. Bias offenses restrict the behaviors and choices of people because members of the victim’s and offender’s groups will tend to avoid certain locations and interactions with outgroups. For example, people who are personally unacquainted with the victim but who perceive themselves to be members of the victim’s social group are likely to restrict their activities. They will think twice about being in geographic proximity of the location where the bias offense is known to have occurred. Members of the offender’s group who sympathize with victims are also likely to be anxious about the prospect of intergroup interaction. Without realizing it, offenders can affect far greater numbers of people than the actual victim(s) of the offense. The bias crime is also distinguished from the “normal” offense (i.e., the nonbias crime) in that the bias crime is a reflection of a perpetrator’s bigotry or hatred, or both. Such clarity about an offender’s thinking is a feature of the bias crime and not readily apparent in many other types of offenses. However, it should be noted that legal scholars debate the constitutionality of bias crime statutes because they argue that characterization of an offense as a bias offense is based on penalizing thoughts and motives. Although there may be some ambiguity for certain offenses, law enforcement, legislators, and prosecutors generally consider the presence of one or more specific indicators during the commission of an offense to be evidence of a bias motive. These indicators serve to disambiguate the circumstances surrounding the incident because they suggest that the offender’s actions were motivated, in whole or in part, by bias.

A clear difference in group status between the victim(s) and offender(s) that has historically involved relations fraught with strife is often taken as an indicator of a bias motive. When the incident occurs in the context of an event that makes the group status of the victim particularly salient, prosecutors will likely suspect a bias motive. Moreover, when there are obvious items present, used in, or produced as a result of the offense (e.g., graffiti, bias-related gestures or expressions, and written materials) or when the offenders are members of organized hate groups (e.g., the Ku Klux Klan), the incident is likely to be characterized as a bias offense.

Costs Incurred There are a number of costs associated with bias crimes. Those who are targeted by offenders (i.e., victims) may incur physical, psychological, and financial costs. Victims of hate crime who are physically assaulted suffer injuries that may lead to permanent bodily damage, and in several high-profile cases (e.g., the murders of James Byrd and Mathew Sheppard), these injuries have resulted in death. Psychologically, the victim of a bias crime may experience posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In fact, research by Gregory Herek and colleagues provides evidence of long-term PTSD symptoms. That research examined the experiences of victims of antigay bias crimes and found that in some cases the victims needed as many as 5 years to overcome the effect of their victimization. Even when victims are able to function “normally” following a bias crime, they may harbor intense fear. They may fear their attackers, and they may also fear anyone who resembles their attackers. Although this can be debilitating, it can be most problematic for the fearful victims who feel compelled to move from their residence, change jobs, or restrict their activities. Thus, an additional outcome of bias crime victimization can involve very real financial costs. To the extent to which victims decide to suddenly change their place of employment or residence, there is likely to be a significant change in financial well-being. In addition, bias crime involving property offenses creates financial costs for property owners who resolve to return their property to its original state. Although the most obvious costs are incurred by the actual victims of the offense, there are also societal costs associated with bias crime activities. Bias crimes

50———Bias Crime

create a climate of suspicion and fear. They effectively contribute to deterioration in intergroup relations. Those who may perceive themselves to be members of the victim’s social group will fear others who happen to be members of the offender’s social group, and members of the latter may feel anger and guilt leading them to avoid interaction with those perceived to be members of the victim’s group. In addition, particularly visible incidents can potentially trigger subsequent hate crime offenses, setting off a wave of retaliatory offenses.

Profile of Offenders According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Policymaker’s Guide to Hate Crime, hate crime offenders can be categorized according to their motives. In some cases, offenders perceive themselves to be exacting vigilante justice. These types of offenders blame the targets of their offenses for what they perceive to be wrong with the world or their immediate circumstances. In other cases, offenders perceive their actions to be a part of a greater mission—one in service of ridding the world of the social evil that their victim represents. An additional motive believed to account for some hate crime offenses involves the excitement and “rush” of committing the offenses. For these frenetic offenders, who are referred to as “thrill seekers,” any targeted outgroup will do. In these incidents, willing offenders have the right set of circumstances, potential victims, and disinhibiting factors present at just the right time. Although it would be useful to have a more detailed description of offenders, there is some variability among those who commit bias crimes. For example, the Hate Crime Statistics report of 2005 reveals that racial minorities are represented among racist bias crime offenders. Nevertheless, representatives from some local jurisdictions have noted that bias crime offenders are overwhelmingly young, White, and male.

Preventing Bias Crimes Bias crimes, though extremely problematic, are not inevitable. When one considers that of the infinite

number of interactions possible among the 34 million people living in California, for example, fewer than 2,500 resulted in reports of hate-motivated offenses, it is clear that bias crime occurrence is actually rare relative to its nonoccurrence. That said, recent events reflecting bias and bigotry underscore the importance of continued attention to this problem. Researchers, advocates, legislators, and law enforcement personnel have roles to play in attenuating the problem of bias crime. The greatest responsibility, however, rests with the lay public, which is composed of both victims and offenders. Eliminating bigotry and the problem of bias crime requires vigilant, continuous, and cross-cutting efforts, and it involves education, intergroup interaction, and legislation. Kellina M. Craig-Henderson See also Racial Bias and the Death Penalty; Reporting Crimes and Victimization; Victimization

Further Readings

Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. (1994). Hate crime laws. A comprehensive guide. New York: Author. Craig-Henderson, K. M. (2004). A review of the debate over hate crime legislation: Do hate crime statutes work for the common good? In R. R. Miller & S. L. Browning (Eds.), For the common good: A critical examination of law and social control (pp. 230–236). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2006). Hate crime statistics 2005. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Herek, G. M., & Berrill, K. T. (Eds.). (1992). Hate crimes. Confronting violence against lesbians and gay men. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Jacobs, J. B., & Potter, K. (1998). Hate crimes: Criminal law and identity politics. New York: Oxford University Press. Levin, J., & McDevitt, J. (2002). Hate crimes revisited. America’s war on those who are different. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Wang, L.-I. (2003). Hate crimes law. St. Paul, MN: Thomson/West.

C of TCC, and associated assessment instruments, have been developed for evaluating TCC. TCC is often tested using four standards drawn from case law and the psychiatric literature: the capacities to

CAPACITY TO CONSENT TO TREATMENT The capacity to consent to treatment, also known as treatment consent capacity (TCC) and medical decisionmaking capacity, is a civil legal capacity with important ethical, legal, and functional aspects. TCC is a fundamental aspect of personal autonomy and selfdetermination and refers to a person’s cognitive and emotional capacity to consent to medical treatment. TCC involves the capacity not only to accept a treatment but also to refuse a treatment, or to select between treatment alternatives. Legally, TCC forms the cornerstone of the medical-legal doctrine of informed consent, which requires that a valid consent to treatment be not only informed and voluntary but also competent. Functionally, TCC may be viewed as an “advanced activity of daily life” that is an important aspect of health and independent living skills in both younger and older adults. As such, it is a critical functional and life skill considered by probate courts conducting guardianship determinations. From a legal standpoint, TCC is a distinctive civil capacity. Issues of TCC generally arise in a medical setting and usually involve a physician, a psychologist, or some other clinician, not a legal professional, as decision maker. These clinical judgments of TCC are rarely subject to judicial review. Accordingly, while clinicians do not determine TCC in a formal legal sense, their decisions often have the same effect insofar as a patient can effectively lose decisional authority. Over the past 30 years, consent capacity has emerged as a distinct field of legal, ethical, clinical, and behavioral research. Clinical and cognitive models

1. “evidence” or express a treatment choice (expressing choice), 2. “appreciate” the personal consequences of a treatment choice (appreciation), 3. “reason” about treatment (reasoning), and 4. “understand” the treatment situation and choices (understanding).

There is also a fifth consent ability of making a “reasonable” treatment choice (reasonable choice), which is used experimentally but not clinically. These consent abilities represent different legal thresholds for evaluating TCC and have served as the conceptual basis for instrument development and clinical and cognitive studies.

Legal Aspects of TCC TCC is a fundamental aspect of personal autonomy in our society. Clinicians are ethically and legally obligated to respect patients’ right of self-determination with respect to medical care. The doctrine of informed consent protects this right of self-determination by requiring that a legally valid consent to treatment be informed, voluntary, and competent. As such, a diagnostic or therapeutic intervention that is performed on a person lacking the capacity to consent—regardless 51

52———Capacity to Consent to Treatment

of its intended benefit—may often represent a technical battery and be actionable under the law.

Medical-Legal Model of Consent Capacity As discussed above, a medical-legal model of TCC incorporating specific consent abilities, or standards, has been developed from case law and the psychiatric literature. These standards are set forth below in order of proposed difficulty for patients with dementia: S1. The capacity simply to “evidence” or express a treatment choice S2. The capacity to make a “reasonable” treatment choice (this is not a clinically accepted consent standard because of concerns about the arbitrariness of the operative term reasonable; it is thus for experimental use only and is accordingly referenced with brackets) S3. The capacity to “appreciate” the personal consequences of a treatment choice S4. The capacity to reason about treatment and provide “rational reasons” for a treatment choice S5. The capacity to “understand” the treatment situation and treatment choices

The above standards represent different thresholds for evaluating TCC. For example, S1 (expressing choice) requires nothing more than the subject’s communication of a treatment choice. [S2] (reasonable choice) calls for the individual to demonstrate a reasonable treatment choice, particularly when the alternative is unreasonable. S3 (appreciation) requires the individual to appreciate how a treatment choice will affect him or her personally. S4 (reasoning) evaluates the individual’s capacity to supply rational reasons for the treatment choice. S5 (understanding) is a comprehension standard and requires the individual to demonstrate conceptual and factual knowledge concerning the medical condition, its symptoms, and the treatment choices and their respective risks/benefits. Standards 3 to 5 are the standards generally applied in clinical settings. It should be noted that this medicallegal model can be readily applied to other consent capacities, such as the capacity to consent to research, and to decisional capacity generally.

In using this model and selecting applicable standards, clinicians should consider the potential risks and benefits of a proposed treatment and the consequences of refusing treatment. For instance, a patient who consents to a relatively low-risk medical procedure expected to yield significant benefits may be judged using a lower or more liberal standard of TCC. A more stringent threshold (e.g., S4, reasoning, and/or S5, understanding) should be considered as the risks associated with a medical procedure or with refusing treatment increase. Due to its short-term memory and other cognitive demands, S5 may be the most stringent legal standard, particularly for older adults and persons with amnesic disorders.

Cognitive Model for Consent Capacity TCC may also be conceptualized cognitively as consisting of three core tasks: comprehension and encoding of treatment information, information processing and internally arriving at a treatment decision, and communication of the treatment decision to a clinical professional. These core cognitive tasks occur in a specific context: a patient’s dialogue with a physician, a psychologist, or some other health care professional about a medical condition and potential treatments. The comprehension/encoding task involves oral and written comprehension, and encoding, of novel and often complex medical information presented verbally to the patient by the treating clinician. The informationprocessing/decision-making task involves the patient processing the consent and other information presented, integrating this information with established personal knowledge, including values and risk preferences, reasoning about and weighing this information, and arriving internally at a treatment decision. The decision communication task involves the patient communicating his or her treatment decision to the clinician in some understandable form (e.g., oral, written, and/or gestural expression of consent/nonconsent).

Clinical Assessment of TCC Problems in Assessment

Despite the relevance of issues of TCC in medical settings, there is little academic or clinical education in this area. Medical and graduate schools, as well as residency, internship, and fellowship programs, have not traditionally offered formal training in capacity

Capacity to Consent to Treatment———53

assessment. There has also been a general lack of practical clinical guidelines on which to base capacity assessments. Until recently, clinicians have had to rely almost exclusively on subjective clinical impressions and brief mental status testing in reaching a judgment regarding TCC. Physician judgment has traditionally represented the accepted criterion or gold standard for determining TCC in medical and legal practice. However, studies involving older adults and persons with AD have raised the concern that physician judgments of TCC may be both subjective and unreliable. Specifically, experienced physicians have been found to be highly inconsistent in their judgments of TCC in older adults with mild AD. This inconsistency may reflect issues of lack of clinical training, differing conceptual approaches, and the conflation of mental status results with capacity status in older adults. One response to these issues of clinical accuracy and consistency in capacity judgments has been the development of standardized assessment measures. Instruments for Assessing TCC

In recent years, investigators have used the above models of TCC to develop standardized, normreferenced psychometric instruments for assessment of TCC in different patient populations. These instruments include the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT–T), the Hopemont Capacity Assessment Instrument, and the Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI). These standardized measures assist clinicians by offering specific definitions of the TCC construct and by operationalizing standards or thresholds for testing capacity. In addition to measuring capacity performance, some instruments also identify capacity status (capable, marginally capable, or incapable) using cut scores derived from control performance. Thus, these measures provide objective, norm-referenced information concerning an individual’s TCC that can inform and guide clinical decision making. The limitations of these assessment instruments should also be considered. First, instrument-based deficits in TCC should not be construed as necessarily reflecting clinical or legal impairments or incompetency. Second, and related, clinical determination of TCC is ultimately a judgment made by a clinician and not an instrument performance score. Assessment instruments can provide objective information about

consent abilities but are not substitutes for clinical judgment. No capacity instrument can satisfactorily take into account the myriad medical, legal, ethical, and social considerations that inform a clinical or legal capacity judgment. For this reason, standardized measures of TCC are intended to support, but certainly not replace, the decision making of the clinician.

Research on TCC in Clinical Populations Impairment and loss of TCC have been studied in multiple clinical populations, including persons with schizophrenia and other psychiatric illnesses, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and traumatic brain injury (TBI). Initial pioneering clinical studies of TCC were carried out in psychiatric populations by Appelbaum, Roth, Grisso, and colleagues and have documented clearly the effects of mental illness on informed consent capacities in these patients. Over the past 15 years, there have been an increasing number of studies of TCC in older adult populations with dementia. Due to its relentless progressive nature and the well-characterized stages of neurocognitive and functional change, AD has proven to be a useful prism for understanding impairment and loss of TCC. Studies have shown that the minimal standards of consent capacity, such as expressing choice (S1) and making a reasonable choice [S2], are relatively preserved in patients with mild to moderate AD, whereas the clinically relevant standards of appreciation (S3), reasoning (S4), and understanding (S5) already show significant impairment. TCC also shows significant longitudinal decline over a 2-year period in patients with mild AD. A very recent study has suggested that older patients with MCI, the prodrome or transitional stage to AD, also experience significant deficits in TCC. Other studies have identified deficits in TCC in patients with PD and cognitive impairment and dementia. In contrast to these dementia studies, an investigation of TCC in moderate to severely injured patients with TBI found significant initial impairment but also subsequent partial recovery of consent abilities 6 months following TBI. Thus, trajectories of consent capacity impairment and change over time can differ enormously across disease states. Cognitive Studies of TCC

TCC assessment instruments have also provided a useful psychometric criterion for investigating the

54———Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI)

neurocognitive changes associated with impairment of TCC in neurocognitive disorders such as dementia. Findings suggest that multiple cognitive functions are associated with the loss of consent capacity in patients with AD. For example, deficits in conceptualization, semantic memory, and probably verbal recall appear to be associated with the significantly impaired capacity of both mild and moderate AD patients to understand a treatment situation and choices (S5). A factor analysis of TCC in an AD population revealed a twofactor solution comprising verbal reasoning and verbal memory, which was subsequently validated using a form of neuropsychological confirmatory analysis. In contrast, in studies of patients with PD and dementia, executive function measures have emerged as the primary predictors of impairments of TCC.

partial recovery of medical decision-making capacity in traumatic brain injury: A 6-month longitudinal study. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 86, 889–895. Marson, D. C., Ingram, K., Cody, H., & Harrell, L. (1995). Assessing the competency of Alzheimer’s disease patients under different legal standards: A prototype instrument. Archives of Neurology, 52(10), 949–954. Moye, J., Karel, M. J., Azar, A. R., & Gurrera, R. J. (2004). Capacity to consent to treatment: Empirical comparison of three instruments in patients with and without dementia. The Gerontologist, 44(2), 166–175.

CAPACITY TO CONSENT TO TREATMENT INSTRUMENT (CCTI)

Daniel C. Marson and Katina R. Hebert See also Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI); Competency, Foundational and Decisional; Consent to Clinical Research; End-of-Life Issues; MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research (MacCAT–CR); MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT–T) Further Readings

Dymek, M. P., Atchison, P., Harrell, L. E., & Marson, D. C. (2001). Competency to consent to medical treatment in cognitively impaired patients with Parkinson’s disease. Neurology, 56, 17–24. Grisso, T. (2003). Competence to consent to treatment. In Evaluating civil competencies: Forensic assessment and instruments (2nd ed., pp. 391–458). New York: Kluwer Press. Grisso, T., & Appelbaum, P. S. (1995). The MacArthur Treatment Competence Study. III: Abilities of patients to consent to psychiatric and medical treatments. Law and Human Behavior, 19, 149–169. Grisso, T., & Appelbaum, P. S. (1998). Assessing competence to consent to treatment. New York: Oxford University Press. Kim, S. Y., Karlawish, J. H., & Caine, E. D. (2002). Current state of research on decision-making competence of cognitively impaired elderly persons. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 10, 151–165. Marson, D. C., Chatterjee, A., Ingram, K., & Harrell, L. (1996). Toward a neurologic model of competency: Cognitive predictors of capacity to consent in Alzheimer’s disease using three different legal standards. Neurology, 46, 666–672. Marson, D. C., Dreer, L. E., Krzywanski, S., Huthwaite, J. S., DeVivo, M. J., & Novack, T. A. (2005). Impairment and

The Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI) is a standardized psychometric instrument designed to assess the treatment consent capacity (TCC) of adults. The CCTI evaluates five different consent abilities or standards and has been shown to be a reliable and valid measure of TCC. The measure discriminates well between cognitively intact adults and persons with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease dementia syndrome, and traumatic brain injury. The CCTI has application to all adult patient populations in which issues of neurocognitive impairment and consent capacity arise. Research using the CCTI has provided insight into the relationships between cognitive change and different thresholds of decisional capacity.

Structure and Administration of the CCTI The CCTI was first developed in 1992 to empirically investigate patterns of consent capacity impairment in patients with mild and moderate AD. The measure consists of two clinical vignettes that present hypothetical medical problems and their symptoms (brain tumor, atherosclerotic heart disease) as well as treatment alternatives with the associated risks and benefits. The CCTI is administered in a way that simulates an informed consent dialogue between the physician and the patient. The vignettes are presented simultaneously in oral and written format using an uninterrupted disclosure method. They are written at a fifth- to sixthgrade reading level, with low syntactic complexity and a moderate information load.

Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI)———55

After each vignette is presented, the written stimulus is removed, and patients are asked to answer a series of questions that test distinct consent abilities. These consent abilities are derived from psychiatric literature and case law and reflect four well-established standards (S) for decisional capacity: evidencing a choice for or against treatment (S1), appreciating the personal consequences of a treatment choice (S3), reasoning about treatment, or making a treatment choice based on rational reasons (S4), and understanding the treatment situation and choices (S5). The CCTI also assesses the capacity to make a reasonable choice (S2). This is an experimental standard that has not received legal or clinical acceptance due to arbitrariness in determining what constitutes a “reasonable” treatment choice. Administration time for the CCTI is about 20 to 25 minutes for both vignettes.

CCTI Scoring System The CCTI has a detailed and well-operationalized scoring system that yields information regarding both capacity performance and capacity status. Capacity performance is the quantitative score that a patient receives for each standard. Scores across vignettes are summed to create a composite score for each standard. There is no CCTI total score. Capacity status refers to the categorical outcome (capable, marginally capable, or incapable of consenting to treatment) obtained on a particular standard. Depending on the standard, capacity status on the CCTI is operationalized using either predetermined cut scores or psychometric cutoff scores derived from the performance of cognitively intact older adults. CCTI capacity outcomes must be used cautiously insofar as they are derived from cut scores and do not represent legal or clinical competency findings.

Reliability and Validity of the CCTI The CCTI has reliability and validity as a measure of consent capacity. Three separate raters trained in administration and scoring of the CCTI achieved high interrater reliability for interval scales (>.83, p < .0001; S3–S5) and categorical scales (96% agreement; S1 and S2). The CCTI demonstrates face and content validity. The medical content of each vignette was reviewed and approved by a neurologist specializing in aging and dementia. The CCTI has been found to discriminate well between cognitively intact

older adults and persons with both mild and moderate AD. The CCTI also discriminates well between older controls and patients with Parkinson’s disease and dementia. With respect to construct validity, factor analysis of the CCTI in an AD sample revealed a twofactor model of verbal reasoning and verbal memory, which was subsequently confirmed using neuropsychological factor analysis. In addition, the CCTI has demonstrated utility as a psychometric criterion for investigating the neurocognitive changes associated with loss of TCC.

Clinical and Research Utility The CCTI provides a standardized and norm-referenced basis for evaluating TCC in individual patients and across different patient populations. For this reason, it has very good research application. In addition, by objectively evaluating different consent abilities, it provides clinicians with flexibility in a particular case to consider different standards of capacity in relation to the risks and benefits of a particular treatment situation. Limitations

The CCTI has three key limitations. First, because it uses standardized, hypothetical clinical vignettes (brain tumor, heart disease), the CCTI does not directly assess specific issues of TCC presenting clinically (e.g., in the treatment of bone cancer). Instead, it provides objective, norm-referenced information about a patient’s treatment consent abilities that the clinician can consider as part of his or her overall assessment of TCC. Thus, the CCTI gives up clinical specificity for standardization. A second limitation of the CCTI is its use of hypothetical medical vignettes. Patients dealing with real, personal medical problems arguably may display treatment consent abilities that differ somewhat from those demonstrated when responding to hypothetical medical situations. Finally, the CCTI and its performance and outcome scores are intended to support but not replace clinical judgment. Determination of consent capacity is ultimately a judgment made by a clinician. Daniel C. Marson and Katina R. Hebert See also Capacity to Consent to Treatment; Competency, Foundational and Decisional; Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI); Consent to Clinical Research; End-of Life Issues; Hopkins Competency Assessment Test (HCAT); MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for

56———Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights

Clinical Research (MacCAT–CR); MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT–T)

Further Readings

Dymek, M., Marson, D., & Harrell, L. (1999). Factor structure of capacity to consent in Alzheimer’s disease. Journal of Forensic Neuropsychology, 1, 27–48. Griffith, R., Dymek, M., Atchison, P., Harrell, L., & Marson, D. (2005). Medical decision-making capacity in two neurodegenerative disorders: Mild AD and PD with cognitive impairment. Neurology, 65, 483–485. Marson, D. C., Dreer, L., Krzywanski, S., Huthwaite, J., DeVivo, M., & Novack, T. (2005). Impairment and partial recovery of medical decision-making capacity in traumatic brain injury: A six month longitudinal study. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 86, 889–895. Marson, D. C., Ingram, K. K., Cody, H. A., & Harrell, L. E. (1995). Assessing the competency of patients with Alzheimer’s disease under different legal standards: A prototype instrument. Archives of Neurology, 52, 949–954.

CAPACITY TO WAIVE MIRANDA RIGHTS Prior to interrogating a suspect, police officers must inform individuals of their legal rights. Mental health professionals are frequently called on to evaluate the extent to which criminal suspects have understood their legal arrest rights and made valid decisions with respect to waiving those rights. For individuals to knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waive their rights, they must both understand and appreciate those rights. Research has consistently indicated that rights comprehension is significantly more impaired for younger adolescents than for older adolescents and adults. Furthermore, comprehension is most impaired among younger adolescents with lower intellectual abilities.

Miranda Warnings Miranda v. Arizona (1966) required states to inform suspects prior to interrogation or questioning of several rights, which includes informing them of their right to remain silent, that anything they say can be used against them in a court of law, their right to the presence of an attorney, and the right to free counsel

if they cannot afford the cost of an attorney. These warnings were viewed as strengthening an individual’s protection against self-incrimination during police interrogation. The rights provided to adults in Miranda were extended to juveniles in the cases of Kent v. United States (1966) and In re Gault (1967). For those individuals who opt to waive these rights and undergo interrogation, any statements they make can be admitted as evidence against them in future court proceedings provided that the waiver is valid. While the specific rights guaranteed to suspects prior to arrest and interrogation are outlined in Miranda, the specific wording and language employed in rights warnings vary between jurisdictions and police forces. Each warning typically contains the four prongs outlined in Miranda. A fifth warning prong has been added in many jurisdictions, which informs suspects that they can choose to stop questioning and consult with an attorney at any time. Additionally, some jurisdictions have included cautionary statements to juveniles regarding the possibility of having their case remanded to adult court or serving an adult sentence. Research has demonstrated significant variability in the language and readability of Miranda warnings across states, with FleschKincaid Grade reading levels ranging from 4.0 to 9.9 in one study. The typical Miranda warning is at about the seventh-grade reading level, which is above the reading level of many intellectually impaired individuals. Also, the reading level of many adolescents in the juvenile justice system is below that of their peers. Many states employ separate Miranda warning cards for juveniles in an effort to simplify the warnings and increase comprehension. Statements made by individuals who have waived their rights can be ruled inadmissible if a judge determines that certain conditions have not been met. Several U.S. Supreme Court decisions have established a totality of circumstances test for evaluating the validity of a rights waiver decision. This requires the court to consider both the suspect’s capacities and the procedures and circumstances surrounding the waiver. This includes whether the individual knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived his or her rights. The knowing component requires understanding verbally or in writing the wording used in the warning. The intelligent component goes beyond simple understanding and requires that a suspect appreciate the significance of a particular right in his or her particular situation. For example, suspects may

Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights———57

clearly understand a statement informing them that they can consult with a lawyer prior to interrogation, but without an appreciation of the role and function of a lawyer this understanding is rendered meaningless. Finally, the waiver must be made voluntarily, which requires that a suspect waive his or her rights independently, free from coercion from the police.

Research Researchers have investigated the influence of numerous factors on adult and juvenile Miranda rights comprehension, including age, IQ, ethnicity, prior police contact and criminal justice experience, socioeconomic status, psychopathology and symptoms, special education classes, psychosocial maturity, and interrogative suggestibility. Results from these studies consistently indicate that rights comprehension is significantly more impaired for younger adolescents than for older adolescents and adults. Furthermore, comprehension is most impaired among younger adolescents with lower IQ. Adults with mental retardation have also been shown to demonstrate poor Miranda rights comprehension, resulting in the most frequent waiver challenges in court. Results from studies evaluating the influence of the other factors have been less clear. It is important to bear in mind that although research has been helpful in identifying areas in which capacity may be impaired, these studies have important limitations. They have typically been conducted in laboratory settings and have used hypothetical scenarios and noncriminal samples, thereby limiting the extent to which the true stressful nature of police interrogations is captured. Under stressful circumstances, suspects’ understanding, appreciation, and reasoning about interrogation rights may be poorer than these findings suggest. Indeed, prior studies have shown that many adolescents in stressful or fearful situations, such as a police interrogation, will not be able to use their highest level of cognitive reasoning. The choice whether to waive or exercise arrest rights represents the first step in a series of difficult decision points that individuals face when undergoing a police investigation. In addition to investigating the factors influencing arrest rights comprehension and waiver, researchers have examined the relationship between arrest rights comprehension and other possible outcomes arising from police interrogations. For example, researchers have begun to examine poor arrest rights comprehension as both a possible predictor of

the decision to waive arrest rights and submit to police interrogation without assistance or advice as well as a predictor of the likelihood of offering a false confession. One recent study found that Miranda comprehension correlated negatively with false confessions in a juvenile sample, where juveniles were less likely to offer a false confession in response to a series of hypothetical vignettes as their Miranda comprehension improved.

Developmental Considerations Results from research have generally demonstrated that younger adolescents with poor intellectual ability fail to comprehend adequately their Miranda rights. However, much of the variability in understanding can still be attributed to individual differences between people. A bright 12- or 13-year-old may demonstrate excellent understanding of Miranda rights, while a less intellectually capable adult may struggle to comprehend the content of typical Miranda warnings. However, adolescents are different from adults in one important way. They are at a stage of development in which they are still undergoing important maturational changes. Adolescence is marked by significant physical maturation, budding sexuality, an increased awareness of and sensitivity toward peers, and an increased desire for independence and identity development, to name only a few. One compelling explanation for the differences in understanding between adolescents and adults is that the cognitive capacities of adolescents are simply underdeveloped. Empirical evidence demonstrates that cognitive development continues throughout adolescence, and that it is only by age 17 that adolescents’ raw cognitive abilities become more comparable with those of adults. In addition to developmental differences in cognitive factors, research shows that adolescents differ in other important ways relevant to legal competencies. Particularly, adolescents differ in their level of psychosocial maturity and in the way they reason and make decisions. Younger adolescents with intellectual abilities comparable with those of adults have less life experience to draw on, which may influence their reasoning and decision-making processes. Younger children and adolescents are generally less likely to think strategically about their decisions; they are less future oriented, are less likely to weigh the consequences of their decisions, and often act impulsively. Thus, even if a young person adequately understands

58———Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights

the meaning of a Miranda warning, his or her appreciation of the consequences of the decision to waive or exercise those rights may suffer given his or her relative level of maturity and development. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that research demonstrates that the majority of young persons opt to waive their rights when being questioned by the police. Interestingly, results from Canadian and U.S. studies have shown that with increased rights understanding, young persons are more likely to refuse to waive their rights in the context of a criminal investigation.

Assessing Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights It is important to clarify that the term capacity to waive Miranda rights does not refer to a specific legal disposition but rather to the capacity of the defendant to understand and waive his or her legal rights. Grisso has described three areas of functioning pertinent to the evaluation of capacity to waive rights, including a suspect’s understanding of the rights warnings, the suspect’s perceptions of the intended functions of the Miranda rights, and the suspect’s capacities to reason about the probable consequences of waiver or nonwaiver decisions. Researchers and evaluators have typically assessed the suspect’s understanding of the rights warnings by examining an individual’s understanding of the phrases included in a standard rights warning. Grisso conceptualizes appreciation of the significance of rights to comprise three main parts. First, suspects must recognize the interrogative nature of police questioning. Second, suspects must perceive the defense attorney as an advocate who will defend and advise them, and be willing to disclose confidential information to him or her (appreciation of the right to counsel). Finally, suspects must perceive the right to silence as a right that cannot be revoked and that statements made by them can be used in court (appreciation of the right to silence). Grisso’s Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights were developed to assist mental health professionals to examine the capacities of individual youths or adults to waive their Miranda rights knowingly and intelligently at the time of their police interrogation. Three instruments assess the individual’s understanding of a typical arrest by asking examinees to paraphrase the meaning of each right, compare the four elements of a typical rights warning with a pool of statements including accurate

and inaccurate rewordings of each of the sentences, and provide definitions of six words contained in the interrogation warnings. Appreciation of the warnings is evaluated in a fourth instrument, which assesses appreciation of the importance of rights in an interrogation and in legal situations generally by asking examinees to respond to pictures and vignettes describing youths interacting with various criminal justice figures. The instruments provide normative data against which evaluators can compare an examinee’s responses on the instruments; however the normative data are based on a sample of juveniles in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1980. An updated version of these instruments, The Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments, is currently being developed.

Consequences Current findings from the literature underscore the need for the provision of appropriate assistance or improvement in the rights communication and the waiver processes. Results from research conducted on juveniles’ Miranda rights comprehension findings strongly suggest that although a majority of youths involved in police questioning and interrogation waive their rights, many of them, particularly younger adolescents, may not have the capacity to provide a valid waiver. The consequences of poor understanding and appreciation of arrest rights, in combination with a highly suggestible young person and coercive interrogation conditions, may be far ranging and logically include a greatly increased likelihood of offering a false confession. Youths, especially younger adolescents and preteens, may be especially vulnerable to making false confessions due to immaturity and poor judgment. Ronald Roesch and Kaitlyn McLachlan See also Capacity to Waive Rights; False Confessions; Forensic Assessment; Grisso’s Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights; Interrogation of Suspects; Videotaping Confessions

Further Readings

Feld, B. C. (2000). Juveniles’ waiver of legal rights: Confessions, Miranda, and the right to counsel. In T. Grisso & R. G. Schwartz (Eds.), Youth on trial: A developmental perspective on juvenile justice (pp. 105–138). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Goldstein, N. E., Condie, L. O., Kalbeitzer, R., Osman, D., & Geier, J. L. (2003). Juvenile offenders’ Miranda rights comprehension and self-report likelihood of offering false confessions. Assessment, 10, 359–369. Grisso, T. (1998). Instruments for assessing understanding and appreciation of Miranda rights. Sarasota, FL: Professional Resources. Grisso, T. (2003). Evaluating competencies: Forensic assessment and instruments. New York: Plenum Press. Helms, J. (2003). Analysis of Miranda reading levels across jurisdictions: Implications for evaluating waiver competency. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 3, 25–37. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967). Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966). Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Viljoen, J. L., & Roesch, R. (2005). Competency to waive interrogation rights and adjudicative competence in adolescent defendants: Cognitive development, attorney contact, and psychological symptoms. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 723–742.

CAPACITY TO WAIVE RIGHTS With the Fifth Amendment right against selfincrimination and the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process as its grounding, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Miranda v. Arizona (1966), established important procedural protections for criminal suspects in custodial interrogations. Aware of the inherently coercive nature of interrogations and of suspects’ risk of selfincrimination, the Miranda Court mandated that the police notify suspects of their right to silence and legal representation. The Court further ruled that a suspect may waive these rights, but the waiver would be considered valid only if it were provided knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. To determine the validity of a Miranda waiver, courts typically examine the totality of circumstances under which the waiver was given, including both situational characteristics (e.g., length of the interrogation, strategies used to obtain the confession) and characteristics of the defendant (e.g., age, intelligence, prior criminal history). However, the question of how to weigh each of these factors in determining the validity of a waiver is left to the discretion of the judge. Thus, a judge or an attorney may request a forensic evaluator to aid the court in determining a

defendant’s capacity to meet the requirements of a valid waiver of rights.

Identification of Relevant Capacities The first two elements of the standard, knowing and intelligent, are related to individuals’ cognitive abilities: the ability to understand the meaning of the rights and to appreciate the consequences of waiver and nonwaiver decisions. Thus, forensic evaluators are able to conduct clinical and psychological assessments and inform the courts about individuals’ specific abilities or deficits in these areas (e.g., whether they have the cognitive developmental and/or intellectual capacities to grasp the concept of a right as an entitlement rather than as a privilege that can be revoked). The voluntariness element, however, is more speculative because it considers the interaction between the situational characteristics of the interrogation (e.g., coercive police interrogation strategies used to extract a confession) and individual characteristics that may influence a defendant’s waiver decision (e.g., susceptibility to suggestion by authority figures, psychosocial immaturity). Because forensic evaluators have little additional information to offer the courts about the situational characteristics, they typically address the issue of voluntariness less directly; they examine the capacities related to the knowing and intelligent elements and provide information about defendants’ specific vulnerabilities that may influence their waiver decisions. To meet the knowing and intelligent requirements of a valid waiver, one must demonstrate three primary capacities. First, one must demonstrate the ability to comprehend the meaning of the Miranda warnings. Simply, does the suspect understand the basic meaning of each of the warnings? Second, one must be able to appreciate the significance of the rights. Slightly more complex than the first capacity, this ability is related to whether suspects are able to appreciate the importance of the warnings within the context of the legal process. For example, suspects may understand that they have the right to remain silent. However, if they lack an understanding of the adversarial nature of the criminal proceeding and mistakenly believe that exercising the right to silence will make them appear guilty, then their misunderstanding might impair their ability to benefit from the right. Last, one must display the ability to reason about choices to make a waiver decision. This more complex ability, compared with the previous capacities,

60———Capital Mitigation

requires individuals to consider various options throughout the interrogation process (e.g., whether to talk with the police about the crime) and to weigh the short- and long-term consequences of each option (e.g., talking with the police now may lead to immediate release, but it also may result in one’s statements being used against one in court at a later date).

Assessment of Relevant Capacities In the 1970s, Thomas Grisso developed a series of instruments, the Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights, designed to assess the capacities previously described. Briefly, these instruments are composed of four discrete measures to assess different capacities. First, Comprehension of Miranda Rights (CMR) is designed to assess examinees’ basic understanding of each of the warnings. Examinees are read out each warning and asked to paraphrase the meaning of the warning. Second, Comprehension of Miranda Rights– Recognition (CMR–R) is also designed to assess examinees’ understanding of their rights, but this measure does so without reliance on verbal expressive abilities; examinees must only identify whether a series of statements means the same thing as, or something different from, the warnings. Thus, it provides the opportunity for examinees with difficulties articulating their understanding to demonstrate their comprehension. Third, Comprehension of Miranda Vocabulary (CMV) evaluates examinees’ understanding of six words found in the Miranda warnings by asking them to define the following terms: consult, attorney, interrogation, appoint, entitled, and right. Last, the Function of Rights in Interrogation (FRI) is the only measure that assesses examinees’ appreciation of the significance of the warnings. Evaluators present four short vignettes with illustrations of police, legal, and court proceedings to examinees. After reading each vignette, examiners ask open-ended questions about the vignette (e.g., If the judge finds out that the defendant would not talk to the police, then what would happen?). The first three measures of the Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights, the CMR, CMR–R, and CMV, assess capacities related to the knowing element of the standard for a valid waiver of rights. The final measure in the instruments, the FRI, primarily assesses capacities related to the intelligent element of the standard.

Importantly, questions about the validity of a defendant’s waiver of rights may be raised at any point during the legal process, even weeks, months, or years after the waiver was provided. Consequently, the instruments provide direct information about examinees’ understanding and appreciation of their rights at the time of the evaluation, not at the time of testing; data from testing must be extrapolated to estimate understanding and appreciation at the time the actual Miranda waiver was provided. To increase the accuracy of a defendant’s estimated capacities at the time of the Miranda waiver, forensic evaluators generally consider idiographic information in conjunction with the information obtained from Grisso’s instruments. Additional measures typically include a clinical interview and measures of intellectual functioning, academic achievement, and symptoms of mental illness. In addition, collateral interviews are conducted and relevant records reviewed. For juvenile defendants, specific measures related to cognitive functioning and developmental maturity are also often administered. Naomi E. Sevin Goldstein and Rachel Kalbeitzer See also Capacity to Waive Miranda Rights; Forensic Assessment; Grisso’s Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights

Further Readings

Grisso, T. (1998). Forensic evaluation of juveniles. Sarasota, FL: Professional Resource Press. Grisso, T. (1998). Instruments for assessing understanding and appreciation of Miranda rights. Sarasota, FL: Professional Resource Press.

CAPITAL MITIGATION Capital mitigation consists of evidence that is presented in a death penalty trial to obtain a sentence other than death. In the bifurcated trial process that characterizes modern capital cases (in which a second penalty or sentencing phase occurs only if the defendant has been convicted of a crime for which the death penalty may be imposed), mitigation typically is introduced in the second stage of the trial. Its purpose

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is to lessen the jury’s perceived need, desire, or rationale to return a death verdict. Under the death penalty statutes that govern most states, jurors are instructed to “weigh” mitigating factors (which lessen the tendency to punish with death) against aggravating factors (which increase that tendency).

Nature and Scope of Capital Mitigation The scope of potential mitigation in a capital case is quite broad. In fact, unlike aggravating factors, which typically are limited in capital-sentencing statutes to certain prescribed categories of evidence (such as prior felony convictions), mitigating factors or evidence has been repeatedly defined by the courts as consisting of “anything proffered by the defendant in support of a sentence less than death.” Conceptually, mitigation falls into several broad categories. Capital defense attorneys often seek to introduce evidence and testimony that tend generally to humanize the defendant—that is, to emphasize the defendant’s personhood and establish points of commonality between the defendant and the jurors who sit in judgment and decide his or her fate. Because many jurors enter the courtroom with stereotypic views of violent criminality, defense attorneys seek to overcome preexisting tendencies to demonize or pathologize the defendant in ways that will facilitate condemning him or her to death. Mitigating evidence that humanizes the defendant challenges the notion that extreme violence is perpetrated only by dehumanized, anonymous figures or human monsters rather than real people with very problematic and troubled lives. Capital mitigation can provide jurors with a broader and more nuanced view of the causes of violence and deepen their understanding of the person whose life they are being asked to judge. In addition to the introduction of mitigating evidence that generally humanizes the defendant, defense attorneys also typically introduce background or social history testimony that places the defendant’s life in a larger social and developmental context. Background and social history testimony can be used to explain the various ways in which the nature and direction of a defendant’s life have been shaped and influenced by events and experiences that occurred earlier, often in childhood. This may include childhood trauma, parental mistreatment, and exposure to other developmental “risk factors” that are known to increase the

likelihood that someone will engage in criminal behavior later in life. The presentation of a mitigating social history in a capital penalty trial also may include testimony about broader community-based risk factors and larger sociological forces to which the defendant was exposed and that helped shape his or her life course. Poverty, racism, “neighborhood disadvantage” (the surrounding environments characterized by unemployment, instability, and crime), and other social contextual factors may help explain the patterns of criminal behavior in which the defendant engaged. In that sense, they represent a form of mitigation. Similarly, testimony about mental health problems or disorders from which the defendant suffered, his or her cognitive limitations or deficits, or evidence of neurological abnormalities— especially if they help account for criminal behavior— are mitigating in nature. Capital mitigation also may focus on the circumstances that led up to, or helped precipitate, the capital crime itself. That is, showing that the crime was the product of a unique set of situational forces or circumstances that are unlikely to recur—at least in a prison setting (where a capital defendant who is not sentenced to death will be sent)—is a form of mitigation. Another common but very different category of mitigation includes testimony about a capital defendant’s positive qualities, good deeds, or accomplishments or the defendant’s potential to make useful contributions in the future. Often this includes evidence of the defendant’s positive (or, at least, unproblematic) adjustment to prison in the past, testimony about his or her potential to adjust well in the future, and even evidence that the defendant is likely to make useful contributions to prison life during his or her long-term incarceration. In these instances, the nature of the mitigating significance of the evidence derives from demonstrating the complexity of human nature (i.e., that even people who have done very bad things have other positive qualities that are unrelated to their criminality) and reminding jurors that even persons convicted of a very serious violent crime can make contributions to others that would be lost if they were sentenced to death. In sum, the structure of capital mitigation generally involves the message that the defendant is a person, there are reasons why his or her life took the course that it did (ones that involve powerful psychological and sociological forces over which the defendant had little or no control), and the positive qualities and

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future contributions of the defendant would be sacrificed if he or she were to be sentenced to death.

Legal Doctrines Governing Capital Mitigation The explicit use of mitigation as a key element in the death-sentencing process was first acknowledged by the U.S. Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) and its companion cases. Here, the Court approved a number of new state death-sentencing statutes that had been enacted in response to the Court’s earlier declaration in Furman v. Georgia (1972) that the death penalty was unconstitutional as it was then being applied in the United States. The Gregg opinion endorsed a framework for capital sentencing that appeared in several of the revised state death penalty statutes that the Court reviewed and that was derived from the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code (1962). The Model Penal Code provided a list of mitigating and aggravating circumstances that it suggested jurors should “take into account” in deciding whether to impose a death sentence. The Court endorsed this approach as an acceptable way to attempt to guide the discretion of the jury. Two years after Gregg, in Lockett v. Ohio (1978), the Supreme Court provided an expansive interpretation of the scope of admissible capital mitigation, indicating that the sentencer in a death penalty case (at that time, either a judge or a jury) must “not be precluded from considering,” as mitigating factors, “any aspects of a defendant’s character . . . that the defense proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.” In a long line of cases that followed, the Court continued to endorse the principle that capital defendants should be permitted to introduce a very broad (indeed, seemingly limitless) range of mitigating evidence. These opinions repeatedly established the right to introduce a wide range of mitigating evidence by declaring unconstitutional any statutes, procedures, or rulings that precluded or limited defendants from doing so. However, the Court nonetheless failed to impose any requirement, standard, or guideline governing whether and when capital attorneys should introduce mitigating testimony (or what remedy, if any, defendants were entitled to if their attorneys failed to do so). As a result, although defendants were entitled to present virtually unlimited mitigating evidence, many attorneys—because they lacked the training, experience, or resources—managed to present little or none on their client’s behalf.

Nearly 25 years after Gregg was decided, however, the Court took steps to remedy this problem. Thus, in Williams v. Taylor (2000), it reversed a death sentence because a capital defense attorney had failed to investigate, assemble, and present important and available mitigating evidence in a death penalty case. Specifically, the Court found that the defense attorney had rendered “ineffective assistance of counsel” because he had failed to “conduct a thorough investigation of the defendant’s background.” As a result, he did not uncover and introduce potentially important mitigating evidence at trial, including the fact that the defendant had endured a “nightmarish childhood,” had been raised by criminally negligent and physically abusive alcoholic parents, had been committed to an abusive foster home, and was borderline mentally retarded. The trial attorney also failed to introduce available evidence about the defendant’s positive prison adjustment, including his prior good behavior in prison and extremely low violence potential in structured institutional settings. In several subsequent decisions, the Court reaffirmed the constitutional mandate that capital attorneys must diligently pursue and present available mitigation on behalf of their clients. In perhaps the most important of these cases, Wiggins v. Smith (2003), the Court indicated that defense attorneys must investigate, analyze, and, where appropriate, present mitigating social history evidence. Wiggins emphasized that evidence of a seriously troubled background is highly relevant to what has been called “the assessment of a defendant’s moral culpability” and acknowledged that when juries are confronted with such evidence, they are likely to return a sentence less than death. The Court concluded that the American Bar Association Guidelines (2003) for competent representation in capital cases help establish “prevailing professional norms,” thereby making it incumbent on defense attorneys to investigate, analyze, and consider presenting “all reasonably available mitigating evidence,” including the defendant’s “medical and educational history, employment and training history, family and social history, prior adult and juvenile correctional experience, and religious and cultural influences.”

Psychological Underpinning of Capital Mitigation The doctrine of mitigation is decidedly not a doctrine of legal excuse. It allows jurors to acknowledge defendants’ legal responsibility for their actions and to

Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations———63

punish them for those actions. However, in a capital context, it provides a justification for imposing a punishment other than death. The underlying psychological rationale for this has several separate components. First, many mitigating factors that are introduced into a capital-sentencing trial serve to reduce defendants’ level of moral culpability for the crime(s) they have been found responsible for committing. That is, exposure to traumatic, deprived, or otherwise criminogenic background factors may help account for a defendant’s criminality, making him or her less personally blameworthy than otherwise. Similarly, a defendant whose behavior is significantly affected by mental health problems, cognitive or neurological impairments, or other maladies may be seen as less culpable than others not similarly afflicted. In a capital trial, depending on the nature and amount of those criminogenic forces or impairments, the defendant’s moral culpability may be reduced, so that the jury decides that a death sentence is not warranted. Humanizing testimony and evidence that illustrates the defendant’s positive qualities and prior good acts are mitigating in a different way. This kind of capital mitigation speaks to the complexity of human nature, the fact that a life can be judged on the basis of more than the worst thing(s) someone has done, and encourages jurors to reflect comprehensively on the value of the life they are being called on to take. Mitigation about future adjustment, potential contributions to prison life, and the defendant’s connections and importance to family and loved ones speaks to the psychological and social cost of a death verdict and encourages jurors to weigh these factors in the sentencing equation they employ. Craig Haney See also Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases; Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances in Capital Trials, Effects on Jurors; Death Penalty

Further Readings

American Bar Association. (2003). Guidelines for the appointment and performance of defense counsel in death penalty cases. Hofstra Law Review, 31, 913–1090. American Law Institute. (1962). Model penal code. Philadelphia, PA: Author. Fabian, J. (2003). Death penalty mitigation and the role of the forensic psychologist. Law & Psychology Review, 27, 73–120.

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). Goodpaster, G. (1983). The trial for life: Effective assistance of counsel in death penalty cases. New York University Law Review, 58, 299–362. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). Haney, C. (1995). The social context of capital murder: Social histories and the logic of capital mitigation. Santa Clara Law Review, 35, 547–609. Haney, C. (2005). Death by design: Capital punishment as a social psychological system. New York: Oxford University Press. Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978). Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Note, Eighth Amendment—Death penalty: Weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors. (2006). Harvard Law Review, 120, 144–154. Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003). Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000).

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT See DEATH PENALTY

CHECKLIST FOR COMPETENCY FOR EXECUTION EVALUATIONS To date, very few instruments have been developed for the purpose of assisting evaluators in the assessment of competency for execution. One of the first—the Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations— is described in this entry. The checklist consists of four sections that describe important and relevant psycholegal criteria to be considered in this type of forensic assessment. The purpose of the checklist is to guide evaluators through the interview portion of a competency for execution evaluation. At present, there is no available research that examines the reliability or validity of this checklist. Evaluations of competency for execution are probably the least common type of criminal forensic evaluation conducted, simply because of the relatively small number of individuals who have been sentenced to death (as compared with the population of criminal defendants); however, the repercussions of this type of evaluation are literally a matter of life and death for the inmate whose competence has been questioned. Utmost care needs to be taken in conducting this type of evaluation.

64———Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations

In 2003, Patricia Zapf, Marcus Boccaccini, and Stanley Brodsky published a checklist to be used in the evaluation of competency for execution. This checklist was developed after a review of the available literature on criminal competencies, including a review of the available case law on competency for execution, and after conducting interviews with professionals involved in conducting evaluations of competency for execution. The checklist is divided into four sections: (1) understanding the reasons for punishment, (2) understanding the punishment, (3) appreciation and reasoning (in addition to simple factual understanding), and (4) ability to assist the attorney. These four sections are representative of the legal criteria for competency for execution that have been set out in various jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions model their statutes pertaining to competency for execution after the criteria set out in the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Ford v. Wainwright (1986) and, therefore, only consider the prisoner’s ability to understand the punishment that is being imposed and the reasons why it is being imposed. The first two sections of the checklist parallel these two Ford criteria. The first section targets the offender’s understanding of the reasons for punishment—that is, his or her understanding of the crime and other conviction-related information. Specific topic areas include the offender’s understanding of the reasons why he or she is in prison; his or her place of residence within the prison; the crime for which he or she was convicted, including an explanation of the criminal act and victim-identifying information; the perceived justice of the conviction; and the reasons why other people are punished for the same offense and also any self-identified, unique, understandings of the offense and the trial that the offender might have. The second section targets the offender’s understanding of the punishment: that is, that the punishment he or she is facing is death. Specific topic areas include the offender’s understanding of the sentence, the meaning of a sentence of death, what it means for a person to be dead, and the reasons for execution and also specific understandings about death from execution. Questions about death are asked from a number of different angles (e.g., the meaning of death, specific understandings about death from execution) so as to facilitate a thorough evaluation of any irrational beliefs or ideas that the offender may hold regarding death. The literature on other types of competencies (e.g., competence to consent to medical treatment) indicates

that there is often a relationship between the severity of the consequences (to the individual being assessed) and the stringency of the standard used to evaluate competence. Thus, given the gravity of the consequences in the particular instance of competency for execution, it seems appropriate and important to assess the offender’s appreciation and reasoning abilities (in addition to simple factual understanding). Therefore, the third section of the checklist lists topic areas specific to the assessment of an offender’s appreciation and reasoning abilities with respect to death and execution—areas that may go above and beyond the specific Ford criteria but that are arguably important to a comprehensive evaluation of competency for execution. Specific content areas in this section include the offender’s appreciation of the personal importance of the punishment and the personal meaning of death; the offender’s rationality or reasoning about the physical, mental, and personal changes that occur during and after execution; his or her beliefs regarding invulnerability; inappropriate affect; the offender’s acceptance of or eagerness for execution; and his or her beliefs against execution. Although the Ford criteria are often interpreted as dealing with the offender’s factual understanding, it appears justified that mental health professionals involved in competency for execution evaluations should also assess the offender’s appreciation and reasoning and leave it to the court to determine how to interpret the Ford (or other relevant) criteria in each specific case. The last section of the checklist identifies issues related to the offender’s ability to assist his or her attorney. This section is especially relevant in jurisdictions that rely on criteria that are broader in nature than those outlined in Ford, such as the capacity to comprehend the reasons that might make the capital sentence unjust and to communicate these reasons effectively. Specific topic areas in this section include the identity of the offender’s attorney and the amount of time that the attorney has been working for the offender, the offender’s trust in the attorney, his or her awareness of the execution date, the status of the appeals, what the attorney is attempting to accomplish through the appeals, how the appeals will be processed and assessed, the actual substance of the appeals, important content that the offender may have withheld from the attorney, and any pathological reasons for not planning or discussing appeals. Patricia A. Zapf See also Competency for Execution

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Further Readings

Brodsky, S. L., Zapf, P. A., & Boccaccini, M. T. (2001). The last competency: An examination of legal, ethical, and professional ambiguities regarding evaluations of competence for execution. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 1, 1–25. Brodsky, S. L., Zapf, P. A., & Boccaccini, M. T. (2005). Competency for execution assessments: Ethical continuities and professional tasks. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 5, 65–74. Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986). Heilbrun, K. S. (1987). The assessment of competency for execution: An overview. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 5, 383–396. Zapf, P. A., Boccaccini, M. T., & Brodsky, S. L. (2003). Assessment of competency for execution: Professional guidelines and an evaluation checklist. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 21, 103–120.

CHICAGO JURY PROJECT The Chicago Jury Project was a large-scale social science research initiative in the 1950s. This entry provides a descriptive portrait of the project, followed by a brief summary of the primary studies associated with it, and then a discussion of the project’s legacy and its impact on the field of psychology and law. In essence, the Chicago Jury Project was a groundbreaking scientific endeavor that employed a variety of social science methods and anticipated a host of current research streams. It remains an impressive accomplishment and can fairly be said to represent the inaugural event in the scientific study of jury decision making.

Overview The Chicago Jury Project, also known as the American Juries Project, was conceived as an innovative effort to study the American legal system using behavioral science methods. Initiated in 1953 with funding from a $400,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, the project was housed at the University of Chicago. A variety of research studies were undertaken with the aid of project funding, not all of which were concerned with juries (e.g., arbitration). The project was led primarily by three individuals: Harry Kalven (a law professor), Hans Zeisel (a sociologist, statistician, and law professor), and Fred Strodtbeck (a social psychologist), although more than 20 other individuals were affiliated

with the project, including Dale Broeder and Rita James Simon. The initial funding was spent by 1956, which triggered a review of project activities and findings by the Ford Foundation. A second round of funding from Ford enabled some arms of the project (most notably the work on juries) to continue until 1959, at which point active data collection ceased. A bibliography published in 1966 listed more than 60 journal articles published by researchers associated with the project. In-depth summaries of selected project initiatives were subsequently published in three book-length volumes titled Delay in the Court (1959), The American Jury (1966), and The American Jury: The Defense of Insanity (1967). The physical records of the project are currently held in 10 boxes at the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago’s Law School. Few social science research projects receive public attention, and even fewer achieve any that is sustained, but the Chicago Jury Project actually caused something of a national scandal at one point in its existence. One early initiative involved audiotaping the deliberations of five civil jury trials in the federal district court in Wichita, Kansas. Although this was done with the assent of the trial judge and counsel for both sides, the jurors were unaware that their discussion was being recorded. When this became public knowledge in the summer of 1955, uproar ensued. The methodology was publicly censured by the Attorney General of the United States, a special hearing was initiated by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and more than 30 jurisdictions subsequently enacted statutes prohibiting the direct observation or recording of jury deliberations.

Project Studies and Results As noted above, the Chicago Jury Project consisted of a number of different research initiatives involving several major methodological strategies: (a) analysis of archival data on court system functioning, (b) surveys, (c) intensive interviews with attorneys and jurors, and (d) experimental research with mock juries. This section briefly summarizes the project activities and findings within each methodological domain. Archival Research

Much of the early work associated with the project involved taking stock of the descriptive research already done by others. One line of inquiry was comparative in nature and attempted to identify what had

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been learned about legal systems in general and the jury in particular in Western Europe. An effort was also made to collect and examine jury trial statistics from several major metropolitan areas in the United States in order to estimate the frequencies associated with defendants’ waiving their right to jury trial, the occurrence of hung juries, and the number of annual jury trials in the United States. Existing data were also gathered on the extent to which judges agreed with the verdicts of their juries as well as the nature of cases heard by judges and juries. In the end, this archival research set the stage for a number of later project activities and produced the following conclusions: (a) there did not exist much data on juries outside the United States; (b) defendant waiver rates varied considerably across jurisdictions within the United States; (c) criminal “hung jury” rates varied across jurisdictions but on average occurred about 5% of the time; (d) judges and juries agreed on the appropriate verdict in about 75% to 85% of cases; (e) when trial complexity was taken into account, juries were about on par with judges in terms of the time needed to resolve cases; and (f) about 55,670 jury trials occurred in the United States in 1955 (which is considerably higher than current estimates).

field study featuring interviews with more than 1,500 jurors from 225 criminal jury trials in Chicago and Brooklyn. Among the goals of this study was reconstruction of the distribution of juror votes on the first ballot taken during deliberation. The result—surprising at the time but often replicated since—was that the verdict preferred by the majority of the jury on the first ballot ended up being the jury’s final verdict approximately 90% of the time regardless of the demographic composition of the majority and minority factions. Furthermore, the minority factions that did manage to prevail were typically fairly large (i.e., three or more jurors), not lone “hold-out” individuals. Project researchers concluded from this that most criminal cases were decided during the trial as opposed to deliberation, and they likened deliberation to the role of the dark room in photography—the image (verdict) was set at the moment of exposure (i.e., the conclusion of the trial), but deliberation served as the developmental process that brought the image to light. This line of work also produced some interesting generalizations about juror voting preferences as a function of ethnic/national background, as well as some of the first empirical evidence that jurors do not always fully understand their instructions.

Interview Research

Survey Research

Researchers associated with the Chicago Jury Project made extensive use of interview methodology in the course of their work. One notable study involved having one of the project researchers (Dale Broeder, a law professor) accompany a federal district court judge on his circuit for the better part of a year. During this time, he conducted intensive interviews with 225 jurors and many of the attorneys involved in 20 jury trials. Attorneys were asked about their strategies during voir dire and their reasons for challenging particular jurors; jurors were questioned about their attitudes toward the jury system in general, their service, and their preferences for particular kinds of trials. One finding from this line of work was that many jurors were not looking to serve, but those that did tended to be positively influenced by their experience and more supportive of the jury system afterward. This labor-intensive endeavor resulted eventually in a number of essays highlighting commonalities in deliberation across cases, most of which were published in law journals. One of the most well-known findings associated with the Chicago Jury Project arose from a massive

Perhaps the most famous research associated with the Chicago Jury Project, however, concerned the extent to which it makes a tangible difference to the outcome whether bench trials or jury trials are used. To examine this question, project researchers assembled a comprehensive listing of judges who presided over jury trials and then invited all the 3,500 or so individuals on the list. In the end, 555 trial judges from every state (except Rhode Island) as well as the federal courts participated. Essentially, the participating judges were asked to fill out a brief questionnaire for each jury trial they presided over during the study and return it by mail. Sample I was collected during 1954 to 1955 using the first version of the questionnaire (k = 2,385 trials); Sample II was collected during 1958 using a revised and elaborated form (k = 1,191 trials). Although additional information was collected (especially on the second form), the focus was on three things: (1) the jury’s actual verdict, (2) the judge’s indication of what he or she thought was the appropriate verdict, and (3) the judge’s perceived reasons for any discrepancy between the first two.

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The spotlight finding of this massive study was that judges and juries agreed on the appropriate verdict in 75.4% of the 3,576 criminal trials when hung juries were treated as disagreements (and 78% of the trials when they were distributed evenly between “agree” and “disagree”). This figure for criminal jury trials was remarkably close to the corresponding figure for the approximately 4,000 civil jury trials for which data were obtained in the same fashion. Criminal juries were found to be more lenient than judges (i.e., they acquitted when the judge would have convicted) in 19% of the cases and more severe than judges in 3% of the cases. Intensive analysis yielded five broad categories of reasons for the discrepancies supplied by the judges: (1) evidence factors, (2) facts known to the judge but not to the jury, (3) disparity of counsel, (4) jury sentiments about the defendant, and (5) jury sentiments about the law. This research also produced a wealth of descriptive data on juries that would serve as a benchmark for later research, including estimates of the overall conviction rate for juries (64%), the overall “win” rate for plaintiffs (59%), and the frequency of “hung juries” (5.5%), as well as profiles of the different types of evidence presented by the prosecution and the defense. Another survey study associated with the project but less well-known involved examining variation in damage awards as a function of region. Six model cases were created and submitted to 600 claims adjusters of three large insurance companies operating throughout the United States. Using the reports of claims adjustors as a proxy for jury awards, this study anticipated the now well-established finding that damage awards vary considerably by jurisdiction and region. Experimental Research With Mock Juries

After the commotion caused by the taping of actual jury deliberations, project researchers were forced to seek an alternative method for studying jury deliberation and subsequently invented a staple methodology in the jury-decision-making literature: the mock jury. Four different cases (or scenarios) were created for use with mock juries to study the impact of manipulations associated with, for instance, the weight of the evidence, knowledge of the defendant’s insurance status in civil cases, the legal definition of negligence in civil cases (comparative vs. contributory) and insanity in criminal cases, as well as the use of special verdict forms with interrogatories. In the end, 160 mock civil juries were run using two kinds of cases (auto negligence and

product liability), whereas 98 mock criminal juries heard either a burglary or an incest case. The research on criminal juries was perhaps the first to show that an element of the jury’s instructions (e.g, the definition of insanity) could influence jury verdicts; in contrast, little influence was associated with the provision of expert testimony or the fate of the defendant. Despite the focus on the effects of the manipulated independent variables, this line of research is perhaps most notable for the descriptive portrait it provided of jury deliberation. In particular, this research suggested that forepersons were usually selected quickly, with little discussion or campaigning, and the choices could be explained well using only three variables: prior jury experience, social status, and seat position around the table. Another conclusion was that speaking during deliberation was not egalitarian, but rather, a small set of jurors tended to do most of the talking (often males and those with more social prestige), while some jurors typically said little or nothing.

Project Legacy and Impact It is common for scholarly papers on jury decision making to reference the Chicago Jury Project, and it is fair to ask if this exalted status is warranted. In other words, what lasting impact has the project had on the field of psychology and law? Arguably, the project’s most fundamental contribution was in establishing the precedent that social science methods could be used to understand and ultimately improve the legal system. As natural and obvious as this may seem today, there was nothing inevitable about it. There are many institutions that have not received the same attention from psychologists; for example, there are no thriving subdisciplines for psychology and government, psychology and medicine, or psychology and the arts as there is for psychology and law. A second contribution was in showing that the full spectrum of social science methods could be brought to bear on the study of the legal system. Indeed, most of the major methodologies used to study juries today (with the exception of the Internet) were first used by the Chicago Jury Project, and it also put the use of mock juries on the map. Project researchers also stumbled on the limits of the legal system’s tolerance for social science methods via their seemingly innocuous audiotaping of five civil jury deliberations in 1955; the door to the jury room was literally closed to researchers for basically the next 50 years (and it is only now starting to reopen).

68———Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory

Other lasting contributions associated with the Chicago Jury Project include the initiation of research on a remarkably diverse set of legal topics, devoting attention to civil as well as criminal juries, using a multidisciplinary approach with individuals from various fields, and publishing project findings in legal as well as psychology journals. By any standard, the number of publications resulting from the project’s work is impressive, and there is no doubt that their widespread dissemination in different outlets is a major reason why the Chicago Jury Project is still so well-known today. These publications provided a number of descriptive findings based on large samples that provided empirical benchmarks for later work, including estimates of the frequency of jury trials, hung juries, and judge-jury agreement and a first portrait of deliberation that included foreperson selection and the power of early majority. Alas, one unfortunate aspect of the project may have stemmed from the fairly cynical view of deliberation offered in The American Jury (1966). The colorful yet deterministic “dark room” metaphor may have inadvertently dissuaded a generation of jury scholars from taking an active interest in the dynamics of deliberation, and in some respects, it may continue to dampen interest in what happens behind the closed door of the jury room. Nonetheless, even 50 years later, the scope and accomplishments of the Chicago Jury Project remain remarkable, and it truly deserves its lustrous reputation as a seminal event in the field of psychology and law. Dennis J. Devine See also Insanity Defense, Juries and; Jury Decisions Versus Judges’ Decisions; Jury Deliberation; Jury Selection

Further Readings

Broeder, D. (1958). The University of Chicago Jury Project. Nebraska Law Review, 38, 744–760. Kalven, H., Jr., & Zeisel, H. (1966). The American jury. Boston: Little, Brown. Simon, R. J. (1967). The jury and the defense of insanity. Boston: Little, Brown. Strodtbeck, F. L., & Lipinski, R. M. (1985). Becoming first among equals: Moral considerations in jury foreman selection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 927–936. Zeisel, H., Kalven, H., Jr., & Buchholz, B. (1959). Delay in the court. Boston: Little, Brown.

CHILD ABUSE POTENTIAL (CAP) INVENTORY Psychologists are often asked to evaluate and to provide testimony about parental capacity. The Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory, a measure originally designed to screen parents for child physical abuse risk, is frequently used as a measure of general parental capacity. The CAP Inventory is a 160-item, forced-choice (agree/disagree) self-report questionnaire. It contains a 77-item physical abuse scale, six descriptive factor scales (distress, rigidity, unhappiness, problems with child and self, problems with family, and problems from others), and three validity scales (lie, random response, and inconsistency). The three validity scales are used in different combinations to form three response distortion indexes (faking good, faking bad, and random response). The CAP Inventory also contains two special scales: the ego-strength and loneliness scales. The Inventory has been translated into more than 25 languages, including multiple Spanish translations. Although the available data on the translated versions of the CAP Inventory are generally positive, the amount of published data on the reliability and validity of the CAP Inventory translations is highly variable.

Background An original pool of CAP Inventory items was developed following an exhaustive review of the theoretical and empirical literature that described parental psychological and interpersonal risk factors thought to be associated with child physical abuse. In constructing the CAP Inventory, an effort was made to avoid using items that represented static risk factors. Items were included in the current 77-item abuse scale based on their ability to distinguish between known child physical abusers and matched comparison parents in validation studies. Furthermore, in selecting the final list of abuse scale items, an effort was made to exclude items that were correlated with demographics characteristics.

Reliability Internal consistency estimates for the CAP Inventory physical abuse scale range from .92 to .96 for general population parents and from .95 to .98 for child physical abusers. Internal consistency estimates are

Child Custody Evaluations———69

similar across gender, ethnic, and educational groups. Temporal stability (test-retest reliability) estimates for the CAP physical abuse scale are .91, .90, .83, and .75 for 1-day, 1-week, 1-month, and 3-month intervals, respectively.

Validity Extensive construct validity data indicating the expected relationships between CAP Inventory abuse scores and risk factors have been reported. For example, the expected relationships have been found between a respondent’s CAP abuse scores and his or her childhood history of observation and receipt of abuse, and the respondent’s childhood history of observing marital violence. CAP abuse scores also are associated (in the expected manner) with psychophysiological reactivity, neuropsychological problems, social isolation/lack of social support, negative family interactions, adult attachment problems, low self-esteem/ego-strength, stress/distress, inadequate knowledge of child development, belief in corporal punishment, negative perceptions of child behaviors, negative evaluations of child behaviors, low expectations of children, negative attributions (e.g., hostile intent), authoritarianism, depression, anxiety, anger/hostility, aggression, mental health problems/psychopathology, alcohol/drug use, problems in coping, lack of empathy, problems in parent-child interactions, use of harsh discipline strategies, and lack of positive parenting behaviors. Concurrent validity studies report abuse scale correct classification rates in the 80% to low 90% range. Predictive validity data indicate that elevated abuse scores in high-risk parents (where participants were tested before interventions) are significantly related to later cases of child physical abuse. In addition, numerous studies have reported that elevated parental CAP abuse scores are predictive of child problems. For example, in a prospective study, before and after controlling for obstetric risk factors, scores on an abbreviated version of the CAP abuse scale were predictive of neonatal morbidity. In another prospective study, before and after controlling for problematic parenting orientations, CAP abuse scores were predictive of children’s later intelligence and adaptive behaviors. In summary, although elevated CAP Inventory abuse scores have been shown to be predictive of later confirmed cases of child physical abuse, the large body of available construct validity data supports the view that the CAP abuse scale may have even more

utility in detecting parents who are at high risk for a broad array of parenting problems (as outlined above) and is useful in detecting parents who are likely to have children who have problems in their physical and psychosocial development. Independent evaluations of the CAP Inventory psychometric data have produced similar conclusions. For example, with respect to testimonial admissibility, the CAP Inventory has been judged to meet the Daubert standard as a measure of parental capacity. Joel S. Milner See also Child Custody Evaluations; Child Maltreatment; Divorce and Child Custody; Parenting Stress Index (PSI)

Further Readings

Milner, J. S. (1986). The Child Abuse Potential Inventory: Manual (2nd ed.). DeKalb, IL: Psytec. Milner, J. S. (2006). An interpretive manual for the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (2nd ed.). DeKalb, IL: Psytec. Yanez, Y., & Fremouw, W. (2003). The application of the Daubert standard to parental capacity measures. American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 22(3), 5–28.

CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATIONS Child custody evaluation (also known as evaluation of parental responsibility) refers to the use of the legal system to resolve questions of the distribution of decision-making responsibility and time with children, often but not always in the context of marital dissolution. This process exists to resolve disputes between two or more adults who have an interest in providing parenting to a child and who cannot agree about how the child’s care should be divided between or among them. They may be divorcing or may have never lived together in the same household (such as when grandparents vie for the right to parent a grandchild whose biological parent is unavailable or when a child is born to two biological parents who were never involved in a live-in or marriage relationship). When adults with a potentially legitimate legal stake in parenting a child cannot agree on how time and responsibility for a child will be divided, the court, acting as parens patriae, must resolve the dispute. Society’s interests are served by ensuring that a child’s care is

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provided by caregivers who are able and willing to put the child’s best interests ahead of their own.

Best Interests of the Child All 50 states focus on the best interests of the child in making determinations regarding parenting time and responsibility. The “best interests of the child” standard is, however, an indeterminate one. States may define the child’s best interests by statute or may leave the determination to the judge to make on a case-bycase basis. Child custody matters are decided by judges in 49 states; in Texas, either party can elect to put the matter before a jury. In 1973, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws published the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act, in anticipation of its adoption in a large number of jurisdictions, and in the years that followed, a number of states adopted parts of the act to assist courts in custody determinations. Section 402 of that act specifies that the court consider, as relevant to determining the child’s best interests, the wishes of the child; the wishes of the parents; the interaction of the child with parents and siblings; the child’s adjustment to home, school, and community; and the mental and physical health of all persons involved. Many courts continue to rely on these or variants of these factors in deciding parenting time and responsibility disputes.

A Historical Review of Custody of Children In English common law, children were considered to be chattels, or possessions of their parents. They were a commodity or resource when they were able to work or otherwise generate income for their parents and a liability when they were not productive. Since the property of a married couple was considered to belong to the man of the house, children were their father’s possession. This notion of children as chattels carried forth to the United States, and the government was loathe to intervene in matters regarding the care and control of children, perceiving those matters to be of concern to their owners, their parents, or more particularly their father. However, with an awakened appreciation of the importance of the mother in meeting the needs of infant children, the tender years doctrine, holding that children of tender years generally required the care of

their mother because she was endowed with those natural qualities that were important in the nurture of young children, gradually displaced the children-aschattels doctrine. With increasing frequency, mothers were awarded custody in contested cases. Coincident with the rising divorce rates in the United States, mothers began almost universally to win custody of the child unless fitness could be successfully challenged. Fathers ordinarily bore an inordinate proportion of financial responsibility, taxed to them in the form of alimony or child support. Their access to the child was often restricted to “visitation,” which marginalized their involvement in parenting to the point that visiting fathers were referred to by Michael Lamb as “Disneyland Dad.” The pendulum began to swing away from the tender years doctrine, however, with several societal changes. As more women entered the workforce, parents increasingly shared responsibility for the home and child care. When marriages ended in divorce, involved fathers sought meaningful postdivorce contact with children reflective of their preseparation child care roles. Second, the roles of children had changed substantially—from field hands in the agrarian life of colonial America or workers in the Depression era middle class to emotionally cherished members of the family. With the postwar societal interest in improving the quality of life, Dr. Spock’s advice on parenting, and a proliferation of self-help books to enhance emotional fulfillment, there was increased attention paid to children’s emotional needs and to the role that each parent played in meeting those needs. Divorcing parents argued for a stake in childrearing based on their claimed fitness to meet various facets of the growing child’s emotional needs. Thus, the two-parent workforce, the shift in fathers’ roles, and the recognition of the child’s emotional attachment to both parents all converged to usher in a new era. State legislators increasingly recognized that it no longer made sense for the child to be in the sole custody of one parent, with contact with the other parent occurring through weekend visitation. Joint custody, in some form, became an option in every state. Disputing parents might be awarded either equivalent or joint legal decision-making power, equal or near-equal time with the child, or both, unless one parent was demonstrably incapable of providing such responsibility or care. There was increasing recognition of the importance of both parents in the child’s

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healthy development, and the courts searched for ways to maximize the positive contributions of each parent in postdivorce or coparenting arrangements.

resolving the question of how this coparenting will occur, presently and as the children grow older.

The Role of the Psychologist High-Conflict Families The migration from sole to joint or shared custody outcomes has been a rough journey. It is understood that among divorcing parents, the vast majority resolve questions of parenting without the court’s assistance, and only a small number seek the court’s resolution of the dispute. Among those who need assistance, some return again and again, filing further motions for modifications of earlier rulings or alleging contempt of court, alleging failure to follow the court’s orders. These high-conflict parents may also appeal against rulings of the court, and their disputes take up about 95% of the family court’s time and resources. Of primary concern with high-conflict families, however, is not the monopoly of the court’s time but the great damage done to the children who are subjects of the ongoing child custody litigation and conflict. Exposure to preseparation and postseparation conflict between their parents is the most reliable predictor that children will develop emotional and behavioral problems stemming from divorce. The courts, recognizing this toll on the children, have sought ways to assist the high-conflict families to find more constructive and successful paths to resolving their difficulties. Currently, there is a trend under way, manifested by the removal of the language of “custody” and “visitation” in the statutes of several states, to try to move these matters away from the climate of adversary proceedings, where the winner takes all and the loser— the marginalized parent who is allowed to visit with his or her child—goes away almost empty-handed (often nevertheless paying the greater portion of child care costs). Statutes in these states refer to parenting time and responsibility determinations and strive to find a solution that best reflects the sharing of parenting, with each parent making a meaningful contribution to the child’s well-being. The courts may require or at least solicit parenting plans to be submitted by each parent, to increase the parents’ involvement in decision making and to help the parents focus on the needs of the child and the long-term commitment to shared parenting. The courts may order mediation or some other form of dispute resolution to attempt to provide the family with a nonadversarial method for

Psychologists’ participation in these matters began with therapists offering opinions to the courts about a child’s needs or wishes, or an adult client’s presumed fitness to parent. The other parent in such matters soon discovered the value of obtaining expert testimony to rebut that of the therapist and would take the child to another therapist in search of helpful testimony. The emergence of dueling experts soon burdened the court with trying to determine which expert opinion seemed to have more credibility or to deserve greater weight. Before long, both psychologists and judges recognized the value of a court-appointed expert serving in a neutral role to assess the parents and children in the matter, in order to investigate the claims of each parent about the parenting capacity of the other parent or the child’s needs or wishes. Between the mid-1970s and late 1980s, it became increasingly common to see court-appointed custody evaluators taking the place of testifying therapists in these matters. It is now well accepted that the therapist may have limited data on which to base actual recommendations regarding parenting time or responsibility.

Comprehensive Evaluation of Parental Responsibility When disputes about parenting time and responsibility are not resolved by early interventions, such as having each parent propose a parenting plan, mediating the areas in dispute, and working to resolve issues through other forms of intervention, the next step is the courtordered child custody or parenting responsibility evaluation. Since the more benign matters are resolved through these lower levels of contention, what remains for the custody evaluator are the most intransigent matters. These often involve allegations of sexual abuse of a child; alienation by one parent of the child’s affections toward the other parent; allegations of domestic violence; or requests by one parent to relocate, with the child, to another city or state or even, in some matters, a different country. These difficult cases may be referred by the court for a comprehensive custody evaluation or evaluation of parental responsibility. The comprehensive evaluation may take place over several weeks or even months. The process is preceded

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by a full disclosure to the parties of the purpose and nature of the evaluation, the limits of confidentiality, the potential range of outcomes, and the fee arrangements. The evaluator schedules appointments with each adult caregiver who is party to the suit and each child for an interview and testing, observation of interactions, and follow-up inquiry regarding matters in dispute. Collateral or third-party sources of information are sought, including records of previous court hearings, school records, mental health treatment records, and medical records for issues relevant to the dispute. Additionally, the parties may present other records, such as records of their communications with one another, recordings of exchanges, and other such materials. The psychologist may also consult teachers, child care workers, coaches, pediatricians, therapists, neighbors, and relatives who may have relevant information. Psychological Testing

While psychological testing is not explicitly required in these evaluations, it is often included in the assessment techniques. Although no specialized tests of the best interests of the child or child custody fitness have been developed that meet established psychometric standards, some efforts have been advanced. When psychological measures are employed, instrument selection is driven by an appreciation of the importance of the relevance and reliability of the instrument for the purpose. Commonly used instruments include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2), the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory–III (MCMI–III) for assessing personality characteristics of the parents; the Parent-Child Relationship Inventory, the Parenting Stress Index, or some other measure of parental attitudes; and the Child Behavior Checklist or Behavior Assessment System for Children for children. Other instruments may be helpful to address special issues such as domestic violence allegations, substance abuse, or childhood depression and anxiety. Comprehensive social history and parenting history questionnaires may also be used to collect parent input in a somewhat standard way. When the inferential leap is too great from what the test measures to the matter at bar, it is advised that the test not be used. Report of Findings

Finally, the data that have been collected are analyzed to develop information useful to the court in its

determination of sharing of parenting responsibility and time. The psychologist may stop short of making specific recommendations about how parenting responsibility and time should be apportioned, recognizing the final determination to be a matter for the court to decide. When there are sufficient data to substantiate a specific recommendation, however, there is no legal bar to offering it.

Variations on the Nature and Forms of Families Disputes regarding parenting time and responsibility are not limited to divorcing biological parents. Adoptive parents, noncohabiting parents, grandparent caregivers, estranged grandparents of a child with a deceased or incapacitated parent, gay and lesbian parents, and many other configurations of families may seek the court’s assistance in settling matters in controversy when children’s best interests are at stake. Families may enjoy unique cultural milieus, or there may be specialized concerns, such as a child with special needs or a parent with specific disabilities; all these issues may tax the court’s resources in making particularized and customized determinations that best address the needs of the family whose child’s best interests are in question. The psychologist may also be taxed by these special issues but may also have greater time and resources to invest in investigating their significance. Psychologists are helpful to the trier of fact by accomplishing this comprehensive, case-specific evaluation of parenting time and responsibility. Mary Connell See also Alternative Dispute Resolution; Child Sexual Abuse; Divorce and Child Custody; Parens Patriae Doctrine; Substance Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence; Tender Years Doctrine

Further Readings

American Psychological Association. (1994). Guidelines for child custody evaluations in divorce proceedings. The American Psychologist, 49, 677–680. Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. (2007). Model standards of practice for child custody evaluation. Family Court Review, 45, 70–91. Available at http://www.afccnet.org Connell, M. A. (2006). Notification of purpose in child custody evaluation: Informing the parties and their

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counsel. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 37, 446–451. Greenberg, S. A., & Shuman, D. W. (1997). Irreconcilable conflict between therapeutic and forensic roles. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 28, 50–57. Otto, R., Buffington-Vollum, J., & Edens, J. F. (2003). Child custody evaluation. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology (pp. 179–208). New York: Wiley. Sparta, S. N., & Koocher, G. P. (Eds.). (2006). Forensic mental health assessment of children and adolescents. New York: Oxford.

CHILD MALTREATMENT Child maltreatment extends across class, culture, ethnicity, and nationality. In the United States alone, upward of 3 million cases of child abuse are reported annually, and more than 1,000 children die each year as a result of abuse. However, these numbers are likely underestimates of the scope of the problem because, as most experts agree, child maltreatment is underreported. The term child maltreatment itself is broad, encompassing neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. Scientific and clinical evidence indicates that child maltreatment detrimentally affects children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. Psychological models specifying the mechanisms by which child maltreatment imparts its adverse effects include attachment theory (e.g., child maltreatment distorts children’s internal working models of self and others) and psychophysiological theories (e.g., chronic elevation of an abused child’s biological stress response may influence the child’s developing brain and, thus, the child’s behavior and functioning). Research also points to the importance and influence of contextual factors that may promote resilience in maltreated children. Over the years, the United States has enacted a complex patchwork of laws for protecting children against abuse. Child protection agencies exist to intervene when child abuse is suspected or substantiated and to prevent child maltreatment through means such as education for families at risk and awareness campaigns for the public at large. The criminal justice system also acts to protect maltreated children, most notably by prosecuting offenders. Fortunately, these prevention and intervention efforts may well have been effective, given the recent declines in the rates of

child abuse reporting. This entry elaborates on the definitions of child maltreatment, provides more information about its incidence, discusses what is known about the causes and consequences of child maltreatment, and suggests ways to prevent this serious social problem.

Defining Child Maltreatment Neglect is the most common form of confirmed child maltreatment (comprising more than 60% of all cases), followed by physical abuse (18%), sexual abuse (10%), and psychological or emotional abuse (7%). Defining child maltreatment is sometimes controversial, but generally, neglect is an act of omission—a caretaker’s failure to provide basic necessities such as food, shelter, emotional support, medical attention, education, or a safe haven from harmful situations. Although neglect is the most common child maltreatment case that comes to the attention of authorities and enters the juvenile or family court system, its perpetrators are rarely prosecuted in criminal court. A condition known as nonorganic failure to thrive is often considered a type of child neglect. It refers to a condition in which an otherwise healthy baby, while under his or her parent’s care, loses weight and stops growing. Psychological, social, and/or economic problems within the family typically prompt failure to thrive. Sexual and physical abuse reflect acts of commission. Child sexual abuse occurs when children are involved in sexual activities with an adult. Adults often use coercion or deception to lure children into such activities, but it is worth noting that coercion and deception are unnecessary elements of this crime because children are not considered legally or developmentally capable of consenting to sexual activities with adults. Child sexual abuse sometimes involves physical contact such as penetration or fondling, but physical contact is not always necessary. For example, exhibitionism, forcing children to watch or make pornographic material, or encouraging sexual promiscuity is also considered sexually abusive to minors. Child sexual abuse cases are particularly likely to bring child victims into contact with court systems, both juvenile and criminal. In fact, most children who testify in criminal court do so in the context of child sexual abuse cases. Physical abuse, which is most often perpetrated by parents and guardians, can be more difficult to define than sexual abuse. That is, while all forms of sexual contact between an adult and a child are considered socially inappropriate across most cultures, mild to

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moderate physical punishment applied as a disciplinary tactic is often socially sanctioned. Nevertheless, research shows that corporal punishment can have negative outcomes and that serious physical child abuse sometimes results from escalated corporal punishment. There is agreement that deliberate acts resulting in physical harm to a child, such as when an angry or frustrated parent hits, shakes, burns, or throws a child, constitute physical abuse. In many cases, the fact that physical abuse has taken place is relatively clear because of visible injuries to the child. Medical examination can confirm, to a certain extent, whether certain bruises, broken bones, bites, and burns are caused by accident (e.g., a child falling downstairs) or are a deliberate infliction of harm. In other cases, however, intentional physical abuse is hard to detect. Psychological or emotional maltreatment involves acts of commission or omission that hinder children’s psychological development. It can include acts of terrorizing, isolating, corrupting, and denigrating, as well as ignoring children or other acts that signal to children that they are unwanted, worthless, or unloved. Psychological abuse often accompanies other forms of child maltreatment, but it can also take place independently. It is typically quite hard to discover, and children experiencing such maltreatment rarely get appropriate therapeutic help. Less legal attention is also paid to this kind of abuse. This is unfortunate, because research indicates that psychological abuse can have detrimental effects on children’s development and well-being.

Incidence of Child Abuse Children from birth to 3 years of age are most at risk of being victims of reported child abuse and neglect. Of all cases reported and investigated, approximately one third are supported by enough evidence for authorities to determine that abuse actually occurred. The remainder lack evidence sufficient to support legal action, which does not necessarily mean that abuse did not take place. In fact, trends in re-referral rates (i.e., children reported as maltreated on multiple occasions) suggest that many unsubstantiated cases probably represent real abuse. Furthermore, even the total number of reported cases is likely to be a serious underestimate of the actual occurrence of child abuse, because child victims are often reluctant to disclose their experiences. For example, research reveals that about a quarter of young adults who experience child

sexual abuse and a third of those who experience physical abuse never tell anyone about their maltreatment. Among those who do tell, fewer than 10% report the abuse to authorities. Throughout the 1980s, mandatory reporting laws increased the number of child maltreatment cases that were reported and that entered the child protection and criminal justice systems. Reporting levelled off during the 1990s and has even been declining in recent years. Research suggests that this decline, at least in part, reflects an actual decrease in the incidence of child maltreatment, suggesting that societal prevention efforts have been successful.

Potential Effects of Child Maltreatment Many maltreated children are remarkably resilient and lead normal, healthy lives. Even so, child maltreatment often does have very serious short- and long-term physical and psychological consequences, leaving physical and psychological scars that can last well after the abuse or neglect has ended. Children who experience maltreatment can suffer immediate physical consequences, including broken bones, burns, bruises, abrasions, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, malnutrition, declining health, or even death. Long-term psychological and behavioral outcomes can include internalizing behaviors (withdrawal, depression, anxiety) and externalizing behaviors (aggression, bullying, promiscuity). Child maltreatment can also increase the likelihood of development of serious psychopathology such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Children who are maltreated may have difficulties establishing trusting relationships with their peers and adults. Moreover, experiencing maltreatment is associated with deficits, on average, in children’s cognitive development, which, in addition to socioemotional deficits, also directly affects academic performance and school achievement. Children who have been maltreated are at an elevated risk of becoming delinquents, substance abusers, and victims of additional crimes. Researchers struggle to identify the relations between particular forms of child abuse and specific outcomes, especially since different forms of maltreatment often co-occur. With careful analysis, however, some patterns have begun to emerge. For example, it is clear that sexual abuse is a risk factor for later substance abuse, depression, and attentional

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problems. Additionally, women who are victims of child sexual abuse are more likely than women who have not been sexually abused to engage in prostitution. Physical abuse is associated with substance abuse and aggressive behaviors. Neglect victims tend to perform poorly on cognitive tests and may be socially withdrawn. Neglect is often associated with extreme poverty, which itself has detrimental consequences for children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development, as well as for their academic achievement. Many factors moderate the impact of maltreatment on children’s short- and long-term outcomes, including the child’s gender, the child’s age at abuse onset and offset, the frequency and severity of abuse, the child’s coping ability, the abuser-victim relationship, and many broader family and community factors. For instance, there is some evidence that maltreated boys have poorer outcomes than maltreated girls. Social scientists have proposed a variety of explanations for this, such as male genetic vulnerability or the fact that behavioral difficulties are more easily measured in boys, who tend to exhibit externalizing rather than internalizing problem behaviors. A younger age at abuse onset is also thought to be related to especially adverse outcomes, although a firm pattern has not been established. Children who are younger when abuse occurs may not recall as much detail about their abuse, but it may be implicitly retained and expressed in their personality development. Moreover, child outcomes may be influenced by the cumulative effects of maltreatment. A child who suffers less severe or chronic abuse may be less likely to have poor psychological or behavioral outcomes than a child who experiences more extensive, frequent, and varied types of abuse. How does maltreatment cause these varied effects? Scientists currently propose several different mechanisms. For example, because children’s brains develop more rapidly during the first year of life than at any other point, some researchers theorize that the developing brain is particularly susceptible to traumatization, which may explain the negative impact of very early abuse. Another explanation involves the influence of abuse on children’s personality development. Young children are forming key attachments with others, and if this process is challenged, children’s perceptions or expectations of others can be permanently affected. That is, according to attachment theory, infants form secure or insecure attachments with their caregivers

based on the caregivers’ sensitivity and responsiveness. Children’s early experiences with caregivers shape children’s developing mental models of how they can expect to be treated by others in the future. Thus, these first key relationships influence children’s later relationships with peers and romantic partners, and even their approach to work, religion, and other major facets of life. Children who grow up in an abusive or neglectful environment, which is typically characterized by an absence of or inconsistency in sensitivity and responsiveness, are quite likely to develop insecure attachment styles, such as avoidant or disorganized attachment. Research shows that children who are insecurely attached are more likely to develop poor emotion regulation abilities and deficient interpersonal skills than do children who are securely attached to their caregivers. Children with disorganized attachments are at particular risk of mental health problems. Another common explanation for the psychological difficulties that result from maltreatment focuses on the adverse influence of PTSD on children’s psychological, social, and cognitive development. Many children who experience abuse suffer from PTSD, an acute syndrome characterized by intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and hypervigilance. PTSD occurs in some individuals who experience an extremely traumatic event or situation, typically one that threatens the individual’s health and safety. Psychological research has demonstrated that PTSD is associated with deficits in certain areas of memory performance, language ability, and attentional capacity (although such deficits are not necessarily global). Of note, people who suffer from PTSD have selective attention or memory bias for information that is trauma related, which can result in particularly accurate memories of trauma experiences. PTSD does not appear to affect IQ, although IQ and other cognitive factors are thought to be related to PTSD. Some researchers currently contend that suffering from PTSD may cause neuroanatomical changes in regions of the brain associated with memory and learning (e.g., the hippocampus), in areas associated with cognitive control (e.g., the prefrontal cortex), or in the entire cerebral cortex. Yet the effects of maltreatment and PTSD on the human brain are not easy to determine, and it is unclear whether PTSD causes changes in the brain structure or whether preexisting structural anomalies or preexisting behavioral or cognitive capabilities cause PTSD. Finally, and of particular importance, research has identified a number of factors that promote resilience

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(or better than expected psychological or behavioral outcomes) in maltreated children, including having histories characterized by secure attachments and quality relationships with supportive adults or peers, an active or approach-oriented coping style, good social problem-solving skills, and greater sociability. Children who have at least one adult who cares for them in a positive way and children who receive effective therapeutic treatment are particularly likely to have the best outcomes. Understanding such factors can lead to better therapeutic interventions aimed at alleviating the effects of child maltreatment.

Causes of Child Maltreatment The causes of child maltreatment are varied; there is likely no single cause. For instance, social learning theory suggests that child maltreatment is a learned behavior. Thus, parents who were maltreated as children may have learned, through their own childhood experiences, coercive forms of discipline or neglectful patterns rather than learning appropriate, nonabusive parenting practices. In this way, child maltreatment can be transmitted intergenerationally. In fact, a higher percentage of children who experienced maltreatment themselves, as compared with children who did not experience maltreatment, go on to abuse their own children later in life. Note that this does not mean, contrary to popular belief, that most children who have been abused go on to abuse their own children. The majority of adults who were abused as children are not abusive. Thus, there are many other potential contributors to child abuse and neglect, including an abundance of life stressors (e.g., poverty, lack of community resources, social isolation), individual personality or psychopathological traits, child-specific factors (e.g., a child’s temperament or disability), cultural or community acceptance of maltreatment, and even religious beliefs about eschewing modern medical care and applying strict corporal discipline.

Prevention and Intervention How should society act to prevent and deter child maltreatment? Characteristics of the child, the abuser, and the family, as well as the broader social context in which the abuse takes place, all play a role in causing child maltreatment. Thus, prevention efforts must take each of these factors into consideration. A host of interventions and changes are needed at the individual and societal levels to prevent child maltreatment. One

obvious and effective societal-level strategy is to establish laws that make child abuse illegal. In some countries, even spanking a child is prohibited. With the current U.S. laws, if child maltreatment is discovered and reported, it may lead to the child or family’s involvement with the criminal justice system and/or the child protective services system. Criminal court actions, which sometimes require the testimony of child victims, can stop existing abuse and prevent new maltreatment by sending perpetrators to jail and by deterring other potential perpetrators with the threat of similar prosecution. Child protective services actions against familial perpetrators can prevent further maltreatment through a range of actions, from requiring that parents attend parenting classes to temporary or even permanent removal of the child from its home, with parents sometimes losing parental rights and the child being put into the foster care system. If a child is young and not disabled, the likelihood is increased that he or she might be adopted into a new home. Unfortunately, however, many foster care children become immersed in juvenile court (e.g., dependency) actions and find themselves being bounced from foster home to foster home, which are sometimes themselves settings for additional abuse. Children’s involvement in the legal and child welfare systems (e.g., multiple foster care placements, repeated testimony in criminal court) can have negative effects on their emotional well-being. Other laws aimed at prevention of child sexual abuse include sex offender registration and community notification laws, which require perpetrators of sexual abuse, after they have finished serving their prison sentence, to register publicly as a sex offender everywhere they subsequently live. These laws are controversial because of civil rights issues, and there is no solid evidence that they really reduce child maltreatment. Other societal-level reform strategies involve efforts to educate the public and change attitudes, behaviors, and even public policy, often through media campaigns. For example, educational media campaigns such as those aimed at teaching parents not to shake babies have also achieved some success in the effort to decrease child physical abuse. Whatever the means, the importance of preventing child maltreatment is underscored by the wideranging costs of child maltreatment, which ripple across a broad spectrum of social structures, including the medical and health systems, the legal and correctional systems, public health services, child welfare services, and educational institutions.

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Given all these potential negative outcomes, some suggest that child maltreatment is one of the greatest social evils of our time, one that must be fought with a great deal of financial and human resources. Even so, as mentioned earlier, there is hope: Child maltreatment rates have begun to decline, at least in the United States. And many victims, although not unaffected by their experiences, nevertheless grow up to lead productive lives as good parents and citizens. Bette L. Bottoms, LaTonya Harris, Else-Marie Augusti, Gail S. Goodman, Barbara A. Oudekerk, and Tisha R. A. Wiley See also Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory; Children’s Testimony; Children’s Testimony, Evaluation by Juries; Child Sexual Abuse; Conduct Disorder; Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS); Criminal Behavior, Theories of; Eyewitness Memory; False Memories; Intimate Partner Violence; Juvenile Offenders, Risk Factors; Mental Health Needs of Juvenile Offenders; Mood Disorders; Parens Patriae Doctrine; Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI); Parenting Stress Index (PSI); Pedophilia; Reporting Crimes and Victimization; Victimization

Further Readings

Appleyard, K., Egeland, B., Van Dulmen, M., & Sroufe, A. (2005). When more is not better: The cumulative role of risk in child behavior outcomes. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 3, 235–245. Bottoms, B. L., & Quas, J. A. (Eds.). (2006). Emerging directions in child maltreatment research. Journal of Social Issues, 62, 653–863. Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S. L. (2006). A developmental psychopathology perspective on preventive interventions with high risk children and families. In A. Renninger & I. Sigel (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed.). New York: Wiley. Goodman, G. S., Emery, R., & Haugaard, J. (1997). Developmental psychology and law: Divorce, child maltreatment, foster care, and adoption. In I. Sigel & A. Renninger (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 4. Child psychology in practice (5th ed., pp. 775–876). New York: Wiley. Myers, J. E., Berliner, L., Briere, J., Hendrix, C. T., Jenny, C., & Reid, T. (Eds.). (2002). The APSAC handbook on child maltreatment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Schwartz-Kenny, B. M., McCauley, M., & Epstein, M. A. (Eds.). (2001). Child abuse: A global view. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Sroufe, L. A., Carlson, E. A., Levy, A. K., & Egeland, B. (2003). Implications of attachment theory for developmental psychopathology. In M. Hertzig & E. A. Farber (Eds.), Annual progress in child psychiatry and child development: 2000–2001 (pp. 43–61). New York: Brunner-Routledge.

CHILDREN’S TESTIMONY Children may experience or witness crime and may need to provide reports to authorities. Children’s eyewitness accounts can contain critical information about serious acts such as murder, domestic violence, kidnapping, and assault. Child sexual abuse is particularly likely to bring children into contact with the criminal justice system because the case may boil down to the child’s word against that of the accused. Although even young children can provide accurate accounts of their experiences, including highly traumatic incidents, such children on average are both less complete in their memory reports and more suggestible than older children and adults. Like adults’ accounts, children’s accounts are influenced by numerous factors, including cognitive, social, and individual ones. Developmentally appropriate interview protocols may contribute to obtaining complete and accurate accounts while reducing inaccuracies in a child’s testimony. As part of a forensic interview, children may have to identify culprits from photo lineups. Children 5 years and older can perform quite well if the culprit is pictured in the lineup; however, in “target-absent” lineups, even older children have a strong tendency to guess. Children’s emotional and attitudinal reactions to providing eyewitness testimony in criminal cases can be long lasting. For example, testifying multiple times, especially in severe intrafamilial child sexual abuse cases, is associated with adverse emotional and attitudinal reactions into adulthood. Children in such cases may need additional legal protections.

Memory and Suggestibility in the Child Witness During the past several decades, there has been an exponential increase in the number of children who provide statements in legal cases, thus magnifying the need to determine the credibility of their testimony.

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In general, older children are more accurate in eyewitness reports than are younger children, although even preschool-age children can provide accurate accounts of salient or personally meaningful events, including their own victimization. When asked free recall and open-ended questions, preschoolers can recall relevant and accurate information, but on average they are less responsive and provide fewer spontaneous statements than older children and adults. Because young children’s free reports are generally relatively brief and incomplete, they are often exposed to specific and leading questions in forensic situations, which are indeed more likely to elicit the child’s memory of an event. On the negative side, however, children are less accurate than adults in response to specific questions and more vulnerable to interviewers’ implied suggestions. Particularly, closed questions, such as yes/no and forced-choice questions, can be problematic for young children, because they may guess instead of providing “I don’t know” responses. Children also often have considerable difficulty in using standardized units of measurement, such as minutes and months, and in indicating the number of times highly repeated acts have occurred, even though such information can be vital in a legal case. Usually, children’s testimony is required for crimes or experiences that are negative, if not traumatic. Although this is a subject of debate, considerable research with adults suggests that for stressful compared with nonstressful events, central features (e.g., the main stressors) are retained particularly well, whereas peripheral details are less well remembered. Several studies confirm such findings for children; however, the results of developmental studies are mixed. Child sexual abuse often involves trauma to child victims, leading to feelings of self-blame and helplessness. These characteristics have contributed to make child sexual abuse situations of special interest in debates about trauma and memory. Research suggests that memory of traumatic events, in many ways, follows the same cognitive principles as memory of distinctive nontraumatic events. However, there is debate as to whether “special memory mechanisms” (e.g., repression) are also involved. Some of the main theoretical accounts of trauma and memory suggest that traumatized individuals remember trauma-related information particularly well. Empirical evidence confirms that traumatized individuals, especially those who have developed posttraumatic stress disorder, overfocus on trauma

cues, have difficulty ignoring trauma stimuli, and remember their trauma experiences. In contrast, other theories indicate that trauma victims, such as incest survivors, may experience amnesia for the trauma and that children who have suffered a larger number of traumatic events tend to forget or remember more poorly those experiences compared with children who have been exposed to a single traumatic event. Children’s memory and testimony about negative emotional experiences also depend on individuals’ coping strategies. Avoidant coping strategies lead children to evade thoughts, conversations, or reminders about the traumatic experiences. Parents’ attempts to minimize or ignore their own or their children’s distress facilitate avoidant coping. These postevent avoidance processes may prevent the creation of a complete, detailed, and verbally accessible account of the traumatic experience and the integration of these memories with the individual’s other autobiographical memories. In contrast, positive parent-child interactions provide an opportunity for rehearsal and reactivation of event details, which may help maintain and strengthen memory traces, thus reducing the effects of decay while enhancing long-term retention. For example, children who received maternal support after disclosure of child sexual abuse and who discussed the event with their mothers provided more accurate reports, with fewer omission errors, of their maltreatment experiences years after the abuse reportedly ended compared with those who did not. Children’s suggestibility in the forensic context has been a flash point in the debate over children’s testimonial competence. Suggestibility concerns the degree to which the encoding, storage, retrieval, and reporting of events can be influenced by a range of internal (e.g., developmental, cognitive, and personality) and external (e.g., social and contextual) factors. False information given before, during, and after an event can lead to difficulty in retrieving the original (true) information, alteration of true memory representations, and/or conscious acquiescence to social demands. Young children, specifically preschoolers, are disproportionately susceptible to the effects of leading questions and suggestions. However, of importance in the legal context, children are often less suggestible about negative than positive or neutral events. Both cognitive and social factors can underlie developmental differences in eyewitness memory and suggestibility. Due to a less complete knowledge base and more limited capabilities of using memory

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strategies, young children have greater difficulty recalling events on their own. Also, compared with adults’ memories, children’s memories of the original event may be weaker and thus more vulnerable to being altered or overwritten by the suggestions of others. “False memory” may occur when the erroneous suggestion is particularly strong, such as in multiple suggestive contexts where not only misleading questions but also an accusatory context is involved. In addition, preschoolers are less able to distinguish between different sources of memories and thus misattribute an interviewer’s suggestions to actual experiences. Moreover, without understanding the ramifications of their statements, children may adopt suggestions to gain the adult investigator’s approval and avoid negative reactions, perceiving pressure to conform to the suggestions of the authority figure. Although there is consensus that misleading questions and highly suggestive contexts are to be avoided when interviewing children, such questioning does not necessarily lead to false reports. For example, if the child’s memory is strong, blatantly misleading questioning in a highly misleading context can actually bolster resistance to misinformation, at least compared with the effects of such questioning after a long delay, when the child’s memory traces have weakened. However, with such questioning, the risks of memory contamination are potentially great, and the child’s credibility may be destroyed in the process.

Individual Difference Factors Although chronological age is almost always the strongest predictor of suggestibility, with preschool children being the most suggestible, even adults are suggestible. Moreover, there is much variability within age groups depending on the characteristics of the individual. However, findings concerning individual differences tend to be somewhat inconsistent, and the predictive power of individual difference factors tends not to be strong. That said, global, comprehensive measures of language ability are sometimes associated with preschool-age children’s suggestibility. Children with mental retardation are more suggestible than typically developing children with normal intelligence, although intelligence is not significantly related to suggestibility within the normal population. Young children with poor self-concepts or poor supportive relationships with their parents are at risk of being more suggestible. Children raised by secure and

supportive parents may develop positive self-concepts, which in turn may make them resistant to suggestions that are inconsistent with their own experiences. Cultural factors may also play a role; in cultures where children are trained to be especially polite or obedient to adult authority, they may have more difficulty disagreeing with adult interviewers who falsely suggest information.

Interview Techniques and Protocols How likely children are to disclose crimes such as child sexual abuse when simply asked free-recall and openended questions is the subject of debate. Researchers have developed child interview techniques and standardized child interview protocols intended to increase the likelihood of disclosure as well as the amount and accuracy of the information obtained, while reducing inaccuracies. These protocols (e.g., cognitive interview, narrative elaboration) derive from the application of mnemonic, communication, and social facilitative techniques to forensic practice and can in principle be used to interview child witnesses about a wide variety of events; however, some protocols are specifically designed for interviewing alleged child victims of child sexual abuse (e.g., the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD] structured interview protocol). Overall, interview protocols and interview guidelines (e.g., the guidelines developed by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children) recommend that forensic interviewers rely as much as possible on free-recall/open-ended prompts. However, the use of some specific questioning is typically also allowed. We review a subset of the protocols/techniques next. The cognitive interview (CI) relies on wellestablished principles of encoding specificity (i.e., how the items to be retrieved were encoded and stored determines the effectiveness of a particular retrieval cue) and varied retrieval. According to these principles, the original CI (developed for adults) included four mnemonic techniques: (1) “mental reinstatement” of the external and internal contexts of the experienced event; (2) the “report everything” instruction; (3) the “reverse-orderrecall” instruction, which refers to recalling the event in an alternative temporal order; and (4) the “change perspective” instruction, which refers to recalling the event from an alternative perspective. Also, to avoid the common problems observed during the administration of the CI by professionals, the revised CI includes several

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social techniques intended to facilitate communication (e.g., rapport building, no interruptions). Compared with control interviews, the developmentally adapted CI for children ranging in age from 4 to 12 years, tends to elicit more correct information, although the reverseorder-recall and change perspective instructions may increase the reporting of incorrect details by young children. Moreover, the mental reinstatement and report everything mnemonics appear to be useful in reducing the negative effects of misinformation even in preschoolage children (i.e., 4–5 years). Rather than supplying specific cues derived from the event itself, narrative elaboration (NE) provides child witnesses with pre-interview training, instructions, and techniques that could be applied to any event of interest. NE’s main objective is to help overcome potential developmental limitations in communication and memory, such as lack of knowledge about the expectations of the listener and ineffective use of memory search strategies, by training children about the level of detail required and by providing picture cards as external cues to report forensically important categories of information. Overall, NE is helpful in enhancing children’s eyewitness recall without increasing the amount of inaccuracies provided by 3- to 11-year-old children. Similarly, after an initial rapport-building phase, the NICHD interview protocol incorporates training of children to respond to open-ended prompts during the presubstantive phase of the investigative interview. Next, the interviewer attempts to shift the child’s focus to the substantive issue in a nonsuggestive manner (e.g., “Tell me why you came to talk to me today”), so that the recollection process can begin. During this substantive phase, interviewers maximize the use of open-ended questions and probes, introducing focused questions only after exhausting the openended-question modes. At the end of the session, interviewers may use option-posing questions to obtain essential information. This protocol is flexibly structured and aimed to translate research-based recommendations into operational guidelines to enhance children’s retrieval using recall-memory prompts. It has been extensively investigated with real alleged child victims of sexual offenses, and it appears to be useful with children 4 years and older. Basic and applied research underlies the development of interview techniques and protocols. However, further research on the accuracy of children’s eyewitness memory—for example, concerning highly emotional and embarrassing information—is necessary to elucidate how extensive these benefits are. And, of

special relevance, improved strategies and tools that can be effectively used with young children (e.g., 3-year-olds) to obtain evidence about specific details of an event without compromising the accuracy of their reports are still needed. Props and Cues

Children typically have more information in memory than they report in response to free-recall or openended questions. Props such as real objects, scale models, dolls, toys, photographs, and drawings can provide concrete external retrieval cues for young children. They also can potentially extend memory retrieval by engaging children in the forensic interview for a longer period than do mere verbal prompts. According to the principle of encoding specificity, the effectiveness of a particular retrieval prop or cue depends on its match with the items to be retrieved with regard to how they were encoded and stored. Especially for younger children, an optimal match should include the original sensory/perceptual features as well as a clear symbolic correspondence. Overall, props can facilitate children’s reports but also increase the number of errors children make (e.g., if they are too young to understand dual representations). The extent to which props facilitate or compromise children’s testimony depends on factors such as the nature of the event and of the prop, the mode of presentation, and the time that has elapsed between the event and the interview. And the age of the child may be critical in determining the influence of these factors. Real props have maximal overlap with event information and can effectively aid retrieval for 3- to 10year-olds. Real props and scale models increase the correct information that children report, but they also introduce additional errors, especially for younger children. In contrast to real props, toys and dolls, including anatomically detailed dolls, can increase commission errors and decrease accuracy, especially when preschool-age children are interviewed with misleading questions or when “distractor” or playevoking props are involved. Under certain circumstances (i.e., in combination with specific but nonleading prompts), drawings can facilitate the completeness and accuracy of 5-years-olds’ and older children’s accounts, although there are mixed findings in relation to the effectiveness of drawings with preschool children. Finally, human figure drawings can produce a considerable amount of new details during the interview, especially for children aged from 4 to 7 years,

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but at the same time, these drawings may also increase inaccuracies in children’s testimony. In summary, research has shown that props and drawings can, under certain circumstances, facilitate memory accuracy in children older than 5 years, whereas they may add error to the reports of younger children. Although there is currently no “gold standard” method of interviewing children, different combinations of free-recall, specific, and prop-assisted questions are being researched to determine which of them facilitates the most accurate and complete memory reports from children. Photo Lineups

When interviewed in forensic situations, children may be presented with photographic lineups to identify culprits. A lineup may include a criminal (targetpresent lineup) or only innocent individuals (targetabsent lineup). When they are shown a target-present lineup, preschool-age children are less likely than adults to make correct identifications, although children around age 5 and above are typically comparable with adults in making correct identifications. Shown a target-absent lineup, however, even early adolescents are inferior to adults, making fewer correct rejections and more false identifications. As with leading questions, the photo lineup may entice children to guess. Witnesses are usually shown a simultaneous lineup, in which all lineup members are presented at once and only one decision is made. This method has been criticized for encouraging a relative judgment, whereby witnesses compare all lineup members and choose the member who looks most like the criminal relative to other members. Although this strategy is successful in target-present lineups, it may lead to errors in targetabsent lineups. Fortunately, fairly simple training techniques can reduce guessing on target-absent lineups in older children. An alternative procedure is the sequential lineup, in which witnesses are shown photographs one at a time and make a decision for each photograph. Compared with simultaneous lineups, sequential lineups reduce adults’ false identifications by increasing correct rejections of target-absent lineups while having a minimal effect on correct identifications from targetpresent lineups. When they are shown a sequential lineup, witnesses might make an absolute judgment for each photograph by comparing the photograph with their recollection of the criminal. However, targetabsent errors by children are not reduced in sequential compared with simultaneous procedures.

Children in the Courtroom As a result of involvement with legal authorities, children may experience social and emotional distress. Although repeated interviewing of children can keep accurate memories alive, child victims report that being interviewed multiple times by legal authorities is stressful for them. Speaking about traumatic experiences (particularly in open court), lack of parental support, harsh cross-examination, facing the defendant, and not being believed add to children’s distress and may reduce significantly the amount of information provided by child witnesses. Moreover, in child sexual abuse cases, a child’s initial disclosure of the abuse to a parent, teacher, or other trusted adult may include a more detailed account than the testimony that the child gives in court months or even years later. Although testifying may be helpful for some children, it causes others to recover from the criminal and legal experience more slowly than their nontestifying counterparts. Child sexual abuse victims who had to testify multiple times in severe intrafamilial cases tend to have the most negative long-term emotional effects and are thus most in need of protection during criminal prosecutions. To remedy these negative consequences, procedural modifications (e.g., testifying via closed-circuit television) and multidisciplinary investigations, conducted at child advocacy centers and involving teams of legal professionals (e.g., the police, prosecuting attorneys, and child protective services workers), who coordinate their efforts into a single interview of the child victim/witness, are being developed and tested in the United States and abroad. Having an adult (e.g., a mother, social worker, or police officer) recount children’s out-of-court statements (e.g., hearsay) at trial has recently attracted research and legal interest. In criminal trials regarding child sexual abuse, hearsay is often introduced in addition to the child’s live testimony. Although hearsay is normally discouraged in the American legal system, there are special hearsay exceptions, some of which apply specifically to children’s statements. However, a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling suggests that if the out-of-court statement was made to an authority (e.g., a forensic interviewer) and is thus “testimonial,” the authority cannot testify in place of the child. Mock jurors find children’s statements more credible when the child testifies live in court than if the child is replaced by a hearsay witness. Mock jurors also find children less credible if they testify via closed-circuit television instead of face-to-face at

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trial. Both hearsay and closed-circuit television are potential ways to protect children from the stress of testifying live in court and are used in many European countries. Pedro M. Paz-Alonso, Yoojin Chae, and Gail S. Goodman See also Child Maltreatment; Children’s Testimony, Evaluation by Juries; Child Sexual Abuse; Cognitive Interview; Expert Psychological Testimony; Eyewitness Memory; False Memories; Hearsay Testimony; Lineup Size and Bias; Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory; Reporting Crimes and Victimization; Repressed and Recovered Memories; Simultaneous and Sequential Lineup Presentation; Witness Preparation

Further Readings

Bruck, M., & Melnyk, L. (2004). Individual differences in children’s suggestibility: A review and synthesis. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 947–996. Castelli, P., Goodman, G. S., Edelstein, R. S., Mitchell, E. B., Paz-Alonso, P. M., Lyons, K. E., et al. (2006). Evaluating eyewitness testimony in adults and children. In I. B. Weiner & A. K. Hess (Eds.), The handbook of forensic psychology (3rd ed., pp. 243–302). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Ceci, S. J., & Bruck, M. (1995). Jeopardy in the courtroom: A scientific analysis of children’s testimony. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Eisen, M. L., Quas, J. A., & Goodman, G. S. (2002). Memory and suggestibility in the forensic interview. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pipe, M.-E., Lamb, M., Orbach, Y., & Cederborg, A.-C. (2006). Child sexual abuse: Disclosure, delay, and denial. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Poole, D. A., & Lamb, M. E. (1998). Investigative interviews of children: A guide for helping professionals. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Pozzulo, J. D., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (1998). Identification accuracy of children versus adults: A meta-analysis. Law and Human Behavior, 22, 549–570.

CHILDREN’S TESTIMONY, EVALUATION BY JURIES When children are involved in trials as witnesses, victims, or defendants, jurors must decide whether they are credible and how to weigh their testimony in

reaching a verdict. Thus, although much psychological research focuses on the actual accuracy of children’s eyewitness testimony, it is also important to consider their perceived accuracy. Research reveals that jurors consider many factors when making decisions about children’s testimony. In this entry, we review what is known about jurors’ perceptions of testimony given by children and adolescents who are bystander witnesses, alleged child abuse victims/ witnesses, and juvenile defendants. Can jurors determine whether child witnesses are accurate or inaccurate, telling the truth or lying? Some research reveals that adults are not very adept at discerning children’s actual accuracies from inaccuracies or at detecting lies from the truth, although adults can detect children’s (especially older children’s) lies with slightly greater than chance accuracy. Consistent with findings from the adult eyewitness literature, part of the problem is that jurors appear to overuse the dubious marker of child confidence in judging child accuracy, which is misleading because the relation between child confidence and child accuracy is not always strong. More research is needed to ensure that these results hold true in situations where children give incorrect or false testimony about events of great personal significance, which has not been the case with most research on this topic. Even so, existing research is converging on the conclusion that adults cannot detect children’s actual level of accuracy well. A growing body of research has thus focused on identifying the factors other than actual accuracy that affect jurors’ perceptions of children’s eyewitness testimony.

Perceptions of Bystander Witnesses Gail Goodman and her colleagues conducted the first studies of jurors’ perceptions of child witnesses. They evaluated jurors’ reactions to bystander testimony given in the context of vehicular homicide and murder cases. Although all jurors read the same testimony, some were told that the key prosecution witness was an adult, while others were told that the witness was a child. Individual jurors perceived child witnesses to be less credible than adult witnesses, an effect that was not tempered by jury deliberation. This research provided the first evidence that jurors—and juries— are skeptical of children’s ability to provide accurate testimony, presumably because jurors doubt young children’s cognitive abilities to encode and retrieve details of events accurately. Even so, witness age did

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not directly affect jurors’ ratings of the defendant’s guilt. Instead, jurors based their verdicts primarily on witness testimony only when the witness was an adult. When the witness was a child, jurors gave greater consideration to other case evidence. Thus, although jurors often report that they consider corroborating evidence when making decisions, this is especially true when the primary source of evidence is child testimony. In fact, later research showed that jurors perceive individual child witnesses more positively when their testimony is corroborated by other credible child witnesses.

Perceptions of Alleged Victims of Child Maltreatment After the first studies of jurors’ perceptions of child bystander witnesses, research quickly turned to jurors’ perceptions of child victim witnesses—specifically alleged child sexual abuse victims. This shift reflected the increased societal attention in the 1980s to child sexual abuse, as well as the fact that child sexual abuse is usually perpetrated in secret, with little corroborating evidence, making child victim testimony key to its prosecution. This research has revealed that jurors’ decisions are influenced by many factors. For example, jurors generally find child sexual abuse victims who are younger than about 13 years more believable than older children. Why? Jurors’ belief that younger children are less cognitively competent than older children (which hurts the perceived credibility of child bystander witnesses) actually works to the advantage of child sexual abuse victims. That is, compared with older children, younger children are perceived as sexually naive and therefore less cognitively capable of fabricating allegations of sexual abuse that did not actually occur. Younger children are also seen as more honest and therefore less likely to lie about such matters. In fact, for the same reasons, jurors perceive intellectually disabled (i.e., mentally retarded) teenaged sexual abuse victims to be more credible than children of average intelligence. In fact, intellectually disabled children are sexually victimized more often than nondisabled children, but prosecutors might hesitate to prosecute such cases, fearing that jurors will not believe disabled witnesses. A number of other factors also influence jurors’ perceptions of child sexual abuse victims, including victim and defendant factors such as gender and race, case factors such as whether the child’s disclosure of

abuse was portrayed as delayed or repressed, and juror individual difference factors such as gender and attitudes. For example, one of the most robust findings in this field is that compared with men jurors, women are on average more likely to convict defendants and to perceive children as credible witnesses. This may be driven by the fact that compared with men, women empathize more with child victims and have somewhat more prochild and anti-child-abuse attitudes. Recently, attention has begun to turn to adults’ reactions to children who are alleged victims of other forms of child maltreatment. For example, studies in which adults consider brief vignettes of maltreatment situations indicate that neglect is perceived to be more severe when a victim is younger rather than older, perhaps reflecting people’s awareness that compared with older children, younger children are less able to care for themselves and may experience more adverse consequences from neglect. In contrast, people perceive psychological abuse to be more severe when the victim is older rather than younger, perhaps reflecting the belief that older children are more likely to experience damage to their self-concept. Perceptions of physical abuse severity are not influenced by age, suggesting that people disapprove of physically abusing children of any age. Although the possibility has not yet been tested within a mock trial paradigm, jurors may be similarly influenced by these variables in trials involving these forms of child maltreatment. Psychologists are sometimes allowed to testify as expert witnesses in trials about issues of psychological relevance that jurors do not intuitively understand. Scholars disagree about the conditions under which expert psychological testimony about children’s actual eyewitness abilities should be allowed. Surveys reveal that some portion of the jury pool is knowledgeable about children’s actual memory, suggestibility, and tendency to disclose sexual abuse, but other jurors are not. Most jurors have a poor understanding of the clinical symptoms exhibited by abused and nonabused children, forensic interview techniques that increase the risk of false allegations versus those that promote true disclosures of abuse, and whether children are prone to confabulate and internalize false memories of abuse. (Women and more highly educated jurors are more knowledgeable about such issues than other jurors.) Some argue that expert testimony would be a valuable tool for countering jurors’ ignorance, while others fear that expert testimony will increase unfounded skepticism about children’s abilities.

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Research by Margaret Kovera and her colleagues has shown that expert testimony is useful in educating jurors about at least one particular issue: the hazards of basing credibility judgments on child witnesses’ nonverbal cues and countenance. That is, jurors expect abused children to be emotionally upset when testifying about their sexual victimization, and when this expectation is not met, jurors doubt the veracity of abuse allegations. Expert testimony can inform jurors that most child victims have repeated their stories so many times before appearing in court that some no longer appear emotionally distraught. Such testimony can reduce jurors’ otherwise negative bias against child sexual abuse victim witnesses, which results from incorrect assumptions about the relation between emotion and accuracy. Regardless of how they appear, testifying in court can be a traumatic experience for some child witnesses. To protect children from this potential trauma, the U.S. Supreme Court declared it constitutionally permissible under some conditions for children to testify using innovative techniques that shield them from the defendant. For example, rather than testifying in an open courtroom in front of the defendant, child victim witnesses may testify elsewhere in the courthouse while their testimony is transmitted to the courtroom via closed-circuit television (CCTV). Or child witnesses can give their testimony in court with their view of the defendant blocked by a screen. How do such accommodations affect jurors’ perceptions of child testimony? Although defense attorneys fear that jurors will infer a defendant’s guilt from the use of accommodations and give undue weight to testimony presented under such circumstances, ironically, mock trial research suggests that jurors perceive child witnesses to be less credible when testimony is presented via CCTV than when children testify live in court. This may result from accommodated children appearing less stressed than children who testify in full view of the court, which may signal the need for psychological expert testimony for the reasons discussed previously.

Perceptions of Child Defendants Recent research has begun to consider jurors’ perceptions of children who are accused of committing crimes. This has become increasingly important because more and more teenagers are being tried in adult criminal court instead of juvenile or family court, and their cases are being decided by jurors rather than by juvenile court judges. Unfortunately, research suggests that

trying a juvenile in adult criminal court is inherently prejudicial. For example, jurors infer that juveniles tried in adult criminal court have been convicted of past crimes, and this inference increases the likelihood of conviction. In reality, most felony juvenile offenders (i.e., juveniles whose cases are most likely to go to trial in adult criminal court) have never been arrested before. Jurors’ judgments are also influenced by the severity of the crime (jurors perceive juveniles as more competent and render more severe sentences when the crime and its outcome are more severe) and by inferences regarding a juvenile’s intent to commit a crime, understanding of wrongfulness, and recidivism potential. Many psychologists are concerned that jurors might not understand juveniles’ actual capabilities in these regards and that jurors are insensitive to the fact that juveniles are less cognitively competent and mature than adults. Research on this issue is mixed. Although some jurors appear to set lower standards of proof for juveniles tried in adult criminal court than for adults, jurors are less likely to convict younger juveniles than older juveniles, perhaps because they believe that younger juveniles are less competent to stand trial. Under some conditions, however, jurors perceive younger and older juveniles to be equally competent. Meanwhile, other research has identified juror and case characteristics that influence jurors’ perceptions of child and adolescent offenders. For example, as in child sexual abuse cases, women jurors appear to have more positive perceptions of juvenile offenders than men do. Also, situational trial factors can influence trial outcomes: Attorneys’ pleas for jurors to empathize with a juvenile offender lead jurors to be more sensitive to mitigating factors, perceive the juvenile to be less responsible for the crime, and render more lenient judgments relative to jurors who are not asked to empathize.

Future Research Future research will provide an even better understanding of the factors that influence jurors’ perceptions of children in the courtroom and, importantly, the processes by which those perceptions influence jurors’ verdicts. Psychologists hope that this knowledge can be used to inform a legal policy that ensures justice for all parties involved in trials. Cynthia J. Najdowski and Bette L. Bottoms See also Child Maltreatment; Children’s Testimony; Child Sexual Abuse; Hearsay Testimony; Juries and Eyewitnesses; Juvenile Offenders

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Further Readings

Bottoms, B. L., Golding, J. M., Stevenson, M. C., Wiley, T. R. A., & Yozwiak, J. A. (2007). A review of factors affecting jurors’ decisions in child sexual abuse cases. In M. P. Toglia, S. J. Read, D. F. Ross, & R. C. L. Lindsay (Eds.), The handbook of eyewitness psychology: Vol. 1. Memory for events (pp. 509–543). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ghetti, S., & Redlich, A. D. (2001). Reactions to youth crime: Perceptions of accountability and competency. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 19, 33–52. Goodman, G. S., Golding, J. M., Helgeson, V. S., Haith, M. M., & Michelli, J. (1987). When a child takes the stand: Jurors’ perceptions of children’s eyewitness testimony. Law and Human Behavior, 11, 27–40. Kovera, M. B., Gresham, A. W., Borgida, E., Gray, E., & Regan, P. C. (1997). Does expert testimony inform or influence juror decision-making? A social cognitive analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 178–191.

CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE Although definitions can vary across legal, clinical, and research contexts, sexual abuse is commonly defined as sexual acts between a youth and an older person (e.g., by 5 years or more) in which the dominance of the older person is used to exploit or coerce the youth. Behaviors may include noncontact (e.g., exposure) and contact (e.g., intercourse) offenses. The prevalence of sexual abuse is difficult to determine, but estimates suggest that as many as 20% of women and 5% to 10% of men report having been sexually abused as a child. The number of substantiated cases has dropped significantly in recent years, possibly due to a combination of factors, including changes in definitions and reporting and an actual decline in incidence. Sexual abuse occurs across all income levels and racial, cultural, and ethnic groups. Victims are identified via child self-disclosure, medical or physical evidence (e.g., trauma, sexually transmitted disease), behavioral and emotional changes that prompt inquiry, and investigations stemming from assault of other youths. Careful forensic interviews are often important for documenting abuse, protecting children, and successfully prosecuting perpetrators. All states have mandatory reporting laws that require professionals to report suspected child maltreatment, including sexual abuse. Failure to report

can lead to legal charges and ethical complaints. The statutes provide civil and criminal immunity from liabilities for reports made in good faith. The impact of sexual abuse varies considerably, and there is no common symptom that is found in all victims. The possible consequences include internalizing (e.g., anxiety, depression, poor self-esteem) and externalizing (e.g., delinquency, substance abuse, sexual behavior) problems. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most common clinical syndrome. A substantial number of young people do not show measurable clinical symptoms, although for some of them problems may appear later. Nonoffending parents and siblings may experience significant distress and may require treatment as well. A variety of treatment approaches are used for reducing the consequences of abuse. Interventions may focus on the abused child, nonoffending parents, and nonabused siblings, in individual and group formats. Only a small percentage of cases result in a sexually abused child testifying in court. Court preparation programs help make the experience less stressful and improve the child’s participation.

Definitional Issues Child sexual abuse is surprisingly difficult to define as no universally accepted criteria have been identified. Definitions generally consider the sexual behaviors involved and the ages of the victim and the perpetrator. While force or coercion may occur, it is not always present. Younger children are not considered capable of consenting to sexual activities with older persons; thus, sexual acts between individuals with age differences of 5 years or more are generally seen as abusive. Legal definitions often emphasize that the perpetrator should be an adult in a position of dominance or authority over the youth for the behavior to be considered an act of abuse. Noncontact offenses include genital exposure, voyeurism, showing a child pornographic material, or having a child undress or masturbate. Contact offenses include genital touching; oral sex; and digital, object, or penile penetration (vaginal or anal). If the perpetrator is a family member, including distant relations, in-laws, and step-relations, then the abuse is considered “intrafamilial” sexual abuse. If the perpetrator is not a family member by marriage or blood, then it is usually considered “extrafamilial.” Child sexual abuse has been challenging to define as each word in the term has been operationalized differently across legal, clinical, and research contexts.

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While some behaviors are clearly sexual (e.g., intercourse), other behaviors (e.g., touching) can lie across a continuum, and the context can influence decisions regarding whether it is abusive. In clinical and research contexts, the term sexual abuse is sometimes used to describe the victimization of young people by similar-age peers, though in legal contexts this may be more likely to be viewed as “assault.” Similarly, from a clinical and research standpoint, perpetration by an adult stranger or nonfamily member may be considered sexual abuse, but within the legal system it may be treated as sexual assault.

Incidence and Prevalence Definitional challenges contribute to the difficulty in accurately identifying the incidence and prevalence of sexual abuse. Records from child protective services agencies in the United States in recent years indicate that approximately 1.2 children per 1,000 experience sexual abuse each year. This is an underestimate because it reflects only cases known to relevant agencies, and many instances of abuse are not identified or reported. Overall, the number of cases of sexual abuse substantiated by child protective service agencies dropped by approximately 40% during the 1990s. This is likely due to a combination of factors, including increasing conservatism on what is substantiated as abuse, exclusion of cases that do not involve caretakers, changes in data collection methods, less reporting due to concerns about backlash, and possibly a real decline in incidence. Although sexual abuse occurs across all income levels and racial, cultural, and ethnic groups, it is more commonly reported among families of lower socioeconomic status. Children of all ages are victimized, with risk of sexual abuse increasing around age 10. Girls are significantly more likely to experience sexual abuse than boys. In addition, children with physical or cognitive disabilities appear to be at increased risk.

Identification of Victims Because of the covert and coercive nature of sexual abuse and the frequent absence of physical evidence, a child’s self-disclosure is the primary means of identifying an abusive situation. When children do disclose sexual abuse, they are most likely to tell a parent, usually their mother.

Research has identified numerous factors that inhibit disclosure. Perpetrators often use manipulative and coercive methods to maintain their victim’s compliance and silence. Children may be embarrassed, concerned about retaliation from the perpetrator or others, or worried about being blamed or punished. Unfortunately, such worries are often justified in that disclosures are sometimes met with disbelief and family upheaval. Boys are less likely to disclose due to concerns about being stigmatized if the abuse was perpetrated by a male, and they may not perceive sexual acts with older girls or women as abusive. Children are more likely to disclose if the abuse was perpetrated by a stranger. Older children are more likely to purposefully disclose (i.e., seek out someone to disclose to), while younger children may be more likely to disclose after questioning. Medical or physical evidence sometimes leads to identification of sexual abuse. This may include trauma to the genitals or mouth, genital or rectal bleeding, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, and complaints of discomfort in the genital or rectal area. In most cases, there are no physical indications of the abuse. However, positive medical findings are valuable for substantiation of an abusive act. Sometimes there are significant behavioral or emotional changes that might provide an indication that something has happened. For example, a child might suddenly withdraw or act out, show signs of sexualized behavior, or avoid individuals or settings, and this might prompt questioning or investigation. At other times, abuse may be discovered as a result of an ongoing investigation of other victims, as perpetrators commonly have multiple victims. Once abuse is suspected, it is common to conduct a forensic interview with the potential victim. These interviews are important for protecting children and successfully prosecuting perpetrators, and it is also important that falsely accused individuals are exonerated. A number of techniques are used in forensic interviews, with varying degrees of documented support. It is considered acceptable to gather information about the allegation before a forensic interview, though knowledge of allegations can increase interviewer bias and result in leading questions, and allegation-blind interviews can lead to higher rates of disclosure than allegation-informed interviews. Assessing understanding of the difference between the “truth” and a “lie,” and the consequences of lying, is valuable before questioning. Open-ended questions increase the length and

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accuracy of responses with school-age children and adolescents. Cognitive interview techniques can also be useful, especially with older children, including recalling the event as a detailed narrative, reporting every detail of what happened, recalling the event in different sequences, and describing the event from other people’s perspectives. The use of anatomically detailed dolls is controversial, with some reports of their being useful in helping children remember and describe their experience and other reports of their reducing the quality of responses and eliciting sexual play from nonabused children. A relatively new approach to forensic interviews is the structured interview. The advantages of structured interviews are that they need limited training, use flexible and easy-to-follow protocols, and have been developed for alleged victims as well as their parents. Research has shown their utility in decreasing leading questions, increasing open-ended questions, and increasing the quality of the details elicited. Another new approach is extended forensic evaluation, in which multiple interviews are conducted to allow the child to disclose over time in a nonthreatening environment. It is recommended that interviewers be graduate-level mental health professionals with training in sexual abuse, child development, and court testimony. Stages of evaluation include gathering background information, rapport building, social and behavioral assessment, abuse-specific questioning, and review and clarification. A promising development for improving child abuse investigations and substantiation rates is the Child Advocacy Center (CAC) model. CACs are child-friendly facilities staffed by professionals trained in forensic interviews, medical exams, and victim support and advocacy. The number of CACs has increased dramatically in recent years, with the majority of states having multiple centers.

Mandatory Reporting Statutes All 50 states have laws that require certain professionals to report suspected child maltreatment. This commonly includes physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, teachers, day care workers, and law enforcement personnel. Any person may report, and many state statutes require “all persons” to report suspicions, though many individuals are unlikely to be aware of this responsibility. Generally, mandatory reporting statutes indicate that a report is required when there is “reasonable

cause” to believe that a child has been subjected to abuse or is being exposed to conditions that could result in abuse. Reports can be made via child protective services or law enforcement agencies, and 24-hour reporting is available in most states via a toll-free “hotline” phone number. Failing to report can lead to criminal penalties or civil liabilities, as well as professional ethical and malpractice complaints. The mandatory reporting requirement overrides professional confidentiality requirements. Despite the mandatory reporting statutes, numerous studies indicate that many instances of abuse do not get reported by professionals, either because they do not recognize the situation as abusive or because they choose not to report. Research suggests that a variety of factors can influence reporting, including the perceived severity of the situation, prior success with reporting, and concerns about disrupting a therapeutic relationship.

Consequences of Sexual Abuse A substantial amount of research has examined the potential consequences of sexual abuse. While there is no doubt that sexual abuse has serious consequences for many, the extent and nature of the impact vary considerably, and no symptom or disorder is found universally in all victims. In addition to the challenges of demonstrating experimental control, the research is faced with the presence of many potential confounding variables, such as the co-occurrence of other forms of maltreatment, domestic violence and marital dysfunction, and poverty. Across the research on the short-term consequences, sexual abuse has been found to be associated with a number of internalizing behaviors, including anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, problems with self-esteem, sleep disturbances, and somatic complaints. PTSD is the most commonly identified clinical syndrome found, including symptoms of reexperiencing the event, avoidance of reminders of the trauma, and arousal and hypervigilance. Research has also demonstrated the presence of externalizing problems, including self-abusive behaviors, delinquency, and substance abuse problems. Difficulties with school performance and concentration, problems with interpersonal relationships and social competence, or increased body self-consciousness may also be found. Some children may be more interested and curious about sex and the genital areas, have

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heightened sexual activity, such as masturbation and precocious sexual play, or sexually act out toward adults and peers. A substantial portion of youths may be asymptomatic following abuse. Research indicates that as many as 20% to 50% of victims do not show measurable clinical symptoms. Most of these children remain symptom free, but there is evidence of a “sleeper effect,” in which symptoms do not manifest until months or years after disclosure. A substantial amount of research has identified potential long-term effects including anxiety, depression, self-mutilation, suicidal ideation and behavior, somatization, poor self-esteem, substance abuse, sexual dysfunction, sexual deviance, and posttraumatic stress. Research has also documented less satisfaction and comfort in relationships and more maladaptive interpersonal patterns. Increased risk of sexual assault revictimization is also a problem. The substantial variability in consequences is not surprising given the variability in the nature and extent of sexually abusive acts and the contexts in which they occur. Research has shown that factors that may influence the impact of sexual abuse on children include characteristics of the abuse (e.g., type and severity, relationship with the perpetrator), premorbid child characteristics, family functioning, and school and community support and stressors. Research indicates that parental support after disclosure is a key factor in reducing the impact of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse can affect the entire family system, and nonoffending parents and siblings may need support for dealing with the experience. Parents report increased strain on parent-child and spousal relationships, anger, depression, and posttraumatic stress. Siblings may experience emotional distress, including fear, helplessness, shame, guilt, anger, and resentment toward the victim.

Treatment for Victims and Families Treatment for sexual abuse is unique in that children are generally referred for services because they have experienced the event of sexual abuse, not because of specific emotional or behavioral symptoms they are exhibiting. Many children receive services because of parental concerns about damage to their child and for prevention of future difficulties and revictimization. Thus, children in treatment are a very heterogeneous group. Interventions range from brief psychoeducation and crisis intervention, to short-term abuse-focused

treatments, to more comprehensive and longer-term interventions. The general findings are that the interventions, often based on research for treating other child difficulties, are effective for treating the symptoms exhibited by sexually abused youths. Psychological assistance at the time of disclosure is designed to assess the child and its family’s needs and to provide support, psychoeducation, and shortterm training in effective coping strategies. Crisis intervention services can improve parents’ effectiveness in providing support and helping their child and family address the complex, abuse-related impacts and issues. Additionally, referrals for longer-term mental health services can be made if needed. It has been routine to provide asymptomatic children with treatment, especially psychoeducation, to prevent development of problems and reduce the risk of revictimization. Abuse-specific therapy designed to decrease traumarelated symptomatology is the most extensively researched treatment and tends to use cognitivebehavioral procedures to target symptoms of posttraumatic distress. For example, anxiety and avoidance are targeted with relaxation training, desensitization and exposure, and cognitive restructuring. Behavior problems are addressed with behavior management techniques. Some young people also need intervention for sexual behavior problems to address parental supervision, education, communication, self-control, and sexual behavior rules. Group therapy can offer opportunities not available in individual or family therapy. It provides the victims the opportunity to share experiences and feelings with other youths who have had similar experiences, helps them reduce their sense of isolation and stigma, and provides them with a safe setting to discuss and experiment with new behaviors, including social skills, and coping and problem-solving strategies. Research suggests that group interventions can be valuable for reducing problems of anxiety, depression, fear, and sexual behaviors and for increasing self-esteem. Research indicates the importance of therapeutic services for nonoffending parents and nonabused siblings. Treatment for nonoffending parents is important to address parental distress, parental reactions, and supportive recovery of the abused child. Nonabused siblings may need services to address emotional distress involving feelings of relief, guilt, anger, and resentment, as well as for preventing future abuse and learning coping skills. Group treatments can be beneficial to parents and siblings by providing an

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atmosphere to give and receive support, share similar experiences, and resolve stressful issues.

Testifying in Court Approximately half the substantiated cases result in criminal charges for the perpetrator, but only about half of those go through prosecution. Because only a small portion of cases actually proceed to trial, only a very small percentage of youths actually testify. The often long delays in court proceedings can be frustrating for families and delay recovery because of the continued need to face the situation in what can be challenging and stressful circumstances. Fortunately, participation in such legal proceedings does not appear to regularly lead to longer-term adjustment problems, and for some children and families participation has positive benefits (e.g., feelings of closure). In response to the stressors caused by the court process, as well as the need for child witnesses to participate appropriately during proceedings, court preparation programs are increasingly available for sexually abused youths. The goals of court preparation include making the experience less stressful, helping the child understand the proceedings, improving the child’s ability to participate accurately and truthfully, and increasing the likelihood that the child will be seen as a credible witness. Court preparation procedures familiarize children with court participants, processes, and terms; inform children of their rights and obligations and the arrangements of the courtroom; and teach stress management strategies, such as deep breathing and desensitization. Although not well established by research, court preparation programs are believed by prosecutors to be effective, and families and professionals working with the children find them useful. In addition to preparation programs, courts have implemented other practices to help protect children, including “vertical prosecution,” where one prosecutor deals with the case from investigation through trial and keeps in regular contact with the child and its family. Victim advocates also provide support and information throughout the often long, complicated process. Courts have allowed modifications to make testifying less stressful and aid in gaining attention and participation. For example, some courts allow a child to hold a teddy bear or a doll while testifying to help the child feel comfortable, seat the child in a less intimidating location within the courtroom, or allow the child to testify with a screen that blocks the child’s view of the defendant or via closed-circuit television (CCTV) from an adjacent

room. Although many states have enacted statutes to allow CCTV testimony, it has not been widely used because of the lack of availability of the equipment in court rooms, concerns about legal challenges, and beliefs about the value of in-person testimony. David J. Hansen and Kathryn R. Wilson See also Child Maltreatment; Children’s Testimony; False Memories; Sex Offender Treatment; Sex Offender Typologies

Further Readings

Cronch, L. E., Viljoen, J. L., & Hansen, D. J. (2006). Forensic interviewing in child sexual abuse cases: Current techniques and future directions. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 11, 195–207. Finkelhor, D., & Jones, L. M. (2004, January). Explanations for the decline in child sexual abuse cases (Juvenile Justice Bulletin). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Kalichman, S. C. (1999). Mandated reporting of suspected child abuse: Ethics, law, and policy (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Myers, J. E. B., Berliner, L., Briere, J., Hendrix, C. T., Jenny, C., & Reid, T. A. (Eds.). (2002). The APSAC handbook on child maltreatment (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Saywitz, K., Mannarino, A., Berliner, L., & Cohen, J. (2000). Treatment for sexually abused children and adolescents. The American Psychologist, 55, 1040–1049. Wolfe, V. V. (2006). Child sexual abuse. In E. J. Mash & R. A. Barkley (Eds.), Treatment of childhood disorders (3rd ed., pp. 647–727). New York: Guilford Press.

CIVIL COMMITMENT Civil commitment is the legal process under which individuals with mental illness may be subjected to involuntary hospitalization. This entry discusses the impact and consequences of commitment, the justifications for the resulting intrusion on liberty, the statutory criteria for commitment, and the constitutional requirements that underlie them. It examines the requirement that candidates for commitment must be mentally ill or disordered and the psychiatric conditions that will qualify. It then considers the requirement of functional impairment imposed by these statutes and the Constitution, including incompetency

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in the case of parens patriae criteria and volitional impairment in the case of police power criteria. It also discusses the kinds of danger that may satisfy police power criteria, the degree of imminence of such danger that is required, and the methods used by clinical evaluators in predicting dangerousness. It then considers the medical appropriateness and least restrictive alternative requirements for commitment. It concludes by discussing the procedural due process hearing requirements for commitment.

The Impact and Consequences of Civil Commitment In the past 50 years, the use of civil commitment has been reduced. The census of public mental hospitals in 1955 was around 550,000. The policy of deinstitutionalization, the shift of the locus of care from the hospital to the community, and the tightening of civil commitment criteria have reduced our reliance on involuntary hospitalization. Only about 55,000 patients are now hospitalized on any particular day. However, patients once spent long periods and sometimes an entire lifetime in the hospital, whereas most patients today are discharged after 30 days or less, and many within as few as 5 days. For many patients, civil commitment has become a revolving door, whereby they experience several periods of hospitalization each year. Civil commitment thus continues to affect a large number of patients, even if the duration of hospitalization has been dramatically reduced. Civil commitment results in a massive curtailment of liberty. It intrudes on the fundamental interest in being free of external restraint. Patients are subjected to detailed regulation of their every activity, and they are forced to submit to various forms of intrusive treatment, including psychotropic medication, which may cause severe and unwanted side effects that are lasting. Involuntary hospitalization also imposes a severe stigma, which produces continued social and occupational disabilities long after discharge. As a result, the criteria for involuntary hospitalization have been limited, and the procedural protections required before it may be imposed have been expanded.

Justifications for Civil Commitment There are two justifications for civil commitment. The first is the government’s police power interest in protecting the community from those who are predicted to

be dangerous as a result of their mental illness. The second is the parens patriae interest in protecting the best interests of those whose illness deprives them of the ability to make rational decisions on their own behalf concerning their need for hospitalization and treatment. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process clauses place substantive and procedural limitations on governmental deprivations of liberty. At a minimum, such deprivations may not be arbitrary or purposeless. Because the liberty interest in being free of external restraint is a fundamental constitutional right, an exceedingly heavy burden of justification is placed on the government. To satisfy constitutional requirements, civil commitment thus must be justified as being necessary to accomplish one or more compelling governmental interests. The state’s police power and parens patriae power interests are both compelling and in appropriate cases, therefore, will justify commitment. These two justifications are reflected in typical civil commitment statutory criteria. The individual will be entitled to a hearing at which the state must demonstrate satisfaction of the criteria and show that there is no less intrusive alternative method of achieving the government’s interests in protecting the individual or the community. Then, commitment may be authorized for a limited time period.

Civil Commitment Statutory Criteria Commitment statutes typically begin by requiring “mental illness or disability” but define these terms imprecisely or circularly. Often these illnesses or disabilities are described as “significant, severe, substantial, or gross impairments.” Some conditions are expressly excluded from coverage, notably mental retardation, epilepsy, developmental disabilities, drug addiction, and alcoholism. Sometimes antisocial personality disorder is excluded. In practice, clinicians applying these definitions typically limit hospitalization to those with schizophrenia, major affective depression, or bipolar disorder. Other psychiatric diagnoses are sometimes thought of as justifying at least brief hospitalization—borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, reactive depression, and anorexia nervosa, for example, at least when the patient is in crisis. In addition to requiring mental illness, state civil commitment statutes typically specify some degree of functional impairment resulting from such illness. An overwhelming majority of statutes use the phrase

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“dangerous to self or others.” The avoidance of danger to self constitutes an application of the state’s parens patriae power; the avoidance of danger to others constitutes an expression of its police power in protecting the community from harm. Parens patriae commitment is paternalistic in nature. It is based on the inability of the individual, as a result of mental illness, to understand the need for care and treatment in a hospital. The purpose is to protect the individual from harm and to improve his or her health. This form of commitment contemplates both that the individual suffers from a cognitive impairment that significantly impairs rational decision making and that hospitalization would be in his or her best interests. An essential aspect of parens patriae commitment is the incompetency of the patient. Yet some state statutes fail to explicitly require a determination of incompetency. Because such incompetency is a historic requirement for invocation of the parens patriae power, however, courts will read this requirement into the statute to satisfy constitutional requirements. Publicly labeling an individual as incompetent is stigmatizing, and it often imposes negative self-attributional effects on the patient that may undermine performance and motivation and cause a form of depression. As a result, incompetency should be narrowly defined, and a presumption should exist in favor of competency. Many state statutes so provide. The concept of competency is rarely defined with precision. It typically requires the ability to make a decision, understand treatment information, rationally manipulate it, and appreciate the implications and consequences of alternative options. Requiring a high level of ability in these respects, however, seems unreasonable, particularly since many patients who are not mentally ill lack these abilities. Mental illness alone, even schizophrenia, does not equate with incompetence. Many patients with mental illness requiring hospitalization will possess sufficient competence to make the decision for themselves. Only if they have been determined to be so grossly impaired cognitively that their decisions are not worthy of respect should patients be found sufficiently incompetent to justify parens patriae commitment. Commitment based on dangerousness to others constitutes an application of the state’s police power interest in protecting the community. Some people suffering from mental illness may be dangerous to others. Dangerousness alone cannot justify commitment,

however—many people are dangerous but not mentally ill. We typically use the criminal sanction to deal with such dangerousness, requiring an adjudication of guilt before punishment may be applied. Only rarely in our constitutional system is preventive detention permitted. Police power civil commitment is one of these rare exceptions. In addition to dangerousness, it must be shown that the individual’s mental disability significantly impairs the ability to control his or her behavior. In the context of sex offender civil commitment, the Supreme Court has required that to justify commitment, the individual’s disability must make it difficult to control behavior. To justify civil commitment on police power grounds, it therefore must be shown that the individual’s mental disability seriously diminishes volitional control. This requirement is not reflected in typical civil commitment statutes, but courts will mandate it as a constitutional matter. To meet the criteria for police power commitment, the individual must be both mentally ill and predicted to be dangerous. State statutes frequently are ambiguous concerning the degree of dangerousness that must be found to exist. As a constitutional matter, such dangerousness should be predicted to be likely to occur within a reasonable time in order to justify hospitalization, and the danger to be avoided must be sufficiently serious to justify this significant intrusion on liberty. Involuntary hospitalization is not justified merely to protect the community from the inconvenience or personal offense of being confronted by someone with mental illness. The danger to be avoided must be a serious one. Certainly, the prevention of physical injury would qualify. Some state statutes permit commitment based on danger to property alone, either expressly or by leaving the term dangerousness undefined. Some civil commitment statutes require that the danger to be prevented be imminent, but many do not. Some courts have imposed an imminence requirement, but others have declined to do so. When dangerousness is the basis for commitment, it must be supported by the testimony of clinical expert witnesses who have evaluated the individual. Clinical prediction of dangerousness, however, is probably accurate in no more than one out of every two cases. In recent years, risk assessment instruments have increasingly been used to supplement and anchor clinical prediction, thereby producing a higher degree of accuracy.

92———Classification of Violence Risk (COVR)

The Medical Appropriateness Requirement

When an individual is not mentally ill and when hospitalization is not therapeutically appropriate, hospitalization should not be permitted as a matter of due process (Winick, 2005). Even though many state civil commitment statutes may not explicitly require this determination, they often will condition commitment on its being in the “best interests” of the individual or require a finding that hospitalization is appropriate in the circumstances. In any event, this limitation would seem to be required as a matter of due process. Unless the individual suffers from a treatable mental disorder, psychiatric hospitalization should not be permitted. The Least Restrictive Alternative Principle

Even if a police power or parens patriae power rationale justifies civil commitment, hospitalization must also be found to be the least restrictive means of accomplishing the state’s interests in protecting the individual or the community. This limitation is mandated by due process, as well as by a majority of state commitment statutes. Under this principle, the court must consider whether less restrictive community placements are available for the individual that would suffice to meet his and the community’s needs. Moreover, even if hospitalization is deemed to be required, once the individual’s needs can be met through community treatment, the least restrictive alternative principle would require conditional release from the hospital to such community treatment. Hospitalization should be resorted to only if it is necessary. When its purposes can be accomplished through outpatient treatment, partial hospitalization, or other forms of treatment in the community, the significant deprivation of liberty that hospitalization represents would be inappropriate.

constitutionally required as a matter of procedural due process. State statutes typically describe the procedures that must be followed at the hearing. These include notice and a formal hearing before involuntary hospitalization may be authorized, or shortly thereafter when commitment is sought on an emergency basis. They also include the right to have an appointed attorney, the right to have a fair and impartial judge or hearing examiner, and the right to be present. The state must bear the burden of persuasion by clear and convincing evidence. Even though state statutes require a fairly formal adversarial judicial hearing, in practice these hearings tend to be brief and informal rituals at which the judge seems overwhelmingly to defer to the state’s expert witnesses. Rather than playing the adversarial role contemplated by due process, some attorneys engage in only perfunctory advocacy, with the result that the process often appears to the patient to be a farce and a sham. This undermines the purposes of due process— to increase accuracy and allow a sense of participation. The result can be an affront to the patient’s dignity, producing the feeling that he or she has been treated in bad faith, with potentially negative consequences for the efficacy of hospitalization and treatment. As a result, considerations of therapeutic jurisprudence would suggest that to the extent these practices continue to exist, they be altered in ways designed to achieve the participatory and dignitary value of due process. Bruce J. Winick See also Forcible Medication; Mental Health Law; Patient’s Rights; Risk Assessment Approaches; Sex Offender Civil Commitment; Therapeutic Jurisprudence

Further Readings

Winick, B. J. (2005). Civil commitment: A therapeutic jurisprudence model. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

The Civil Commitment Hearing The commitment criteria will be applied at a hearing before a judge or a hearing examiner, where the state will have the burden of persuasion concerning satisfaction of these standards. At the hearing, the individual will be given the opportunity to cross-examine the state’s clinical experts and submit his or her own expert witnesses and other evidence in rebuttal of the state’s case. These and other procedural elements are

CLASSIFICATION OF VIOLENCE RISK (COVR) The Classification of Violence Risk (COVR) is an interactive software program designed to estimate the risk that an acute psychiatric patient will be violent to

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others over the next several months. Using a laptop or a desktop computer, COVR guides the evaluator through a brief chart review and a 10-minute interview with the patient. COVR generates a report that places the patient’s violence risk in one of five categories—ranging from a 1% likelihood of violence in the first category to a 76% likelihood of violence in the highest category, including the confidence interval for the given risk estimate. The software was constructed from data generated in the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study. In brief, more than 1,000 patients in acute civil psychiatric facilities were assessed on 134 potential risk factors for violent behavior. Patients were followed for 20 weeks in the community after discharge from the hospital, and their violence to others was assessed. The software is capable of assessing the 40 risk factors for violence that emerged as most predictive of violence in the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study, but in any given case, it assesses only those risk factors necessary to classify the patient’s violence risk. To combine risk factors into a preliminary estimate of risk, the COVR relies on “classification tree” methodology. This approach allows many different combinations of risk factors to classify a person as high or low risk. Based on a sequence established by the classification tree, a first question is asked of all persons being assessed. Contingent on the answer to that question, one or other second question is posed, and so on. The classification tree process is repeated until each person is classified into a final risk category. This “interaction” model contrasts with the more typical “main effects” approach to structured risk assessment, such as the one used by the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide, in which a common set of questions is asked of everyone being assessed, and every answer is weighted and summed to produce a score that can be used for the purpose of obtaining an overall estimate of risk. The authors of the COVR administered the newly developed software to independent samples of acute civil inpatients at two sites. Patients classified by the software as high or low risk for violence were followed in the community for 20 weeks after discharge. Expected rates of violence in the low- and high-risk groups were 1% and 64%, respectively. Observed rates of violence in the low- and high-risk groups were 9% and 35%, respectively, when a strict definition of violence was used and 9% and 49%, respectively, when a slightly more inclusive definition of violence was used. These results indicated that software

incorporating the multiple iterative classification tree models may be helpful to clinicians who are faced with making decisions about discharge planning for acute civil inpatients. In the view of its authors, the COVR software is useful in informing, but not in replacing, clinical decision making regarding risk assessment. The authors recommend a two-phased violence risk assessment procedure, in which a patient is first administered the COVR and then the preliminary risk estimate generated by the COVR is reviewed by the clinician ultimately responsible for making the risk assessment in the context of additional information believed to be relevant and gathered from clinical interviews, significant others, and/or available records. Although clinical review would not revise or “adjust” the structured risk estimate produced by the COVR, and could in principle either improve or lessen predictive accuracy as compared with relying solely on an unreviewed COVR score, the authors of the COVR believed it essential to allow for such a review, for two reasons. The first reason has to do with possible limits on the generalizability of the validity of the software. For example, is the predictive validity of the COVR generalizable to Native Americans, to forensic patients, to people outside the United States, to people who are less than 18 years old, or to the emergency room assessments of persons who have not been hospitalized recently? The predictive validity of this instrument may well generalize widely. Yet there comes a point at which the sample to which a structured risk assessment instrument is applied differs so much from the sample on which the instrument was constructed and validated that legitimate questions can be raised regarding the generalizability of the validity of the instrument. The second reason given in defense of allowing a clinician the option to review structured risk estimates is that the clinician may note the presence of rare risk or protective factors in a given case and these factors—precisely because they are rare—will not have been taken into account in the construction of the structured instrument. In the context of structured instruments for assessing violence risk, the most frequently mentioned rare risk factor is a direct threat— that is, an apparently serious statement of intention to do violence to a named victim. John Monahan See also HCR–20 for Violence Risk Assessment; MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study; Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG); Violence Risk Assessment

94———Clothing Bias in Identification Procedures

Further Readings

Monahan, J., Steadman, H., Appelbaum, P., Grisso, T., Mulvey, E., Roth, L., et al. (2005). The classification of violence risk. Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Monahan, J., Steadman, H., Appelbaum, P., Grisso, T., Mulvey, E., Roth, L., et al. (2007). The classification of violence risk. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 24, 721–730. Monahan, J, Steadman, H., Robbins, P., Appelbaum, P., Banks, S., Grisso, T., et al. (2005). An actuarial model of violence risk assessment for persons with mental disorders. Psychiatric Services, 56, 810–815.

CLOTHING BIAS IN IDENTIFICATION PROCEDURES A bias in an identification procedure is any factor— other than recognition—that leads witnesses to select a person. Clothing bias can occur whenever someone is viewed in an identification procedure wearing clothing that matches the witness’s description of the clothing worn during the crime. A witness may mistakenly select the suspect based on the clothing rather than the physical appearance of the person. Although there is limited research to date, clothing bias has been demonstrated to occur with all three commonly used identification techniques: mug-shot searches, lineups, and showups (the presentation of a single suspect to an eyewitness for identification purposes). This entry will review why clothing bias is a concern for these three procedures and the ways to prevent it. Findings to date demonstrate that for adult witnesses, clothing bias generally does not affect correct identification rates for mug-shot searches, lineups, or showups. Correct identification rates increase for children in the presence of clothing bias. As with many biases, clothing bias dramatically increases the rate of false positive choices (i.e., identifications of innocent people). This increase in false identifications has been demonstrated with adults for all three identification procedures and with children for lineups. With mug-shot searches, innocent people may be chosen simply because they happen to be wearing clothing that matches what the perpetrator was wearing. This is problematic because people identified from mug shots are often treated as suspects in the absence of any definitive proof of their innocence

(e.g., a strong alibi). Mug-shot searches are hard to protect from clothing bias because the pictures already exist. To control the clothing for future mug shots, the police could take mug shots of people dressed in standard clothing (e.g., large, loose coveralls) or take pictures from the neck up to hide the clothing worn. To control the clothing in extant mug shots, the photographs could be altered (edited) to cover up (mask) clothing or reveal only the head. Clothing bias is of great concern in a lineup. If the suspect is the only lineup member wearing clothing similar to the perpetrator’s, the suspect will stand out in the lineup—a clear source of lineup bias. Additionally, if the witness selects the suspect, the police and prosecutors may treat the identification and the match between the witness’s description of the clothing and the suspect’s attire as corroborating evidence of the suspect’s guilt. The logic of corroboration is flawed in such cases because the identification and the clothing are not independent sources of evidence if clothing bias exists in the identification procedure. To protect a lineup from clothing bias, the clothing of all lineup members, including the suspect, should not match the description of the perpetrator’s clothing given by the witness. Ideally, the lineup would consist of only head shots, or all lineup members would be dressed alike. Corroborating evidence can be obtained by creating clothing lineups and asking witnesses to attempt to identify the clothing independently of the person. Sequential lineup presentation has been shown to reduce the size of the clothing bias effect. Showups generally occur shortly after the crime occurs. Police investigators often will use the description provided by a witness to search the immediate area for potential suspects. Since the descriptions provided by witnesses rarely are detailed enough to ensure that only the perpetrator matches the description and because clothing information often forms a substantial and distinctive portion of the information provided in descriptions, clothing cues are likely to be an important factor in apprehending suspects who appear in showups. As a result, many suspects are likely to have been apprehended near the scene of the crime, shortly after it occurred, and because their clothing was at least a reasonable match to the witness’s description of the perpetrator’s clothing. This can result in witnesses viewing suspects wearing clothes that closely match the description they provided, which can in turn lead to false identifications of innocent suspects. Even when the witness’s description of the clothing is incorrect, innocent suspects

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wearing clothing that matches the inaccurate description are at heightened risk of both apprehension and false identification. Suspects in showups wearing distinctive clothing (e.g., shirts or jackets with logos) are at greater risk of false identification due to clothing bias than those wearing common clothing (e.g., plain white T-shirts). To protect a showup from clothing bias, the suspect should not wear clothes that match the description of the perpetrator’s clothing. Sometimes it is not possible to change a suspect’s clothing for showups, (e.g., when they are conducted live at the scene of a crime). In this case, the clothing of suspects could be covered in some way, such as having a blanket covering their body, so as to prevent their clothing from being a cue to the witness. However, this method has not been tested, so its effects on identification decisions are currently not known. Conviction of innocent people for crimes can be the result of clothing bias during identification procedures. Identifications should be based on recognition of a person, not the clothing they are wearing. Clothing bias is a concern for the three commonly used methods of identification: mug shot, lineup, and showup. Michelle I. Bertrand, Jennifer L. Beaudry, Jamal K. Mansour, and R. C. L. Lindsay See also Estimator and System Variables in Eyewitness Identification; Identification Tests, Best Practices in; Lineup Size and Bias; Mug Shots; Showups; Simultaneous and Sequential Lineup Presentation

Further Readings

Dysart, J. E., Lindsay, R. C. L., & Dupuis, P. R. (2006). Show-ups: The critical issue of clothing bias. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 1009–1023. Lindsay, R. C. L., Nosworthy, G. J., Martin, R., & Martynuck, C. (1994). Using mug shots to find suspects. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 121–130. Lindsay, R. C. L., Wallbridge, H., & Drennan, D. (1987). Do the clothes make the man? An exploration of the effect of lineup attire on eyewitness identification accuracy. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 19, 463–478.

conducting information-gathering interviews, and they make avoidable mistakes. To rectify this situation, Ronald Fisher and Edward Geiselman developed the Cognitive Interview (CI) procedure to collect information from cooperative witnesses. The CI techniques are based on scientific principles of cognitive and social psychology and are intended to facilitate witness memory and communication between the witness and the interviewer. Laboratory and field tests have shown that the CI increases considerably the amount of information obtained from witnesses while maintaining high accuracy. This entry describes the core elements of the CI, empirical tests to validate the procedure, and its various applications and limitations. Police investigators depend heavily on eyewitness evidence to solve crimes, and they often bemoan the fact that witnesses do not provide as much information as the police expect. Some of this cannot be controlled, as when crimes occur quickly or under poor lighting conditions. Nevertheless, the police do have some control over witness recollection, specifically by the way they conduct interviews. Because many police investigators receive minimal training on how to conduct investigative interviews with cooperative witnesses, they conduct interviews intuitively and make avoidable errors. Studies of police interviews show that they (a) ask too many closed-ended questions (e.g., How tall was the robber?) and too few open-ended questions (e.g., Describe the robber.), (b) often interrupt witnesses in the middle of their narrative descriptions, and (c) frequently ask leading questions. To improve police interviewing procedures, Fisher and Geiselman developed an interview procedure that is based primarily on scientific, laboratory research in cognitive psychology (hence the name Cognitive Interview) and social psychology. The CI attempts to enhance witness recall by addressing three integral components of the interview: (a) developing effective social dynamics between the police interviewer and the witness, (b) enhancing the witness’s memory retrieval and generally facilitating the witness’s and the interviewer’s thought processes, and (c) facilitating communication between the witness and the interviewer. The following is a thumbnail sketch of the CI’s core principles.

Social Dynamics

COGNITIVE INTERVIEW Eyewitness information is the key element in solving many crimes, yet the police are often poorly trained in

As in all small groups, the exchange of information depends on how psychologically comfortable the group members are with one another and each person’s expectations of his or her role in the group.

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Developing Rapport. Witnesses, and especially victims, are often asked to give detailed descriptions of intimate, personal experiences to police officers, who are complete strangers. If anything, the police investigator’s formal appearance (badge, uniform, gun) may create a psychological barrier between the police officer and the witness. To overcome this barrier, police interviewers should invest time at the beginning of the interview to develop a meaningful, personal rapport with the witness, a feature often absent in police interviews.

information. Hence, their performance suffers when they engage in other difficult tasks concurrently. Interviewers can minimize overloading witnesses by asking fewer, but more open-ended, questions. This also makes the interviewer’s task easier by not having to formulate many questions. Interviewers can also promote a more efficient use of witnesses’ limited mental resources by minimizing physical (extraneous noises) and psychological distractions (direct eye contact) during the interview.

Active Witness Participation. The witness has extensive first-hand information about the crime. Therefore, the witness, and not the interviewer, should be doing most of the mental work. In practice, however, police interviewers often dominate the social interaction with witnesses by asking many questions that elicit only brief answers. This relegates witnesses to a passive role, waiting for the police to ask questions. Interviewers can induce witnesses to take a more active role by (a) explicitly requesting them to do so, (b) asking openended questions, (c) not interrupting witnesses during their narrative responses, and (d) constructing the social dynamic so that witnesses perceive themselves to be the “experts” and therefore the dominant person in the conversation. The last point is especially important when interviewing children.

Witness-Compatible Questioning. Each witness’s mental record of an event is unique. Some witnesses may have focused on the perpetrator’s face, whereas others may have focused on the weapon. Interviewers should tailor their questions to each witness’s unique perceptions during the crime, instead of asking all witnesses the same set of questions. Interviewers often violate this rule by using a standardized checklist of questions for all witnesses. The accessibility of event details varies during the course of the interview as the witness’s mental images change. Event details will be most accessible when they are perceptually related to the witness’s current mental image. Therefore, interviewers should be sensitive to the witness’s currently active mental image and ask questions that are compatible with that image.

Memory and Cognition

Multiple and Varied Retrieval. The more often witnesses search through their memories of the crime, the more new details they will recall. Interviewers can make use of this principle by (a) asking witnesses to describe the critical event several times during the interview and (b) interviewing witnesses on two or more occasions. If witnesses attempt to recall the target event repeatedly, they should be directed to think about the event in various ways, since different retrieval cues will activate different aspects of a complex event. For instance, interviewers might encourage witnesses to describe the crime both visually (describe what the people and objects looked like) and temporally (describe the sequence of events).

Both the witness and the interviewer are engaged in demanding cognitive tasks: The witness is attempting to recall and describe in detail a complex event; the interviewer is listening to the witness’s response, generating and testing hypotheses about the crime, formulating questions, and notating the witness’s answers. Because these tasks are cognitively demanding, the witness’s and the interviewer’s cognitive resources must be used efficiently. Context Reinstatement. Retrieving information from memory is most efficient when the context of the original event is re-created at the time of recall. Interviewers should therefore instruct witnesses to mentally recreate their cognitive and emotional states that existed at the time of the original event (What were your thoughts and emotions during the crime?). Limited Mental Resources. Witnesses and interviewers have only limited mental resources to process

Minimizing Constructive Recall. Witnesses may construct memories of a crime by incorporating information derived from other sources—for example, the media, other witnesses, or even the interviewer. Interviewers should therefore be careful about not leaking information to witnesses either nonverbally (e.g., by smiling or paying increased attention when the

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witness makes a particular statement) or verbally (by asking leading or suggestive questions, e.g., Was it a red car?). Accuracy of Response. To promote high accuracy, interviewers should explicitly instruct witnesses not to guess; rather, witnesses should indicate that they “don’t know.” Interviewers should also refrain from applying social pressure on witnesses or otherwise encouraging them to answer questions whose answers they are unsure of. This is particularly important when interviewing children.

Communication For police interviews to be effective, the investigators must communicate their investigative needs to the witness. Witnesses must also communicate their knowledge of the crime to the investigator. Ineffective communication will lead witnesses to withhold valuable information or provide irrelevant, imprecise, or incorrect answers. Promoting Extensive, Detailed Responses. Police interviews require witnesses to describe people, objects, and actions in more detail than civilians normally do in casual conversation. To promote such extraordinary descriptions, police officers should convey explicitly their need for extensive detail, which they rarely do. Sometimes witnesses withhold information because they mistakenly believe that it is not relevant for a police investigation. To minimize witnesses’ withholding valuable information, interviewers should instruct witnesses to report everything they think about, whether it is trivial, whether it is out of chronological order, or even if it contradicts a statement made earlier. Investigators often direct witnesses to provide relevant information by asking many specific, shortanswer questions about investigatively relevant topics— for example, the perpetrator’s age, height, or weapon. This questioning style minimizes irrelevant information, but at the cost of minimizing unsolicited information and sometimes inducing incorrect responses. Rather than asking many specific questions, interviewers should explicitly instruct witnesses to generate descriptive narratives, without waiting for the interviewer to ask questions. Code-Compatible Output. Interviewers and respondents often exchange ideas using only the verbal

medium. Some people, however, are more expressive nonverbally, and some events are better described nonverbally. Ideally, the response format should be compatible with the witness’s mental record of the event. If an event is inherently spatial (e.g., the location of objects within a room), then witnesses should respond spatially—for example, by drawing a sketch of the room. In general, encouraging witnesses to sketch out the crime scene should promote more extensive recall.

Sequence of the Cognitive Interview The CI follows a designated order intended to maximize the effectiveness of the individual techniques. The recommended sequence is common to many interviewing protocols in that it progresses from asking openended questions to more specific follow-up probes. The CI is divided into five sections: introduction, openended narration, probing for details, review, and closing the interview. The introduction establishes the appropriate psychological states and interpersonal dynamics to promote efficient memory and communication during the remainder of the interview. The open-ended narration allows the witness to provide an uninterrupted narrative of his or her recollection of the crime. The interviewer follows up by probing information-rich images, initially with framed, open-ended questions and then with more specific probes. When all the information has been collected, the interviewer reviews the witness’s statement to clarify any ambiguities and to resolve any contradictions. Finally, the investigator closes the interview by collecting official information (e.g., contact information) and encouraging the witness to contact him or her in the future. Although this is the optimal sequence, interviews invariably deviate from this plan as unexpected conditions arise. In that regard, the CI is more of a general guideline for conducting an interview rather than a fixed recipe.

Empirical Testing to Validate the Cognitive Interview The CI has been examined in approximtely100 laboratory tests, most of which were conducted in the United States, England, Germany, and Australia. In these tests, volunteer witnesses (typically, but not always, college students) observe either a live, nonthreatening event or a film of a simulated crime. Several hours or a few days

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later, the witnesses participate in a face-to-face interview, which is either the CI or a control interview. The control is either a “standard” police interview or a “structured interview,” which incorporates generally accepted principles of interviewing minus those techniques unique to the CI. The interviews are usually taperecorded, transcribed, and then scored for the number of correct statements and incorrect statements. Across these studies, the CI has typically elicited between 25% and 100% more correct statements than standard or structured interviews. This effect is extremely reliable: Of the 55 experiments examined in a recent metaanalysis, 53 experiments found that the CI elicited more information than did the comparison interview (median increase = 34%). Equally important, accuracy was as high or slightly higher in the CI interviews (accuracy rate = .85) than in the comparison interviews (.82). All the above studies were conducted in the laboratory, with nonthreatening events. Two other studies have examined the CI with victims and witnesses of real-world crimes. In both of these studies, one conducted in Miami and one in London, some experienced police detectives received training to use the CI and other experienced detectives did not receive such training. In both studies, the CI-trained police investigators elicited considerably more information than did the untrained investigators (approximately 50% more in the U.S. study). Although most of the empirical testing has been conducted on normal, healthy adults, several studies have examined the CI’s effectiveness on unusual populations, including young children, the elderly, and those with cognitive deficits. Naturally, healthy college students remembered more than these other populations. However, the CI was equally effective with all the groups, enhancing their recollections by approximately the same amount. Some have questioned the advisability of using the CI with very young children, under the age of 5 years. Most empirical studies have tested witness recall within a few hours or a few days of the critical event. Some studies, however, have shown the CI to enhance witness recall after several months, and one study even showed a very large benefit after 35 years. The CI has been demonstrated to work effectively in a variety of investigative interviews in addition to criminal investigation—for example, accident or public health investigation. It has not, however, been effective in identification tasks: Witnesses given a CI prior to an identification test (e.g., lineup) were

no more accurate than witnesses given a control interview.

Practical Issues Given the success of the CI in laboratory and field experiments, how does it fare in real-world investigations? The CI has been used successfully to solve several cases, including a kidnapping, a politically motivated bombing, and child molestation. Recently, an investigator from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms reported conducting a CI with a 38-yearold woman who had witnessed a homicide as a 5-year old child. The interview elicited scores of recollections, many of which were corroborated by police records established at the time of the crime (e.g., the location of objects and furniture at the crime scene). Offsetting these successes, the British police reported that the complete CI was sometimes difficult to implement. They noted difficulty in communicating to witnesses some of the CI’s mnemonic instructions. Other police officers have reported that using the complete CI frequently requires more time than is available, and so they often use only some of the component techniques.

Other Investigative Tasks Although the CI was developed initially to facilitate witness memory of a crime, the technique has been shown to be effective in other interview settings. Two such applications of the CI are interviewing suspects and debriefing jurors after deliberation. Detecting Deception. Some research shows that the CI facilitates detecting whether a suspect’s testimony is truthful or deceptive. Two CI components that enhance detecting deception are asking open-ended information-gathering questions (vs. accusatory questions) and encouraging suspects to take an active role. These techniques generate longer responses from suspects, thereby permitting more opportunities to identify verbal and nonverbal cues to deception, and also allow interviewers to detect the different response strategies used by truth tellers and liars. In addition, asking suspects to describe events in different sequential orders (notably, reverse order) is particularly difficult for liars. Debriefing Jurors. Reconstructing a jury deliberation session after a trial should assist attorneys to evaluate

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their trial strategies. A recent study examined the CI’s efficiency in reconstructing a related decision-making task (asking a small group of people to discuss business practices that entailed ethical decisions). The CI was modified slightly to account for group decision making (considering the social dynamics of the group). Compared with the conventional method of debriefing group members, the CI elicited considerably more information and at a very high accuracy rate. Interestingly, the CI also elicited extensive information about the individual members’ thought processes during the earlier decision-making task.

Court did not mention the CI in its ruling, the ultimate decision was compatible with the information elicited by the CI. The second case entailed a pretrial hearing in California, in which the prosecution used evidence that had been elicited by a police officer trained in conducting the CI. The defense attorney claimed that the CI was similar to hypnosis and that it promoted inaccurate eyewitness testimony. (As noted earlier, accuracy is equivalent or slightly higher with the CI compared with conventional interviews, the opposite of the pattern with hypnosis.) The judge ruled against the defense’s objection to the CI and permitted the CI-elicited testimony to stand.

Componential Analysis Although tests of the CI show that the technique, as a whole, is effective, only a few studies have isolated individual component techniques to determine which ones are effective. The results suggest that (a) each component contributes to the overall CI effect, but (b) the relative contribution of each component varies across conditions. For instance, context reinstatement is more effective when much time has passed between the original event and the interview, whereas nonverbal (code compatible) output is more effective when interviewing people with limited verbal skills.

Legal Challenges Although the CI has been found reliably to enhance witness recollection, could it be unacceptable for forensic use? The following patterns of results suggest that the CI should be legally acceptable: (a) CI-elicited recollections are as accurate as, or slightly more accurate than, recollections from conventional interviews; (b) the CI does not render witnesses overly suggestible to leading questions—if anything, witnesses are less suggestible when interviewed with the CI; (c) witness confidence and witness credibility are not affected by the CI; (d) CI interviewers are perceived to be less manipulative than conventional interviewers; and (e) there is no carry-over effect in a preliminary interview of the type of interview conducted (CI or conventional) on the witness’s later testimony. There have been two court cases in which the CI was at issue. In a case heard by the National Court of Appeal in London (England), an earlier decision was overturned based on information collected from a witness who provided a very detailed account of the crime when interviewed with the CI. Although the

Training in the CI There is considerable variation across locations in the training the police receive to conduct interviews with cooperative witnesses. Several countries in Europe (England, Sweden, Norway) provide instruction in the CI as part of their basic training to all police investigators. Some regional police-training programs within the United States, Canada, and Australia also provide training in the CI, although (a) many police departments do not provide any training at all and (b) among those that do provide training in the CI, there is considerable variation in the quality. CI training is more standardized and more rigorous among some of the federal investigative agencies in the United States (e.g., FBI, National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB]). Adequate training in the CI requires, in addition to lectures and demonstration, ample opportunity for trainees to practice the techniques and receive critical feedback. Feedback from investigators has been very encouraging, especially with major, complex crimes and accidents, where the investigator has the luxury of time and resources to conduct thorough interviews. Ronald Fisher and Nathalie Castano See also Detection of Deception: Cognitive Load; Eyewitness Memory; Hypnosis and Eyewitness Memory; Identification Tests, Best Practices in; Instructions to the Witness; Jury Deliberation

Further Readings

Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-enhancing techniques in investigative interviewing: The cognitive interview. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.

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Fisher, R. P., Geiselman, R. E., & Amador, M. (1989). Field test of the cognitive interview: Enhancing the recollection of actual victims and witnesses of crime. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 722–727. Fisher, R. P., & Schreiber, N. (2007). Interviewing protocols to improve eyewitness memory. In M. Toglia, R. Lindsay, D. Ross, & J. Reed (Eds.), The handbook of eyewitness psychology: Vol. 1. Memory for events (pp. 53–80). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Geiselman, R. E., & Fisher, R. P. (1997). Ten years of cognitive interviewing. In D. G. Payne & R. G. Conrad (Eds.), A synthesis of basic and applied approaches to human memory (pp. 291–310). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Kebbell, M.-R., Milne, R., & Wagstaff, G.-F. (1999). The cognitive interview: A survey of its forensic effectiveness. Psychology, Crime and Law, 5(1–2), 101–115. Koehnken, G., Milne, R., Memon, A., & Bull, R. (1999). The cognitive interview: A meta-analysis. Psychology, Crime and Law, 5, 3–27.

COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS Over the past 15 years, the number of people under correctional supervision in the United States has more than doubled. Most of this growth is attributable to the rapidly expanding probation population, which recently reached an all-time high of more than 4 million offenders. In fact, the vast majority of all offenders under correctional supervision are supervised in the community on probation (58%) or parole (11%). Despite their rehabilitative roots, community corrections have been heavily oriented toward surveillance over the past quarter-century. However, high rates of recidivism among supervisees have prompted calls for accountability and use of evidence-based supervision. Substantial evidence indicates that surveillance models that focus exclusively on offender control are less effective than hybrid models that focus on both offender control and offender rehabilitation. For the at-risk population of supervisees with mental disorder, evidence suggests that specialty caseloads are a promising practice. Despite these clearly defined contours of evidence-based practice, most agencies are merely at the cusp of reintroducing rehabilitation in supervision. The process of doing so is likely to be slow but will be facilitated by (a) the use of new risk management technology and (b) gradual shifts in organizational values, hiring practices, and training, to

create a significant cadre of officers with hybrid orientations. Officers influence outcomes more powerfully than the programs they ostensibly apply.

Developing Community Corrections and Questioning Its Performance The roots of probation and parole lie more in social casework than law enforcement. Probation began in 1841, when John Augustus posted bail to release a “drunkard” from a Boston jail, worked with the man for 3 weeks toward rehabilitation, and convinced a judge that the man had reformed his ways and should be set free. He went on to bail more than 2,000 offenders and assist them with employment, housing, and other issues. Parole began in 1840, when Alexander Maconochie developed a “mark system” by which prisoners at Norfolk Island could earn early release for good behavior. By the 1860s, this precursor to modern parole had been adopted in the United States. Over the past 150 years, community corrections have traveled a great distance from their rehabilitative roots to embrace the “tough on crime” stance that prevails today. In modern probation and parole, an officer is tasked with (a) protecting community safety by monitoring and enforcing an offender’s compliance with the rules of conditional release from incarceration and, often to a lesser extent, (b) promoting the offender’s rehabilitation with social service referrals such as substance abuse counseling and vocational support. Despite this commonality, probation and parole differ in terms of who is supervised. A probationer is an offender who, on conviction, is typically sentenced directly to a term of community supervision (although a minority of probationers are granted a conditional suspended sentence to incarceration). In contrast, a parolee is convicted of a relatively serious offense, serves a portion of his or her sentence in prison, and is then granted conditional early release to serve the remainder of his or her sentence in the community. Although probation is applied in the federal system and all 50 states, the federal system and at least 15 states have abolished parole in favor of determinant sentencing. The assumption underpinning both probation and parole is that some offenders can be safely maintained in the community and will respond well to the available services. Community supervision is viewed as a cost-effective alternative to incarceration for these

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offenders. Probation or parole can be revoked if an offender commits a new offense or a technical violation of the conditions governing release (e.g., reporting to one’s officer, paying restitution, maintaining employment). Although the type of supervision approach can strongly affect the rate of success (see below), the general success of modern community supervision in preventing crime and facilitating offenders’ reentry into the community is modest. For example, the rates of rearrest over a 2-year period among prisoners released on parole and prisoners released unconditionally are comparable (approximately 60%) once the differences between the two groups in characteristics such as criminal history are controlled. Perhaps given their lower level of risk for re-offense, probationers (59%) are somewhat more likely to successfully complete their term of community supervision than parolees (45%). Nevertheless, many probationers and parolees fail supervision. Among policymakers, such figures have prompted many to issue a call for accountability in community corrections and some to question whether probation and parole should continue to exist in their current form.

Responding to Contemporary Challenges The business of community corrections is challenging. Management has become results driven. Generally, inadequate budgets have tightened. Workloads have grown astronomically in size and complexity. Many offenders have substance dependence disorders and serious mental disorders, which complicates supervision. Others have been convicted of sex offenses and other violent offenses that demand close oversight. The monumental challenge is to cope with a large, complicated workload while improving the effectiveness of supervision—to do “more with less.” Given the staggering diversity across states in the organization and oversight of community supervision, there is no well-defined and homogeneous response to this challenge. Probation and parole are practitioner-led enterprises, with supervision philosophies and practices that vary considerably across agencies and officers. Despite this diversity, a few innovative responses have gained enough traction across agencies to be viewed by William Burrell as “strategic trends.” These trends include creating formal partnerships with community agencies (e.g., drug courts, school-based probation) and

developing specialized caseloads (e.g., for mentally ill offenders, sex offenders). They are underpinned by a larger drive toward reintroducing rehabilitation in supervision and implementing evidence-based risk assessment, risk management, and supervision strategies.

Promoting Evidence-Based Risk Assessment and Risk Management Although many agencies have adopted a standardized assessment of offenders’ risk of criminal recidivism over the past decade, relatively few use these assessments to inform supervision. Nevertheless, several progressive agencies have begun using well-validated measures to (a) inform decisions about whether to release an offender to community supervision, (b) identify an offender’s changeable risk factors for recidivism (e.g., substance abuse) to target in intervention, and (c) monitor changes in an offender’s risk state over time. These measures include the Levels of Services/Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI) and the Classification Assessment and Intervention System (CAIS). The accuracy of the LS/CMI in predicting general recidivism and violent recidivism rivals that of tools that are better known in forensic circles (e.g., the Psychopathy Checklist–Revised). Unlike most forensic tools, both the LS/CMI and the CAIS assess both risk status (interindividual risk compared with other offenders) and risk state (intraindividual risk compared with oneself over time) and guide community supervision from intake to case closure. Moreover, use of the CAIS has been shown to improve outcomes for probationers and parolees. For example, in a study of approximately 44,000 offenders assigned to either CAIS-supported supervision or regular supervision, the rate of revocation for CAIS supervisees was 29% lower than that for traditional supervisees.

Reintroducing Rehabilitation Efforts to Improve Outcomes Increasing empirical support for the “risk-needsresponsivity” (RNR) principle is largely responsible for agencies’ adoption of risk assessment tools and their recognition that rehabilitation should be reintroduced in supervision. Meta-analytic studies show that offenders are considerably (24–54%) less likely to recidivate when programs match the intensity of supervision and treatment services to their level of risk for recidivism (risk principle), match modes of service to

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their abilities and motivation (responsivity principle), and target their criminogenic needs or changeable risk factors for recidivism (need principle). Indeed, the effectiveness of programs is positively associated with the number of criminogenic needs (e.g., attitudes supportive of crime) they target relative to noncriminogenic needs (i.e., disturbances that impinge on functioning in society, such as anxiety). Although the surveillance model of supervision still dominates community corrections, empirical support for the RNR principle is helping a hybrid model of supervision gain ascendance in some progressive agencies. There here has long been tension in community corrections between the goals of protecting community safety (“control”) and promoting offender rehabilitation (“care”). The surveillance model focuses exclusively on control, whereas hybrid models blend control and care. A growing body of research demonstrates the effectiveness of hybrid models relative to surveillance models. For example, a recent metaanalysis indicated that RNR programs significantly reduced recidivism risk (r = .25), whereas surveillance programs that applied sanctions without attending to risk or needs did not (r = −.03). Studies of intensive supervision programs (ISPs) also suggest that rehabilitative efforts should be included in supervision. ISPs were created to reduce prison and jail crowding by having officers with reduced caseloads closely supervise relatively serious offenders in the community with prison-like controls. Traditional ISPs emphasize monitoring virtually to the exclusion of services for offenders. Evaluations of these ISPs robustly indicate that they do not reduce recidivism and sometimes exacerbate (rather than alleviate) prison crowding. For example, in an experiment that involved 14 diverse jurisdictions, offenders were randomly assigned to either traditional supervision or ISP supervision. A meta-analysis of these data indicates that, after excluding the one site in which ISP had a positive effect, ISP increased the likelihood of offenders’ rearrest by 94%. Offenders in ISP were particularly likely to return to prison on technical violations. One might argue that detecting and sanctioning technical violations is an index of the surveillance model’s success in preventing crime. However, there was no evidence that sanctioning technical offenses prevented new arrests. Unlike traditional ISPs, hybrid ISPs yield positive effects. One meta-analysis indicated that ISPs that incorporated treatment (hybrids) reduced recidivism by 22%, whereas ISPs that did not (surveillance) had no effect on recidivism. Based on a matched sample

of 480 parolees, Mario Paparozzi and Paul Gendreau found that those supervised in a hybrid ISP program received significantly more social services (e.g., public assistance) than those in a traditional parole program. Hybrid ISP parolees were substantially less likely to have new convictions (19% vs. 48%) and revocations (38% vs. 59%) than traditional parolees. There is increasing recognition that the manner in which officers implement supervision has powerful effects. For example, Paparozzi and Gendreau classified 12 ISP officers’ supervisory orientation into surveillance, treatment, and hybrid categories. Within ISP, parolees with hybrid officers (19%) were remarkably less likely to have their probation revoked than those with both surveillance (59%) and treatment (38%) officers. In fact, officers’ orientations toward supervision affected parolees’ outcomes more strongly than the particular supervision program applied (i.e., ISP vs. traditional).

Tailoring Responses to Supervisees With Mental Disorder The process of supervision may be especially important for probationers and parolees with mental disorders (PMDs). Both PMDs and their officers describe the quality of their relationship as coloring every interaction and strongly affecting outcomes. There is some support for this notion. In a study of 90 PMDs, Jennifer Skeem and colleagues developed and validated the revised Dual Role Relationship Inventory (DRI–R) to capture relationship dimensions such as caring, fairness, and trust. DRI–R scores related coherently to observers’ codes of officer-probationer interactions during a supervision session and significantly predicted violations and revocation over a 1-year follow-up period. PMDs constitute a large and at-risk population. The prevalence of major mental disorders is 4 to 8 times higher in corrections populations than in the general population. Relative to their nondisordered counterparts, PMDs are twice as likely to fail on probation or parole. PMDs are particularly likely to have supervision revoked for technical violations, perhaps because their reduced level of functioning makes it more difficult for them to comply with standard conditions such as maintaining employment. The vast majority of PMDs have a co-occurring substance abuse disorder, which elevates their risk of rearrest. PMDs present a number of unique challenges to supervising officers, given their pronounced need for

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social services (e.g., housing, social security income) and the mandate that they take psychotropic medication and participate in psychosocial treatment as a special condition of supervision. A number of agencies have responded to these challenges by developing specialty caseloads for PMDs. These caseloads are reduced in size (M = 48), composed exclusively of PMDs, and supervised by an officer interested in mental health. In prototypic specialty agencies, officers advocate for services, participate in the treatment team, and tend to address noncompliance with problem-solving approaches rather than threats of incarceration. Specialty caseloads are a promising if not evidence-based practice. To date, only one relevant randomized controlled trial (RCT) has been conducted: A large matched trial is currently under way. In the RCT, PMDs in specialty probation obtained significantly more mental health services than PMDs in traditional probation, but these increased services did not translate into a reduced risk of jail rebookings during a 1-year follow-up. This echoes other studies suggesting that increased mental health services fail to reduce police contacts and rearrests. This could be because (a) the quality of the mental health services received is poor or (b) mental disorder is not the sole, or even primary, reason for PMDs’ involvement in the crime. The latter notion enjoys some support. Based on a sample of 113 jail detainees with mental disorder, John Junginger and colleagues found that less than 4% had been booked for a crime directly related to their mental disorder. Given that PMDs share risk factors for crime with other offenders, hybrid models for PMDs probably will not meaningfully reduce recidivism unless they go beyond providing mental health services to target these individuals’ criminogenic needs.

The paths toward better achieving this goal include (a) use of a new generation of risk/needs assessment tools such as the LS/CMI and CAIS to direct supervision from intake through case closure, (b) extension of RNR principles to PMDs, and (c) gradual shifts in organizational values, hiring practices, and officer training to produce a larger pool of officers with hybrid orientations. The most meaningful gains likely will be made at the officer level. These gains will be gradual because a generation of officers has grown up with the law enforcement model, without exposure to rehabilitative principles. In the midst of debates about branded programs, we often lose sight of the fact that officers’ orientation toward supervision and their relationships with probationers influence outcomes more strongly than the specific program they ostensibly apply. Jennifer Skeem, Sarah Manchak, and Jennifer Eno Louden See also Conditional Release Programs; Prison Overcrowding; Probation Decisions; Sentencing Decisions; Sentencing Diversion Programs

Further Readings

Andrews, D., Bonta, J., & Wormith, S. (2006). The recent past and near future of risk and/or need assessment. Crime and Delinquency, 52(1), 7–27. Burrell, W. (2005). Trends in probation and parole in the states. Washington, DC: Council of State Governments. Retrieved February 16, 2007, from http://www.appanet.org/ccheadlines/docs/Trends_Probation_Parole.pdf Skeem, J. L., & Manchak, S. (in press). Back to the future: From Klockars’ model of effective supervision to evidence-based practice in probation. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation.

Looking to the Future Evidence robustly indicates that supervision is most effective when it blends care with control. Despite increasing endorsement of rehabilitation efforts, there is little evidence that the hybrid model of supervision is being widely implemented. Surveys indicate that the vast majority of correctional treatment programs do not apply RNR and other principles of evidence-based practice. Similarly, less than 5% of probation agencies have developed specialty mental health caseloads for PMDs, and a significant number of these have pushed caseload size beyond the capacity that can conform to the prototypic hybrid model. Relatively few agencies have moved from a surveillance to a hybrid model.

COMPETENCE ASSESSMENT FOR STANDING TRIAL FOR DEFENDANTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION (CAST*MR) The Competence Assessment for Standing Trial for Defendants With Mental Retardation (CAST*MR) consists of 50 questions and was designed to assess defendants’ understanding of basic legal concepts, ability to assist their attorneys, and ability to relate important information regarding their own legal

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circumstances. Its purpose is to assist forensic evaluators in determining competency in defendants with mental retardation. The CAST*MR demonstrated test-retest reliability and validity in several studies prior to its publication. Competence to stand trial is critical for ensuring due process rights for defendants in the criminal justice system. The doctrine of competence to stand trial has its origins in early English common law and relates to the accepted belief that a defendant cannot be tried in absentia. It is thought that trying an incompetent defendant who cannot understand and participate in the proceedings is equivalent to trying someone in absentia. Hence, competency is essential for due process and fundamental fairness. The criteria for judging competence to stand trial was articulated in the 1960 Supreme Court decision Dusky v. United States. Dusky states that to be competent to stand trial, a defendant must have a “rational and factual understanding of the proceedings” and be able to consult with his or her attorney with a “reasonable degree of rational understanding” (p. 402). Application of the doctrine of competence to stand trial to defendants with mental retardation requires special consideration because of the unique nature of the disability. According to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (previously AAMR), “mental retardation is a disability characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. This disability originates before age 18” (p. 1). Because of the high risk that intellectual and adaptive behavior limitations may negatively affect the necessary elements of competence to stand trial, particular care must be taken to conduct an authentic assessment in order to preserve fairness.

Description of the CAST*MR The CAST*MR was developed by Caroline Everington and Ruth Luckasson to assist forensic evaluators in determining competency in defendants with mental retardation. The first two sections of the CAST*MR consist of 40 multiple-choice questions. This format was chosen as it provides a quick and reliable means of assessing defendants’ understanding. Many persons with mental retardation have difficulty with expressive language and exhibit acquiescence in assessment situations. This format helps correct for those problems. As will be discussed later, CAST*MR results should be

supplemented with additional information relevant to the defendant’s competency and necessary for clinical judgment. The first section, Basic Legal Concepts, contains 25 multiple-choice items and addresses understanding of the roles of key players in the process—for example, judge, attorney, prosecutor, witness—and important procedures such as a plea bargain and trial. In the second section, Skills to Assist in Defense, the defendants are presented with 15 scenarios that involve the choices they must make about their case or when working with their attorneys. This section is also presented in a multiple-choice format. In the final section, Understanding Case Events, the defendants must answer a series of key questions about the circumstances of their arrest and the charges.

CAST*MR Validity and Reliability An expert appraisal process was used to develop items for the instrument. The first versions were field tested with individuals with mental retardation as well as college students. Validation studies were conducted before publication. There have been two primary validation studies conducted on the CAST*MR. Caroline Everington conducted the first study with defendants with and without mental retardation at the pretrial level. In the first study, it was determined that the instrument successfully discriminated between groups of defendants and had an acceptable classification rate. Test-retest reliability and internal consistency analyses yielded acceptable results as well. A second validation study was conducted by Caroline Everington and Charles Dunn using defendants with mental retardation who were referred for evaluations of competence to stand trial. The second study replicated the results of the Everington study. Caroline Everington, Katherine DeBerge, and Daria Mauer, studying adults with mental retardation, found that CAST*MR scores were significantly correlated with language subtests on the WoodcockJohnson Tests of Cognitive Ability and these language tests were good predictors of CAST*MR performance. This finding supports the use of assessments of language ability in competence evaluations involving persons with mental retardation. While there are no findings regarding malingering on the CAST*MR, Caroline Everington, Heidi Notario-Smull, and Mel Horton found that individuals in the higher-IQ range of mental retardation could

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alter their performance when asked to do poorly. These individuals scored lower than a group of defendants with mental retardation who had been evaluated as incompetent to stand trial and the control group of defendants with mental retardation who took the test under standard conditions. This reaffirms the need to supplement scores with additional information.

Appropriate Use of the CAST*MR It is important that competency evaluations of persons with mental retardation include multiple sources of information. A single test score should not be the sole determinant of defendant competency. An evaluation test battery for persons with mental retardation should include an individually administered global test of intelligence and assessments of expressive and receptive language, academic skills, and adaptive behavior. Social history provides additional information on cognitive and academic skills and previous diagnoses. Interviews with key individuals who have known the defendant over time provides information relevant to competency, such as the defendant’s problem-solving and decision-making skills. These sources provide corroborative information that can assist in the interpretation of CAST*MR results. Finally, CAST*MR results should be supported with additional information on the defendant’s psycholegal abilities. Other sources include information gained through questioning in the clinical interview and can include an additional assessment of competence to stand trial. It is important to check for understanding by having the defendant explain concepts in his or her own words. Decisional competency is a critical area for individuals with mental retardation. It is important to query the individual on his or her understanding of the defense strategy and his or her legal options. The CAST*MR is published by IDS in Columbus, Ohio, and is used by evaluators throughout the United States. Caroline Everington and Ruth Luckasson See also Competency, Foundational and Decisional; Competency to Stand Trial; Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty

Further Readings

Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960). Everington, C., DeBerge, K., & Mauer, D. (2001). The relationship between language skills and competence to

stand trial abilities in persons with mental retardation. Journal of Psychiatry and Law, 28, 475–492. Everington, C., & Dunn, C. (1995). A second validation study of the competence assessment for standing trial for defendants with mental retardation. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 22, 44–59. Everington, C., & Luckasson, R. (1992). The competence assessment for standing trial for defendants with mental retardation (CAST*MR). Worthington, OH: IDS. Everington, C., Notario-Smull, H., & Horton, M. (in press). Can defendants with mental retardation successfully fake their performance on a test of competence to stand trial? Behavioral Sciences and the Law.

COMPETENCY, FOUNDATIONAL AND DECISIONAL The law in the United States requires that criminal defendants be competent to participate in the adjudicatory proceedings against them. Legal competence is a complex construct that includes both the fundamental capacities needed to participate in the process (adjudicative competence) and a degree of autonomy in making important case decisions (decisional competence). This entry examines the legal criteria for competence as well as the societal values that underlie the requirements concerning the ability of those accused of crime to participate in proceedings against them.

Criteria for Adjudicative Competence In the United States, individuals accused of crimes are afforded certain constitutional rights and protections during the adjudicatory process. The Fifth Amendment, for example, protects defendants from being compelled by the state to testify against themselves. The Sixth Amendment provides defendants with the right to the assistance of legal counsel, the right to confront their accusers and the evidence against them, and the right to a trial by jury. To benefit from these rights, defendants must be mentally able to assert them. It is not enough that defendants be physically present during adjudicatory proceedings; they must also have the mental capacity to exercise their rights—that is, they must be “competent.” When questions are raised about a defendant’s competence, it is the responsibility of the trial judge to make an inquiry and determine whether he or she has the requisite abilities to go forward to adjudication. The broad criteria for adjudicative competence were

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articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Dusky v. United States (1960). The trial judge must determine “whether the defendant has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding, and whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him.” Careful scrutiny of this “test” for legal competence reveals several important features: 1. A defendant does not have to be completely competent. Only sufficient abilities are required (and these may vary with the complexity and demands of the case). 2. Adjudicative competence is concerned with present mental capacities. It is arguably irrelevant that a defendant had significant mental impairment at some point in the past or may again experience such difficulties in the distant future (the current inquiry does assume that present capacities are likely to be maintained in the near future during the course of the pending proceedings). In particular, adjudicative competence is distinguished from inquiries related to legal insanity, a retrospective judgment as to the defendant’s mental state at the time of the offense. 3. Adjudicative competence is about ability or capacity. A defendant who is ignorant (e.g., lacks present factual understanding of the legal proceedings) may still be competent if it is determined that he or she is intellectually able to assimilate the relevant information (e.g., through education by or consultation with the attorney). Similarly, a voluntary unwillingness or reluctance (e.g., due to bad character or attitude) to perform the required legal tasks (e.g., to consult with one’s attorney) is not a basis for a finding of incompetence. 4. The criteria are functional legal abilities. The mere presence of symptoms of mental disorder, even if substantial in nature, is not sufficient to render a defendant legally incompetent. There must be a further showing that the mental disorder adversely affects the abilities articulated in Dusky (i.e., to assist counsel, to factually or rationally understand the proceedings).

the moral dignity of society for the state to proceed against an individual, whose liberty (and in capital cases, life) is at stake, when that individual is not capable of competent participation in the adversary proceedings. Proceeding against an individual who is “defenseless” due to mental incapacity conjures notions of a “kangaroo court” and conflicts with fundamental notions of fairness. A second and perhaps more obvious value is accuracy. A variety of forms of mental incapacity impair basic cognitive abilities such as attention and memory. Attentional capacity is needed, for example, to hear, process, and heed advice from one’s attorney or to attend to testimony by witnesses in order to identify erroneous or false statements. Intact memory is needed to recall and relate legally relevant, and potentially exculpatory, information to the attorney. Perceptual, emotional, or cognitive distortions regarding others’ attitudes or intentions—for example, delusional beliefs that one’s attorney is secretly working for the state—may impair the development of a cooperative working relationship, which is necessary for the preparation of a legal defense. Such impairments may result in inaccurate verdicts (i.e., wrongful convictions) and unjust punishments, with innocent individuals being incarcerated while criminals go free. A third societal value implicated in the competence construct is individual autonomy. Respect for the individual and an individual’s right to self-determination demands that a defendant be capable of at least a minimal degree of autonomous participation in the adjudicatory process. Although the Sixth Amendment provides for the assistance of counsel, respect for individual autonomy limits the extent to which an attorney can act independently of the defendant. It is, after all, the defendant’s case. In recognition of this important value, the legal system precludes attorneys from making independent decisions regarding the waiver of constitutional rights; for a defendant to be competent, he or she must be capable of a minimal degree of autonomous participation in decisions such as whether to waive the right to trial and enter into a plea agreement, waive the protection against self-incrimination and testify as a witness, or waive the right to legal counsel and represent oneself in the proceedings.

Societal Values and Competency For the state to proceed against a defendant who is incompetent affronts important societal values that the constitutional rights were intended to protect. One important value is the dignity of the process; it offends

Foundational and Decisional Competence A theory of legal competence that reflects these societal values and encompasses the constitutional

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requirements has been articulated by the University of Virginia law professor Richard Bonnie. This theory distinguishes between two aspects of legal competence: a foundational competence to assist counsel and decisional competence. Foundational competence captures the minimal conditions necessary for a defendant to participate, in a general way, in his or her defense. These conditions include (a) understanding the allegations and the basic elements of the adversary system, (b) recognizing one’s own role as the accused individual whose liberty interests are at risk, and (c) having the ability to provide relevant factual information to the lawyer in order to facilitate the development of a defense. These specific functional abilities reflect the capacities articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dusky v. United States as fundamental to competence: the ability to assist one’s attorney, and the capacity to understand, both factually and rationally, the proceedings that lead to adjudication. According to Bonnie, these baseline, or fundamental, legal capacities serve the dignity and accuracy concerns that underpin the adjudicatory process. Decisional competence, as noted above, is more specific than the foundational competence construct. It derives from the underlying value of individual autonomy and implicates the functional abilities needed to demonstrate a minimal degree of independence in making decisions, specifically decisions to waive constitutional protections. Defense attorneys retain autonomy for a wide variety of case-related decisions, such as the general defense theory/strategy to pursue, which witnesses to call and what questions to ask, and so forth. However, the law does not permit attorneys to independently waive their clients’ constitutional rights, and the rationale for this limit on their authority is clear—all citizens, whether wrongfully accused or otherwise, would ultimately have no protection in a system that allowed any third party to sign away those rights. When questions arise concerning a defendant’s competence to proceed, the courts routinely turn to mental health professionals for assistance in determining whether, and to what extent, mental problems (often cast as “mental disease or defect”) impair competence. As noted above, the Supreme Court’s language in Dusky v. United States provided broad descriptions of the functional legal abilities relevant to foundational competence, and these have served to guide forensic examiners’ evaluations about foundational competence issues. Unfortunately, there has been no parallel case that has attempted to articulate or operationalize the functional abilities related to decisional competence.

A number of lower courts have required that a defendant’s waiver of constitutional rights must be “knowing,” “intelligent,” and “voluntary,” and these concerns underpin the colloquies that judges routinely conduct, for example, with defendants who decide to waive their constitutional rights (e.g., to a trial, to not testify against themselves) and accept a plea offer from the state. Although explicit legal guidance is lacking regarding the functional abilities relevant to decisional competence, legal scholars and mental health professionals informed by Bonnie’s theory have considered this issue. Approaches to assessing decisional competence abilities, some of which have been incorporated into contemporary competence assessment measures (e.g., the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool–Criminal Adjudication), include evaluating (a) the defendant’s ability to articulate the advantages and disadvantages of alternative courses of action (e.g., going to trial vs. accepting a plea agreement), (b) the defendant’s ability to articulate a risks-and-benefits analysis of a proposed course of action, and (c) the plausibility of the defendant’s reasons for a choice that the defendant considers most appropriate in his or her own case. Articulating these clinical strategies for assessing the functional abilities related to decisional competence makes explicit the basis for the clinical opinions that mental health experts may offer in the absence of clear legal definitions and guidelines with respect to decisional competence. To date, Bonnie’s distinction between foundational and decisional competence has had minimal impact in the highest legal circles. In Godinez v. Moran (1993), the Supreme Court addressed the issue of decisional competence and endorsed some of the lower courts’ language requiring that a defendant’s waiver of constitutional rights be “knowing” (intelligent) and “voluntary.” However, the Court declined to articulate a separate criterion or standard for decisional competence and held that, generally, the standard for competency to waive constitutional rights is encompassed within the Dusky standard. The Court’s holding in Godinez notwithstanding, it is likely that Bonnie’s theory of foundational and decisional competence has had an important impact on the field. It has raised awareness of the complexities of the adjudicative competence construct and encouraged forensic evaluators, whose reports and testimony inform the courts regarding defendants’ competence-related abilities, to assess decisionmaking capacities as part of their evaluations. Historically, pretrial competency evaluations for the courts were often captured under the rubric

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“competency to stand trial,” and many of the interview guides and competency assessment instruments developed for forensic examiners focused on defendants’ comprehension of trial proceedings. In a sense, this emphasis was misplaced because in reality, few defendants ever go to trial. Upward of 90% of criminal cases are resolved by some form of plea bargain or plea agreement, each of which entails the waiver of one or more of the constitutional protections discussed above. Thus, Bonnie’s elaboration of the decisional competence construct has stimulated clinical thinking about the mental abilities needed to intelligently weigh decisional alternatives (e.g., to be able to describe the potential risks and benefits of alternative courses of action) and ways to craft new measures for the systematic assessment of those abilities. Through careful consultation with defense attorneys about the likely case decision points, particularly those that involve the waiver of rights, psychiatric and psychological examiners may better tailor their evaluations to provide information to the courts about defendants’ foundational and decisional competence abilities. Norman G. Poythress See also Adjudicative Competence of Youth; Capacity to Waive Rights; Competency to Stand Trial

Further Readings

Bonnie, R. (1990). The competence of criminal defendants with mental retardation to participate in their own defense. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 81, 419–446. Bonnie, R. (1992). The competence of criminal defendants: A theoretical reformulation. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 10, 291–316. Bonnie, R. (1993). The competence of criminal defendants: Beyond Dusky and Drope. University of Miami Law Review, 46, 539–601. Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960). Godinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389 (1993). Melton, G. B., Petrila, J., Poythress, N. G., & Slobogin, C. (in press). Psychological evaluations for the courts: A handbook for mental health professionals and lawyers (3rd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.

COMPETENCY, RESTORATION

OF

Evaluations of competency to stand trial are the most common source of referrals to forensic mental health

practitioners. While the clear majority of those examined are viewed as competent to proceed, those found incompetent to stand trial (IST) may be subjected to treatment and training to enable them to proceed to trial, typically referred to as competency restoration. These individuals constitute the largest group referred for mental health treatment under the auspices of the criminal justice system, with several thousand persons hospitalized in the United States at any given time. Despite the significant variability in treatment and education efforts, as many as 9 in 10 persons originally found unfit are eventually adjudicated competent and proceed to disposition of the charges against them. There is a dearth of systematic research on the methods used to accomplish this result. Restoration efforts typically require no more than 4 months, and an increasing number of jurisdictions allow for outpatient treatment and training to minimize pretrial deprivation of liberty. Medication is often a key component of treatment for defendants with psychiatric illness. Prognosis is more guarded for restoration of cognitively impaired defendants. Some commentators have questioned the propriety of the competency restoration programs provided by mental health practitioners. An alternative view holds that enabling impaired defendants to develop or regain the ability to participate in the resolution of their legal predicaments is ethically justified. This entry summarizes the legal and ethical context of competency restoration efforts, the presenting problems that are typically the focus of treatment, treatment methods and programs, and the outcomes of restoration efforts.

Legal and Ethical Context All U.S. jurisdictions provide for treatment of individuals found IST. Traditionally, this was presumed to involve commitment to a government-run facility for inpatient care. In Jackson v. Indiana (1972), the Supreme Court clarified that such commitment must be reasonably related, in duration and circumstances, to the purpose of restoring the individual to competency. Those found not restorable within the reasonably foreseeable future may be subjected to civil commitment. Surveys suggest that nearly half the defendants referred for restoration are placed in state hospitals and receive services typical for a civil patient population. Most of the remainder are confined in high-security facilities. In view of the significant deprivation of liberty entailed in inpatient restoration, a small number of jurisdictions have created provisions for outpatient competency

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restoration treatment. This innovation is also politically attractive, as the services are much less costly. The majority of IST defendants appear to accept restoration treatment voluntarily, but significant legal and ethical conflicts arise regarding those who refuse court-mandated treatment. In Sell v. United States (2003), the Supreme Court considered the circumstances under which psychiatric medication could be administered against defendants’ objections, for the purpose of restoring competency. The court emphasized that alternative bases for involuntary treatment should be considered first, including treatment justified by danger to self or others or treatment through guardianship procedures. In the absence of these alternative justifications, the government could seek involuntary treatment solely to restore competency in limited circumstances—namely, if the proposed treatment was medically appropriate, substantially unlikely to have competency-impairing side effects, and necessary vis-à-vis less intrusive alternatives to accomplish an important governmental interest in bringing the defendant to trial. Nonmedication treatments have been viewed as less intrusive or objectionable and have not been a source of significant litigation. Some have argued that mental health practitioners play an ethically conflicting role as treater and evaluator in the restoration process. This view has not gained wide acceptance. Those involved in competency restoration efforts note the importance of full disclosure to the defendant of the purpose of treatment and the procedural protections afforded by judicial hearings authorizing the treatment. They also note that it is in the defendant’s interest to regain competency in order to avoid potentially lengthy commitment and benefit from the panoply of procedural rights guaranteed a defendant proceeding to trial. Despite occasional negative commentary on the ethical propriety of mental health professionals’ participation in the restoration process, this role remains important in the administration of justice.

Focus of Restoration Treatment Competency restoration is often implemented on an individualized basis, though some inpatient centers offer highly structured programs. The most common model combines these elements and involves individual treatment of any underlying mental illness combined with group education and practice modules and individual coaching. There is consistent evidence that defendants referred for non-restoration-specific, general psychiatric

hospital care are significantly less likely to regain competency than those receiving care in a formal restoration program, either inpatient or community based. Defendants referred for restoration can be broadly divided into those with primarily Axis I disorders and those with mainly cognitive limitations. In practice, many incompetent defendants exhibit multiple diagnoses, particularly involving personality disorders and substance abuse. While the latter factors are rarely priorities for immediate treatment, they may complicate restoration efforts. Given the overrepresentation of linguistic and cultural minorities among the defendant population, acculturation issues and language barriers can also be significant complicating factors. Individualized treatment planning is required to manage these varied needs. Defendants with a major mental illness are typically treated with the implicit assumption that but for their psychiatric symptoms, they would be competent. Schizophrenic-spectrum illnesses are most commonly a focus of treatment—and less frequently, mood disorders. Symptoms including delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thought or behavior, and agitation often impair defendants’ understanding of their case and proceedings or their ability to collaborate with counsel, rendering them incompetent. Medication treatment to reduce these symptoms is often the mainstay of restoration efforts and may be seen as a prerequisite to other interventions that require greater cooperation and active participation by the defendant/patient. In affective disorders, increased attention and concentration and improved morale may be targets for pharmacological intervention. Consistent with case law focusing on “medical appropriateness,” any proposed treatment should comport with general standards of care for the diagnosis at hand and take into account the unique psychological, medical, and other needs and limitations of the incompetent defendant. Complete remission of symptoms is typically not required to meet the practical requirements for competency. Educational programs appear more tailored to the needs of mentally retarded or otherwise cognitively impaired defendants. These programs typically involve formal testing and retesting to assess the defendants’ baseline functioning and progress. Most programs use one or more specific adjudicative competence measures and may structure a curriculum in accord with the theoretical underpinnings of that measure. Group format educational efforts are typically offered once or more per week, up to daily in some programs. These may entail lecture-like presentations,

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video-recorded demonstrations, role-playing, written exercises, and handouts. Group format training offers the advantage of not only efficient service delivery but also social learning of appropriate behavior for a courtroom setting and the opportunity to assess each defendant’s response to the increased stimulation of a small group setting. Some commentators have expressed concern that mentally retarded individuals may appear to benefit from educational efforts while still lacking a more nuanced understanding of the charges and proceedings against them. This view holds that while even very limited individuals can be taught to repeat basic facts, they may yet lack the understanding and reasoning required to be a meaningful participant in the adjudication process. Practitioners should avoid “teaching to the test” used to measure progress. Alternative forms of assessment, such as open-ended questions and roleplay may help differentiate those defendants who have learned basic facts from those who can apply that information in a meaningful way to the case at hand.

Restoration Success Versus Failure The clear majority of those referred for restoration are ultimately adjudicated competent, with some centers reporting success rates of 80% to 90%. Success appears most likely for individuals with functional psychiatric illnesses that are responsive to medication treatment. Not surprisingly, individuals who show clinically significant improvement in general psychopathology are more likely to be perceived as restored to competency. There is no consensus about the factors that are predictive of restorability in primarily mentally ill defendants, and attempts to derive predictions from clinical samples have failed to generalize adequately given the rarity of nonrestorability. Half or more than half the individuals with mental retardation or acquired cognitive deficits are not restored, consistent with the intractable nature of these disorders. It is well settled that defendants must be competent at each stage of adjudication, from arraignment through imposition of sentence. “Recidivism,” which consists of a decline in functioning that warrants a return for additional restoration treatment before either trial or sentencing, is of concern in a minority of cases. These may involve the defendant’s refusal of medication after discharge from a treatment program. Anecdotal evidence suggests that other causes include medication being unavailable in a jail or during transportation to

court, defendants being subjected to other conditions of confinement that undermine their prior progress, or substance abuse while on bail that results in an exacerbation of symptoms. It is generally assumed that a renewal of appropriate treatment will again result in restoration or competency. Few state statutes provide specific time limits for commitment to either inpatient or outpatient restoration treatment. Federal law provides for a 4-month inpatient commitment, with possible extensions for cause, while some states tie duration of treatment to the potential maximum sentence for the underlying charges. Many jurisdictions set no limit. With or without formal limits, the typical successful restoration occurs in 2 to 6 months. While circumstances may warrant more extended efforts in some cases, the likelihood of success beyond 3 to 4 months appears diminished. The minority of individuals who are persistently incompetent may be subjected to civil or “quasi-criminal” commitment in lieu of further criminal proceedings. While in some jurisdictions the procedures are identical to those in the regular civil commitment statute, in the majority of states and in federal courts, special commitment procedures apply, though these must provide due process protections similar in kind to those in the regular commitment statute. Some of these are narrowly drawn to focus on danger to others or property and frequently lack provisions for commitment based on danger to self or “grave disability.” The possibility of long-term commitment may discourage malingering about incompetency, particularly in jurisdictions where charges could be reinstated when the former defendant “recovers” sufficiently to warrant consideration for release. Edward E. Landis See also Capacity to Consent to Treatment; Civil Commitment; Competency to Stand Trial

Further Readings

Anderson, S. D., & Hewitt, J. (2002). The effect of competency restoration training on defendants with mental retardation found not competent to proceed. Law and Human Behavior, 26(3), 343–351. Bertman, L. J., Thompson, J. W., Waters, W. F., Estupanian-Kane, L., Martin, J. A., & Russell, L. (2003). Effect of an individualized treatment program on restoration of competency to

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stand trial in pretrial forensic patients. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 31(1), 27–35. Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972). Miller, R. D. (2003). Hospitalization of criminal defendants for evaluation of competence to stand trial or for restoration of competence: Clinical and legal issues. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 21, 369–391. Mumley, D. L., Tillbrook, C. E., & Grisso, T. (2003). Five year research update (1996–2000): Evaluations for competence to stand trial (adjudicative competence). Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 21, 329–350. Noffsinger, S. G. (2001). Restoration to competency practice guidelines. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 45(3), 356–362. Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166 (2003).

On the basis of the standard as set forth in Dusky as well as reviews of appellate cases and legal literature, observations of pretrial competence hearings, and interviews of attorneys and judges, the interdisciplinary team conceptualized the standard of competence to stand trial as having three parts: the ability to cooperate with one’s attorney in one’s own defense, awareness and understanding of the nature and object of the legal proceedings, and understanding of the consequences of the proceedings. As one of the first semistructured measures of trial competency, the CAI influenced the development of nearly every other instrument that has been created for competence to stand trial evaluations. The administration time of the CAI is approximately 1 hour with relatively high functioning defendants. The 13 areas of functioning addressed by the CAI are the following: 1. Appraisal of available legal defenses

COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENT (CAI) The Competence to Stand Trial Assessment Instrument, often called the Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI), was developed in 1973 as a companion instrument to the Competency Screening Test (CST) and sought to standardize as well as quantify the criteria for competence to stand trial. The instrument was created by an interdisciplinary team of psychologists, psychiatrists, and lawyers at Harvard’s Laboratory of Community Psychiatry during a project funded by a research grant from the Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency, National Institute of Mental Health. The CAI addresses 13 functions related to the defendant’s “ability to cope with the trial process in an adequately self-protective fashion.” Although the concept that a defendant must be competent to proceed in the trial process has been generally accepted in Western jurisprudence since the late 1700s, the current standard for competence to stand trial in the United States was laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dusky v. United States in 1960. In Dusky, the Court held that for a defendant to be deemed competent to stand trial, he or she must have “sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding” and “a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him.”

2. Unmanageable behavior 3. Quality of relating to attorney 4. Planning of legal strategy, including guilty pleas to lesser charges where pertinent 5. Appraisal of the role of persons involved in a trial 6. Understanding of court procedure 7. Appreciation of charges 8. Appreciation of the range and nature of possible penalties 9. Appraisal of the likely outcome 10. Capacity to disclose to attorney the available pertinent facts surrounding the offense 11. Capacity to realistically challenge prosecution witnesses 12. Capacity to testify relevantly 13. Self-defeating versus self-serving motivation (legal sense)

In the manual, the 13 functions are conceptually defined with statements, and two or three sample questions accompany each function. Each functional item on the CAI is to be rated on a five-point Likert-type scale, wherein a score of 1 relates to a total lack of capacity to function and a

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score of 5 relates to no impairment, or adequate capacity to function. A score of 6 is given when there is insufficient information to score the respective item. The item scores are neither weighted nor summed, but rather are intended to stand alone and assist the evaluator in the formation of his or her subsequent report and potential testimony. The authors of the CAI explicitly set forth the caveat that the CAI is not meant to serve as a predictor of future trial-related abilities, since scores on the instrument may fluctuate over time. The scoring process functions under the assumptions that the defendant will be afforded adequate counsel and the forensic examiner using the CAI possesses a fundamental understanding of the realities of the criminal justice system. Little is known about the psychometric properties of the CAI. The scoring of the CAI is not standardized, and there are no norms available for the instrument. Interrater reliability coefficients for the instrument have been found to range from .84 to .97 among experienced raters and from .43 to .96 among inexperienced raters. The CAI has been found to correlate with other instruments intended to measure the same abilities as the CAI (i.e., the Competence Screening Test and Interdisciplinary Fitness Interview), lending exiguous evidence in support of its construct validity. Research on the utility of the CAI as a classification or predictive tool is scant as well, but the research that was conducted found that many evaluators used the CAI as a conceptual tool—forgoing the quantification of the items. Controversies that surrounded the CAI on its publication regarded biases that may be inherent in the scoring of the instrument. Specifically, bias against individuals who do not have confidence in the criminal adjudication process or bias as a result of an evaluator’s assumptions about the dynamics of the circumstances surrounding a trial and attorney performances have been cited. Rebuttal of these criticisms has referred to the fact that the authors have clearly indicated that the scoring of the CAI operates under the presumptions of adequate legal counsel and a trial characterized by a legal standard of fairness. Although the CAI does not include a methodical evaluation of the defendant’s specific trial circumstances, three items (Items 1, 4, and 9) evaluate the defendant’s capacities or perceptions regarding his or her circumstances. However, the CAI manual does not provide any guidelines for characterizing the trial circumstances. The major contribution of the CAI was the delineation of

13 legally pertinent concepts and functional areas, a contribution that continues to influence the development of instruments created to evaluate defendants’ competence to stand trial. Gianni Pirelli and Patricia A. Zapf See also Competency Screening Test (CST); Competency to Stand Trial; Forensic Assessment; Interdisciplinary Fitness Interview (IFI)

Further Readings

Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960). Grisso, T. (2003). Evaluating competencies: Forensic assessments and instruments. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Harvard Medical School, Laboratory of Community Psychiatry. (1973). Competence to stand trial and mental illness (DHEW Publication No. [ADM] 77-103). Rockville, MD: NIMH, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

COMPETENCY

FOR

EXECUTION

The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, which, according to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Ford v. Wainwright (1986), includes the execution of the insane. Thus, it is unconstitutional to execute condemned inmates who become incompetent while on death row while they remain in an incompetent state. Statutes set forth by those states that permit the death penalty often do not include specific guidelines for evaluating competency for execution, and when guidelines do exist, they vary widely. When the issue of an inmate’s competency for execution arises, mental health professionals are called on to assist the court in the evaluation of competency for execution and for restoring competency in those found incompetent. Given the nature of the consequences involved, these practices often present ethical challenges and are controversial in nature. Competency for execution, called by some commentators the “last competency” for its temporal proximity to the final resolution of an inmate’s legal proceedings, is raised as an issue far less often than competency to stand trial but is no less important. The legal system in the United States and many other

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countries has as one of its bases the presumption of competence. That is, all defendants are presumed competent unless this issue is called into question by one of the parties to a legal proceeding. The competence of a criminal defendant may arise as an issue at any point in the legal proceedings, from as early as initial arrest and interrogation, throughout the entire legal process, and finally to the time of sentencing or, for those who have been sentenced to the ultimate penalty of death, the time of execution. Just as an incompetent defendant is not allowed to proceed to trial, so too an incompetent defendant/inmate is prohibited from being sentenced or executed. The rationale against executing incompetent individuals is that, among other things, it is inhumane, neither deterrence nor retribution is accomplished, and incompetent individuals are unable to assist in appealing their sentence.

Legal Standards The issue of the constitutionality of executing incompetent individuals was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 in Ford v. Wainwright. The Court in Ford held that the Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment, prohibits the execution of an “insane” (mentally incompetent) person. The Court reasoned that (a) execution of the insane would offend humanity, (b) executing the insane would not serve to set an example and would not reaffirm the deterrence value believed to exist in capital punishment, (c) any individual who is believed to be insane is also believed unable to prepare “spiritually” for death, (d) madness itself is punishment and, therefore, negates the punishment value of execution, and (e) no retributive value is believed to be served by executing the mentally incompetent. The Court in Ford also ruled that when questions of competency for execution were raised, due process entitled a defendant to an evidentiary hearing. Furthermore, the Court stated that this evidentiary hearing is required only when defendants make a “high threshold showing” that their competency to be executed is in question. The justices, however, did not define the precise nature of the “high threshold.” Moreover, the justices could not agree on the specific fact-finding procedures to be used in case such a threshold is met: Some agreed that a full “panoply” of trial-type procedures was required, others argued that a more relaxed hearing was acceptable if due process was ensured,

and still others argued that the most minimal “pro forma” procedures were acceptable. In addition to being divided on the fact-finding procedures, the Court also failed to specify a proper legal test of incompetence within the execution context. Only Justice Powell, in his concurring opinion, addressed the issue of the legal test for competency for execution, stating that the Eighth Amendment “forbids the execution only of those who are unaware of the punishment they are about to suffer and why they are to suffer it” (p. 2608). Furthermore, he concluded that the proper test of competency should be whether defendants can comprehend the nature, pendency, and purpose of their execution. Justice Powell argued that the retributive goal of criminal law is satisfied only when defendants are aware of the connection between their crime and its punishment and defendants can only prepare for death if they are aware that it is pending shortly. Furthermore, Justice Powell asserted that the states were free to adopt “a more expansive view of sanity” that included the “requirement that the defendant be able to assist in his own defense” (p. 2608). Despite the charge given to individual states to develop procedures to ensure that the insane would not be executed, many states do not provide specific guidelines for evaluating competency for execution, and those guidelines that do exist vary widely. The decision in Ford established that it was unconstitutional to execute the insane and set the stage for psychological evaluations of death row inmates whose mental status for execution is questionable; however, the Ford Court left open two critical issues. First, the Court did not specify the necessary fact-finding procedures to enforce the Ford decision. Second, the Court failed to specify the proper legal test to be implemented in cases of competency for execution. Although it is not legally binding, the American Bar Association, in the ABA Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards (1989), has also provided a legal test for determining competency for execution. This test reads as follows: A convict is incompetent to be executed if, as a result of mental illness or mental retardation, the convict cannot understand the nature of the pending proceedings, what he or she was tried for, the reasons for the punishment, or the nature of the punishment. A convict is also incompetent if, as a result of mental illness or mental retardation, the convict lacks sufficient capacity to recognize or understand any fact which

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might exist which would make the punishment unjust or unlawful, or lacks the ability to convey such information to the court. (p. 290)

Assessment of Competency for Execution Competency for execution, more than any other area within the field of forensic assessment, has been fraught with controversy and debate regarding whether, and to what extent, mental health professionals should become involved in this type of evaluation. Indeed, the personal outcome for the inmate who serves as the evaluee in this type of evaluation weighs heavily in this debate. Standards for competency for execution evaluations should parallel those that apply to other types of forensic evaluations. That is, the standardized procedures that are used during the evaluation should be described to the subject of the evaluation as well as in the examiner’s report, assessment measures should be relevant to the referral issue(s), and the examiner should have a sound and sophisticated conceptualization of the relevant criteria for being not competent for execution. In addition, the knowledge base of examiners should cover three domains: general legal competencies, forensic assessment methodologies, and execution-related substantive content. Finally, collateral information should be gathered. This might include (but would not be limited to) information regarding life history, psychological history and disorders, deterioration-related data, previous and current written reports, and interviews with persons who have had extensive opportunities to observe the evaluee. Detailed information on conducting evaluations of competency for execution is beyond the scope of this entry, but the interested reader is referred to the references suggested below for further information on this topic. Given the low base rate of incompetence for execution, there is less opportunity to conduct this type of evaluation and, therefore, even less opportunity to conduct research using a sample of inmates found incompetent to be executed or even referred for evaluations of competency for execution. As a result, the literature and commentary in this area are less well developed than they are with respect to other types of competencies (such as competency to stand trial). As was the case in the context of assessing competency to stand trial, the first assessment instruments to assist evaluators in the

evaluation of competency for execution have taken the form of checklists of items that serve to structure the evaluation. While the first checklists for evaluating competency to stand trial were developed in the mid1960s, the first checklists for evaluating competency for execution have only recently been developed. The interested reader is referred to the checklists developed by Kimberley Ackerson, Bruce Ebert, and Patricia Zapf (all cited below).

Treatment for Restoration to Competency Given the amount of debate and controversy surrounding the role of mental health professionals in the assessment of competency for execution, it is obvious that even more controversy surrounds the role of the mental health professional in the treatment of those inmates found incompetent, for the purpose of restoring their competence to be executed. This is a complex issue about which commentators have written on both sides. Some believe that it is never permissible to provide treatment for the purpose of restoring an individual to competence when the result is execution, whereas others have indicated that this may be permissible if the incompetent inmate had expressed a desire to be restored to competence at an earlier time when the inmate was competent. In addition, others have provided further commentary regarding the situation where an inmate has indicated a preference for death by electing to undergo treatment to restore competence for the purpose of execution, calling into question the rationality of that individual. What complicates matters further is that some professional bodies, such as the American Medical Association, have put forth statements indicating that providing such treatment is considered ethically unacceptable, thus putting physicians and psychiatrists who work for the prison and correctional systems, and who are expected to treat incompetent inmates for the purpose of restoring them to competence, in the difficult situation of having to reconcile how to perform the duties required by their employers while upholding the ethical requirements of their profession. Obviously, there is no easy answer.

Research on Competency for Execution There has been a dearth of empirical research on competency to be executed. Part of the explanation for this

Competency Screening Test (CST)———115

may be the fact that only a handful of individuals have made successful claims of incompetency to be executed. In addition, this particular type of competency tends to evoke strong emotion in individuals, which in turn may affect the motivation of involved professionals to conduct research in this area. The limited amount of empirical research that has been conducted has been confined to surveys. No research to date has examined the issue of competency to be executed in a sample of offenders sentenced to death. Patricia A. Zapf See also Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations

Further Readings

Ackerson, K. S., Brodsky, S. L., & Zapf, P. A. (2005). Judges’ and psychologists’ assessments of legal and clinical factors in competence for execution. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 164–193. American Bar Association. (1989). Criminal justice mental health standards. Washington, DC: Author. Brodsky, S. L., Zapf, P. A., & Boccaccini, M. T. (2005). Competency for execution assessments: Ethical continuities and professional tasks. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 5, 65–74. Ebert, B. (2001). Competency to be executed: A proposed instrument to evaluate an inmate’s level of competency in light of the Eighth Amendment prohibition against the execution of the presently insane. Law and Psychology Review, 25, 29–57. Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986). Heilbrun, K. S. (1987). The assessment of competency for execution: An overview. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 5, 383–396. Zapf, P. A., Boccaccini, M. T., & Brodsky, S. L. (2003). Assessment of competency for execution: Professional guidelines and an evaluation checklist. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 21, 103–120.

defendant’s capacity to participate in his or her own defense against criminal charges. Psychological diagnoses of mental illness or mental retardation may indicate incompetency for trial but may not be sufficient for such a finding by a court. Therefore, this test was developed to reduce the risk of inappropriate findings based on mental state alone. The right of a person to be mentally as well as physically present to face his or her accusers was recognized as early as 1764 in British Common Law. In 1960, for the first time, the U.S. Supreme Court enunciated the constitutional requirement of competency to stand trial in Dusky v. United States (1960) and spelled out the legal standard that the defendant must have “sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding” and “a rational as well as a factual understanding of the proceedings against him.”

Description and Development The CST consists of 22 items in a sentence-completion format designed as a self-reporting paper-andpencil instrument. The content of each item relates to some aspect of the task of a defendant preparing for and going to trial as a result of criminal charges. Each item is based on a factor within the legal definition of fitness for trial and the psychological conditions that may contribute to significant impairment of that ability. Scores on the 22 items were subjected to a factor analysis using a varimax orthogonal rotation. Six factors emerged that were consistent with the defendant’s ability to stand trial: 1. Relationship to one’s attorney in establishing a defense 2. Understanding and awareness of the nature of the court proceedings 3. Affective response to the court process in dealing with accusations and feelings of guilt

COMPETENCY SCREENING TEST (CST) The Competency Screening Test (CST) was developed to address the unnecessary pretrial detention and commitment of individuals charged with crimes but likely to be judged fit to stand trial. This forensic instrument was designed and tested to provide objective measures based on the legal criteria for determination of a

4. Judgmental qualities in engaging in the strategy and evaluation of the trial 5. Trust and confidence in the attorney 6. Recognition of the seriousness of the situation

Each of the 22 items is scored on a 3-point scale, from 0 to 2, based on one or more of these factors.

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A response that clearly relates to one of the legal criteria receives a score of 2. Responses characterized as redundant, circular, or impoverished but not clearly inappropriate are scored 1. A zero score would be given for an answer that reveals characteristics such as selfdefeating behavior, substantial disorganization, or a thought disorder that would interfere with the ability to contribute to one’s defense. For example, on Item 2, “When I go to court, the lawyer will . . .,” an appropriate response is “defend me” and would be scored a 2, reflecting the nature of the proceedings and the role of the attorney. A contrasting response, “put me away,” would receive a zero score. This item addresses the legal criterion of a defendant’s ability to assist an attorney in his or her own defense. The psychological referent focuses on trust and the ability to engage with another, in this case the lawyer. Understanding of the role of legal representation is also an element in this item. Scores are summated and can total in a range from 0 to 44. Qualitative differences were found at about 20; thus, a score of 20 or below is judged as incompetency for trial. Reliability by trained researchers was .93, significant at the .001 level. As a screening instrument, the purpose of the CST is to avoid hospitalization of those defendants who may be tested in the court and most likely deemed to be competent, rather than delay the trial of those individuals. The test results of the CST and judges’ decisions on return to trial were generally consistent. Focusing on the criteria for competency to stand trial also offered specific guidelines for making a judgment that could avoid pretrial detention. Several validation studies have followed the original test construction and research and have supported the efficacy of the CST.

Further Research Additional research has been undertaken by psychologists to aid the courts in the assessment of fitness for trial. John Monahan and his colleagues at the University of Virginia have constructed an instrument based on the parameters of understanding, reasoning, and appreciation, consistent with the psychological underpinnings of the legal criteria for competency to stand trial. Paul D. Lipsitt See also Competency, Restoration of; Competency to Stand Trial; Georgia Court Competence Test (GCCT)

Further Readings

Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960). Lipsitt, P. D., Lelos, D., & McGarry, A. L. (1971). Competency for trial: A screening instrument. American Journal of Psychiatry, 128(1), 105–109. Nottingham, E. J., IV, & Mattson, R. E. (1981). A validation study of the Competency Screening Test. Law and Human Behavior, 5, 329–335. Otto, R. K., Poythress, N. G., Nicholson, R. A., Edens, J. E., Monahan, J., Bonnie, R.J., et al. (1998). Psychometric properties of the MacArthur Competence Tool–Criminal Adjudication. Psychological Assessment, 10, 435–443. Randolph, J. J., Hicks, T., Mason, D. J. (1982). The Competency Screening Test: A validation study in Cook County, Illinois. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 9, 495–500.

COMPETENCY TO BE SENTENCED The question of whether an individual is competent to be sentenced hinges on the broader question “What is competence?” In general, competence is defined within the legal arena as the mental ability to play an active role in legal proceedings. Competence to be sentenced is a specific form of legal competence that addresses an individual’s ability to participate in the sentencing stage of trial and to both understand and appreciate the ramifications of the sentence that is imposed. The term competence to be sentenced has been used interchangeably with competence to be executed, but the former expression is more inclusive than the latter. Psychologists assist the courts by providing evaluations of competency to be sentenced, although there are minimal assessment guidelines and no accepted measures to guide their assessments. The general standard for competency was defined by the Supreme Court in Dusky v. United States (1960) as the defendant’s “sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding” and “a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him.” This protection has been deemed to include the stages from the time of arrest through the end of the trial. However, sentencing is separate from trial, and jurisdictions differ on whether the Dusky standard extends to the sentencing phase. In some jurisdictions, defendants need only have a minimal level of competency to be sentenced (e.g., a defendant need only understand

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why he or she is being sentenced). Other jurisdictions hold that sentencing is part of the trial, therefore the defendant must meet the more exacting Dusky standard before he or she may be sentenced. Overall, the literature suggests that the competency to be sentenced standard is less stringent than the competence to stand trial standard. The purposes behind the guarantee of competency to be sentenced are generally argued to be threefold. First, defendants are guaranteed competency to protect their individual rights. For example, in some cases, the defendant has the right to allocution at sentencing. The right of allocution refers to a defendant’s right to speak before the sentence is pronounced in order to address any legal cause why the sentence should not be pronounced or provide mitigating information that may reduce the sentence. Without the mental ability to participate in the proceedings, this right would be meaningless. Second, society has an interest in guaranteeing fair results and the dignity of the trial process. If a defendant does not appear to be a lucid participant in his or her trial and sentencing, the process loses these qualities. Third, to be competent to be sentenced, defendants should comprehend the duration and severity of the sentence. This understanding is a prerequisite for the sentence to meet its goals of punishment and deterrence from future crime. If defendants cannot rationally comprehend the reason why they have been sentenced, the punishment cannot have its desired effect on the psyche or act as a deterrent. If a genuine doubt concerning the defendant’s competency to be sentenced arises, the defense, the prosecution, or the judge may raise the issue. If there is sufficient evidence that the defendant’s competency is questionable, the judge may order an examination by a mental health professional, such as a psychologist or a psychiatrist. When the evaluation is completed, the expert provides an opinion to the court in the form of a report and, possibly, testimony. The judge makes a decision regarding the competency of the defendant. If the defendant is found to be competent, the sentencing proceeds. If the defendant is found to be not competent, he or she is sent for treatment to restore competency before sentencing. Psychologists have researched the issue of competency to stand trial, developed assessment strategies, and implemented treatment approaches to restore individuals’ overall competence. The defendant’s cognitive functioning is of central importance in evaluating any

form of competence. Similarly, a defendant’s ability to communicate mitigating factors effectively to his or her attorney is essential. Many measures have aided in the evaluation of an individual’s overall competency. These include the Competency Screening Test (CST), the Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI), the Georgia Court Competency Test (GCCT–MSH), the Interdisciplinary Fitness Interview (IFI), the Fitness Interview Test (FIT–R), the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool–Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT– CA), and the Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial–Revised (ECST–R). These measures provide a clinician with information relevant to an individual’s competence to stand trial; however, there are minimal assessment guidelines and no accepted measures to evaluate competence to be sentenced. A comprehensive evaluation should be conducted to assess a defendant’s intellect, his or her personality, and any underlying psychopathology, in addition to the basic competency criteria. As mentioned above, if a defendant is found not competent to be sentenced, the question of possible restoration to competence must be dealt with. Restoration to competence may achieved by the use of psycho-education, medication, or individual therapy. Individuals with mental retardation or metal illness, juveniles, and people suffering from dementia are at higher risk of being found incompetent to be sentenced. These groups are identified as “at risk” due to limitations in rational understanding and abstract thinking. By definition, individuals with mental retardation have below-average intellectual abilities and impaired adaptive behavior, which affect all aspects of competency. Juveniles are labeled at risk because they are considered developmentally and psychosocially immature. Children typically develop higher-order processing and reasoning abilities as they mature. Although there is no exact age at which children develop this reasoning ability, the idea that juvenile offenders should be treated differently from adult offenders has long been an accepted legal premise. Research has focused on determining whether a juvenile possesses the minimal reasoning ability required to be found legally competent. The findings indicate that juveniles who lack developmental and psychosocial maturity (a) may not fully appreciate the longterm consequences of their decisions, (b) may yield to peer influence, and (c) may minimize the ramifications and risk of being found guilty. These limitations would lead to impaired decision making. People with

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mental illness and/or dementia, on the other hand, sometimes lose their ability to reason abstractly and to understand legal processes. Kimberly A. Larson, Michael P. Griffin, and J. Gregory Olley See also Competence Assessment for Standing Trial for Defendants With Mental Retardation (CAST*MR); Competency, Restoration of; Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI); Competency for Execution; Competency Screening Test (CST); Competency to Stand Trial; Competency to Waive Appeals; Competency to Waive Counsel (Proceed Pro Se)

Further Readings

Cunningham, M. D., & Goldstein, A. M. (2003). Sentencing determinations in death penalty cases. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology (pp. 407–436.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960). Melton, G. G., Petrila, J., Poythress, N. G., & Slobogin, C. (1997). Psychological evaluations for the courts: A handbook for mental health professionals and lawyers (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.

COMPETENCY TO CONFESS Competency to confess refers to a suspect’s ability to make a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of the Miranda warnings at the time of police questioning. Confessions that are given after a suspect waives his or her Miranda rights are sometimes challenged on the basis that the suspect was not competent to confess, meaning that the suspect was not capable of making a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of the Miranda rights and therefore could not have understood, appreciated, and willingly waived those rights. A confession that is successfully challenged cannot be used in court against the defendant. Assessment of competency is therefore performed after the confession is given. This assessment is performed by a mental health professional (often a forensic psychologist) and takes into account the defendant’s ability at the time of the interrogation to understand the warnings and make intelligent use of them and the psychological factors that could be relevant to the court in assessing the voluntariness of the waiver.

In the 1966 Miranda v. Arizona case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that any statement arising from the custodial interrogation of a suspect would be presumed involuntary and thus inadmissible unless the police provide the suspect with four warnings: (1) the suspect has the right to remain silent, (2) any statements made by the suspect can be used in court against him or her, (3) the suspect has the right to the presence of an attorney before and during the interrogation, and (4) an attorney will be provided free of charge if the suspect does not have the ability to pay for one. Many jurisdictions have added a fifth prong, that these rights can be invoked at any time during the interrogation process and that once they are invoked, the questioning must cease until an attorney is present. The U.S. Supreme Court in the Miranda decision opined that these rights must be waived knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. Case law has clarified the meaning of these three prongs. The term competency to confess is a misnomer because it explicitly refers to one’s ability to understand and appreciate the significance of the Miranda rights at the time of police questioning. It also refers to the psychological characteristics of a defendant that have an impact on the voluntariness of the Miranda waiver. Thus, this competency differs from other competencies (e.g., competency to stand trial, competency to consent to treatment) in that the mental health professional must examine the individual’s competence at some point in the past. The court is not concerned with current or future competency with respect to Miranda warnings; rather, the court is concerned about whether the defendant was able to make a knowing and intelligent waiver at the time he or she was questioned by the police. Also, not all three prongs needed to effectuate a valid Miranda waiver can be addressed completely by the mental health professional. Case law clearly indicates that for a waiver of rights to be deemed involuntary, there must be a showing of police misconduct. It has to be shown that the police were unduly coercive and overstepped their bounds in extracting a Miranda waiver. It is beyond the scope of a mental health expert’s expertise to determine whether and how that threshold was crossed. Yet psychological expertise can be useful to the court in determining whether a suspect possesses psychological characteristics that increase his or her susceptibility to the effects of police conduct. Such characteristics include interrogative suggestibility, compliance, intellectual functioning, anxiety, memory, and sleep deprivation. There are

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a number of specialized tests that can assist the clinician in evaluating the psychological factors relevant to the voluntary prong of the Miranda waiver. It is within the realm of the mental health professional’s expertise to opine directly on the knowing and intelligent prongs of the Miranda waiver. A knowing waiver of rights is defined as the individual’s understanding or comprehension of the rights combined with the manner in which the rights were administered by law enforcement. For example, one would expect different levels of understanding in illiterate suspects if they were required to read the rights on their own versus having the rights read to them. An intelligent waiver of rights is different from a knowing waiver of rights. The former involves knowledge of the rights, decision-making capacity, and appreciation of the significance of the rights based on one’s knowledge of how the legal system works. Thus, while suspects may understand that they have a right to defense counsel, an intelligent waiver of the right to counsel cannot be made if they erroneously believe that a defense attorney would only work on behalf of innocent defendants. Evaluation of a defendant’s competency to confess requires a comprehensive forensic evaluation. An extensive clinical history, examination of mental status, and record review are generally combined with psychological testing to assess a defendant’s cognitive and emotional functioning. The focus is directly on the psychological functioning that would have been displayed at the time of the police questioning. Given that the evaluation must be functionally based—that is, clinically relevant data should be integrated with the appropriate legal criteria (i.e., knowing, intelligent, and voluntary), the mental health professional must specifically assess behavior relevant to the legal criteria. Thomas Grisso developed four psychological tests to aid in the assessment of a juvenile’s or an adult’s ability to make a knowing and intelligent waiver of rights. Although these tests (like any other test) are subject to misuse, if used properly as part of a comprehensive competency assessment, they can provide useful data to the clinician and, ultimately, to the trier of fact. The assessment of competency to confess must also take into consideration the complexity of the wording of the rights. In general, the Miranda warnings are written at approximately the seventh-grade level of reading comprehension. Yet the complexity of the wording of the rights varies greatly within and between jurisdictions. Research has shown that 23% of adults do not understand at least one of the four Miranda rights.

Moreover, 70% of adult nonoffenders and 43% of adult offenders erroneously believe that the right to remain silent is revokable by the judge. Juveniles aged 14 years and below do not understand their rights as well as older juveniles and adults. With juveniles and adults, intelligence is positively correlated with Miranda comprehension. I. Bruce Frumkin See also Capacity to Waive Rights; Confession Evidence; Grisso’s Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights; Reid Technique for Interrogations

Further Readings

Cloud, M., Shepherd, G., Barkoff, A., & Shur, J. (2002). Words without meaning: The constitution, confessions, and mentally retarded suspects. University of Chicago Law Review, 69, 495–624. Frumkin, I. B. (2007). Psychological evaluation in Miranda waiver and confession cases. In R. Denny & J. Sullivan (Eds.), Clinical neuropsychology in the criminal forensic setting. New York: Guilford Press. Grisso, T. (2003). Evaluating competencies: Forensic assessment and instruments (2nd ed.). New York: Kluwer Academic. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

COMPETENCY TO STAND TRIAL The legal standard for competency to stand trial in the United States was articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dusky v. United States (1960), wherein the Court determined that a defendant must have “sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding” and a “rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against him” (p. 402). Mental health professionals are called on to assist the courts by evaluating defendants’ competency to stand trial, often aided by assessment tools designed specifically for this purpose, and by providing treatment for the restoration of competency in incompetent defendants. Psychological research in this area has examined the reliability of competency assessments, the characteristics of defendants deemed incompetent to stand trial, and the characteristics associated with restorability.

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Competency to stand trial is the most common type of criminal forensic evaluation, with approximately 60,000 evaluations conducted annually in the United States. That is, between 2% and 8% of all felony defendants are referred for evaluations of competency to stand trial each year. The issue at stake in an evaluation of competency to stand trial is the defendant’s current mental functioning; this is often confused with criminal responsibility (insanity), wherein the issue at stake is the defendant’s mental state at the time of the offense. The prohibition against trying an incompetent defendant dates back to at least the 17th century and serves the dual purpose of ensuring a fair trial for the defendant and preserving the dignity of the adversarial process. Competency to stand trial is but one type of competency that falls under the larger, more encompassing headings of adjudicative competence or competency to proceed. The issue of a defendant’s competence may be raised at any point in the proceedings before a verdict is rendered; thus, competency to confess (waive Miranda rights), competency to plead guilty, competency to waive the right to counsel, and competency to stand trial all fall under the umbrella of adjudicative competence or competency to proceed. Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court in Godinez v. Moran (1993) indicated that the standards for the various types of criminal competencies (pleading guilty, waiving counsel, and standing trial) were to be the same. Thus, in light of the decision in Godinez as well as the fact that upward of 90% of criminal cases are resolved through the plea bargaining process rather than by going to trial per se, evaluations of competency to stand trial necessarily include evaluation of the defendant’s ability to plead guilty and to engage in the plea bargaining process. The term competency to stand trial has begun to be replaced by the term competency to proceed in some states, but for the purpose of remaining true to the literature and commentary that have developed up to this point, the term competency to stand trial is used in this entry.

Legal Standard and Procedures Since 1960, every state has adopted the Dusky standard either verbatim or with minor variations in the wording. In addition, some states have elaborated their competency statutes to include articulated standards wherein various specific factors that must be addressed by evaluators in a competency evaluation are set out.

The issue of a defendant’s competency to stand trial may be raised by any party to the proceedings (the defense, the prosecution, or the court more generally), although in the vast majority of cases the issue is raised by the defense. A formal inquiry into a defendant’s competency to stand trial must take place if a “bona fide doubt” about his or her competency exists, as all defendants are presumed competent. Competency evaluations historically occurred in inpatient settings; however, the majority of competency evaluations now occur in community-based settings, including mental health centers, private practice offices, and jails. Research has indicated that approximately 20% (although this varies by jurisdiction) of all defendants referred for competency evaluation are deemed incompetent; thus, the vast majority of referred defendants are competent to stand trial. Various explanations for the high rate of competence have been put forth, including defense attorneys using the referrals as “fishing expeditions” to attempt to gather information that may be helpful in their defense or to investigate the feasibility of a later insanity plea. Others suggest that these referrals are made to prolong the amount of time it takes to get to trial, thus giving the defense (or perhaps the prosecution) more time to prepare the case; to have a mentally ill defendant hospitalized or treated when he or she will not voluntarily undergo hospitalization or treatment; or so that prosecutors and/or defense attorneys may guard against the possibility of a later appeal on the grounds that an individual with a known history of mental illness was allowed to proceed to trial under the presumption of competence. It is unclear how often the aforementioned reasons serve as the primary rationale for requesting a competency evaluation. In addition, it is important to acknowledge that the procedures used in various jurisdictions may account for the differing rates of incompetence. For example, in jurisdictions that use a screening process to eliminate those who are clearly competent from further evaluation, a higher rate of incompetence would be expected among defendants who undergo a formal evaluation of competency to stand trial. Depending on the jurisdiction, one or more mental health professionals will evaluate a defendant’s competency to stand trial and submit the results of this evaluation to the court in the form of a written report. A hearing on the issue of competency may take place; however, in most instances, this does not occur. Instead, the court usually renders a decision regarding the defendant’s competency on the basis of the mental

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health professional’s report. Although the determination of a defendant’s competency status is a legal decision, research has shown that the courts typically concur with the opinion of mental health professionals. In fact, some research has indicated rates of agreement between the court and the evaluator to be greater than 95%. Defendants who are found competent by the court will proceed with their case, whereas those who are found incompetent will, in most instances, be ordered by the court to undergo treatment for the purpose of restoration of competency. Treatment for restoring a defendant’s competency to stand trial most often occurs on an inpatient basis, although some states have moved toward a “least-restrictive” alternative, which allows for the possibility of outpatient treatment. Generally, most defendants are restored to competency within a 1-year period. Once restored, the defendant resumes with his or her legal proceedings. Those defendants who cannot be restored to competency will generally have their charges dismissed or nolle processed. Until the 1970s, incompetent defendants were often committed to lengthy periods of confinement in state maximum-security units, even though they were neither tried nor convicted of a crime. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Jackson v. Indiana decided that incompetent individuals could not be held for “more than a reasonable period of time necessary to determine whether there is a substantial probability” that they will regain competency in the foreseeable future (p. 738). The Court, however, did not give any indication as to what might be considered a “reasonable” period of time. As a result of the Jackson decision, many states amended their statutes to include either language similar to Jackson or specific timelines for determining whether someone might be restored to competency. With respect to the issue of medication, the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of decisions has indicated that a defendant may be forcibly medicated to restore competency under certain conditions, including an “overriding justification and a determination of medical appropriateness” (Riggins v. Nevada, 1992); its being essential to the safety of the defendant or the safety of others (Riggins v. Nevada, 1992; Washington v. Harper, 1990); or a finding that the medication is likely to restore competency and will not result in side effects that might affect a defendant’s ability to assist counsel and alternative and less intrusive methods are not

available (Sell v. United States, 2003). Thus, for the purpose of restoring competency, it seems that the right of a defendant to refuse medication is significantly limited. In this instance, it appears that the government’s interest in trying a competent defendant carries more weight than a defendant’s right to refuse medication. Competency Evaluation

At its most basic, the evaluation of a defendant’s competency to stand trial involves an assessment of the psycholegal abilities required of the defendant (as per the relevant legal statutes of the jurisdiction), an assessment of the current mental status of the defendant, and a determination of whether a linkage exists between any psycholegal deficits that may be evident and any mental disease or defect that may exist. Thus, a mental disease or defect serves as a prerequisite for a determination of incompetency, and any deficits in the relevant psycholegal abilities must be linked to this mental disease or defect. In addition, the evaluation of these components must occur within the specific context of the defendant’s particular case. That is, the complexities of the particular case must be considered as well as, and in conjunction with, the specific abilities of the particular defendant. Numerous forensic assessment instruments have been developed to aid in the evaluation of competency to stand trial. A full review of these instruments is beyond the scope of this entry, but the interested reader is referred to the cross-references listed below for more information. The instruments that have been developed range from simple checklists with little to no empirical support to detailed measures that have been developed and investigated with the highest level of scientific rigor. Some tools, such as the Fitness Interview Test–Revised, can be used either as a screen to help systematically identify individuals in need of further evaluation or as a means of structuring a more detailed competency evaluation. Others, such as the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool–Criminal Adjudication or the Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial–Revised, provide for a detailed assessment of competency-related abilities, to be used in conjunction with additional assessment with respect to the defendant’s particular case. In addition, other instruments have been developed for use with specific populations of defendants, such as the Competence Assessment for Standing Trial for Defendants With Mental Retardation.

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Research has demonstrated that there is generally good agreement among evaluators with respect to overall decisions regarding competency; however, examiner agreement falls significantly when specific psycholegal deficits are examined. Research has indicated that examiner agreement reaches 80% or higher for overall decisions regarding competency but that it falls to about 25% across a series of competency domains. Of course, it is the more difficult cases, the gray-area cases in which competency is truly a serious question, that are of the greatest concern and for which no research is available. Given the low base rate of incompetence, high levels of agreement among examiners on the issue of a defendant’s overall competence are to be expected; however, high levels of reliability do not ensure that valid decisions are being made. Validity is difficult to assess because of the criterion problem; that is, there is no true criterion for competency and thus no way to determine whether decisions that have been made about a defendant’s competency are accurate. It is impossible to fully assess predictive validity as only those defendants who are considered competent are allowed to proceed; thus, we have no way of knowing whether a defendant who was considered incompetent was actually unable to perform the abilities required of him or her. Characteristics of Incompetent Defendants

The vast majority of the research that has been conducted on competency to stand trial has examined the characteristics of and differences between competent and incompetent defendants. The constellation of characteristics held in common by defendants referred for evaluations of competency include being male, single, or unemployed; living alone; having a history of contact with both the criminal justice and the mental health systems; and being diagnosed with a major mental disorder. The individuals who are found incompetent to stand trial generally show the following characteristics: poor performance on psychological tests that measure a defendant’s legally relevant functional capacities, a diagnosis of psychosis, and psychiatric symptoms indicative of severe psychopathology. In addition, diagnoses of schizophrenia, mental retardation, mood disorders, and organic brain disorders have all been found to be strong predictors of incompetency. Direct comparisons of competent and incompetent defendants reveal that incompetent defendants are

significantly more likely to be single, unemployed, charged with a minor offense, and diagnosed with a psychotic disorder and significantly less likely to be charged with a violent crime and to have substance use disorders than are competent defendants. Competency Restoration

In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Jackson (discussed above), most jurisdictions now require evaluators to provide an opinion regarding the restorability of a defendant who is considered incompetent to stand trial. In general, evaluators are usually required to provide information to the court on whether the defendant can be restored to competency (or the probability of restoration occurring) and what the available treatment options are for the defendant. In addition, some jurisdictions require the evaluator to provide an estimate of the time frame required for restoration. Generally, many defendants are restored to competency within 6 months, and the vast majority are restored within a 1-year period. Although a full discussion of competency restoration is beyond the scope of this entry, some research has examined the characteristics of restorable and nonrestorable incompetent defendants. In general, this research has indicated that those defendants considered to be restorable tend to be younger and are more likely to have a previous criminal history and a nonpsychotic diagnosis than their unrestorable counterparts. Patricia A. Zapf and Virginia G. Cooper See also Competency, Foundational and Decisional; Competency, Restoration of; Competency Assessment Instrument (CAI); Competency Screening Test (CST); Competency to Waive Counsel (Proceed Pro Se); Evaluation of Competence to Stand Trial–Revised (ECST–R); Fitness Interview Test–Revised (FIT–R); Georgia Court Competence Test (GCCT); Interdisciplinary Fitness Interview (IFI); MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT–CA)

Further Readings

Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1960). Godinez v. Moran, 509, U.S. 389 (1993). Grisso, T. (2003). Evaluating competencies: Forensic assessments and instruments (2nd ed.). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972).

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Melton, G. B., Petrila, J., Poythress, N. G., & Slogobin, C. (1997). Psychological valuations for the courts: A handbook for mental health professionals and lawyers (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Riggins v. Nevada, 504 U.S. 127 (1992). Roesch, R., & Golding, S. L. (1980). Competency to stand trial. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Roesch, R., Zapf, P. A., Golding, S. L., & Skeem, J. L. (1999). Defining and assessing competency to stand trial. In A. K. Hess & I. B Weiner (Eds.), The handbook of forensic psychology (2nd ed., pp. 327–349). New York: Wiley. Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166 (2003). Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210 (1990). Zapf, P. A., & Roesch, R. (2006). Competency to stand trial: A guide for evaluators. In I. B. Weiner & A. K. Hess (Eds.), The handbook of forensic psychology (3rd ed., pp. 305–331). New York: Wiley. Zapf, P. A., Viljoen, J. L., Whittemore, K. E., Poythress, N. G., & Roesch, R. (2002). Competency: Past, present, and future. In J. R. P. Ogloff (Ed.), Taking psychology and law into the twenty first century (pp. 171–198). Kluwer Academic/Plenum.

COMPETENCY TO WAIVE APPEALS Appellate review of a felony conviction is a constitutional right. The validity of a relinquishment of this or any other constitutional right rests on whether the waiver is made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. There are two distinct arenas where waivers of appeals are encountered: plea bargains in criminal cases and death-sentenced inmates “volunteering” for execution. Though waivers of appellate review in plea bargains are legally complex, they are not philosophically, ethically, or forensically problematic. This is largely because the defendant makes an election that, viewed from both subjective and external perspectives, is in his self-interest. A waiver of appellate review by a death-sentenced inmate, however, is fraught with philosophical and ethical dilemmas, as well as forensic evaluation ambiguities. This situation is compounded because the U.S. Supreme Court has not articulated clear standards or procedures for evaluation of the competency of death-sentenced inmates to waive appellate review. Accordingly, forensic evaluations of this issue by mental health professionals are at best comprehensive and highly descriptive in nature.

Waiver of Appeals in Plea Bargains Depending on the jurisdiction, a waiver of the right to appellate review may be required of a defendant as a condition for a plea bargain. A waiver under these circumstances can be viewed as analogous to the defendant entering into a contract that is perceived to be most beneficial (or least onerous) to the defendant, as well as contributing to a more efficient administration of justice. Critics, however, note that a waiver of appeals as a precondition for securing a plea bargain is inherently coercive. Furthermore, such a waiver is invariably unknowing, as at the time of the waiver, the defendant may not yet have been sentenced or may not recognize limitations in the effectiveness of counsel, sentencing in excess of the statutory maximum, racially based sentencing, and so forth. Though these opposing considerations result in a complex legal analysis, waivers of appeals in a plea bargain are not forensically, philosophically, or ethically problematic. Forensic evaluations of the competency to make such a waiver are routinely subsumed within the broader consideration of competency to stand trial. There is little philosophical tension, as the defendant making this election is typically acting in rational self-interest—that is, to secure a less severe sentence. Furthermore, this plea bargain and the associated waiver of appeals are usually accomplished with the advice, participation, and assistance of defense counsel, whose role of facilitating the most advantageous outcome for the defendant is ethically straightforward.

Complexities in Waiver of Appeals Among Death-Sentenced Inmates Waivers of appellate review among death-sentenced inmates are notably different from those routinely encountered at plea bargaining. Whereas the defendant in a plea bargain may quite rationally waive appeals as part of obtaining a more favorable sentence, such a waiver by a death-sentenced inmate represents an acceleration of the arguably more onerous punishment of execution. This volunteering, as it were, for death cuts against basic expectations of selfpreservation and, accordingly, immediately raises questions regarding the rationality and motivations of such a determination. Equally problematic, the volunteering death-sentenced inmate is at cross-purposes with appellate counsel, who are likely to regard that they are ethically bound to delay or seek relief from

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the death sentence. Not uncommonly, the desire of the death-sentenced volunteer to accelerate execution is not shared by his or her family, who may seek standing to intervene as a “next friend” and continue with the appellate review. A decision by a death-sentenced inmate to functionally accelerate execution by forgoing appeals creates significant tension between competing rights and imperatives. On the one hand, competent adults (including death-sentenced inmates) are accorded some self-determination regarding their own mortality. For example, an individual can elect to forgo or discontinue medically indicated treatment even if death is the predictable result but is barred from committing suicide or seeking physician-assisted death. There is an analogous conundrum of determining where a rational determination that solitary confinement awaiting an inevitable death is more onerous than death stops and state-assisted suicide begins. Counterbalancing the right to self-determination among death-sentenced inmates, Justice John Marshall expressed in his dissenting opinion in Whitmore v. Arkansas (1990) that society has an interest in preserving the integrity of the criminal justice system and safeguarding the reliability of the application of capital punishment. Meaningful appellate review was made central to the reliable administration of the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia (1976). How is the death penalty as a legitimate sanction preserved if a death-sentenced inmate who is innocent or who has been sentenced in a constitutionally flawed trial is allowed to “volunteer” in order to escape the travails of confinement? Finally, there is tension between the complexity of appellate review and the limited literacy and legal sophistication of most capital offenders. Both direct appeals and postconviction review are extended, complicated, and tortured processes. Capital offenders may have difficulty in fully comprehending the associated legal issues or realistically evaluating their potential for success, rendering the “knowing and intelligent” condition illusory. Similarly, the concrete and rigid thinking associated with limited intelligence or neuropsychological deficits may interfere with effective problem solving and a realistic appraisal of available options, even while making “logical” arguments. The “voluntary” factor is also a complex consideration among death-sentenced inmates who seek to waive their appeals. This complexity is a function of both internal and external experience. A history of

family dysfunction, substance dependence, and neuropsychological insults and findings as well as limited intelligence and literacy deficits are common among death-sentenced inmates. Such a background would be expected to reduce resilience. Not surprisingly, rates of depression and other psychological disorders among death-sentenced inmates are relatively high. Furthermore, the chronic stress of being under a sentence of death is not insignificant. These psychological experiences leave logic intact but significantly intrude on the death-sentenced inmate’s “free will.” These internal reactions may be aggravated by the arduous conditions of confinement on death row. Quite simply, many death-sentenced inmates who seek to end their appeals do so because they find the conditions on death row to be intolerable. This is not a surprising reaction. In most jurisdictions in the United States, death-sentenced inmates are held in solitary confinement in cramped cells, in death-segregated units, with severe restriction of activities or interaction with others. These conditions have been identified as both psychologically destabilizing and inherently coercive. The coercive implications of death row confinement in waivers of appeal have gained additional salience from research by Cunningham and colleagues demonstrating that death-sentenced inmates who were mainstreamed in the Missouri Department of Corrections with nondeath-sentenced inmates were not a disproportionate source of violence. The combined effects of premorbid psychological vulnerability, depression, chronic stress, and extraordinarily restrictive confinement have been identified by international courts (e.g., Soering v. United Kingdom, 1989) as giving rise to “death row syndrome,” a legal rather than psychological classification intended to reflect the coercive totality of circumstances impinging on death-sentenced inmates.

Supreme Court Guidance on Competence to Waive Death Sentence Appeals The U.S. Supreme Court has not provided a clear standard for determining the competence of deathsentenced inmates to waive their appeals. In Rees v. Peyton (1966), the Court opined that the inquiry should be directed to whether he has capacity to appreciate his position and make a rational choice with respect to continuing or abandoning further litigation or on the other hand

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whether he is suffering from a mental disease, disorder, or defect which may substantially affect his capacity in the premises.

Unfortunately, the Court did not define “rational choice” or specify the procedures the lower court should use to determine if this standard has been met. Subsequently, in Gilmore v. Utah (1976), the Court did not reference the Rees decision, instead simply concluding that Gary Gilmore had made a knowing and intelligent waiver. Though the knowing and intelligent factors implicated an inherent autonomous decisionmaking consideration, an explicit “voluntary” factor was incorporated by the Supreme Court in 1990 in Whitmore v. Arkansas. Some additional guidance is available from Rumbaugh v. Procunier, a 1985 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision that the U.S. Supreme Court let stand by denying the petition for a writ of certiorari. Rumbaugh sought to structure the Rees criteria with the following questions: • Is the person suffering from a mental disease or defect? • If the person is suffering from a mental disease or defect, does that disease or defect prevent him from understanding his legal position and the options available to him? • If the person is suffering from a mental disease or defect that does not prevent him from understanding his legal position and the options available to him, does that disease or defect, nevertheless, prevent him from making a rational choice among his options?

Although these questions are helpful in providing a decision tree, they do not define the critical terms. Furthermore, they do not specify the procedures that should be employed to elicit answers to these questions.

qualifying psychological disorder, as well as the relationship of that disorder to rational decision making. Such a highly descriptive narrative should provide a careful analysis of the motivations for waiving appeals. The motivations underlying such a waiver may be far more complex and less obvious than the stated rationale of the volunteer. Thus, it is important not only to engage the capital inmate in discussion regarding the available options but also to gather information on any current or historical psychological disorders. Depressive symptoms and associated suicidal ideation are a particularly important focus, as is any paranoia. Many of the considerations explored in a competency-for-execution evaluation are also relevant to a waiver assessment, as these illuminate the capital inmate’s understanding of his or her own impending death. Specific attention should be paid to the conditions of confinement on the respective death row and how these affect mood, future perspective, and waiver decision making. Throughout this extensive interview with the volunteering inmate, careful attention should be directed to rationality, logic, insight, and coherence of thought. Interviews should also be held with appellate counsel, as well as prison staff, family members, and other relevant third parties. Psychological testing, including personality and cognitive assessment, may be helpful in some cases to assess aspects of the inmate’s functioning that contribute to his or her understanding and motivations with respect to the waiver. Mark Douglas Cunningham See also Checklist for Competency for Execution Evaluations; Competency for Execution; Competency to Stand Trial

Further Readings

Evaluations of Death-Sentenced Inmates for Competence to Waive Appeals As is the case with most forensic evaluations, assessments by mental health professionals of competence to waive appeals by a death-sentenced “volunteer” are mostly descriptive rather than conclusionary. This is particularly important in light of the absence of a clear definition of many of the critical elements of competence. A descriptive approach also acknowledges that determinations of incompetence by the courts have significant variability in the nature and severity of the

Blank, S. (2006). Killing time: The process of waiving appeal in the Michael Ross death penalty cases. Journal of Law and Policy, 14, 735. Cunningham, M. D., & Vigen, M. P. (2002). Death row inmate characteristics, adjustment, and confinement: A critical review of the literature. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 20, 191–210. Gilmore v. Utah, 429 U.S. 1012 (1976). Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). Lyon, A. D., & Cunningham, M. D. (2006). Reason not the need: Does the lack of compelling state interest in maintaining a separate death row make it unlawful? American Journal of Criminal Law, 33, 1–30.

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Norman, M. T. (1998). Standards and procedures for determining whether a defendant is competent to make the ultimate choice—death; Ohio’s new precedent for death row “volunteers.” Journal of Law and Heath, 13, 103. Rees v. Peyton, 384 U.S. 312 (1966). Rumbaugh v. Procunier, 753 F. 395 (2d 5th Cir. 1985). Soering v United Kingdom, 11 E.H.R.R. 439 (1989). Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149 (1990).

COMPETENCY TO WAIVE COUNSEL (PROCEED PRO SE) In the United States, it is permissible, with the approval of the judge, for a criminal defendant to act as his or her own attorney when the case goes to court. Legal and clinical issues related to the defendant’s being competent to waive the right to legal representation are discussed in this entry. In the United States, defendants accused of criminal charges are entitled to rights and protections by the Constitution. One important right articulated in the Sixth Amendment is that every accused person is entitled to representation by a legal counsel. Like other constitutional rights, the right to counsel is guaranteed—that is, no one, including even the judge, can deprive the defendant of this right. However, a defendant may request a waiver of the Sixth Amendment right to legal representation and permission of the court to represent himself or herself—in legal parlance, to proceed pro se. Waiving some constitutional rights is a common occurrence. The overwhelming majority of criminal cases (more than 90%) are resolved through a plea agreement between the defendant and the state, and to enter a guilty plea, a defendant must waive the constitutional rights to a trial and to confront the evidence. When it is required that the defendant provide a factual basis or justification for the plea, he or she may further have to waive the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. In the context of entering a guilty plea, defendants’ waiver requests typically occur after consultation with, and with the advice and consent of, their attorneys. Furthermore, by their nature, plea agreements are about disposition of the case; thus, defendants are commonly well-informed about the personal consequences of these waivers. In contrast, the request to waive the right to counsel more often marks a rift between the client and the attorney, and the potential impact on case

outcome is usually not known. However, it is almost universally agreed that the likely impact is not good, as reflected in the adage that a defendant who proceeds pro se “has a fool for a client and an idiot for a lawyer.” But in the most exceptional cases, criminal defendants likely disadvantage themselves because they might lack the litigation skills needed to present their cases most effectively. Nevertheless, the judge may approve a request if he or she determines that the defendant is competent to waive counsel. Case law has articulated the qualities that must be present with respect to competent waivers of constitutional rights. Although there are minor variations in language across cases, generally, the judge must determine that the waiver is made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. One court stated that the judge must determine whether the waiver was “made with full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it.” The courts have not further articulated the specific functional abilities (i.e., behavioral indicators) that are required for a defendant to demonstrate that his or her request meets these qualitative criteria. However, the case law is clear as to what is not required: It is not required that the judge deem the defendant’s decision to be a prudent one, nor does the competence determination hinge in any way on a demonstration that the defendant has litigation skills. When a defendant expresses the desire to waive the right to counsel, the court, either on its own motion or on the motion of the defense attorney, may order a clinical evaluation of the defendant’s mental competence. Presently, there are no standardized methods for psychiatrists or psychologists to use to evaluate competence to waive counsel, and most such evaluations will be based on unstructured interviews, the substance and process of which may vary widely across examiners. An interviewing strategy used in evaluating competence to plead guilty is embedded in the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool–Criminal Adjudication and may offer some guidance for evaluations of competence to proceed pro se. Briefly, this strategy involves having the defendant articulate what the choices are— in this instance, proceeding with an attorney in charge of presenting the defense or proceeding pro se. The defendant is then asked to describe both the potential advantages and the potential disadvantages of each alternative. Subsequent queries require that the alternatives be compared and contrasted (e.g., “Explain why Alternative a might be better than Alternative b. Are there some ways in which Alternative b might be better

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than Alternative a?”). A query as to the final choice and the reasons for that choice solicits the defendant’s beliefs about his or her case and situation, enabling the clinician to formulate a judgment of the plausibility or rationality and coherence of the defendant’s thinking. Ultimately, it is the judge’s decision whether to permit the waiver of the right to counsel. Even if the request to waive representation by counsel is granted and the case proceeds with the accused having primary responsibility for the defense, the judge may still order that a lawyer be present during subsequent proceedings and available as a consultant to the defendant. Providing for such consultation, whether or not the defendants makes use of it, is a positive gesture by the court that attempts to ensure fairness and preserve the dignity of the adjudicatory process. Norman G. Poythress See also Adjudicative Competence of Youth; Capacity to Waive Rights; Competency, Foundational and Decisional; Competency to Stand Trial

Further Readings

Litwack, T. R. (2003). The competency of criminal defendants to refuse, for delusional reasons, a viable insanity defense recommended by counsel. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 21, 135–156. Mossman, D., & Dunseith, N. W., Jr. (2001). “A fool for a client”: Print portrayal of 49 pro se criminal defendants. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 29, 408–419. Perlin, M. (1996). “Dignity was the first to leave”: Godinez v. Moran, Colin Ferguson, and the trial of mentally disabled criminal defendants. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 14, 61–81. Skeem, J., Golding, S. L., & Emke-Francis, P. (2003). Assessing adjudicative competency: Using legal and empirical principles to inform practice. In W. T. O’Donohue & E. R. Levensky (Eds.), Handbook of forensic psychology: Resource for mental health and legal professionals (pp. 175–211). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

COMPLEX EVIDENCE

IN

LITIGATION

Complex litigation tends to get framed as a problem for the jury system, but it is more properly viewed as a problem for any fact finder—juror, judge, arbitrator, expert panel—and for the litigants and their attorneys.

Still, the jury framing is useful because it brings into focus some of the resources a fact finder needs to tackle the problem: attention, memory storage and retrieval, education and training, and life experience. In these respects, groups are advantaged over individuals, and experts are advantaged over nonexperts. Since judges have greater average expertise but juries act as groups, it is difficult to identify a net advantage either way. And, of course, accuracy is only one criterion by which we evaluate legal judgment; a full assessment requires considerations of efficiency, fairness, legitimacy, and community representation. The task of studying the topic of complex litigation recapitulates the key features of the problem. Complex litigation produces a vast and gnarly multidimensional search space, yet legal fact finders and jury researchers alike attempt to draw inferences from only fragmentary glimpses of isolated regions of that space. As a result, legal fact finders and jury researchers each combine sparse data with inferences that go beyond the data given. Theory is always important in sociolegal research, but for this topic, it is essential if we are to say much at all. This entry presents a theoretical framework for evaluating expertise and collective decision making and describes the research done in this area. It also examines the types of complexity with respect to the number of parties and issues in a dispute and the amount and complexity of the evidence presented in the trial.

Theoretical Issues Expertise

The typical jury is obviously far less expert than the judge in one key respect—expertise on the law as it pertains to the case. But because juries do not provide a rationale for their verdict, we only rarely know that a jury has made a “mistake” on the law, and juries may not feel particularly hindered by their lack of legal expertise. What may matter far more is expertise with respect to the technical issues that may arise at the trial, involving the economic analysis of market power, the engineering of heavy machinery, the etiology of a disease, or the epidemiology of toxic exposure. Here, judges may outperform the average juror; judges are above average in education and intelligence, and they may have relevant experience from past trials. But we shouldn’t overestimate either intelligence or experience. Studies of expertise show that it can take a decade or more of concerted effort to

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develop true mastery of a technical skill. Graduate students are highly intelligent and still struggle for months to successfully complete their more technical graduate courses. And today’s judges are likely to have far less actual trial experience than their predecessors of earlier generations. As a sample of the community, the jury may collectively have more relevant expertise in nonlegal issues than the relevant judge. Groups as Information Processors

In the 1950s, Irving Lorge and Herbert Solomon deduced that, ceteris paribus, groups are better situated than their individual members to find correct answers. If p is the probability that any given individual will find the “correct” answer, then the predicted probability P that a collectivity of size r will find the answer is P = 1 − (1 − p)r. More recently, Lu Hong and Scott Page have derived theorems proving that cognitively diverse groups—defined with respect to the perspectives and schemas they use to tackle a problem—can outperform even their best members. But this model, like that of Lorge and Solomon, proves group competence, not group performance. Empirically, we know that performance often falls short of competence. Both models hinge on a key premise: If at least one member finds the answer, it will be accepted as the collectivity’s solution—in short, “truth wins.” This can occur only if group members recognize the “correctness” of a solution once it is voiced. Unfortunately, there are two problems with this assumption. First, Garold Stasser and his collaborators have shown that not all relevant facts get voiced; group discussion tends to focus on shared rather than unshared information. Second, even when voiced, correct answers are not always recognized as such. At best, “truth supported wins”—at least some social support is needed for a solution to gain momentum, indicating that truth seeking is a social as well as an intellective process. But even that occurs only for some tasks. One such task appears to be recognition memory; research has shown that groups outperform their members on memory tasks. But for more complex inferential tasks, members need a shared conceptual scheme for identifying and verifying solutions. When they lack such a scheme, the more typical influence pattern is majority amplification, in which a majority faction’s influence is disproportionate to its size, irrespective of the truth value of its position. In other words, strength in numbers trumps strength in arguments.

In theory, collective decision making (or the statistical aggregation of individual judgments) is well suited for reducing random error in individual judgments. But bias is a different story. Biases can be produced by content—inadmissible evidence or extralegal factors such as race and gender—or by process, as when jurors rely on an availability heuristic (overweighting what comes most readily to the mind), an anchoring heuristic (insufficiently adjusting away from an arbitrary starting value), confirmatory bias, or hindsight bias. Analyses by Norbert Kerr, Robert MacCoun, and Geoffrey Kramer suggest that under a wide variety of circumstances, collective decision making will amplify individual bias rather than attenuate it. The collective will tend to amplify individual bias when there is “strength in numbers,” such that large factions have an influence disproportionate to their size, as will occur explicitly in a “majority rules” system and when the case at hand is “close” rather than lopsided. A case can be close for several reasons, and each may pose different challenges for the fact finder. Facts can be ambiguous and vague; they can be clear but may contradict each other; or they can seem clear to each perceiver, but the perceivers may disagree on which side the “clear” facts support. The latter is particularly likely in an adversarial setting, where jury factions may form favoring each side of a dispute. Defining Complexity

In 1987, Robert MacCoun postulated a preliminary taxonomy of three basic categories of complexity: dispute complexity (the number of parties and number of issues in a dispute), evidence complexity (the quantity, consistency, and technical content of evidence), and decision complexity (the complexity of the law and the complexity of the inferential steps and linkages required to render a verdict). In the 1990s, Heuer and Penrod conducted the first systematic statistical analysis of trial complexity in a field study of 160 criminal and civil trials. Judges were asked to rate the trials on a wide array of attributes. Factor analyses suggested three underlying dimensions, roughly overlapping MacCoun’s categories: evidence complexity, legal complexity, and the quantity of information presented at trial. As in earlier work, it was found that judge ratings of complexity were unrelated to judgejury agreement rates. Both analyses treated quantity as a problem for the fact finder. On reflection, that doesn’t necessarily follow. Large trials are extended over long time

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periods. Citizens who are able to track the plot complexities of soap operas such as All My Children or the team lineups of the NBA clearly have the resources to track large arrays of factual data. Indeed, inductive inference often gets easier with additional data, not harder. What probably matters more is the internal structure of the evidence—the inconsistencies and contingencies and interdependencies. Evidence Complexity We know very little about evidence complexity in the trial context, but there are much larger bodies of research on deductive and inductive inference in nonlegal tasks. In approaching this literature, it is useful to keep two distinctions in mind. One is between the two criteria for validity: correspondence versus coherence. Correspondence considers whether our inferences match the empirical facts; coherence considers whether our inferences “hang together” in a manner consistent with the normative standards of deductive logic, Bayesian updating, and the like. The second distinction is between competence and performance. Competence describes what we are capable of achieving; performance describes what we actually achieve. A disproportionate amount of work has been done in the “coherence/performance” cell. We know that people routinely violate normative inference standards for even fairly simple tasks, and they do so systematically rather than randomly, through the use of heuristics. But various lines of evidence from the other three cells suggest that people—and honeybees, birds, and other organisms—are competent to perform inferences of remarkable complexity and sophistication in some settings. This work suggests that competence may exceed the performance we often observe and that the structure and sampling of evidence (and the match of data to our specific competencies) may be what closes that gap. So the applied challenge is to discover ways of restructuring fact-finding procedures to bring performance closer to competence. David Schum (using a Bayesian perspective) and Nancy Pennington and Reid Hastie (using narrative schemas or “stories”) have done much to elucidate how the internal structure of evidence gets cognitively represented and analyzed by fact finders. (Much of this work has been collected in Hastie’s edited volume Inside the Juror.) Schum’s work shows that people can sometimes perform better when tackling small, piecemeal inferences rather than larger, more global inferences. Pennington and Hastie show how the temporal

ordering of evidence at trial can facilitate (or interfere with) fact finders’ ability to form coherent narratives. Unfortunately, the adversarial setting poses difficulties very different from those one might encounter when mastering skills such as reading or learning to use a computer program. Evidence structures aren’t neutral; some favor one litigant at the expense of another. Indeed, lawyers with weak cases may even seek to undermine clarity. Highly technical evidence involving statistics, chemistry, engineering, or economics poses additional problems. The amount of time experts spend in explaining highly technical concepts at trial falls well short of the time one spends learning in a semesterlong course (without prerequisites!), though it still greatly exceeds what we can usually simulate in a mock jury experiment. Nevertheless, it seems likely that fact finders rely heavily on heuristic cues (“lots of charts,” “sure looked smart”) to compensate for their limited understanding of the material. Thus, Joel Cooper and his colleagues found that jurors were influenced by the content of expert testimony on the medical effects of polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs) when it was relatively simple but relied on the witness’s credentials when the testimony was complex. Dispute Complexity Much of what we know about how juries handle dispute complexity comes from an important program of research by Irwin Horowitz and his collaborators. They found that mock jury verdicts are systematically influenced by the size and configuration of the plaintiff population. Aggregating multiple plaintiffs into a single trial appears to increase the likelihood that the defendant will be found liable, but each plaintiff’s award may be smaller than in a consolidated trial. There are similar trade-offs involved in trying all the issues together versus bifurcating (or trifurcating) the trial into segments addressing causation and liability versus compensatory versus punitive damages—unitary trials may increase liability but lower damages. These effects are not neutral with respect to the parties, but bifurcation may be justified on procedural grounds because it appears to improve the quality of the decision process.

Conclusions If judges clearly outperformed juries as legal fact finders in complex cases, we would face a dilemma. But we don’t. Neither theory nor research indicates that

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judges are superior to juries in complex cases; it is safe to say that both need all the cognitive help we can give them to cope with an increasingly complex world. Research on complexity suggests that jurors may be better able to cope with complexity if they are encouraged to use the same strategies used by students who take notes and ask questions in class. Although the cognitive advantages of treating fact finders like active information processors may seem obvious, some attorneys and judges are reluctant to cede control over the case, in whatever small measure. But research shows that while these innovations help only modestly, they also do little or no observable harm. Robert MacCoun See also Jury Competence; Jury Decisions Versus Judges’ Decisions; Jury Deliberation; Jury Reforms; Statistical Information, Impact on Juries

Further Readings

Cooper, J., Bennett, E. A., & Sukel, H. L. (1996). Complex scientific testimony: How do jurors make decisions? Law & Human Behavior, 20, 379–394. ForsterLee, L., Horowitz, I. A., & Bourgeois, M. (1994). Effects of notetaking on verdicts and evidence processing in a civil trial. Law & Human Behavior, 18, 567–578. Hastie, R. (Ed.). (1993). Inside the juror. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Heuer, L., & Penrod, S. (1994). Trial complexity: A field investigation of its meaning and its effects. Law & Human Behavior, 18, 29–51. Horowitz, I., & Bordens, K. S. (2002). The effects of jury size, evidence complexity, and note taking on jury process and performance in a civil trial. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 121–130. Kerr, N., MacCoun, R. J., & Kramer, G. (1996). Bias in judgment: Comparing individuals and groups. Psychological Review, 103, 687–719. Lempert, R. O. (1981). Civil juries and complex cases: Let’s not rush to judgment. Michigan Law Review, 80, 68–132. MacCoun, R. J. (1987). Getting inside the black box: Toward a better understanding of civil jury behavior. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

Increasingly, however, police departments are making use of computer technology to construct lineups and administer them to witnesses. Computer technology can be used to build better lineups by tapping into larger databases of faces to provide better choices to witnesses as well as to provide flexibility and efficiency to officers in the office or the field. Computer-assisted lineups can be administered either simultaneously or sequentially, and they have the added benefits of being programmed exactly to department policy and preserving lineup administration procedures and choices.

Lineup Construction Researchers at the University of Northern Iowa have developed a Web-based program that allows officers to construct a lineup in the office or in the field. Internet capability (via modem, cable, wireless, or cell phone) allows the computer to link to a central database of faces that can be searched on the basis of a description of the perpetrator. The officer can then construct the lineup. Researchers use a method to evaluate lineups in order to determine if nonsuspect lineup members are serving as adequate fillers. This is referred to as a mock witness evaluation, and it involves providing a person who is not the actual witness with a description of the suspect. The mock witness is then given a lineup and asked to pick out the suspect. If mock witnesses can pick out the suspect at a greater than chance rate, the lineup is said to be biased. Typically, the realization that a lineup is biased occurs well after the lineup administration procedure, usually at the criminal trial. However, the computerized method allows for a mock witness test to be conducted during the course of the investigation, and in the event that the lineup is biased, new lineup members can be selected, thereby avoiding biased lineups being shown to witnesses. The police can accomplish this by sending the lineup and the description of the suspect to officers not associated with the case (across the hall or the state), providing for the lineup to be evaluated prior to administering it.

Lineup Presentation

COMPUTER-ASSISTED LINEUPS Many people are familiar with the live lineups and photo lineups shown in television crime dramas.

Police lineups in the United States have traditionally been administered by presenting the witness a photo array, typically arranged six photos to a page. (These are sometimes referred to as “6-packs.”) In this type of lineup, photos are presented simultaneously, and the witness chooses a photo by pointing at or stating the

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position number of the lineup member. There has been a recent movement toward administering lineups sequentially, so that witnesses see only one photo at a time. Unlike the simultaneous lineup, in which there is only one lineup decision, witnesses make a decision for each photo in the sequential lineup (“yes” or “no”). One benefit of the sequential lineup is that it has been demonstrated to reduce false identifications of innocent individuals.

Administrator Bias An additional benefit of the sequential method is that the photos can be randomized so that the administrator does not know which photo the witness is looking at, reducing the likelihood of administrator bias. Administrator bias occurs when the administrator inadvertently gives cues to which photo belongs to the suspect. When neither the administrator nor the witness knows who the suspect is, the procedure is referred to as “double-blind” administration. Computer-assisted lineups provide for reduced interaction between administrator and witness, which greatly reduces the unintentional cues that can pass from the administrator to the witness.

Policy and Procedures Law enforcement agencies typically have procedures for how lineups should be administered. However, deviations in procedure can easily occur when using traditional hard-copy lineup administration. Not only do computers have the capability to monitor and collect an enormous amount of information, they can also be programmed to administer the lineup exactly in accordance with policy and procedures. The administrator needs only to start the program and then can minimize his or her presence. Computers have the additional benefit of providing both written and audio instructions in any language. Lineups can be administered either simultaneously or sequentially. Lineup members can be randomly assigned to new positions each time the lineup is presented, with the administrator keeping accurate track of the position of each lineup member while recording the time taken to make each lineup decision. Many computers are equipped with condenser microphones and video cameras, thus enabling recording of the exact cursor location as well as audio and video of the event. Depending on the procedures, confidence can be measured for each lineup decision or after the lineup is complete.

Lineup Preservation Once a lineup decision has been made, the identification information must be recorded and preserved. A multitude of problems can occur in the preservation of hardcopy lineup information: Information about where the photos were gathered from and who the photos represent, along with administration information (who administered the lineup, the date and time, etc.), can easily get lost or not be recorded at all. Evidence obtained using computers can be better preserved than evidence from traditional hard-copy lineups. Lineup evidence in the form of data, photos, audio, and video (including a replay of the entire identification event) can be stored on the computer and automatically copied to a DVD, and it can be uploaded to a departmental server and stored on backup drives for later review by researchers, law enforcement personnel, attorneys, or jurors.

Showups Many identifications occur shortly after the commission of a crime because law enforcement officers often apprehend suspects in the vicinity of the crime. When this occurs, the law enforcement personnel will either bring the witness to the location where the suspect was apprehended or take the suspect to the witness. Either way, this is referred to as a showup. Showups are problematic because both the law enforcement officer and the witness know who the suspect is. Researchers at the University of Northern Iowa have begun experimenting with using handheld personal digital assistants (PDAs) in lieu of showups. PDAs have the ability to take a photo of the suspect and send the photo to a centralized location, either by phone or by WiFi. Technicians at the centralized location can then construct a lineup around the photo and transmit the lineup back to the PDA, allowing the officer to administer a sequential lineup to the witness. One added benefit is that the lineup can be transferred from the suspect’s location to the witness’s location, involving less physical transfer of people and PDAs. The handheld PDA has many of the capabilities of desktop or laptop computers, including playing sound instructions, audio recording the witness’s identification, and transferring the evidence back to a centralized location for preservation. Otto H. MacLin See also Lineup Filler Selection; Showups; Simultaneous and Sequential Lineup Presentation

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Further Readings

MacLin, O. H., Meissner, C. A., & Zimmerman, L. A. (2005). PC_Eyewitness: Administration and applications for research in eyewitness identification psychology. Behavior Research Methods, 37, 324–334. MacLin, O. H., & Phelan, C. (in press). PC_Eyewitness: Evaluating the New Jersey method. Behavior Research Methods. MacLin, O. H., Zimmerman, L. A., & Malpass, R. S. (2005). PC_Eyewitness and the sequential superiority effect: Computer based lineup administration. Law & Human Behavior, 29(3), 303–321.

CONDITIONAL RELEASE PROGRAMS Conditional release programs for persons acquitted by reason of insanity (not guilty by reason of insanity or NGRI) are designed to maximize public safety while meeting the courts’ mandate that some individual liberties be protected. These programs developed as a result of the state and federal court decisions in the 1960s, which required that this population be provided with commitment procedures similar to civil commitment. Prior to these decisions, persons found NGRI were given an automatic, indefinite “life sentence” to maximum-security state psychiatric hospitals for crimes ranging from shoplifting to murder. Under the new laws, persons committed as NGRI had to meet the commitment requirements of civil patients—that is, mental illness and dangerousness. Their continued commitment had to be periodically reviewed, and if they no longer met the commitment standards, they were to be released. Concerned with releasing what were believed to be “dangerous” offenders with mental illness into the community, states created a new category of posthospitalization supervision—conditional release. Research suggests that both goals were met in that insanity acquittees no longer languished in hospitals with no hope of being released and those who remained dangerous and mentally ill remained in a secure facility. The other major watershed event that affected the insanity defense, especially release procedures, was the NGRI acquittal of John Hinckley from the charge of attempting to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Following Hinckley’s 1982 acquittal, the most common type of legal change in this area of law was in postacquittal procedures. Most states responded by providing shared responsibility between the trial court

and the clinicians responsible for the day-to-day inpatient treatment of the committed population. Until then, hospital clinicians or the county court where the hospital was located had made the release decisions. Hinckley’s acquittal further decreased the already declining popularity of the insanity defense among the public. He eventually received a number of 1-day conditional releases under the supervision of his parents in 2003, more than 22 years after his actions. His release was widely opposed by the victims’ families, the Justice Department, and many others. Conditional release programs are often referred to as “mental health parole or probation,” but they significantly differ from traditional criminal justice aftercare supervision. The major differences between the two types of programs are in the length of the supervision period, the due process requirements for revocation, and the agency responsible for supervision. In most states, conditional release can be extended for any number of reasons, including clinical concerns, such as medication compliance; safety concerns; and lack of adequate community placement. For most parolees or probationers, their supervision time is finite. A few states limit the duration of conditional release to the maximum sentence that would have been given by the court had the defendant been convicted, reducing the utility of conditional release for less serious offenders. More often, conditional release is a relatively unrestrained and extensive period of community supervision and consequently makes the insanity defense a lesser plea and outcome. Revocation of conditional release is less difficult than in the criminal justice system. Few states require a formal due process hearing to revoke conditional release, unlike criminal justice postrelease programs. Typically, conditional release can be revoked if the individual simply violates any term of the release. While some states have in place more procedural safeguards, they are still minimal compared with other aftercare programs. A final difference that highlights the special circumstances of the population acquitted NGRI is in the agency responsible for supervision. These programs often bisect the mental health and criminal justice systems due to the legal status of persons acquitted NGRI. Because an insanity plea is an affirmative defense, defendants admit to factual guilt but are legally not responsible due to lack of mens rea. Consequently, while their treatment and confinement are provided within the mental health system across all states, their release might be controlled to some

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extent by the criminal justice system, in particular the county’s criminal court of commitment. This dual responsibility can cause professional conflict and confusion, making the release of insanity acquittees a complex legal and procedural process. None of this confusion surrounds parole or probation. While in most states an NGRI finding leads to an automatic inpatient evaluation, this is not the case in all states. A few states allow the judge discretion in bypassing an order for hospitalization. Following an NGRI commitment, periodic reviews are conducted at intervals designated by state law: commonly 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 1 year, and then annually. At this review, the treating psychiatrist or patient advocate can recommend or request conditional release. This application sets in motion the state’s conditional release procedures, which range from a simple approval by a judge in the county where the acquittal was recorded to a complex, multilayered process in which hospital, state, and court officials are required to approve the petition. In some states, the county judge and/or district attorney have to approve even internal security changes, such as from closed to open unit, or grounds privileges. The complexity of the release procedures has an impact on the likelihood of release, who is released, and the length of time between approval and actual release. An important component of conditional release is the availability of community programs to provide services to this forensic population. An innovative program developed in Oregon in 1978 and established in Connecticut in 1985 sought to gain greater control over persons found NGRI. The Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB) is a multidisciplinary independent board with full responsibilities for persons found NGRI. Decision making is highly centralized, and this board grants and revokes conditional release and sets the terms of release. This model has never been attempted in states with large populations. Most persons found NGRI and subsequently placed on conditional release draw little, if any, public attention, and the petitions are usually supported by the courts. Who supervises the persons on conditional release programs varies from state to state. Many states, in particular larger states with larger NGRI populations, have special intensive case managers who have experience or special training with forensic clients. Their caseload is often smaller than in traditional aftercare programs. This common model for conditional release leads to decentralized supervision

and decision making once the person is released. In addition to possible revocation, conditional release can be extended by the court, or the person can be discharged from all supervision. Lisa Callahan See also Treatment and Release of Insanity Acquittees

Further Readings

Appelbaum, P. S. (1994). Almost a revolution: Mental health law and the limits of change. New York: Oxford University Press. Callahan, L. A., & Silver, E. (1998). Factors associated with the conditional release of persons acquitted by reason of insanity: A decision tree approach. Law & Human Behavior, 22, 147–163. Steadman, H. J., McGreevy, M. A., Morrissey, J. P., Callahan, L. A., Robbins, P. C., & Cirincione, C. (1993). Before and after Hinckley: Evaluating insanity defense reform. New York: Guilford Press.

CONDUCT DISORDER Conduct disorder (CD) is a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior that violates the rights of others or age-appropriate norms and causes significant impairments in various domains of functioning. CD accounts for a substantial number of youths who enter into mental health facilities in the United States and Canada, and for this reason it is an important disorder for researchers to investigate and for clinicians to treat. Although CD continues to be problematic for the individual and society, remarkable progress has been made in our understanding of CD. Subtyping approaches have helped reduce some of the heterogeneity of the disorder and provide a better understanding of the potential etiologies associated with various types of CD. In addition, intervention programs have been developed that have been shown to be effective. These treatment programs tend to be intensive and multimodal, focusing on working with the youth to reduce CD symptoms but also providing parent training to improve attachment as well as parental monitoring and supervision practices. It is hoped that future research focusing on further refining the subtypes of CD and determining interventions that

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are most effective with specific subtypes of youth will assist mental health professionals in reducing CD symptoms and the concomitant costs to society.

Definition and Subtypes According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fourth edition, text revision; DSMIV-TR), CD is a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior that violates others’ rights or age-appropriate norms and causes clinically significant impairments in various domains of functioning. For example, symptoms of CD may include aggression, damaging property, and lying. For a diagnosis of CD, the youth must have evidenced 3 of the 15 symptoms within the past 12 months, with at least 1 symptom being present for the past 6 months. Because youths with CD are a heterogeneous group, various attempts have been made to identify subtypes of CD for informing etiology and intervention strategies. Earlier versions of the DSM differentiated between socialized versus undersocialized and aggressive versus nonaggressive dimensions. The socialized subtype was characterized by covert and overt antisocial behavior committed within the context of groups, whereas the undersocialized subtype was characterized by assaultive behavior that was carried out alone. The current version of the DSM in part incorporates Terrie Moffitt’s taxonomy and differentiates subtypes based on the age of onset: The childhood-onset and adolescence-onset subtypes are defined by characteristics of the disorder being present before and after the age of 10, respectively. This classification is intended to distinguish the life-course-persistent antisocial youth from the adolescence-limited antisocial youth, a potentially less serious subtype of CD. In support of this distinction, research by Paul Frick and Jeffrey Burke and colleagues has found that childhood-onset CD is associated with temperament and family dysfunction, whereas adolescence-onset CD is associated with delinquent peer affiliation. Furthermore, early onset is associated with the persistence of CD and an increased likelihood of violent and criminal behavior. Two other classification systems include differentiating CD into overt and covert subtypes and on the basis of two common co-occurring disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and anxiety. Research by Jeffrey Burke and colleagues and Paul Frick and colleagues suggests that there is some evidence for the utility of these distinctions. The presence of covert symptoms is associated with the persistence

of CD, and youths with both CD and ADHD engage in a greater variety of delinquent behaviors and are more violent. In contrast, youths with both CD and anxiety display fewer impairments in peer relationships and have fewer police contacts.

Prevalence and Impact According to the DSM-IV-TR, the prevalence of CD ranges from 1% to more than 10% in the general population. Large-scale population studies report prevalence rates ranging from 3% to 10% in nonclinical samples. Prevalence rates by gender are reported to range from 2% to 16% in boys and 1% to 9% in girls. The differences in prevalence rates are likely due to differences in the age of the youths sampled, CD criteria, time frame, and method of assessment. The negative consequences associated with CD affect a variety of domains, including education (e.g., poor academic performance), employment (e.g., increased likelihood of the need for financial assistance), relationships (e.g., peer rejection), mental health (e.g., substance abuse), and criminality. Second, a diagnosis of CD can increase one’s risk for other psychiatric and emotional disorders. The most wellestablished outcome is the link between CD and antisocial personality disorder (APD) in adulthood, on the assumption that there is a developmental progression between the disorders. Research by Lee Robins suggests that between 25% and 40% of children with CD will meet the diagnostic criteria for APD. Finally, CD is one of the most costly diagnoses in terms of involvement with mental health services and the criminal justice system. Youths with CD use a variety of services, including additional school resources, social services, general health services, inpatient and outpatient mental health services, and juvenile justice services. Research by Michael Foster and Damon Jones indicates that the cost of services used by the average youth with CD exceeds $14,000 per youth by the end of adolescence and the cost of total expenditures across adolescence is approximately $70,000 more than for youths without any behavioral disorders. Research by Stephen Scott and colleagues indicates, in more general terms, that children with CD cost 10 times more than those without CD.

Conduct Disorder and Psychopathy Research by Paul Frick and Donald Lynam suggests that psychopathy and a callous and unemotional

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interpersonal style may identify a subtype of childhood-onset CD. More important, the presence of callous-unemotional traits may provide the necessary developmental link between CD and psychopathy. Cross-sectional studies have found that antisocial youths with callous-unemotional traits exhibit a greater number, variety, and severity of conduct problems and more severe forms of aggression. Children with CD and callous-unemotional traits also evidence a preference for thrill-seeking activities, possess a reward-dominant response style, and demonstrate less anxiety. Further support for this distinction is the finding that genetic factors appear to play a larger role in those with callous-unemotional traits. Finally, callous-unemotional traits are predictive of a number of negative outcomes, including a greater number and variety of conduct problems, higher levels of proactive aggression and self-reported delinquency, more police contacts, and a diagnosis of APD in adulthood.

Prevention and Intervention CD is typically regarded as a disorder that is not very amenable to treatment efforts. In fact, earlier research suggested that the majority of early treatment efforts have been found to be largely ineffective. Second, treatment of CD is difficult owing to noncompliance. Finally, certain interventions, such as peer group strategies, can have iatrogenic effects and increase the level and severity of antisocial behavior. Despite these generally negative early findings with respect to the treatment of CD, a number of interventions have been found to be effective, including medication and various psychosocial treatments. For very severe cases of CD, some have suggested that psychopharmacology may be indicated. Jeffrey Burke and colleagues suggest that drugs such as lithium, risperidone, and methylphenidate may be effective for youths with severe CD. More specifically, LeAdelle Phelps and colleagues suggest that haloperidol, clonidine, methylphenidate, and risperidone may be effective in reducing severe aggression in youths with CD. However, psychopharmacology is not recommended as the primary treatment for CD because there is a lack of evidence that medication can alter the symptoms of CD per se and the medications do not have a prophylactic effect on CD symptoms. Rather, it appears that medication is most effective in reducing severe conduct problems in difficult cases. Although we note these recommendations for severe CD, we do so with caution given the lack of sound

methodological studies on the effectiveness of psychopharmacological treatments for youths with CD. Mental health professionals should carefully weigh the costs and benefits of administering drugs in the treatment of CD. A number of effective behavioral and psychosocial interventions for treating CD have been reviewed by Alan Kazdin and Paul Frick. One of the most effective interventions is parent management training (PMT). The focus of PMT is to reduce problem behaviors and increase prosocial behaviors by educating parents in techniques such as positive reinforcement, consistent discipline, and effective supervision. There is evidence suggesting that PMT is effective in the short term in clinical populations, reduces deviant behavior across multiple domains, and is able to reduce problematic behaviors to within the levels of normative youth, with benefits evident 1 to 3 years after treatment. Similarly, intervention strategies that use appropriate parenting strategies and attachment principles have also proved effective in terms of decreasing externalizing and internalizing problems in adolescents with CD. However, it can be difficult to motivate parents to complete treatment programs, and there is evidence that parent training is not always effective with severely dysfunctional families. Another effective treatment strategy adopts a cognitive-behavioral approach, which targets deficits in social cognition and problem solving, largely through inhibiting impulsive or angry responding by altering the processing of social information. A variant of this approach is child social skills training, which focuses on addressing interpersonal problems through techniques such as anger control and coping skills. There is some evidence for the effectiveness of social skills training in terms of decreases in aggression and antisocial behavior, increases in prosocial behavior in the short term, and improved interactions with peers. However, it can be difficult to maintain the skills over long periods and in domains outside the therapeutic setting. Therefore, some researchers recommend booster sessions to maintain the effects of treatment. A promising approach is that of multimodal interventions such as multisystemic therapy (MST), which addresses risk at the individual, family, peer, school, and neighborhood levels. MST involves a comprehensive assessment to determine how the various levels influence the youth’s problem behavior, and this information is then used to develop an individualized, intensive treatment plan. For example, parents may be educated in how to improve communication, and

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youths may be encouraged to increase their association with prosocial peers. There is some evidence of the effectiveness of MST in terms of reduction in aggressive behavior, lower rearrest rates, and fewer days of incarceration, with the benefits maintained for as long as 5 years posttreatment. As noted by Paul Frick and Eva Kimonis, the general conclusions regarding intervention for CD are that treatment is more effective with younger children, who exhibit less severe conduct problems; treatment effects do not generalize across settings; and it is difficult to sustain improvements over time. Bearing in mind these concerns, future efforts should be directed toward determining which treatments are the most effective at different developmental stages and for specific subtypes of youth. In addition to developing and administering appropriate intervention strategies, efforts should also be directed toward the prevention of CD symptoms. Interventions focus on mental illness with the goal of reducing or ameliorating impairment, whereas prevention focuses on mental health with the goal of developing adaptive, prosocial functioning. Generally, prevention programs do not address CD directly but address the risk factors related to CD and target youths identified as being at high risk for developing CD. Promising prevention programs include early family-based interventions that provide support and services to women during and after pregnancy, school-based interventions that provide additional intensive classroom programs, and community-based interventions that provide programs and activities in the community to promote prosocial behavior. Some examples include the TripleP positive parenting program, the Fast Track program, and the Incredible Years parenting program. Follow-up studies with youths who received these types of interventions found that they resulted in less aggression, fewer acting-out behaviors, lower arrest and recidivism rates, and less severe criminal offenses. Zina Lee and Randall T. Salekin See also Juvenile Offenders; Juvenile Offenders, Risk Factors; Juvenile Psychopathy; Mental Health Needs of Juvenile Offenders

Further Readings

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text revision). Washington, DC: Author.

Kazdin, A. E. (1995). Conduct disorders in childhood and adolescence (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kazdin, A. E. (2002). Psychosocial treatments for conduct disorder in children and adolescents. In P. E. Nathan & J. M. Gorman (Eds.), A guide to treatments that work (2nd ed., pp. 57–85). New York: Oxford University Press. Lynam, D. R. (1996). Early identification of chronic offenders: Who is the fledgling psychopath? Psychological Bulletin, 120, 209–234. Moretti, M. M., Emmrys, C., Grizenko, N., Holland, R., Moore, K., Shamsie, J., et al. (1997). The treatment of conduct disorder: Perspectives from across Canada. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 42, 637–648. Salekin, R. T., & Frick, P. J. (2005). Psychopathy in children and adolescence: The need for a developmental perspective. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 33, 403–409.

CONFESSION EVIDENCE Confession evidence is highly potent, and its incriminating effects are difficult to erase. This entry describes the impact of confessions on jury verdicts, examines three concerns about the way in which juries evaluate confession evidence, and considers the steps that can be taken to ensure that jurors assess such evidence appropriately. In cases where a confession is disputed, a judge determines the voluntariness and admissibility of the confession during a preliminary hearing. In the American criminal justice system, if a confession is deemed voluntary, it is then submitted for consideration to the jury. In some states, the jury is specially instructed to make an independent judgment of voluntariness and to disregard statements found to be coerced; in other states, the jury receives no such instruction. Either way, it is clear that jurors faced with evidence of a confession, and the defendant’s claim that it was false, must determine the credibility and weight of that evidence in reaching a verdict. Mock jury studies have shown that confession evidence has a greater impact on jury decision making than other forms of human evidence, such as eyewitness identification and character testimony. Confessions are so difficult to overcome that mock jurors tend to trust them even when it is not legally and logically appropriate to do so. In a study that illustrates this point, Saul Kassin and his colleague presented mock jurors with one of three versions of a murder trial. In the

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low-pressure version, the defendant had confessed to the police immediately on questioning. In the high-pressure version, he was interrogated aggressively by a detective who waved his gun in a menacing manner at him. In the control version, there was no confession in evidence. Faced with the high-pressure confession, participants reasonably judged the statement to be involuntary and self-reported that it did not influence their decisions. Yet when it came to verdicts, this confession significantly boosted the conviction rate. This pattern appeared even in a situation in which subjects were specifically admonished by the judge to disregard confessions that they found to be coerced. Criminal justice statistics reinforce the point that confessions tend to overwhelm other exculpatory evidence, resulting in a chain of negative legal consequences—from arrest through prosecution, conviction, and incarceration. Archival analyses of actual cases that contained confessions that were later proved false innocent have thus shown that when innocent confessors plead not guilty and proceed to trial, jury conviction rates range from 73% to 81%. There are three bases for concern about the way in which juries can be expected to evaluate confession evidence in support of conviction. First, commonsense leads people to trust behaviors that do not appear to serve a person’s self-interest, such as confessions. Most people believe that they would never confess to a crime that they did not commit and do not expect that others would either. Indeed, in a wide range of contexts, social psychologists have found that in perceiving the behaviors of others, people tend to overestimate the influence of dispositions and underestimate the influence of situational factors—a phenomenon known as fundamental attribution error. A second basis for concern is that people, including professional lie catchers, are not typically adept at distinguishing between truth and deception. For example, although it is common to assume that “I’d know a false confession if I saw one,” a recent study has shown that neither college students nor police investigators were able to differentiate between true and false confessions made by male prisoners. Hence, there is reason to believe that lay jurors would have difficulty in distinguishing between true and false confessions when presented as evidence. Third, jurors do not typically see the corruptive process of interrogation by which confessions are elicited. In many cases of proven false confessions, the statements that were presented in court often

contained accurate details about the crime, statements of motivation, apologies and expressions of remorse, and even corrections to errors that the suspects had supposedly identified. Typically presented with an oral, written, or taped confession but not the questioning that preceded it, however, jurors are not in a position to evaluate the source of these details. False confessions thus tend to appear voluntary and the product of personal knowledge, masking the coercive processes through which they were produced. It is clear that additional safeguards are needed when confession evidence is presented in court. There are two possibilities in this regard. One is for trial courts to permit psychologists to testify as experts—a practice that is common but not uniform across states. The purpose of this testimony is to assist juries by informing them about the processes of interviewing and interrogation, the phenomenon of false confessions, the psychological factors that increase the risk of a defendant making a false confession, and other general principles (the purpose in these cases is not for the expert to render an opinion about a particular confession, a judgment that juries are supposed to make). A second important mechanism is to ensure that judges and juries can observe the process by which confessions are produced by videotaping entire interrogations. A videotaping policy would have many advantages: The presence of a camera would deter interrogators from using highly coercive tactics, prevent frivolous defense claims of coercion, provide a full and accurate record of how the statement was produced, and perhaps even increase the fact-finding accuracy of judges, who must rule on voluntariness (they will observe for themselves the suspect’s physical and mental state, the conditions of custody, and the interrogation tactics that were used), and juries, who must render a verdict (they will see how the statement was taken and from whom the crime details originated). Importantly, interrogations should be videotaped with an “equal focus” visual perspective, showing both the accused and the interrogators. In numerous studies, Daniel Lassiter and colleagues have found that lay people, juries, and even trial judges are more attuned to the situational factors that draw confessions when the interrogator is on camera than when the sole focus is on the suspect. Julia C. Busso and Saul M. Kassin See also False Confessions; Interrogation of Suspects; Videotaping Confessions

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Further Readings

Kassin, S. M., & Sukel, H. (1997). Coerced confessions and the jury: An experimental test of the “harmless error” rule. Law and Human Behavior, 21, 27–46. Lassiter, G. D., Geers, A. L., Handley, I. M., Weiland, P. E., & Munhall, P. J. (2002). Videotaped confessions and interrogations: A change in camera perspective alters verdicts in simulated trials. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 867–874.

CONFIDENCE

IN IDENTIFICATIONS

The confidence that eyewitnesses express in their decision at an identification test or lineup has long been recognized within the criminal justice system as an indicator of the likely reliability or accuracy of the witness. In contrast, psychology researchers have downplayed the diagnostic value of eyewitness identification confidence. Although only a relatively small proportion of the variance in identification accuracy is associated with variance in confidence, recent research using what is known as a confidence-accuracy (CA) calibration procedure suggests that confidence—measured immediately after the identification decision—can provide a useful (but not infallible) pointer for crime investigators to the likely accuracy of positive but not negative (i.e., lineup rejections) lineup decisions. This conclusion definitely does not apply, however, to confidence judgments expressed in the courtroom as, by this time, there has been an opportunity for postidentification influences (such as feedback from lineup administrators or other witnesses) to shape any subsequent confidence judgments. Nor is the conclusion applicable to judgments expressed by witnesses prior to having viewed a lineup. A major challenge for future research in this area will be to define the boundary conditions for obtaining robust CA calibration, which, in turn, will enhance the capacity to diagnose the likely accuracy of identification decisions. Eyewitnesses will often provide some sort of expression of confidence in their memory when they examine a police lineup or photo spread or when they testify in court about the identity of the offender. Their degree of confidence is known to exert a strong influence on assessments made by the police, lawyers, and jurors about the likely reliability of their testimony. Yet it is known that eyewitness confidence is sometimes an extremely misleading cue to the likely accuracy of an

identification. The following sections examine when identification confidence is informative about the offender’s identity and when it is likely to mislead. Eyewitness confidence has been of major interest because confidence is an easily obtainable index that could potentially provide a guide for the criminal justice sector as to the likely reliability of an eyewitness identification response. Given the crucial role that identifications can play in some investigations and trials, together with the overwhelming evidence of eyewitness fallibility provided by DNA exoneration cases and experimental simulations of identification tests, knowing how much weight should be attached to witnesses’ confidence estimates is an important forensic issue. Even prior to attending an identification test, witnesses may express a particular degree of confidence in their capacity to identify the offender, with the confident witness likely to impress police investigators. These assessments are likely to be influenced by a variety of factors such as witnesses’ evaluations of the strength of the memorial image for the offender, their recollections of the quality of view they had of the offender at the time of the crime, their perceptions of how good a recall they displayed when interviewed by the police, and so on. To date, there is no evidence to indicate that such preidentification test confidence assessments should be considered as a guide to the likely accuracy of an identification.

Factors for and Against a Confidence-Accuracy Relationship There is now a sizable literature on the relationship between confidence, when expressed after an identification decision, and identification accuracy. Researchers have mounted compelling arguments both for and against expecting a strong relationship between identification confidence and accuracy. For example, in recognition memory theories and research, the strong link between memory signal strength and recognition accuracy and confidence provides firm grounds for expecting a meaningful CA relationship. Furthermore, witnesses with very strong memories of the offender are likely to make a rapid identification, with the apparent ease or speed of the identification providing a potentially reliable cue to confidence. Other support comes from research on psychophysical discrimination, indicating that confidence may well regulate, rather than be a result of, the decision process.

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Arguments against a strong CA relationship have, however, been much more consistently advanced, with these views reinforced by demonstrations of overconfidence in various domains of human judgment. Some of the grounds for questioning a meaningful CA relationship include our (a) inability to review all factors that should shape confidence; (b) tendency to focus too heavily on confirmatory evidence for a decision; (c) problems with translating subjective judgments of confidence into some kind of numerical confidence value; (d) reliance on cues to confidence that, while sometimes veridical, may also be misleading (e.g., a face in a lineup may seem very familiar not because it is that of the offender but because it had been seen in the context of the event previously, or witnesses may infer that the face in the lineup that seems most familiar must be the offender because they got an excellent view of the offender at the crime); and (e) almost inevitable exposure to postidentification social influences that produce malleable confidence judgments.

Confidence-Accuracy Correlation For some time the dominant view among eyewitness memory researchers has been that postidentification confidence does not provide a particularly informative guide to the likely accuracy of an identification decision. It has been generally accepted that the CA relationship is best described as lying between weak (at worst) to modest (at best) for witnesses who make a positive identification (i.e., choosers) from either a culprit-present lineup or a culprit-absent lineup— indicated by CA correlations that seldom exceed 0.3— and virtually nonexistent (correlations around 0) for witnesses who reject either of these lineups (nonchoosers). Note, however, that the correlations for choosers have been shown to be higher when, for example, (a) the encoding and test stimuli have been allowed to vary as they do in the real world, (b) stimulus encoding conditions were optimal, and (c) witnesses were encouraged to be self-aware with respect to their preidentification decision behaviors by being asked to view a video of their own identification decision before giving a confidence assessment. Although the finding of a modest CA correlation is clearly a reliable one, it does not provide the complete picture regarding the CA relationship. This requires supplementing the correlation between confidence and the identification decision outcome (accurate, inaccurate) with an examination of other characteristics of

the CA relation—specifically, an examination of CA calibration and patterns of overconfidence/ underconfidence. The correlation coefficient reflects the variance in decision accuracy associated with variations in confidence. For the eyewitness identification paradigm, which typically involves a witness making a single identification decision, this therefore reflects variance explained at the level of the group but is not informative about the likely accuracy of a witness’s decision accompanied by a specific level of confidence (e.g., 70% confident or 90% confident). Information about the latter is, however, obtainable by applying the calibration approach to the examination of the CA relationship and, since the late 1990s, a number of studies of the CA relationship in eyewitness identification have used this approach.

Confidence-Accuracy Calibration At a conceptual level, the procedure is quite simple, with the proportion of accurate identification decisions determined for each level of identification confidence (10%, 20%, etc.). This provides the basis for plotting a calibration curve and the derivation of calibration, overconfidence/underconfidence, and resolution statistics. Inspection of the calibration curve provides a direct indication of the levels of identification accuracy expected in association with varying degrees of confidence; for example, judgments made with 100% confidence might be characterized by 85% accuracy. Perfect calibration is, of course, characterized by 0% accuracy at 0% confidence, 10% accuracy at 10% confidence, right through to 100% accuracy at 100% confidence. Any departure from perfect calibration is not only illustrated by comparing the obtained and ideal calibration curves but can also be captured in a calibration statistic (varying from 0 to 1, with 0 indicating perfect calibration) and an overconfidence/ underconfidence statistic (varying from 0 ± 1, with increasing positive and negative departures from 0 denoting increasing overconfidence and underconfidence, respectively). In addition to the guide provided by the calibration procedure to the likely accuracy of identification decisions made with particular levels of confidence, it also provides a resolution statistic that (like the correlation coefficient) indicates variance in decision accuracy associated with confidence. A number of studies have now applied the calibration approach to the study of the CA relation within the eyewitness identification paradigm. While these

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studies have sampled only a limited range of forensically relevant variables and, indeed, a limited array of levels on each of those variables, they have at least used several different sets of stimulus materials and events (including both central and peripheral targets) that have given rise to different rates of correct and false identifications, different retention intervals between encoding and test (with the longest being 1 week); varied the similarity of lineup targets and foils; and varied the lineup instructions. Studies with adult participants have presented calibration curves, for positive identification responses (or choosers), that roughly parallel the ideal calibration curve. In other words, as confidence increases so too does accuracy in a systematic manner, a pattern not suggested by the typically modest CA correlations reported in these same studies. Generally, however, the curves indicate some degree of overconfidence, with accuracy rates at the high end of the confidence scale (i.e., 90% to 100% confident) typically around the 75% to 90% level. In contrast, no such systematic patterns have been detected for participants who rejected the lineup (i.e., nonchoosers). Three other findings are also noteworthy. First, in association with confidence estimates of 90% to 100%, diagnosticity ratios— indicating the ratio of hits to false alarms—were substantially higher than for lower confidence estimates. Second, participants whose identification responses were very fast were better calibrated than those whose identifications were slow. The latter finding is to be expected given that participants with an exceptionally strong memory for the culprit should not only identify the culprit when present in the lineup, and be appropriately confident, but should also be less likely to falsely identify an innocent suspect, thereby reducing the likelihood of confident, incorrect responses. Third, there is some evidence that interventions designed to improve adults’ scaling of confidence judgments (by causing them to reflect carefully on the encoding and identification test conditions or the possibility that their identification decision could be mistaken) can reduce overconfidence and improve CA calibration. It is encouraging that similar patterns of CA calibration findings have also been reported in a number of studies using various forms of a face recognition paradigm, the basic requirement of which is to judge whether or not faces presented at test had been among an array of faces that had previously been presented in a study phase. Specifically, these studies have demonstrated robust CA calibration for positive (but not negative) decisions in both absolute and relative

judgment versions of the face recognition paradigm, but with overconfidence more pronounced as task difficulty increased (e.g., shorter stimulus exposure durations at either study or test). One feature of the calibration studies that must be highlighted is that the confidence judgments from participant witnesses were obtained immediately after the identification response, thereby ensuring that they were not affected by any postidentification influences (e.g., from the lineup administrator or other witnesses) that are known to exert a profound influence on confidence judgments quite independent of the accuracy of the identification response. Thus, while the calibration studies illustrate meaningful CA relations, eyewitness researchers are in strong agreement that confidence assessments provided after some delay (e.g., in the courtroom) are potentially highly misleading about the likely accuracy of an identification. Not all the evidence on the CA relation obtained with the calibration approach is positive about the CA relation. For example, research done with samples of children aged 10 to 13 years highlights poor CA calibration and extreme overconfidence, illustrated by accuracy rates sometimes as low as 30% in association with confidence judgments of 90% to 100%. Furthermore, children’s overconfidence in their identifications has, thus far, proven resistant to interventions designed to reduce it.

Applied Implications While there is still much to be done in terms of testing the generality of findings obtained via the calibration approach across a variety of forensically relevant conditions, the present findings are, nevertheless, important from an applied perspective. As indicated earlier, while the CA correlation addresses the group-level variance in accuracy explained by confidence, the calibration approach provides the additional insight into the likely accuracy of particular identifications made with some specific level of confidence. The available data strongly suggest that police investigators should pay close attention to witnesses’ confidence estimates solicited at the time of the identification and, hence, not subject to any social influence. Specifically, extremely confident (and rapid) identifications of the suspect in the lineup, while by no means guaranteed to be accurate, should signal to police investigators that there is a very real chance that the suspect is the culprit and, thus, stimulate a closer search for supportive

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evidence. When, however, the identification of the suspect is not made with extremely high confidence, and is perhaps made in a ponderous manner, it should signal real doubts about whether the suspect is the culprit and act as a reminder to investigators that they should strongly consider alternative hypotheses about the culprit’s identity. In contrast, investigators should not attempt to interpret the likely accuracy of witnesses’ rejections of a lineup based on the associated confidence levels. Although lineup rejections have diagnostic value with respect to the guilt or innocence of the suspects, the witnesses’ confidence levels do not assist in that diagnosis. Encouragingly consistent with these conclusions that are based on experimental simulations are some analyses of findings from real criminal cases. In this archival work, when there was strong incriminating (nonidentification) evidence against a suspect (which admittedly does not prove that the suspect was the culprit), very confident witness identifications much more strongly pointed to the police suspect than to the innocent lineup foils.

Barriers to the Use of the Calibration Approach Application of the calibration approach to the study of the CA relation in eyewitness identification has clearly been valuable. Unfortunately, there is one major obstacle to the more widespread application of the approach. As the published work shows, use of this approach in the eyewitness identification context requires extremely large sample sizes. The typical eyewitness identification task simulates the real-world investigation: The witness observes a crime, views a lineup, and either makes a positive identification or rejects the lineup. In other words, only one data point is provided by each participant witness. However, stable calibration curves and statistics (for choosers or nonchoosers) require approximately 200 to 300 data points for each experimental condition examined. Thus, the existing published studies with an identification paradigm are characterized by sample sizes considerably in excess of what many laboratories find practical to achieve. In contrast, an old-new face recognition paradigm allows for a large number of repeated measures and, in turn, derivation of calibration statistics for each participant. One consequence of this sample size problem is that future research into how calibration varies over forensically relevant conditions is likely to proceed quite slowly.

Confidence Malleability The issue of social influences on identification confidence and the malleability of confidence have already been mentioned—and these issues are also discussed specifically elsewhere. Some further discussion of these issues is required here, however, to round out the discussion of identification confidence. As has been indicated, the empirical evidence shows that witness confidence judgments are informative about the likely accuracy of positive identification decisions if they are solicited at the time of the identification. But from the time of the identification through to the end of a trial, witnesses may have a variety of further interactions with the police, other witnesses, and lawyers, culminating often in a courtroom appearance. Although none of these interactions can have any bearing on the accuracy of the decision that was indicated at the identification test, they do have the potential to influence significantly any subsequent expression of confidence in that decision. This may mean, for example, that any confidence judgment expressed in the courtroom may be quite different from the one that was made at the time of the actual identification test. In turn, whereas confidence at the time of the identification decision may be informative about identification accuracy, these subsequent expressions of confidence may not be. Some of the key variables that have been shown to influence postidentification judgments of confidence include confirming and disconfirming feedback about the accuracy of the identification provided, for example, by a lineup administrator or another witness. This feedback may be in the form of explicit verbal feedback from one of these sources or may involve more subtle verbal or nonverbal cues. Regardless of when and how the feedback is delivered, its impact will be to make a witness appear more credible or believable if it is confirming feedback and thus inflates confidence or less credible if it disconfirms and deflates confidence. In other words, cues that can affect confidence judgments but not the underlying judgmental accuracy can render a witness more or less believable to jurors. Thus, a witness who falsely identifies an innocent police suspect may not be particularly confident at the time of making an identification but may be exceptionally confident at some later stage in a courtroom. It is for these reasons that eyewitness researchers have strongly endorsed the collection of any assessments of confidence at the time of the identification—for it is then that the confidence judgments are maximally

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informative about accuracy—and have little faith in the probative value of identification confidence judgments that witnesses may express in the courtroom. Neil Brewer See also Confidence in Identifications, Malleability; Optimality Hypothesis in Eyewitness Identification; Response Latency in Eyewitness Identification

Further Readings

Brewer, N. (2006). Uses and abuses of eyewitness identification confidence. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 11, 3–24. Brewer, N., & Wells, G. L. (2006). The confidence-accuracy relationship in eyewitness identification: Effects of lineup instructions, foil similarity and target-absent base rates. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 12, 11–30. Cutler, B. L., & Penrod, S. D. (1989). Forensically relevant moderators of the relation between eyewitness identification accuracy and confidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 650–652. Juslin, P., Olsson, N., & Winman, A. (1996). Calibration and diagnosticity of confidence in eyewitness identification: Comments on what can be inferred from the low confidenceaccuracy correlation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22, 1304–1316. Kassin, S. M., Tubb, V. A., Hosch, H. M., & Memon, A. (2001). On the “general acceptance” of eyewitness testimony research: A new survey of the experts. American Psychologist, 56, 405–416. Keast, A., Brewer, N., & Wells, G. L. (in press). Children’s metacognitive judgments in an eyewitness identification task. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. Lindsay, D. S., Read, J. D., & Sharma, K. (1998). Accuracy and confidence in person identification: The relationship is strong when witnessing conditions vary widely. Psychological Science, 9, 215–218. Sporer, S. L., Penrod, S. D., Read, J. D., & Cutler, B. L. (1995). Choosing, confidence, and accuracy: A meta-analysis of the confidence-accuracy relation in eyewitness identification studies. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 315–327.

CONFIDENCE IN IDENTIFICATIONS, MALLEABILITY Eyewitnesses are often asked to indicate how confident they are in the accuracy of their identification and

other testimony-relevant judgments. These reports are highly influential in evaluations of identification accuracy. Unfortunately, eyewitnesses’ confidence reports are highly malleable, easily influenced by myriad variables. The solution is to record witnesses’ confidence in their identification and report of crime details immediately, so as to preserve whatever useful information confidence provides. A witness’s confidence in the accuracy of his or her identification is perhaps the most studied of all variables related to eyewitness decision making—for good reason. Eyewitness confidence is the most intuitively appealing variable for use in assessments of accuracy. Indeed, it is specially highlighted by the U.S. Supreme Court for use in such evaluations. This recommendation is consistent with lay assumptions of what variables predict identification accuracy: People believe that a confident witness is an accurate one. This assumption does have empirical support. Under certain circumstances, there is a strong, positive correlation between confidence and accuracy. For example, when viewing conditions are disparate, a strong confidence-accuracy relationship emerges: Witnesses who see a culprit under difficult viewing conditions are less confident compared with those who see a culprit under optimal viewing conditions. Other research confirms the existence of a useful relationship between confidence and accuracy. One meta-analysis determined that the confidence-accuracy correlation for witnesses who made choices from lineups or photo spreads was moderate (r = .41). These investigations are highly valuable in clarifying the maximum possible utility of confidence reports in assessing accuracy. These investigations capture confidence reports under the best possible circumstances. Because no external variables have been introduced (e.g., photospread administrator influence), they are, in some sense, pure measures of the extent to which confidence is related to accuracy. Therefore, it is possible to think of these confidence reports as the estimator versions of this variable because they derive from factors outside the control of the justice system. For example, the system cannot ensure that a witness has a good view of the culprit. Therefore, to the extent that the quality of the witness’s view determines how confident he or she is, the justice system has no hand in a witness’s confidence. In other ways, the justice system has a substantial role in the level of confidence an eyewitness expresses in his or her identification. This influence is driven by

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system variables—those variables the justice system can control. Many system variables have been implicated in confidence inflation. This influence has been demonstrated across three different categories of confidence reports: current confidence in the identification decision (e.g., How confident are you in the accuracy of your identification right now?), retrospective confidence in the identification decision (e.g., How confident were you when you made your identification?), and reports about details of the witnessed event (e.g., What kind of disguise was the culprit wearing?). As described below, the malleability of confidence in each of these three categories can be attributed to system variables.

Confidence in Reports of Crime Details Although confidence malleability is most prominently studied in relation to identification accuracy, some researchers have focused on its malleability in the context of crime detail recollections. In one investigation, eyewitnesses questioned over the course of 5 weeks reported significantly elevated confidence levels at the end of that period, without any corresponding increase in the accuracy of their reports. The same elevation occurred when eyewitnesses were questioned over the course of 5 days. In addition, a manipulation as simple as the context in which a confidence report is given can influence the magnitude of an eyewitness’s certainty. Witnesses who give reports about crime details in public provide significantly lower confidence ratings than do those witnesses who give reports privately, even though the accuracy in both groups is equivalent. The number of times a witness is interviewed and the context of the interview are both variables under the control of the investigating officers to a certain extent.

Current Confidence in Identification Accuracy In many crimes, many people witness the same event. Some of the crimes for which innocent people were wrongfully convicted include up to five individuals all identifying the same person. In one of the most elaborate empirical examinations of the effect of cowitnesses, witnesses saw a live staged crime in pairs. Witnesses were then separated for the identification attempt and confidence report. Finally, witnesses were randomly assigned to learn one of four types of information about their cowitness’s decision. Those who

learned that their cowitness identified the same person they did or identified an implausible other reported the highest levels of confidence. Those who learned that their cowitness either identified someone else or did not make an identification all had confidence levels that were significantly lower than witnesses in a control (no cowitness information) condition. Information from a cowitness can also alter confidence in reports of crime details. In one study, witnesses’ confidence in whether an accomplice was present at the scene of a crime changed depending on their partner’s report of whether that accomplice was present. The justice system has limited control of whether cowitnesses speak to one another. At the very least, cowitnesses should be separated until each has provided an identification decision, complete report of crime details, and indicated the confidence in each judgment. Cowitnesses are not the only source of contamination for current confidence reports. Photospread administrators have long been targeted as a potential source of influence in eyewitnesses’ decisions. Initially, concerns centered on the ability of a photospread administrator to affect an eyewitness’s choices; research does suggest this is a worthy concern. Recently, however, concerns have expanded to include the problem of administrators influencing an eyewitness’s confidence. In one demonstration of this problem, eyewitnesses attempted identifications in two conditions. In one condition, the photospread administrator knew who the suspect was. In the other condition, the photospread administrator did not know who the suspect was. Eyewitnesses who made identifications under the first condition reported higher confidence in their accuracy than did eyewitnesses who made identifications in the second condition. The influence inherent in this situation is easily solved by ensuring that the person administering a set of photos to an eyewitness does not know who the suspect it; the system can control whether this safeguard is adopted.

Retrospective Confidence in Identification Accuracy Malleability in retrospective confidence reports is perhaps the most problematic of the three categories, in part because this category is specifically highlighted by the U.S. Supreme Court for use in determining accuracy. The Court indicates that the relevant confidence report is from the “confrontation,” suggesting that they recognized the possibility for confidence to

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increase over time. Unfortunately, profound distortions in witnesses’ memories of how confident they were at the time of the identification are easy to create with postidentification feedback. Witnesses who hear that their identification was correct report remembering with greater certainty at the time of the identification compared with witnesses who heard nothing about their accuracy. Because this effect occurs for eyewitnesses who have made false identifications, the manipulation produces a set of highly confident, but wrong, eyewitnesses. As with the other system variables described above, this one has an easy solution. If confidence reports are collected immediately after an identification is made, eyewitnesses’ confidence reports will not be vulnerable to influence by the photospread administrator.

Implications of Confidence Malleability As noted above, there is a nontrivial, positive relationship between confidence and accuracy under certain circumstances. However, because confidence is malleable, the significant relationship between the two variables can easily be compromised or even eliminated. One way in which the confidence-accuracy correlation is eliminated is by suggesting to witnesses that they prepare for cross-examination. In such a situation, witnesses who have made inaccurate identifications often inflate their confidence to the point where their confidence is indistinguishable from that of accurate witnesses. Postidentification feedback has a similarly devastating effect on the confidenceaccuracy correlation: Witnesses who hear that their identification was correct report equivalent levels of confidence, regardless of whether their actual identification was accurate or inaccurate. The implications of confidence inflation are profound because a witness’s confidence in the accuracy of his or her identification carries enormous weight in judgments of accuracy, often trumping other variables. In one set of studies, mock jurors were provided with information about 10 variables, all of which influence identification accuracy (e.g., the culprit’s disguise). None of the 10 variables influenced mock jurors’ assessments except confidence. In another experiment, jurors who participated disregarded the quality of a witness’s view, evaluating him or her positively as long as confidence was high. This reliance on confidence is unproblematic except that eyewitnesses routinely

produce highly confident reports about identifications that are incorrect. Ample real-world evidence suggests that this is a significant problem. Many individuals exonerated by DNA evidence were convicted on the basis of confident eyewitness identifications.

Future Research on Confidence Malleability Even though confidence malleability is a well-studied phenomenon, there are many unanswered questions. For example, researchers do not yet know for how long confidence is malleable. Some research suggests that postidentification feedback still influences retrospective certainty reports even when it is given 48 hours after an event is witnessed. These results are provocative—suggesting that confidence may be malleable for extended periods of time. However, because few studies include manipulations of time, the extent to which confidence is malleable is not well understood. The reason for the susceptibility of confidence to external influences is also not well understood. One contributing factor may be that confidence reports are derived from many sources. One other factor is undoubtedly the extent to which the stimulus matches the witness’s memory (i.e., ecphoric similarity). Another factor is the desire of witnesses to determine whether their judgment is correct (i.e., the desire for informational influence). In at least one study, the tendency to conform eyewitness decisions to others was highest when the witnessing conditions made identification difficult (i.e., the stimulus was in view for a very short time) and the task was important.

Remedies for Confidence Malleability The most obvious remedy for confidence inflation is to record witnesses’ reports immediately after an identification is made or a crime is reported. This solution is appealing for three reasons. First, providing a confidence report may in fact inoculate witnesses against future inflations. In one study, witnesses who provided a private retrospective confidence report were less affected by postidentification feedback than were witnesses who did not. Second, records of confidence reports would allow defense attorneys to challenge subsequent inflation through cross-examination at trial. This is likely to be difficult, as one study demonstrated that mock jurors are resistant to attempts to undermine a witness’s confidence report

Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS)———145

by providing evidence that it has inflated over time. Finally, recording confidence is easy. It does not require specialized equipment or training. It can easily be incorporated into interviews with witnesses. Should immediate confidence reports not be recorded, another common suggestion is to introduce expert testimony on the malleability of confidence. This solution is less appealing because research has demonstrated that mock jurors are relatively insensitive to testimony impugning the correlation between confidence and accuracy. In some studies, jurors persist in using confidence reports even after being told that they are only minimally useful in assessing accuracy. Therefore, the most reasonable solution is to prevent eyewitnesses’ confidence from inflating in the first place. The best way to do this is to collect immediate records of confidence reports in both identification accuracy and crime details. Amy Bradfield Douglass See also Confidence in Identifications; Estimator and System Variables in Eyewitness Identification; Expert Psychological Testimony on Eyewitness Identification; Eyewitness Memory; Identification Tests, Best Practices in; Juries and Eyewitnesses; Neil v. Biggers Criteria for Evaluating Eyewitness Identification; Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory; Wrongful Conviction

Further Readings

Baron, R. S., Vandello, J. A., & Brunsman, B. (1996). The forgotten variable in conformity research: Impact of task importance on social influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(5), 915–927. Bradfield, A., & McQuiston, D. E. (2002). When does evidence of eyewitness confidence inflation affect judgments in a criminal trial? Law and Human Behavior, 28(4), 369–387. Bradfield, A. L., Wells, G. L., & Olson, E. A. (2002). The damaging effect of confirming feedback on the relation between eyewitness certainty and identification accuracy. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(1), 112–120. Lindsay, S. D., Read, J. D., & Sharma, K. (1998). Accuracy and confidence in person identification: The relationship is strong when witnessing conditions vary widely. Psychological Science, 9(3), 215–218. Luus, C. A. E., & Wells, G. L. (1994). The malleability of eyewitness confidence: Co-witness and perseverance effects. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 714–724.

Sporer, S., Penrod, S., Read, D., & Cutler, B. L. (1995). Choosing, confidence, and accuracy: A meta-analysis of the confidence-accuracy relation in eyewitness identification studies. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 315–327.

CONFLICT TACTICS SCALE (CTS) Two general types of incidence surveys exist: the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) and the Crime Victim Surveys (CVS). The former requires people to indicate what actions they have taken to resolve family conflicts; the latter requires people to indicate by what crimes they have been victimized. The CVS find the rates of reporting wife assault to the police comparable with the reporting rates for other assaults. However, these surveys have a filtering problem such that people who do not consider their abuse victimization to be a crime do not respond in the affirmative. Hence, incidence rates of reported spousal abuse, which are not defined as criminal by the victim, are low. To circumvent this filtering problem, Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz devised the CTS, which asks respondents to report modes of conflict resolution in the family. This avoids the problem of whether the respondent defines the action as criminal or not and, therefore, attempts to obtain more accurate estimates of the frequency and incidence of domestic assault in a general population. Straus found violence incidence rates with the CTS were 16 times greater than with the CVS. Presenting the CTS in the context of normal conflict rather than a criminal act reduces filters against reporting.

Surveys of Incidence: Conflict Tactics Surveys Several surveys using the CTS have been completed. They include (a) a nationally representative U.S. sample of 2,143 interviewed in 1974 by Response Analysis Corporation; (b) a survey of spousal violence against women in the state of Kentucky, which interviewed 1,793 women; (c) a second national survey completed by Straus and Gelles in 1985; and (d) a sample of 1,045 for the Province of Alberta, Canada. These were each obtained by a survey that interviews a representative sample drawn from a general population about experiences of being victimized by violence during family conflicts and the type of actions used to resolve

146———Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS)

these conflicts. These rates refer to the use of violence at any time in the marriage and may include both unilateral and reciprocal violence. Straus reported approximately equal perpetration rates by gender. This common measure enables some direct comparison between these surveys. Kennedy and Dutton used a combination of face-toface meeting and random-digit dialing techniques to survey 1,045 residents in Alberta, Canada, leading to a comparison of American and Canadian rates of wife assault. The “minor” violence rates for the two countries are virtually identical, but the American “severe violence” rates were higher than the Canadian rates. By way of comparison with these North American data, Kim and Cho reported that the Korean intimate partner violence rate was 37.5% for wife assault (any violence) in the preceding year versus 11.6% reported by Straus et al. In 1985, Fumagai and Straus found a lifetime incidence of wife assault in Japan of 58.7% versus 22% in the United States. Fals-Stewart, Birchler, and Kelley asked 104 men in a spousal violence treatment program and their partners to keep a weekly diary identifying days of physical aggression and a daily CTS checklist for violence. Male-to-female agreement on “violence days” was better after treatment than before, perhaps because couples were aware of tracking. Interestingly, the women were violent on more days than the men, regardless of whose report was read. Moffitt et al. confirmed Straus’s point in one of the best methodological studies of intimate violence to date, the Dunedin study. When asked about “assault victimization,” they found that respondents reported rates of male violence that were much higher than the rates of female violence, and both rates were quite low. When they asked the same respondents about “relationships with partners,” the rates reported by both genders were much higher and equivalent.

Criticisms Some criticisms have been made about the CTS: (a) the CTS ignores the context in which the violence occurred, (b) differences in gender size between men and women make acts scored the same on the CTS quite different in reality, (c) impression management or social desirability factors may preclude people from answering the CTS accurately, and (d) the CTS queries violence occurring in a conflict and may miss “out of the blue” violence.

Straus’s rejoinders to these criticisms are as follows. First, the assessment of context should be done separately because there are so many context variables that they could not all be included on the CTS. The CTS is designed in such a way that any special set of context questions can be easily added. Second, a similar problem, Straus notes, is that repeated slapping is highly abusive and dangerous but gets counted as Minor Violence on the CTS. Straus argues that while it is possible to weight actions by differences in size between perpetrator and victim, or to construct an upper limit after which slapping gets counted as Severe Violence, such weightings have rarely led to changes in research results. Third, the social desirability criticism was answered, in part, by a study by Dutton and Hemphill, which correlated scores on two measures of social desirability (the tendency to present a “perfect image” on self-report tests) and scores on the CTS. Social desirability is measured by a test called the Marlowe-Crowne test (MC), which assesses the tendency to present the self in a socially acceptable manner. MC scores did correlate significantly; the higher their social desirability score, the lower their reported rates of verbal abuse. However, it did not correlate with their reports of physical abuse, nor with any reports of abuse (verbal or physical) made against them by their wives. Hence, it seems that reports of physical abuse are largely uncontaminated by socially desirable responding. This means that the incidence survey rates are probably fairly accurate as far as image management is concerned. Finally, the vast majority of violent acts are perceived as emanating from conflict. While the CTS may miss an out-of-the-blue attack, it more than makes up for this with its increased sensitivity over crime victim surveys. Donald G. Dutton, Jessica Broderick, and Makenzie Chilton See also Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI); Intimate Partner Violence; Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA)

Further Readings

Browning, J., & Dutton, D. G. (1986). Assessment of wife assault with the Conflict Tactics Scale: Using couple data to quantify the differential reporting effect. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 375–379.

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Straus, M. A., & Gelles, R. J. (Eds.). (1990). Physical violence in American families. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., & Boney-McCoy, S. (1996). The revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2): Development and preliminary psychometric data. Journal of Family Issues, 17, 283–316.

CONFORMITY

IN

EYEWITNESS REPORTS

Eyewitness research has repeatedly shown that exposure to postevent information can affect a witness’s ability to accurately report details of an originally encoded event. In everyday life, postevent information might be encountered when individuals who have shared the same experience discuss this with one another. Even when each person has witnessed the same event, their memories are likely to differ because of naturally occurring differences in the details attended to at the time, as well as differences in each person’s ability to accurately remember those details. Despite initial differences in recollections of an event, when people talk about their memories they can influence each other such that their subsequent individual memory reports become similar. The phenomenon of people’s memory reports becoming similar to one another’s following a discussion has been referred to as “memory conformity.” This entry discusses the ways in which researchers have investigated conformity in eyewitness reports, typical research findings, and current theoretical explanations for the memory conformity effect. When memory conformity occurs in the context of a forensic investigation, there can be serious implications. For example, it might be assumed that seemingly corroborative witness statements are a product of independent witnesses with consistent versions of events, when in fact memory conformity might be responsible for the similarities if there has been some form of interaction between cowitnesses. Therefore, it is important that the police take care not to give undue weight to the consistency of statements from witnesses who may have talked when judging the accuracy of an eyewitness account. A typical paradigm used to investigate memory conformity in eyewitness reports involves pairs of participants being led to believe that they have encoded the same stimuli (often a simulated crime event shown on video or slides), when in reality they are shown

stimuli that bear a similarity but differ in critical ways. These critical differences can take the form of added items (where one dyad member sees an item that his or her partner did not and vice versa) or contradicting items (where both dyad members see the same item, but details of this item differ in terms of color or product). This manipulation allows different features of the encoded stimuli to be observed by each participant. Dyad members are then given time to discuss what they have seen. An individual recall test for the originally encoded stimuli is then administered to examine the effects of cowitness discussion on memory. The dependent variable of interest is whether, and how often, witnesses report an item at test that they have encountered from a cowitness as opposed to seeing with their own eyes. Alternative procedures to investigate memory conformity include using a confederate to act as a cowitness and purposefully introduce items of misleading postevent information into the discussion. Other experiments have presented cowitness information indirectly by incorporating it into a recall questionnaire, or the experimenter reveals responses that have purportedly been given by other witnesses. A common finding for memory conformity research, regardless of procedure or stimuli used, is that social influences encountered in the form of postevent information from a cowitness can mediate accuracy in joint recall and recognition tasks, with individuals often exhibiting conformity to the suggestions and judgments of others. Significant conformity effects are also evident following a delay in postdiscussion memory tests that are performed alone. Theoretical explanations for conformity in eyewitness reports share strong parallels with those accounting for the effects of postevent information on memory. For example, research has shown that source misattributions account in part for conformity in eyewitness reports, as individuals sometimes claim to remember seeing items of information that have actually been encountered from a cowitness. Informational motivations to report accurate information at test are also thought to play a role. Here, individuals choose to report the postevent information encountered from a cowitness at test if it is accepted as veridical. Informational motivations to conform are often evident in situations where individuals doubt the accuracy of their own memory or when the information encountered from another individual convinces them that their initial judgment was erroneous. In support of this,

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research has found that the influence exerted by one person on another’s memory judgments can be modulated by person perception factors. For example, tendencies to conform can be increased (or decreased) by manipulating the perceptions of each individual regarding the relative knowledge each has of stimuli they encoded together as a dyad. Similar effects can be obtained by manipulating the perceived relative competence of each individual or the overt confidence with which individuals make their assertions to each other. Research continues to explore which factors can increase, decrease, and possibly eliminate the longerterm effects of conformity on memory. However, progress in addressing such issues has been hampered by the complexity of the phenomenon itself, due to the inherently dynamic and variable nature of realistic interactions between individuals. Despite this, new paradigms to investigate conformity in eyewitness reports are being developed and refined so that the effects of naturalistic interactions on subsequent memory reports can be investigated with full experimental control. Fiona Gabbert See also Eyewitness Memory; False Memories; Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory; Source Monitoring and Eyewitness Memory

Further Readings

Gabbert, F., Memon, A., & Allan, K. (2003). Memory conformity: Can eyewitnesses influence each other’s memories for an event? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 533–543. Roediger, H. L., Meade, M. L., & Bergman, E. T. (2001). Social contagion of memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8, 365–371. Shaw, J. S., Garven, S., & Wood, J. M. (1997). Co-witness information can have immediate effects on eyewitness memory reports. Law and Human Behavior, 21, 503–523. Wright, D. B., Self, G., & Justice, C. (2000). Memory conformity: Exploring misinformation effects when presented by another person. British Journal of Psychology, 91, 189–202.

CONSENT TO CLINICAL RESEARCH Informed consent practices have evolved over time after instances were documented in which research participants were not treated fairly or respectfully, were

not informed, or were subjected to unnecessary harm. Current federal regulations support the ethical treatment of persons in the research setting in that the participation is voluntary, that the risks outweigh the benefits, and that all people are given an equal chance to participate. When a researcher invites a participant into the research setting, the researcher is required to provide the necessary information, to ensure that the participant fully understands the information, and to stop the research if it is felt that these standards have not been met. Prior to enrollment in a research study, that candidate must provide valid consent for participation. That is, the participant must be fully informed about the research purposes, risks, benefits, freedom to withdraw consent, and other relevant information; must enter voluntarily into the research; and must be capable of making an informed decision. Informed consent to clinical research is important in the field of psychology and law, because psychological researchers must be aware of the requirements of conducting research and must protect themselves and also their research participants from any ethical breaches. Clinical research refers to studies conducted in a setting where clinical conditions, either medical or psychiatric, are diagnosed and treated. This entry provides a historical basis for the evolution of informed consent, the requirements of informed consent, and will end with a brief discussion of the capacities of potentially vulnerable individuals who may have compromised ability to give a valid consent by virtue of impaired capacity or lack of voluntariness.

Historical Perspective In research settings, individuals are protected by the doctrine of informed consent, which has evolved through policies, regulations, and professional codes. In the 1940s, unspeakable acts were committed when medical experiments on human subjects were conducted in concentration camps in Nazi Germany. In response to the atrocious experiments, the first formal document for conveying the ideas of protection of persons as human subjects and informed consent was developed. The Nuremberg Code set forth 10 guidelines for the ethical treatment of persons involved in research. The first statement of the Nuremberg Code states that the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. Before an affirmative decision by the person can be made, one must know the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means in which it is conducted; and the reasonable inconveniences expected, which may possibly

Consent to Clinical Research———149

come from participation. The Nuremberg Code further states that experiments should only be conducted by scientifically qualified persons, that the results should yield fruitful results for the good of society, that all harm to the participant should be avoided, and that the participant may end the experiment at any time. The Nuremberg Code was expanded when the World Medical Association adopted the Declaration of Helsinki in 1964. The Code established independent ethical review committees to oversee all experimental procedures, which set the stage for the later development of institutional review boards (IRBs). Although the Nuremburg Code helped to identify basic ethical principles of research, there were still instances in which egregious ethical breaches continued. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which began in 1932 and ultimately ended in 1972, was a research study in which medically ill patients were not offered effective medical treatment, which became available during the course of the research. In 1972, the unethical manner of the research project was made public and this ultimately led to the 1974 Research Act. The National Research Act was signed into law, thereby creating the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The charge of the commission was to identify the basic ethical principles that should underlie research involving human subjects and to develop guidelines that should be followed in accordance with the described principles. The 1979 Belmont Report emerged as a product of this work group and mandated that all researchers gain approval from an IRB before proceeding with any type of experimentation.

Principles of Beneficence, Justice, and Respect The Belmont Report specified the three basic ethical principles governing scientific research. These include respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Respect for persons specifies that individuals should be treated as autonomous persons, and those whose decision making is compromised should be given special protections and safeguards. Furthermore, participants must enter into a research setting voluntarily and with adequate information. Beneficence is applied in the research setting in that persons are entitled to participation that is free from harm and that maximizes possible benefits and minimizes possible harm. The principle of justice dictates that individuals should be treated fairly and equally in the research setting,

according to their need, effort, contribution, and merit, and that all persons must share the responsibility of research. The three principles of the Belmont Report are translated into informed consent by maintaining that persons are participating of their own free will and that the benefits to the person outweigh the risks. The Belmont Report served as the basis for the Code of Federal Regulations, which was approved in 1978. In addition, in 1993, the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects were developed. In 2005, the Department of Health and Human Services released a revised edition of the Federal Code of Regulations on the Protection of Human Subjects. Title 45, part 46 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations upholds the application of the Belmont Report principles and is now generally accepted as the uniform policy for the protection of research participants. Outlined are specific definitions and statements as they apply to both federally and nonfederally funded research projects.

Requirements of Informed Consent The theory of informed consent to research is that a research participant is both voluntary and fully informed about the nature and consequences of an experimental situation before giving consent to participate. There are three essential elements to the doctrine of informed consent: voluntariness, information, and competency. The first element is that the person voluntarily consents to the procedure, in that the individual chooses freely to participate. To be voluntary, the person must consent without the presence of coercion, fraud, or duress, which may hinder the person’s decision-making ability. Stanley and Guido further elaborate that when an individual is consenting to participate in psychological research, one must consider the environment to ensure that the participant’s voluntary status is not compromised by the setting (e.g., prison, hospital, school). Second, an individual must be fully informed of the proposed research setting to which he or she is consenting. The disclosure of information, which is provided in a formal informed consent document to the research participant, should include a description of the proposed procedures, its purpose, duration of the research procedure, the risks and benefits of participation, alternatives to participation, and the voluntariness of participation. Other issues that should be disclosed are that the individual has the opportunity to

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withdraw from the research setting at any time, issues of confidentiality, and any other pertinent information such as how to contact the main investigator. The final element required to obtain informed consent is competency, which refers to the functional capacity to give valid consent to participate in research. Grisso and Appelbaum note that those persons who cannot use the disclosed information because of a lack of certain cognitive abilities are not capable of participating in an informed consent procedure. When the impairment reaches a certain level of severity, a determination can be made of incompetence. In legal terms, a de facto incompetence determination is made when inquiries into the person’s actual capacities reveal a sufficient lack in cognitive functionality. When making a judgment about one’s decisionmaking capacities, three types of information are usually required as delineated by Grisso and Appelbaum: (1) the person’s clinical condition, (2) the person’s degree of functioning in tasks involving decisionmaking abilities, and (3) the situation-specific demands. There are four legal standards for assessing decisionmaking competence, which include the ability to communicate a choice, the ability to understand relevant information, the ability to appreciate the circumstances and likely outcome, and the ability to rationally manipulate the information. Grisso and Appelbaum also note that although four standards have been proposed, not all courts and jurisdictions apply all concepts in a determination of competency. Also of importance is that a person’s status on the four abilities is not all-ornone. A person usually possesses all the abilities but in varying degrees and one must consider the complexity of the decision being made in relation to the condition of the person making that decision. For researchers it is important to provide all the necessary information to the potential participant so that he or she is able to make an informed decision. The information of the purposes, procedures, benefits, risks, and voluntary nature of participation must be outlined in a written document and signed by both parties. It is the responsibility of the researcher to ensure that the participant understands the information and is not being coerced in any way to participate.

Competency of Special Populations When conducting research with normal healthy populations, researchers tend to presume that the participant is capable of understanding the material in the

informed consent document and capable of making an autonomous decision of whether to participate or not. However, when conducting research with potentially vulnerable populations, the same assumption cannot necessarily be made. Potentially vulnerable populations include children and adolescents, who are vulnerable because of their developmental level and their susceptibility to coercion; prisoners and other institutionalized individuals by virtue of their lack of voluntary status; medical patients who may have impaired cognitive function ranging from being comatose to some memory impairment; and psychiatric patients as a result of possible compromised capacity to consent. Several empirical studies have examined the ability of psychiatric patients to provide informed consent; a brief summary of the findings follows. In persons with schizophrenia and psychotic disorders, mixed results have been produced. The consensus is that these types of patients, on the whole, perform more poorly than their non-ill counterparts on tests of competency. Several studies, however, have further noted that even with this divide, there is much heterogeneity among the schizophrenic patients and many are able to perform at a level similar to non-ill persons. Research on persons with affective disorders is somewhat more promising, with this group performing at a level similar to nonill persons in most of the published studies. Finally, elderly patients with Alzheimer’s disease seem to be the population at the greatest risk for having impaired levels of cognitive processing and thus a diminished ability to provide informed consent. Elizabeth Arias and Barbara Stanley See also Capacity to Consent to Treatment; Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCTI); MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research (MacCAT–CR)

Further Readings

Appelbaum, P., Lidz, C., & Meisel, A. (1987). Informed consent. New York: Oxford University Press. Meisel, L., & Lidz, C. (1977). Toward a model of the legal doctrine of informed consent. American Journal of Psychiatry, 134(3), 285–289. Stanley, B., & Galietta, M. (2006). Informed consent in treatment and research. In I. Weiner & A. Hess (Eds.), The handbook of forensic psychology (3rd ed., pp. 211–239). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Coping Strategies of Adult Sexual Assault Victims———151

Stanley, B., & Guido, J. (1996). Informed consent: Psychological and empirical issues. In B. H. Stanley, J. E. Sieber, & G. B. Melton (Eds.), Research ethics: A psychological approach (pp. 105–128). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Government Printing Office. (1949). Trials of war criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law (No. 10, Vol. 2, pp. 181–182). Washington, DC: Author.

COPING STRATEGIES OF ADULT SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIMS Coping strategies of adult rape victims refers to the ways in which rape victims respond to an assault. Most of this research focuses on female victims because most sexual assault victims are women. Although the term coping implies that someone is adjusting well, coping strategies can actually be either helpful or unhelpful. Less helpful strategies include avoiding dealing with the assault, withdrawing from others, using drugs and alcohol to self-medicate, blaming one’s self, and focusing on the past and on why the assault occurred. Among the more helpful strategies reported are seeing the assault in a more positive light, relying on one’s religious beliefs, and focusing on what currently is controllable. Disclosing the assault can lead to either positive or negative reactions from others. Positive reactions are more common, although negative reactions have a greater impact. Knowledge about the strategies victims use to deal with an assault is relevant to several kinds of professionals who work with victims. For example, knowledge about which strategies have been helpful or unhelpful is useful to those who provide direct services to victims (e.g., psychologists, social workers, advocates). This information also might be used by a psychological expert in a sexual assault case to help explain the effects of the rape on a victim to a judge or jury. It is important, however, to keep in mind that most rapes are not reported and, of those that are reported, many are not charged and few go to trial.

distraction, avoidance, social withdrawal, emotional regulation/expressing emotions, rumination, and helplessness. Several studies have assessed the frequency with which rape victims use these strategies and the relationship between the use of the strategy and the postrape symptoms of distress. Typical symptoms of distress among rape victims include those associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. Of the studies that have assessed one of these forms of coping among rape victims, avoidance and social withdrawal are generally associated with greater distress. Avoidance involves trying not to think about or deal with the assault (e.g., trying to block it out), and social withdrawal, of course, involves withdrawing from others. The strategies associated with better adjustment fall mainly within the category of cognitive restructuring, which refers to trying to see the assault in a different or more positive light. Although this might seem unlikely, many victims do actually report positive changes in their lives following an assault, such as that they appreciate life more. Teaching coping skills such as cognitive restructuring also has been found to reduce symptoms in experimental studies. The results of studies assessing emotional regulation/expressing emotions are mixed, partly because of methodological problems with the studies. However, the general research literature on coping suggests that expressing emotions is associated with better adjustment. Another coping strategy not included in this categorization scheme is religious coping, which generally is associated with lower distress levels among victims. Another way in which victims may try to cope with the assault is by drinking or using drugs. Several studies indicate that victims report more alcohol and drug abuse and dependence than do nonvictims. Because drinking and drug use are risk factors for sexual assault, it is important to try to determine if the substance use came before or after the assault. Studies that attempt to assess the timing of the substance abuse relative to the sexual assault generally indicate that the substance abuse started after the assault. Alcohol and drug use by victims is related to higher distress levels; thus, victims may be using substances to self-medicate their distress.

Specific Coping Strategies In the general research literature on coping, nine primary forms of coping have been identified: cognitive restructuring, problem solving, support seeking,

Social Support Although support seeking is considered one of the primary forms of coping, research on support processes in

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rape victims goes beyond the examination of support seeking as a coping process. For example, one issue for rape victims is whether and to whom to disclose the assault. Although disclosing the assault may not necessarily be for the purpose of seeking support, unlike other events that are more public (e.g., bereavement), victims only receive supportive or unsupportive reactions from others if they disclose the assault to them. The act of disclosing the assault or of seeking support also should be distinguished from the supportive or unsupportive reactions of others to the victim regarding the assault. Thus, research in this area has focused on whether and to whom victims disclose, what kinds of reactions they receive, and how those reactions are related to victims’ distress levels. This research suggests that although most rape victims do not report the assault to the police, most disclose to someone, such as friends or family members. In general, victims indicate that they received mostly positive and supportive reactions from others. However, negative reactions, such as being blamed or treated differently, also occur and appear to be more common from formal (e.g., the police, physicians) than from informal (e.g., friends, family) support providers. Negative social reactions tend to be more associated with distress than positive social reactions are associated with well-being. Nonetheless, being believed and being listened to by others, especially friends and family, is associated with better adjustment among rape victims. Many friends and victims report that the assault had a positive effect on their relationships (e.g., it brought them closer).

cannot be changed, is thought to be maladaptive because it is not associated with a sense of future control. This theory has been described as dominating research on attributions and adjustment for more than two decades and as being widely accepted as having implications for interventions with trauma survivors. Although this theory suggests that behavioral selfblame is adaptive, behavioral self-blame consistently is associated with more, rather than less, distress among survivors of rape. In addition, behavioral selfblame generally is unrelated to perceived future control among victims of rape. In other words, behavioral self-blame does not appear to foster the belief that future rapes can be avoided, which was the proposed mechanism for its adaptive value. Characterological self-blame is also consistently related to higher distress levels. Indeed, the two types of self-blame are highly correlated with each other. Experimental studies suggest that reductions in self-blame in treatment are associated with reductions in PTSD symptoms. Research on attributions has tended to focus on selfblame, perhaps because of the predominance of the aforementioned theory. However, other kinds of blame, such as blaming the rapist or other external factors, tend to be more common than self-blame. These other types of blame also are associated with more distress. It appears that focusing on the past and on why the assault occurred is associated with higher distress levels. It is less adaptive to focus on the past and on why the assault occurred, or even on how future assaults can be avoided, than to focus on aspects of the assault that are currently controllable, such as the recovery process.

Attributions About the Cause of the Rape Individuals who have been sexually assaulted often struggle to regain a sense of control over their lives. One way to do this is to try to identify the cause of the assault (i.e., make a causal attribution) and thus recognize how the assault could have been prevented. For rape victims, this may involve trying to identify what they could have done differently to avoid being raped. Much of the research on the relations among attributions and posttrauma distress has been guided by the theory that behavioral self-blame, which involves attributing the assault to one’s past behavior, is an adaptive response to rape because it is associated with the belief that future rapes can be avoided. In contrast, characterological self-blame, which involves attributing the rape to some stable aspect of one’s self that

Patricia A. Frazier See also Child Sexual Abuse; Rape Trauma Syndrome; Victimization

Further Readings

Filipas, H., & Ullman, S. (2001). Social reactions to sexual assault victims from various support sources. Violence and Victims, 16, 673–692. Frazier, P. (2003). Perceived control and distress following sexual assault: A longitudinal test of a new model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 1257–1269. Frazier, P., Mortensen, H., & Steward, J. (2005). Coping strategies as mediators of the relations among perceived control and distress in sexual assault survivors. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52, 267–278.

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Ullman, S. (2000). Psychometric characteristics of the Social Reactions Questionnaire: A measure of reactions to sexual assault victims. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24, 257–271. Ullman, S., Filipas, H., Townsend, S., & Starzynski, L. (2005). Trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress disorder and problem drinking in sexual assault survivors. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 66, 610–619.

CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, THEORIES

OF

When crime is truly the product of rational choice, the offender commits the act for reasons of personal gain or gratification. His or her behavior is under his or her complete control. How and to what degree, however, might other factors intrude on and compromise his or her ability to exercise free will? The response to this question has come in the form of innumerable theories, each purporting to explain criminal behavior in terms of specific factors. Broadly speaking, these theories involve three categories of factors: psychological, biological, and social. In fact, human behavior is the product of complex interactions among many factors. Rather than providing a summary of myriad theories, this entry focuses on the main factors involved in the expression and suppression of criminal behaviors.

Social Factors There is a vast criminological literature that identifies a wide range of environmental factors as causally linked to criminal behavior. These include developmental, social, and economic factors. For example, poverty is often cited as a socioeconomic condition linked to crime. The stress, strain, and frustration experienced by those lacking the financial resources to meet their needs and fulfill their desires through legitimate means renders them more inclined to commit crime than affluent individuals with ready access to legitimate means. Poor nutrition is an especially troubling aspect of poverty. Nutritional deficiencies can result in or exacerbate problems such as learning disabilities and poor impulse control. Such cognitive dysfunctions have been identified as precursors to delinquency and adult criminality. Thus, one’s position in the social structure of society—as operationalized by variables such as level of income—can be a significant contributing factor in the criminal

activities of some individuals by virtue of its impact on brain function. Growing up in a household where parental displays of violence are commonplace can shape the behavior of children so as to make them more likely to respond to their own problems with violent means. While aggression and violence are not synonymous, that they are correlated is undeniable. Psychologist Albert Bandura demonstrated the importance of social learning in the development of aggressive behavior. Exposure to a violent role model may operate as a trigger of preexisting psychological and biological factors that predispose that individual to aggressive behavior. This may explain why only one of the two sons whose father assaults their mother grows up to beat his own wife—there were additional factors that rendered him more readily influenced by the violent model; or, conversely, the nonviolent son was resistant to the influence by virtue of individual “protective” factors, such as high IQ. There is a substantial literature on a “cycle of violence” whereby victims of childhood abuse and neglect are predisposed to engage in violent behavior in adulthood, thus passing the violence from one generation to the next. Other research has examined the effects of being bullied during formative years, finding that the victims in turn become victimizers. In animal experiments, exposure to conditions of inescapable threat has been found to alter specific chemicals in the brain involved in aggression and the inhibition of aggression, with the result that formerly docile animals go on to display inappropriate and excessive aggression, attacking smaller, weaker animals whenever presented with them. In essence, they become the “playground bully.” Thus, a change in the environment—exposure to inescapable threat— leads to changes in biology, which lead to the changes in behavior. Empirical studies on the effects of child maltreatment reveal that in addition to psychological problems actual structural and functional damage to the developing brain may occur. These neurobiological effects may be an adaptive mechanism for living in that dangerous environment. Regardless, they also tend to predispose the individual to a range of psychiatric conditions, aggressive behaviors, and stressrelated illnesses. Resilient children, so called because of their ability to thrive under high-risk conditions, appear to have cognitive capabilities (notably higher verbal intelligence) that enable them to adapt to their stressful environment. Understanding the mechanisms

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that underlie resilience may reveal deficits in those who succumb to the harmful effects of their disadvantaged or abusive childhood—often becoming delinquent and criminal as a result. Of course, the majority of poor people are not criminals, and the majority of those growing up in abusive homes or who are bullied do not go on to become criminals, raising the question: What it is about those who commit crime that distinguishes them from others who experience similar circumstances but are law abiding? Furthermore, why would individuals who do not experience such adversity commit crime? The answer to these questions is that social factors affect different people differently. By and large it is the psychological and biological makeup of an individual that determines how and to what extent external forces affect his behavior. Psychological and biological factors interact to render an individual more or less vulnerable to adverse social conditions. This should not be taken to diminish the influence of social factors on criminal behavior, for indeed they have a significant role, but rather to highlight the fact that the effect they have depends on the psychological and biological makeup of the individual. Ultimately, it is the individual who acts—criminally or otherwise.

Psychological Factors By virtue of the requirement of mens rea, criminal courts are concerned with the psychological elements that underlie criminal behavior. Research teaches, however, that the psychology of the offender emanates from a biological substrate. And, one’s psychological states affect various aspects of his or her biology. Mind and brain have an indelible connection. An individual’s psychological state or mental status—whether at the scene of a crime or in a courtroom—involves biological mechanisms. Psychopathology—the study of diseases/disorders of the mind—constitutes a major area of preparation for the forensic psychologist. While the vast majority of individuals with mental disorder do not commit crimes, it is estimated that rates of serious mental disorder among prison inmates are three to four times greater than they are for members of the general population. Although this cannot blindly be taken to mean that the crimes of mentally disordered inmates were due to their psychopathology, or that mental disorder predated their incarceration, their disproportionate numbers relative to the general population nonetheless

confer significance to mental disorder as a contributing factor in criminal behavior. The relationship between criminal behavior and mental disorder is complex. Individuals who experience false perceptions (i.e., have hallucinations such as hearing voices that have no basis in objective reality) and/or hold false beliefs (i.e., have delusions such as “people are out to kill me”) are considered to have a major mental disorder, or psychosis. Recent research has linked schizophrenia, a psychosis, to an increased risk of committing violent crime—usually against significant others in their lives (not the randomly encountered strangers portrayed in popular media). While it is understandable how someone who is out of touch with reality can harm another as a result (e.g., by having a delusion that he has a divine mission to cleanse the streets of vermin—say, by killing homeless people), the majority of psychotic individuals do not commit crimes. Research on hallucinations in schizophrenics reveals that the basis for their false perceptions is brain dysfunction. For example, the occurrence of auditory hallucinations coincides with the firing of neurons in brain regions normally involved in processing sound— but in this case in the absence of sound. Instead of asking the nebulous question, “Why does a schizophrenic hear voices?” we are now positioned to ask why neurons in particular regions of the brain misfire in the absence of external stimuli. Thus, the impetus for violence in a schizophrenic individual—when he attacks because the voices say the other person intends harm—appears to arise out of aberrant neural activity. Of the mental disorders currently recognized by clinicians and researchers, most are not deemed psychoses. Rather, they are disorders of personality, impulse control, and the like. Psychopathy, a form of personality disorder, is exhibited as a cluster of specific affective, interpersonal, and socially deviant behaviors. Although psychopaths make up only about 1% of the general population, they are estimated to comprise approximately 25% of prison populations. The nature of their disorder—lacking remorse for their antisocial actions and emotional empathy for those whose rights they violate—makes them especially well suited for criminal activity. While most psychopaths are not criminal (nonetheless behaving in ways that disregard consideration for others), of those who are, recidivism rates tend to be significantly higher than for nonpsychopathic offenders.

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Although psychopaths are not psychotic, the neurobiological mechanisms that normally impart emotion to cognitions, thoughts, and attitudes appear to be dysfunctional in the psychopath. The psychologist Robert Hare suggests that whereas genetic (and other biological) factors determine the aberrant personality structure, the environment may shape how the disorder is expressed as behavior. Positron emission tomography and single-photon-emission computed tomography scans have identified a number of specific regions in the brains of violent psychopaths that do not function normally. In particular, the prefrontal cortex—part of the frontal lobes of the brain largely responsible for rational decision making and impulse control—appears to be underaroused, rendering it incapable of effectively managing emotional urges. Impulsive behaviors, including crimes, are the result. However cognitive abilities are defined, certainly they have a major role in criminal behavior. Where research has used IQ as a measure of intelligence, by and large offenders have lower scores than nonoffenders. Typically, individuals with low intellectual ability have difficulty delaying gratification, curbing their impulses, and appreciating the alternative means to get what they want. With substantial intellectual impairment, they tend to be less inhibited from doing harm because they lack the appreciation for the wrongfulness of their conduct. Although environment can facilitate or suppress the development and expression of one’s cognitive abilities, research indicates that these have a substantial heritable component. The concept of emotional intelligence holds considerable promise for a more comprehensive understanding of chronic criminality. Those with low emotional intelligence—people who lack insight into their own behavior and empathy toward others—are less inhibited about violating the rights of others. Injury to the (ventromedial) prefrontal cortex has been linked to the onset of reckless and antisocial behavior (including violence) without remorse, suggesting our moral compass is rooted in specific frontal lobe functions that for the chronic offender are defective. Much neglected in the mainstream literature on criminal behavior are the effects of traumatic events in early childhood from a psychoanalytic perspective. Twenty-first century technology provides for—should we choose—a recasting of Freudian constructs as specific neurobiological factors. The id, responsible for generating unconscious and primitive urges, may correspond with the limbic system—which includes brain

structures involved in basic emotions, motivation, and memory. The aspect of the personality Sigmund Freud referred to as the ego mediates the self-centered demands of the id. The ego develops in childhood and grounds the individual in reality. It would be this rational aspect of personality that negotiates with the emotional and impulsive id. Read frontal lobes here. As for Freud’s superego, the moral aspect of personality may well “reside,” at least partially, in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Remorseless antisocial behavior follows damage to this area of the brain. Reconceptualizing Freudian constructs in this manner need not negate their validity, for the basic tenet—relating defects of personality to early trauma—remains intact. Rather, a neurobiological interpretation of psychoanalytic processes affords them something they heretofore lacked—the ability to be empirically validated. While we refer to disordered mental states or diseased mind, frequently understated or unstated are the neurobiological processes that underlie them. Whatever the psychological problem, we can no longer speak of the psychological factors associated with criminal behavior without also discussing biological factors— virtually in the same sentence.

Biological Factors The numerous and varied social and psychological factors that increase the risk of criminal behavior are mediated by biological processes. Proper diet is essential to optimal brain function. For example, complex carbohydrates are broken down to make glucose—the basic fuel for the brain. Many nutrients are involved in converting that glucose into energy. A deficiency in any one of these essential nutrients compromises brain function by lowering the available energy. The frontal lobes of the brain, responsible for rational thinking, organizing behavior, and moderating emotional impulses, require approximately twice the energy as the more primitive regions. If energy levels are depleted, higher functions become impaired leaving lower brain activity uninhibited. Effectively, our emotions will have their way with us. Beyond basic energy needs, specific nutrients are required for the synthesis of neurotransmitters. It is, therefore, understandable how malnutrition compromises cognitive function and, in so doing, facilitates antisocial and aggressive behaviors. Of the diagnosed illnesses associated with violent behavior, substance abuse ranks highest. The disinhibiting effects of alcohol are evident in police

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reports—replete as they are with accounts of domestic violence, aggravated assault, murder, and rape under its influence. Substance abuse has a particularly deleterious effect on individuals with preexisting mental disorder, exacerbating their dysfunction. It is not that alcohol causes violent behavior; rather, it appears to trigger violence in those already prone to behave violently by virtue of other factors. Exposure to toxic agents in the environment such as pesticides and lead can delay or impair an individual’s intellectual development and thus affect behavior and its regulation. In this regard, teratogens—factors that interfere with normal embryonic development—have a particularly important role in predisposing some individuals to a life of crime. The legacy of cognitive deficits and behavioral sequelae due to, for example, prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol, are well documented in the literature. Neurotransmitters are responsible for conducting electrochemical impulses within and across regions of the brain (as well as throughout the body). Many psychiatric disorders have been linked to imbalances in neurotransmitter systems. Serotonin is involved in a number of brain functions, including regulation of emotional states. In laboratory experiments, lowering the serotonin levels results in the onset of impulsive and aggressive behavior. That abuse and neglect in childhood can result in permanently reduced levels of serotonin is therefore an important observation for our understanding of the etiology of violence. Hormones function in much the same way as neurotransmitters except they are released into the bloodstream rather than between neurons. Abnormally high levels of circulating testosterone—a sex hormone associated with the drive to dominate and compete— have been linked to excessive aggression. The phenomenon of “roid rage” in body builders who use anabolic steroids and exhibit extreme and uncontrollable violence attests to this effect. Such observations, as well as research on stress hormones correlating, for example, low levels of salivary cortisol with severe and persistent aggression, show the importance of hormonal contributions to criminal behavior. Research on skin conductance, heart rate, and brainwave activity has linked low arousal to criminal behavior. In fact, in young children, these psychophysiological conditions have been reported to portend later delinquency with a high degree of accuracy. What these and the aforementioned studies suggest is that the brains of chronic offenders work

differently. As we proceed to identify more of the factors linked to criminal behavior, we will take with us one particular question, the answer to which will have implications that at once generate fear and optimism: To what extent are the factors genetically determined? A variety of methodologies—examining twins and adoptees, chromosomal abnormalities, and DNA polymorphisms—have been applied to evaluate the role of genetic factors in criminal behavior and aggression. Although it is not anticipated that a “crime gene” will ever be discovered, it is clear there are genes that code for specific neurochemicals linked to different kinds of behavior. To illustrate, a specific—albeit rare—mutation has been identified in a gene that holds the recipe for a particular enzyme known to affect the level of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. This defect has been linked to a propensity toward impulsive and excessive aggression and violence in each of the men of the family who has this mutation. Studies in behavioral genetics support the contention that aggressive behavior is moderately heritable. Aggressive behaviors confer advantage to the males of a species as they compete for territory and access to females. Evolutionary psychology holds that aggressive traits that increase reproductive success will be selected and carried across successive generations. Primatologist Ronald Nadler contends that sexual aggression is inherent in the behavioral repertoires of great apes—animals that are among our closest biological affiliates. Human males, as a function of their drive to procreate, would be naturally inclined to have sex with as many different partners as possible, maximizing the probability that the species will survive and also that their own genes will be transmitted to the next generation. The fact that most males do not rape is in large measure due to their socialization; rapists are males who have not been effectively socialized in this regard. We can appreciate through this example how specific psychosocial risk factors (e.g., low intelligence) can increase the probability of criminal and violent behavior—in this case, rape. The long tradition of assuming crime to be the product of volition, unencumbered by aberrant psychological or biological processes, is under attack. In the end, we may find it is psychologist Adrian Raine’s bold conceptualization of criminality as a clinical disorder that best fits what we learn. To embrace this position, however, would require us to revisit our notions of crime and punishment—and treatment. If criminal behavior, at least impulsive violent criminal

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behavior, is inherently pathological, the implications are legion. In their determinations of culpability, the courts are thus wise to proceed with caution. As behavioral science research and technology advance, it is likely that the critical mass of the data will, ultimately, persuade. Candice A. Skrapec See also Criminal Responsibility, Assessment of; Forensic Assessment; Mens Rea and Actus Reus; Psychopathy; Psychotic Disorders

Further Readings

Hare, R. D. (1993). Without conscience: The disturbing world of the psychopaths among us. New York: Pocket Books. Raine, A. (1993). The psychopathology of crime: Criminal behavior as a clinical disorder. New York: Academic Press. Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9(3), 185–211. Strueber, D., Lueck, M., & Roth, G. (2006, December). The violent brain. Scientific American, pp. 20–27. Teicher, M. H. (2002, March). Scars that won’t heal: The neurobiology of child abuse. Scientific American, pp. 68–75. Widom, C. S. (1989). The cycle of violence. Science, 244, 160–166.

CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY, ASSESSMENT OF Mental health professionals are frequently asked to evaluate criminal defendants to assist the courts in determining whether those individuals may have been legally insane (i.e., not criminally responsible) at the time of their crimes. This entry discusses the legal concept of and criteria for insanity, as well as the challenges that forensic experts face in conducting these evaluations. In contemporary Western society, prohibited behaviors are typically codified in the criminal law, and most citizens are held to be responsible to obey these laws. Individuals who violate the law may be prosecuted and, if convicted, punished for their behavior. Such individuals are said to be “criminally responsible,” a label that reflects the moral and legal judgment that the person had neither a justification nor an excuse for his or her

behavior, should have known better, and must endure the punishment as a corrective mechanism intended to discourage the recurrence of such behavior. As the last sentence indicates, behavior that on its face appears to be criminal may in some circumstances not warrant the legal and moral conclusion that the actor is “guilty” or “criminally responsible.” For example, under most circumstances, it is unlawful to take the life of another person, yet doing so in “self-defense” (the victim was threatening the life of the actor) may constitute a justification that precludes a finding of guilt. Similarly, taking money from another person (robbery), when performed under duress (a third-party threatens to kill the actor’s child unless the money is taken), may be seen as justified because of the greater harm (death of the child) that was avoided by robbing the victim. There are other individuals, or classes of individuals, who may be exempt or excused from judgments of “criminally responsible,” not because of extraordinary or justifying circumstances, but because of individual characteristics or features that render them, in society’s eyes, incapable of making the appropriate moral and legal judgments required to behave appropriately and (perhaps also) incapable from benefiting from punishment as a corrective measure. For our purposes, two such classes of individuals will be mentioned, both of which have been recognized in Western cultures, literally for centuries, as inappropriate targets for judgments of moral and legal culpability. The first class of individuals is children, who, because of youthful age, lack of life experience, and mental or emotional immaturity, are considered not accountable as moral actors in the way that adults are held accountable for their behavior. Although exceptional cases may be found, the law has generally considered it an unrebuttable assumption that children at the age of 7 years and younger may not be held to adult standards of criminal responsibility, whereas there is a rebuttable assumption that children between the ages of 7 and 14 years are not moral agents to be held to adult standards of criminal responsibility. The second group or class of individuals, and the one of primary focus here, comprises individuals with significant mental disorders whose symptomatology contributes to their “criminal behavior” in specific ways that society deems excuses them from moral culpability (criminal responsibility). In more common legal parlance, these individuals are considered “legally insane” or “not guilty by reason of insanity.”

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The insanity defense is generally unpopular in public opinion because of misperceptions about how it is used. Survey studies reveal public beliefs that the insanity defense is both frequently used and often successful. Such beliefs are likely distortions that result from the high degree of publicity surrounding notorious cases such as those of Patty Hearst, David Berkowitz (“Son of Sam”), Jeffrey Dahmer (none of whom was judged legally insane), and John Hinckley (who was found insane). However, neither belief is correct. Research shows that the insanity defense is asserted in less than half of 1% of criminal cases and more often than not it fails. Furthermore, when the insanity defense is successful, it is not the result of clever lawyers pulling the wool over the eyes of naive jurors. Most successful insanity defenses are not seriously challenged by the prosecution; more often it is clear to all parties that the defendant was insane at the time of the offense (according to criteria discussed below) and should not be held legally and morally responsible for his or her actions. Thus, many successful insanity defenses result, in effect, from plea agreements. The following sections discuss (a) the criteria for legal insanity, (b) the legal calculus for determining when a defendant meets these criteria, and (c) the methods used by mental health professionals to gather evidence and formulate opinions about the mental state of a defendant at the time of an offense.

Criteria for Legal Insanity Historians of Western law point to the influence of Henry de Bracton, whose writings on English law in the 13th century introduced notions of mental capacity and intent into deliberations about guilt and moral culpability. Early language referenced notions such as “infancy” or reasoning capacity not far removed from that of a “wild beast” as potentially exculpating mental states. The most influential English case was the M’Naghten case (1843), which established as the test for insanity that the accused was laboring under such defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.

The emphasis in M’Naghten on impairment in the ability to “reason” or to “know” clearly made judgments about a defendant’s cognitive capacities central

to the legal determination of insanity. This emphasis has survived in modern formulations that reference a defendant’s “ability to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct.” However, over the course of time modern psychiatry has influenced the law to consider volitional as well as cognitive impairments as potential bases for legal insanity. Thus, formulations in some jurisdictions refer to insanity resulting from criminal behavior that was due to an “irresistible impulse” or impaired capacity “to conform one’s conduct to the requirements of the law” irrespective of the presence of cognitive impairment. Finally, some formulations specify quantitative, albeit imprecise, levels of impairment for the insanity test to be met. Thus, it may be that not merely “impaired capacity” but “substantially impaired capacity” must be established to excuse the defendant from being criminally responsible for his or her behavior.

The Calculus of Legal Tests for Insanity In jurisdictions that allow the insanity defense, judges and juries must apply the relevant legal test. The structure of all such tests requires three findings by the trier of fact. First, there is a predicate mental condition from which the defendant must have been suffering at the time of the offense. In the M’Naghten formulation above, the requisite condition is a “disease of the mind.” More modern formulations reference the presence of “mental disease or defect” or similar language. It is important to note that in virtually all formulations, the legal definition for the predicate mental condition is neither highly precise nor tied explicitly to clinically recognized categories of mental illness or other mental impairments. (It is the case, however, that in many jurisdictions certain clinical conditions are explicitly barred by law as a basis for an insanity defense, most commonly (a) states of intoxication due to voluntarily consumed drugs or alcohol and (b) “disorders” defined almost exclusively on the basis of a history of antisocial behavior, such as antisocial personality disorder or sociopathy.) The second component in the legal test is that the criminal act was affected by (loosely, “caused” by) the predicate mental condition. In other words, merely having a “disease of the mind” or a “mental disease or defect” alone is not sufficient to excuse the defendant from being criminally responsible. Mentally ill people may commit crimes for all the noncrazy reasons that

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other people do; they may steal because they are greedy, fight because they are angry, or drive poorly because they are intoxicated. To sustain an insanity defense, the mental impairment must have contributed to the occurrence of the criminal behavior. Finally, the link between the predicate mental impairment and the criminal behavior must specifically be of the type prescribed in the legal test. As noted above, depending on the legal jurisdiction, the test for insanity may reference either cognitive or volitional impairments. Imagine a scenario in which a person with a well-established diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (“mental disease”) suddenly felt extremely anxious in a situation where the only means of escaping was to take another person’s car and drive away. He is not confused as to the ownership of the car (i.e., he “knows” that it belongs to another person), does not think that he has that person’s permission to take the car (i.e., has no illness-related delusion that he has the authority or approval to take the car), and is aware of, and maybe even consciously anxious about, the possibility that he could be arrested for taking the car. Under a purely cognitive insanity formulation that focuses on “knowing” or “appreciating” the wrongfulness of his behavior, there is little to suggest that the actor’s illness (acute anxiety symptoms)—although it motivated his decision to take the car—impaired his cognitive abilities in the way prescribed by the legal test. Alternatively, under a volitional formulation that referenced impaired control of impulses or capacity to conform conduct, the sudden strong urge to flee, arguably animated by his anxiety disorder, might support a finding of insanity.

Clinical Assessment of Criminal Responsibility When the defense decides to pursue a defense of insanity, mental health professionals, commonly psychiatrists or psychologists, are hired by the prosecution and defense and/or appointed by the court to evaluate the defendant’s mental condition and to provide reports and/or testimony as to the defendant’s criminal responsibility. This is one of the most challenging types of evaluation for mental health professionals in their roles as forensic examiners because it is different, in so many ways, from the ordinary evaluations that they conduct in clinical (nonlegal) settings. Clinical diagnostic assessments are imperfect even under optimal conditions—that is, when the clinician

is working with a voluntary, candid, and willing client and the focus is on present mental functioning and treatment planning. Such conditions are almost never present when evaluations for criminal responsibility are being conducted. Because the insanity evaluation focuses narrowly on a specific point in time in the past, this inevitably diminishes the utility of commonly used clinical measures, such as psychological tests or other diagnostic procedures. Instead, insanity evaluations rely to a large extent on reviews of investigative evidence collected by the police, interviews with defendants, and information collected from third parties who may have knowledge relevant to the defendant’s behavior and functioning at or near the time of the offense. Thus, investigative reporting, rather than traditional clinical assessment, is perhaps a better conceptual model for criminal responsibility evaluations. The challenges faced in conducting criminal responsibility evaluations include the following: The Evaluation Is Retrospective. It is not uncommon for insanity evaluations to be conducted weeks or months after the defendant’s arrest. Furthermore, the time window between the crime and the clinical evaluation may be extended considerably if the arrest is made only after a prolonged investigation. Much can happen during this interval to distort the reconstructed picture of the defendant’s prior mental state, including the following: 1. The defendant has a mental illness that has deteriorated over time; the clinician interviews the defendant in this more disturbed state and may attribute more psychopathology at the time of the offense than was actually present. 2. The defendant has a mental illness that improves either spontaneously, due to the cyclical nature of the disorder, or to treatment received (e.g., in jail); the clinician interviews the defendant in this less disturbed state and may attribute less psychopathology at the time of the offense than was actually present. 3. Although not symptomatic at the time of the offense, the defendant may have developed symptoms subsequent to the offense (e.g., a reaction to the nature of the crime itself, to events that occurred at arrest or in the jail, or in anticipation of serious consequences); the clinician may attribute some of this symptomatology as being present at the time of the offense.

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4. Information obtained by interviewing the defendant or third-party sources (e.g., witnesses, family members), even if offered “honestly,” may be less accurate due to deterioration of memory over time.

Concerns About Information Validity. Most people who provide information to the forensic examiner have a personal or professional interest in the opinions and findings that the examiner will reach. Thus, concerns about the validity of information are greater in insanity evaluations (and other forensic assessments) than with evaluations conducted for standard clinical and therapeutic purposes. A defendant may view a successful insanity defense as his or her only hope for avoiding a lengthy prison sentence and thus be motivated to exaggerate or fabricate symptoms of mental disorder in describing behavior and motivations at the time of the offense. Family members sympathetic to the defendant’s plight may distort information in ways that they believe are helpful to the case. The attorney(s) may be selective in the investigative information made available to the clinician, withholding that which they believe might lead the clinician to an unfavorable opinion. Evidence may be gathered and provided by the police in ways that provide a misleading picture of the defendant’s prior mental functioning. For example, a defendant who is mentally confused and verbally incoherent may be cajoled into signing a “confession,” drafted in perfectly organized and sensible language by an arresting officer, that belies the extent of psychopathology present at the time of arrest. Translating Clinical Findings for Legal Consumers. Based on information gathered from the defendant, the police, and available third-party sources, the forensic examiner attempts to reconstruct an account of the defendant’s mental state at the time of the offense that considers whether, and the extent to which, symptoms of mental disorder may have contributed to the alleged crime. However, as noted above there is no direct translation of clinically recognized mental disorders, which can vary from relatively benign (e.g., nicotine use disorder) to severely incapacitating conditions (e.g., schizophrenia, manic disorder), into legal terms such as disease of the mind or mental disease or defect. Similarly, various formulations of the legal criteria for insanity require qualitative or quantitative determinations of either the nature of the functional legal impairment (e.g., ability to “know” or to “appreciate” wrongfulness of conduct) or the extent of impairment

(e.g., categorically “did not know” vs. “lacked substantial capacity to know”) for which there is no clinical or scientific technology. That there is no scientific basis for translating clinical findings into specific legal conclusions poses a challenge to forensic examiners who are often pressured by the attorneys, if not also the courts, to give conclusory opinions under the mantra of “reasonable medical (or scientific) certainty.” Mental health professionals have no “capacimeters” for determining whether the specific nature or extent of impairment in a given case is sufficient to excuse the defendant from his or her moral obligation to obey the rules. These constructs are legal terms of art that, in any individual case, have meaning only as expressed in the eventual social and moral judgment of the judge or jury when the verdict is reached. The status of an individual being legally insane (i.e., “not criminally responsible”) is a social construction that has no meaning prior to, or independent of, the jury’s pronouncement. This is not to say that clinical evaluations of criminal responsibility cannot be helpful to legal decision makers. Rather, the challenge for forensic examiners is to collect information relevant to a defendant’s legal functioning and to describe it to the triers of fact in ways that facilitates their ultimate judgments, but without offering moral judgments of their own under the guise of scientific expertise. To illustrate with an example, one defendant who had a long and well-documented history of mental disorder experienced a recurrence of symptoms that included the delusional belief that he had been appointed to the position of deputy director of the FBI (in reality, the individual had worked in a factory for 20 years). On the basis of this belief, and the further notion that he was urgently needed in Washington, D.C., on matters of national security, he boarded a Greyhound bus and, without license or permission, drove it away from the bus depot. He was arrested and charged with unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle. In this case, a forensic examiner might report that at the time of the offense the defendant experienced symptoms (i.e., delusions—strongly held but erroneous beliefs) of a well-recognized mental disorder (schizophrenia) with which he had been diagnosed for a number of years. Although the objective evidence is that the defendant is a factory worker, the manifestation of his illness at the time of the offense included a set of beliefs that distorted his perceptions of reality

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with respect to his occupation (i.e., objectively he was not an FBI official) and his rights and duties associated with his occupation (i.e., objectively he did not have the authority to commandeer a public transportation vehicle in the interest of national security). The nature of these distortions impaired his ability to judge correctly with respect to the action of taking control over the bus. This formulation lacks a conclusive opinion as to whether or not the defendant’s symptoms at the time of the offense satisfy the required predicate condition (“he suffered from a mental disease”). Also absent is any conclusory opinion that the symptoms categorically did, or did not, relate to the criminal act in the prescribed way (i.e., “he did not know that what he was doing was wrong”). However, the formulation does provide a plausible accounting of the relationship between the defendant’s symptoms and the criminal behavior, but leaves it to the jury to “connect the dots,” so to speak, in a fashion congruent with their collective social and moral intuitions as to whether or not an individual so disturbed should be held criminally responsible. Norman G. Poythress See also Automatism; Criminal Responsibility, Defenses and Standards; Forensic Assessment

Further Readings

De Pauw, K. W., & Szulecka, T. K. (1988). Dangerous delusions: Violence and misidentification syndromes. British Journal of Psychiatry, 152, 91–96. Dreher, R. H. (1967). Origin, development and present status of insanity as a defense to criminal responsibility in the common law. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 3, 47–57. Goldstein, A. M., Morse, S. J., & Shapiro, D. L. (2003). Evaluation of criminal responsibility. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology (pp. 381–406). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Morse, S. J. (1994). Causation, compulsion, and involuntariness. Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 22, 159–180. Morse, S. J. (1994). Culpability and control. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 142, 1587–1655. Poythress, N. G. (2004). “Reasonable medical certainty”: Can we meet Daubert standards in insanity cases? [Editorial]. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 32, 228–230.

Slobogin, C. (2007). Proving the unprovable: The role of law, science, and speculation in adjudicating culpability and dangerousness. New York: Oxford University Press.

CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY, DEFENSES AND STANDARDS Although the insanity defense is numerically insignificant, it remains profoundly important to the criminal justice system as the focal point of the ongoing debate on the relationship between legal responsibility, free will, mental illness, and punishment. The insanity defense has substantially survived in spite of persistent philosophical and political criticism. Its history reflects a balance and tension between changes in attitudes toward developments in psychiatry and psychology and changes in attitudes toward criminal justice, incapacitation, and the desire to punish. Probably no other area of criminal law and procedure reflects a jurisprudence that is so driven by myths as that of the insanity defense. Yet only a handful of American jurisdictions have legislatively abolished it. Insanity defense issues have concerned the courts and legislative bodies for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years. As the various tests have developed— M’Naghten, irresistible impulse; Durham, the test proposed in the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code (ALI-MPC); the federal Insanity Defense Reform Act, diminished capacity—and as efforts are made to limit the scope and use of the defense, either by use of a “guilty but mentally ill” verdict or by outright abolition, it is clear that the symbolic values of the insanity defense must be considered carefully at all times. No area of our legal system has engendered a more intense level of debate than the role of the insanity defense in the criminal justice process. On the one hand, this difficult subject is seen as a reflection of the fundamental moral principles of the criminal law, resting on beliefs about human rationality, deterrability (i.e., whether the punishment of a person whose profound mental illness leads him to commit what would otherwise be a criminal act would serve as a deterrent to others), and free will, and as a bulwark of the law’s moorings of condemnation for moral failure. On the other hand, it is castigated by a former attorney general of the United States as the major stumbling block in the restoration of “the effectiveness of Federal law enforcement” and as tilting the

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“balance between the forces of law and the forces of lawlessness.” Yet the percentage of insanity defenses pled is small (at the most 1%), the percentage of those successful is smaller (1/4 of 1%), and the percentage of those successful in contested cases is minuscule (1/10 of 1/4 of 1%). Notwithstanding the defense’s relative numerical insignificance, it touches—philosophically, culturally, and psychologically—on our ultimate social values and beliefs; it is rooted in moral principles of excuse that are accepted in both ordinary human interaction and criminal law; and it continues to serve as a surrogate for resolution of the most profound issues in criminal justice. Although the defense has been significantly narrowed in many jurisdictions in the past 25 years—a condition intensified by the verdict in the John Hinckley case (which involved the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan) as well as several other unpopular or “wrong” jury verdicts in cases involving sensationalized crimes or public figure victims—reports of its demise are, to a great extent, exaggerated and, in spite of public outrage, the doctrine has remained alive in most jurisdictions. The insanity defense has been a major component of the Anglo-American common law for more than 700 years. Rooted in Talmudic, Greek, and Roman history, its forerunners actually can be traced back to more than 3,000 years. The sixth-century Code of Justinian explicitly recognized that the insane were not responsible for their acts and also articulated the early roots of the temporary insanity and diminished capacity doctrines. By the ninth century, the “Dooms of Alfred” (a code of laws compiled by Alfred the Great) acknowledged that an impaired individual— who could not acknowledge or confess his offenses— was absolved from personally making restitution. In pre-Norman England, the law similarly shifted reparations responsibility in the event that a “man fall out of his senses or wits, . . . and kill someone.” The defense’s “modern” roots can be traced at least as far back as 1505, the first recorded jury verdict of insanity, but it is clear that even prior to that case, juries considered “acquittal to be the appropriate result” in certain insanity defense cases. Furthermore, William Lambard’s late-16th-century text on criminal responsibility (The Eirenarcha) suggested that the insanity defense was already well settled in England, and Sir Edward Coke’s 1628 treatise, Institutes of the Laws of England, gave the law the familiar maxim that the “ madman is only punished by his madness.”

Early Developments In the early 18th century, English judges began the process of attempting to define for juries that condition of the mind which would excuse, as a matter of law, otherwise criminal behavior. In Rex v. Arnold (1724), the first of the historically significant insanity defense trials, Judge Tracy charged the jury in the following manner: That is the question, whether this man hath the use of his reason and sense? If he . . . could not distinguish between good and evil, and did not know what he did . . . he could not be guilty of any offence against any law whatsoever. . . . On the other side . . . it is not every kind of frantic humour or something unaccountable in a man’s actions, that points him out to be such a madman as is to be exempted from punishment: it must be a man that is totally deprived of his understanding and memory, and doth not know what he is doing, no more than an infant, than a brute, or a wild beast, such a one is never the object of punishment.

The law of criminal responsibility evolved further in 1800, in the case of James Hadfield, which envisioned insanity in the following manner: That a man could know right from wrong, could understand the nature of the act he was about to commit, could manifest a clear design and foresight and cunning in planning and executing it, but if his mental condition produced or was the cause of a criminal act he should not be held legally responsible for it.

This trend toward a more liberal defense continued in the case of Regina v. Oxford (1840), which concerned the attempted assassination of Queen Victoria, in which the jury charge combined portions of what would later be known as the “irresistible impulse” test and the “product” test.

M’Naghten Case The most significant case in the history of the insanity defense in England (and perhaps in all common-law jurisdictions) arose out of the shooting by Daniel M’Naghten of Edward Drummond, the secretary of the man he mistook for his intended victim, Prime Minister Robert Peel (as with all the other cases already discussed, the victim was a major political

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figure). Enraged by the jury’s insanity verdict, Queen Victoria questioned why the law was of no avail, since “everybody is morally convinced that [the] malefactor . . . [was] perfectly conscious and aware of what he did,” and demanded that the legislature “lay down the rule” so as to protect the public “from the wrath of madmen who they feared could now kill with impunity.” In response to the Queen’s demand, the House of Lords asked the Supreme Court of Judicature to answer five questions regarding the insanity law; the judges’ answers to two of these five became the M’Naghten test (1843): The jurors ought to be told in all cases that every man is presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crimes, until the contrary be proved to their satisfaction; and that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.

There are three main features of this formulation: First, it is predicated on proof that the defendant was suffering from a “defect of reason, from disease of the mind.” From the time of M’Naghten until today some finding of “mental disease or defect” has been a necessary predicate for the insanity defense. Second, once such a “disease” is shown, the inquiry focuses on what the defendant was able to “know.” That is, the interest of the law under this test is in the ability of the defendant to “know” certain things. It is for this reason that the inquiry is sometimes referred to as a “cognitive” formula. Third, the M’Naghten test focuses on two things the defendant must be able to “know” to be guilty of a crime. One is “the nature and quality” of the act that was committed. The other is that the act “was wrong.” In both instances, the question is whether the defendant was “capable” of knowing these things, that is, whether the mental illness had robbed the defendant of the capacity to know what “normal” people are able to know about their behavior. The idea, in sum, is that people who are unable to know the nature of their conduct or who are unable to know that their conduct is wrong are not proper subjects for criminal punishment. In commonsense terms, such persons should not be regarded as morally responsible for their behavior.

This test has been severely criticized as rigid and inflexible, based on outmoded views of the human psyche, of little relation to the truths of mental life, reflecting antiquated and outworn medical and ethical concepts. Furthermore, the use of language such as “know” and “wrong” was criticized as “ambiguous, obscure, unintelligible, and too narrow.” Donald Hermann and a colleague have argued, by way of example, that the cognitive aspect of one’s personality cannot be seen as the sole determinant of one’s subsequent behavior (and the basis of one’s ultimate criminal guilt) because the psyche is an integrated entity. Critics also maintain that the narrow scope of the expert testimony required by the M’Naghten test deprives the jury of a complete picture of the psychological profile of the defendant as the test ignores issues of affect and control. Nevertheless, American courts readily adopted the M’Naghten formulation and codified it as the standard test, “with little modification,” in virtually all jurisdictions until the middle of the 20th century.

Irresistible Impulse In a partial response to criticisms of the M’Naghten test, several courts developed an alternative test that later became known as the “irresistible impulse” test, adapted from a test first formulated in 1883 by Lord Stephen: If it is not, it ought to be the law of England that no act is a crime if the person who does it is at the time . . . prevented either by defective mental power or by any disease affecting his mind from controlling his own conduct, unless the absence of the power of control has been produced by his own default.

This rule allowed for the acquittal of a defendant if his mental disorder caused him to experience an “irresistible and uncontrollable impulse to commit the offense, even if he remained able to understand the nature of the offense and its wrongfulness.” It was based, in the words of Abraham Goldstein, one of the leading legal scholars on the history of the insanity defense, on four assumptions: First, that there are mental diseases which impair volition or self-control, even while cognition remains relatively unimpaired; second, that the use of M’Naghten alone results in findings that persons suffering from such diseases are not insane; third, that the law should

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make the insanity defense available to persons who are unable to control their actions, just as it does to those who fit M’Naghten; fourth, no matter how broadly M’Naghten is construed, there will remain areas of serious disorder which it will not reach. (p. 67)

the many federal cases that had rejected M’Naghten and adopted instead the ALI-MPC test.

At its high-water mark, this test had been adopted in 18 jurisdictions, but today, far fewer states follow its teachings.

In an effort to avoid the major criticisms of M’Naghten, the irresistible impulse test, and Durham, the ALI couched the substantive insanity defense standard of its MPC in language that focused on volitional issues as well as cognitive ones. According to the ALI-MPC standard, a defendant is not responsible for his criminal conduct if, as a result of mental disease or defect, he “lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law” (§ 4.01(1)). Under this formulation, the term mental disease or defect specifically excluded “an abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or otherwise antisocial conduct”(§ 4.01(2)). Although the ALI-MPC test was rooted in the M’Naghten standard, there were several significant differences. First, its use of the word substantial was meant to respond to case law developments that had required a showing of total impairment for exculpation from criminal responsibility. Second, the substitution of the word appreciate for the word know showed that a sane offender must be emotionally as well as intellectually aware of the significance of his or her conduct and that mere intellectual awareness that the conduct is wrongful when divorced from an appreciation or understanding of the moral or legal import of behavior can have little significance. Third, by using a broader language of mental impairment than had M’Naghten, the test captured both the cognitive and affective aspects of impaired mental understanding. Fourth, its substitution in the final proposed official draft of the word wrongfulness for criminality reflected the position that the insanity defense dealt with an impaired moral sense rather than an impaired sense of legal wrong. Although there were some immediate criticisms of the ALI-MPC test, principally due to the attempt to bar “psychopaths” or “sociopaths” from successfully using the defense, the test was generally applauded as encouraging adjudication based on reality and the practical experience of psychiatrists by recognizing that both the volitional and the cognitive processes of an individual may be impaired. The test was subsequently adopted by more than half of the states and, in some form, by all but one of the federal circuits. Perhaps most significant, the District of Columbia Court of

The Product Test Charles Doe, a mid-19th-century New Hampshire State Supreme Court judge, first crafted what became known as the product test: “If the [crime] was the offspring or product of mental disease in the defendant, he was not guilty by reason of insanity” (State v. Pike, 1870). This test first entered the legal public’s consciousness in 1954, when it was adopted by the District of Columbia in Durham v. United States, rejecting both the M’Naghten and the irresistible impulse tests as based on “an entirely obsolete and misleading conception of the nature of insanity,” one that ignored the reality that “the science of psychiatry now recognizes that a man is an integrated personality and that reason, which is only one element in that personality, is not the sole determinant of his conduct” (p. 871) and that a far broader test would be appropriate. Durham held that an accused would not be criminally responsible if his “unlawful act was the product of mental disease or mental defect” (pp. 874–875). This test would provide for the broadest range of psychiatric expert testimony, “unbound by narrow or psychologically inapposite legal questions” (Weiner, 1985, p. 710). The case was the first modern, major break from the M’Naghten approach and created a feeling of intellectual and legal ferment. It was adopted, however, in fewer than a handful of jurisdictions and became the topic of fairly rigorous criticism, that it allegedly failed to provide helpful guidelines to the jury and that it was—at its core—a “nonrule,” providing the jury with no standard by which to judge the evidence; that it misidentified the moral issue of responsibility with the scientific issues of diagnosis and causation; and that it was too heavily dependent on expertise, leading to the usurpation of jury decision making by psychiatrists. Within a few years after the Durham decision, the court began to modify and— ultimately—dismantle it, culminating in its decision in United States v. Brawner (1973), the most important of

American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code Test

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Appeals, in overruling its “product” test of Durham v. United States in United States v. Brawner, adopted the ALI-MPC test.

leading to uneven and inequitable outcomes, and while it had been endorsed in some form in nearly 25 jurisdictions, it has failed to capture major support and has even lost the support it previously enjoyed.

Insanity Defense Reform Act Slightly more than a decade after Brawner, in the wake of John Hinckley’s failed attempt to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Congress enacted the federal Insanity Defense Reform Act. This law had the effect of returning the insanity defense in federal jurisdictions to status quo ante 1843: the year of M’Naghten. The bill changed the federal law in several material ways: 1. It shifted the burden of proof to defendants, by a quantum of clear and convincing evidence. 2. It articulated, for the first time, a substantive insanity test, adopting a more restrictive version of M’Naghten, thus discarding the ALI-MPC test previously in place in all federal circuits. 3. It established strict procedures for the hospitalization and release of defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity. 4. It severely limited the scope of expert testimony in insanity cases.

Diminished Capacity One of the most difficult concepts in substantive insanity defense formulation is that of diminished capacity, a doctrine that holds that evidence of reduced mental capacity tending to show the absence of any mental state essential to the alleged crime should be accepted by the trial court, whether or not an insanity plea was entered (People v. Wells, 1949, pp. 63–70). There seems little question that the diminished capacity doctrine was developed to be used in murder cases to mitigate the harshness of a potential death penalty by raising the question of whether the defendant could sufficiently appreciate the nature of his or her act so as to sustain a first-degree murder conviction. In addition, use of the doctrine has been justified as a means to ameliorate defects in a jurisdiction’s substantive insanity defense test criteria and as a means of permitting juries to make more accurate individualized culpability judgments. This doctrine, however, has been routinely criticized for its difficulty and arbitrariness in application,

“Guilty but Mentally Ill” Perhaps the most significant development in substantive insanity defense formulations in the past 20 years has been the adoption in more than a dozen jurisdictions of the hybrid “guilty but mentally ill” (GBMI) verdict. It received its initial impetus in Michigan, as a reflection of legislative dissatisfaction with and public outcry over a state Supreme Court decision that had prohibited automatic commitment of insanity acquittees. There, legislation was enacted that provided for a GBMI verdict—as an alternative to the not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) verdict—if the following were found by the trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt: 1. That the defendant is guilty of an offense 2. That the defendant was mentally ill at the time of the commission of the offense 3. That the defendant was not legally insane at the time of the commission of the offense

The rationale for the passage of the GBMI legislation was that the implementation of such a verdict would decrease the number of persons acquitted by reason of insanity and ensure treatment of those who were GBMI within a correctional setting. It was conceived that once a defendant were to be found GBMI, he or she would be evaluated on entry to the correctional system and provided appropriate mental health services either on an inpatient basis as part of a definite prison term or, in specific cases, as a parolee or as an element of probation. This model was followed—in large part—in most of the other states that have adopted the GBMI test. Most academic analyses have been far more critical, rejecting it as conceptually flawed and procedurally problematic and as not only superfluous but also dangerous. By way of example, in practice, the GBMI defendant is not ensured treatment beyond that available to other offenders. Thus, Christopher Slobogin (one of the leading current scholars in this area of the law) suggests, it is “not only misleading but dangerous to characterize the [GBMI] verdict either as a humane advance in the treatment of mentally ill

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offenders or as a more effective way of identifying offenders in need of treatment.” The GBMI verdict, he concludes, is “a verdict in name only” (p. 515).

almost double the amount of time that defendants convicted of similar charges spend in prison settings and often face a lifetime of postrelease judicial oversight.

Insanity Defense Myths

Myth 6: Criminal defendants who plead insanity are usually faking. This is perhaps the oldest of the insanity defense myths and is one that has bedeviled American jurisprudence since the mid-19th century. Of 141 individuals found NGRI in one jurisdiction over an 8-year period, there was no dispute that 115 were schizophrenic (including 38 of the 46 cases involving a victim’s death), and in only three cases was the diagnostician unable to specify the nature of the patient’s mental illness.

The empirical research has revealed that at least half a dozen myths about the insanity defense had arisen and have been regularly perpetuated but were all disproven by the facts. The research showed that the insanity defense opens only a small window of nonculpability, that defendants found that NGRI does not “beat the rap,” and, perhaps most important, that the tenacity of these misbeliefs in the face of contrary data is profound. Myth 1: The insanity defense is overused. All empirical analyses have been consistent: the public, legal profession, and, specifically, legislators dramatically and grossly overestimate both the frequency and the success rate of the insanity plea. This error undoubtedly is abetted by media distortions in presenting information on persons with mental illness charged with crimes. Myth 2: The use of the insanity defense is limited to murder cases. In one jurisdiction where the data have been closely studied, slightly less than one third of the successful insanity pleas entered over an 8-year period were reached in cases involving a victim’s death. Furthermore, individuals who plead insanity in murder cases are no more successful in being found NGRI than persons charged with other crimes. Myth 3: There is no risk to the defendant who pleads insanity. Defendants who asserted an insanity defense at trial and who were ultimately found guilty of their charges served significantly longer sentences than defendants tried on similar charges but did not assert the insanity defense. The same ratio is found when exclusively homicide cases are considered. Myth 4: NGRI acquittees are quickly released from custody. Of all the individuals found NGRI over an 8-year period in one jurisdiction, only 15% had been released from all restraints, 35% remained in institutional custody, and 47% were under partial court restraint following conditional release. Myth 5: NGRI acquittees spend much less time in custody than do defendants convicted of the same offenses. Contrary to this myth, NGRI acquittees actually spend

Abolition and Limitation Proposals In the past two decades, state legislatures in Idaho, Montana, Kansas, and Utah have abolished the insanity defense, and in those jurisdictions, state supreme courts have subsequently held that abolition of the defense did not violate due process. Arizona stopped barely short of abolishing the insanity defense by creating a “guilty except insane” verdict that eliminates the “nature and quality of the act” prong from the M’Naghten test. In one instance (Nevada), such abolition was struck down as unconstitutional in Finger v. State of Nevada (2001), with the majority of the sharply divided court finding that legal insanity was a “fundamental principle” entitled to due process protections. The court reasoned as follows: Mens rea is a fundamental aspect of criminal law. Thus it follows that the concept of legal insanity, that a person is not culpable for a criminal act because he or she cannot form the necessary mens rea, is also a fundamental principle. (p. 80)

The U.S. Supreme Court recently addressed questions raised in Arizona’s insanity defense: Whether due process prohibits Arizona’s use of an insanity test stated solely in terms of the capacity to tell whether an act charged as a crime was right or wrong; and whether Arizona violates due process in restricting consideration of defense evidence of mental illness and incapacity to its bearing on a claim of insanity, thus eliminating its significance directly on the issue of the mental element of the crime charged (known in legal shorthand as the mens rea, or guilty mind). (Clark v. Arizona, 2006)

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In both instances, the Court held there was no violation of due process. Michael L. Perlin See also Criminal Responsibility, Assessment of; Guilty but Mentally Ill Verdict; Insanity Defense, Juries and; Insanity Defense Reform Act (IDRA); Mental Health Law; Treatment and Release of Insanity Acquittees This entry is largely adapted from Perlin, M. L. (2002). Mental disability law: Civil and criminal (2nd ed., chap. 9). Newark, NJ: Matthew Bender. Further Readings

American Law Institute. (1962). Model penal code. Philadelphia: Author. Clark v. Arizona, 548 U.S. ____ 126 S. Ct. 2709 (2006). Durham v. United States, 214 F.2d 862 (D.C. Cir. 1954) (overruled in United States v. Brawner, 471 F. 2d 969 (D.C. Cir. 1972). Finger v. State of Nevada, 27 P.3d 66 (Nev. 2001). Goldstein, A. S. (1967). The insanity defense. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Low, P. W., Jeffries, J. C., & Bonnie, R. J. (2000). The trial of John W. Hinckley, Jr.: A case study in the insanity defense (2nd ed.). New York: Foundation Press. Morris, N. (1984). Madness and the criminal law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. People v. Wells, 202 P. 2d 63 (Cal. 1949). Perlin, M. L. (1989/1990). Unpacking the myths: The symbolism mythology of insanity defense jurisprudence. Case Western Reserve Law Review, 40, 599–731. Perlin, M. L. (1994). The jurisprudence of the insanity defense. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. Perlin, M. L. (1997). “The borderline which separated you from me”: The insanity defense, the authoritarian spirit, the fear of faking, and the culture of punishment. Iowa Law Review, 82, 1375–1426. Perlin, M. L. (2002). Mental disability law: Civil and criminal (2nd ed., Vol. 4). Newark, NJ: Matthew Bender. Regina v. Oxford, 173 Eng. Rep. 941 (1840). Rex v. Arnold, 16 How. St. Tr. 695 (1724). Slobogin, C. (1985). The guilty but mentally ill verdict: An idea whose time should not have come. George Washington Law Review, 53, 494–527. State v. Pike, 49 N.H. 399, 442 (1870). United States v. Brawner, 471 F.2d 969 (1973). Weiner, B. A. (1985). Mental disability and criminal law. In S. J. Brakel, J. Parry, & B. A. Weiner (Eds.), The mentally disabled and the law (3rd ed., pp. 693–773). Chicago: American Bar Association.

CRISIS AND HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION Since the 1970s, some clinical psychologists (often referred to as operational psychologists) have become more actively involved in the resolution of critical incident situations, which are classified as either hostage situations or crisis intervention situations. Police psychologists are valuable contributors to the training of tactical and crisis/hostage negotiators. Onscene responsibilities for operational psychologists include providing professional consultation on the potential behavioral effects of psychopathology and psychopharmacology, selection of primary and backup negotiators, suggestions and input regarding the actual negotiation process, and operational consultation to the tactical commander. Research shows that police departments that employ psychologists during special operation responses have significantly fewer casualties of both hostages and hostage takers and more incidents that are peacefully resolved via a negotiated surrender than by a tactical entry or violent confrontation. Police psychologists, in providing cogent consultation and robust training dynamics to specialized police crisis response teams, have made a dramatic contribution to reducing the risk of injury and death for all participants in these critical events.

Hostage and Crisis Negotiation Within both federal and local law enforcement environments, a hostage situation has become defined as any situation in which individuals are being held via active coercion by another person or people and demands are being made by the hostage taker(s). These demands are by design established by the hostage taker(s) to gain compliance as well as establish an inherent power by the hostage taker(s) over the responding law enforcement agency. Typically, a hostage situation results from the interruption of a criminal act in which the perpetrators take hostages with an ultimate goal of forcing law enforcement to comply with their demands for escape. At the other end of the continuum are hostage situations initiated by a terrorist group whose goal is to communicate their political agenda via media exposure. The terrorists attempt to actualize this confrontation by using the hostages as political pawns, as the terrorists have the option of choosing martyrdom for themselves and/or death to the hostages if their demands are not met.

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As hostage negotiation developed over the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, it was observed that the majority of negotiator incidents were either initiated by an individual or within some family dyad. As such, the typical negotiator intervention entailed interaction with a barricaded subject, a suicidal individual, or a couple who were engaged in a violent domestic confrontation. These incidents required the application of crisis-intervention techniques and active listening skills. The overall principle in crisis negotiation is that time is on the side of the negotiator in that the passage of time will provide a “cooling off” period for the individual who is seen as a victim rather than as a perpetrator. Over time, the emotional lability of the individual will dissipate, which allows for the introduction of active listening techniques by the negotiator. This system of communication provides a spectrum of responses that facilitate viable, objective problem-solving options to the individual in crisis.

Team Composition and Tactics A hostage/crisis negotiation event is a complicated and potentially dangerous undertaking for any law enforcement agency. Almost all these situations demand the response of a two-pronged team, the special weapons and tactics team (SWAT). The SWAT team consists of a heavily armed and specially trained group of police officers, while the second component of the team is the group of police negotiators. The primary function of the tactical team is for the protection of the SWAT team, especially the negotiators, the victims of the event, the general public, hostages (if any), and, lastly, the subject(s). The tactical team is also responsible for initiating any proactive or reactive options during the progression of the event. The negotiator team is responsible for the acquisition of any on-scene information deemed relevant to both the tactical and negotiator teams. The second primary function of the negotiators is, obviously, the active negotiation process. On the arrival of the SWAT team, the tactical members will diligently establish an inner perimeter that allows for the establishment of a safe (within the constraints of the actual situation) environment for the tactical operations center (TOC). The TOC is the central decision and command area for the supervisory personnel. The TOC consists of the tactical commander, typically a lieutenant; a tactical team leader (sergeant); a negotiator team leader (lieutenant or sergeant); and the police psychologist. These individuals have been trained in the dynamics of critical events and usually

are certified tactical commanders, with the police psychologist having received at least 80 hours in specialized courses in hostage and crisis negotiation. In major metropolitan police departments, such command and supervisory personnel have responded to more than 300 to 1,200 of these SWAT callouts to date. The responsibility of the TOC is to initially determine if the presence of the SWAT team at the specific scene is legal and/or necessary. A second task is to develop an initial action plan. Third, the TOC is responsible for maintaining an ongoing acceptable and risk-effective course of action. Within this action plan are typically four options: immediate assault on the location, selected sniper fire (an exigent situation to prevent the loss of life to innocent participants), introduction of chemical agents, and a negotiation process. It should be noted that these four options are fluid in nature and can be used in combination and in no specific order. The decision process to use any option is predicated on the anticipated outcome following the initiation of any one or more of these actions. Most negotiation teams consist of a lead and backup negotiator, an electronics technician/negotiator, several support negotiators, a team leader, and a mental health consultant. Unless there is an exigent situation, the mental health consultant is never the lead negotiator (for ethical reasons), nor does just one negotiator initiate and maintain the negotiation process (for safety reasons). The lead negotiator is the police officer responsible for speaking directly to the subject and for developing and maintaining active listening skills and verbal tactics that will increase the likelihood for a successful resolution of the crisis. The most effective negotiators are those who are the best listeners, for it is only through listening that the negotiator will begin to understand and emotionally connect with the subject. The secondary negotiator is responsible for physically protecting (typically by preventing the lead negotiator from gradually placing his body and head in the line of fire while distracted by the negotiation process) the lead negotiator, monitoring the radio frequency, and listening to the negotiation process and relaying information and suggestions (typically made by the mental health professional) back to the lead negotiator. If necessary, during a protracted negotiation process, the backup negotiator may relieve the primary negotiator. The electronics technician/negotiator is responsible for maintaining all negotiator equipment, setting up all the required equipment at the scene, and interfacing with local telephone companies and national cellular companies,

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as well as coordinating the dispatch and arrival of the local power/utility company crew (in the event the tactical commander decides to cut the electrical power in the subject dwelling). The support negotiators are responsible for gathering all relevant information regarding the subjects (e.g., physical description, clothing, weapons, prescription/nonprescription medications, contact phone numbers, and arrest and psychiatric history). This is done via records checks and interviewing on-scene family members, friends, and witnesses. The support negotiators also maintain a running log of times and relevant events during the SWAT callout. A final responsibility of the support negotiators is to interview/debrief any hostages who are released during a hostage situation. The negotiator team leader assists the mental health consultant in the assignment of team responsibilities for the specific callout as well as providing consultation at the TOC. The mental health consultant provides assistance to the negotiator team leader in negotiator assignments, provides psychological personality assessment, psychotropic consultation, monitors negotiator team performance and stress reactions, and provides dispositional consultation to the TOC. Once the team responsibilities are determined, the TOC commander, tactical and negotiator team leaders, and the mental health consultant determine the communication mode by which the primary negotiator will attempt to make contact with the subject. This decision is predicated on officer safety first and the type of crisis situation. There are four means by which to communicate with the subject: police vehicle public address (PA) system, parabolic PA, telephone (landline, cell phone, throw phone), or voice to voice. If the situation is a criminal, barricaded subject with no hostages, then either PA system is typically used for officer safety as well as the commanding tone of the PA. For all other situations, it is preferable to use some form of phone system and optimally establish tactical presence to support the use of voice to voice (the negotiator and subject are close enough to one another to communicate by simply speaking in a conversational tone to one another) for the resolution phase.

The Effects of Time and the Stockholm Syndrome Hostage and crisis negotiation is an extremely complicated process incorporating three basic principles. First is the concept of time, in which, during most critical events, the extension of time invariably works in

favor of successful resolution. During this so-called 60- to 90-minute rule, the passage of time allows for the ventilation of extreme emotional responses (for the subjects, hostages, and police officers). This dissipation of emotion allows for the introduction of more logical and rational problem solving, the influence of physiological needs, as well as, in the hostage situation, the opportunity for the hostages to escape. However, it should never be assumed that hostages, if given the opportunity, will proactively initiate an escape or will assist the SWAT team in the successful resolution of the crisis. The underlying process, which is extremely powerful in most hostage situations, has become known as the Stockholm syndrome. This gradually occurs as a natural process of the passage of time (typically over hours and days); however, if there is significant violence at the onset of the taking of hostages, this syndrome compels an immediate and powerful influence. This syndrome compels one of the following behaviors: The hostages will begin to have positive feelings toward the hostage takers, the hostages will begin to develop negative feelings toward law enforcement, and the hostage takers will begin to develop positive feelings toward their hostages. The effect of the Stockholm syndrome on the negotiation process is rather consistent for the hostage takers and the hostages. The positive dynamic is that as time elapses, and if the hostage takers have begun to develop positive feelings toward their hostages, they are actually less likely to harm, much less kill, their hostages, whom they now begin to see as humans and not just objects for barter. However, negative aspects include the hostages’ inability to self-initiate their escape, communication by hostages of unreliable information to the negotiators either on release or during captivity, or hostages’ interference with the rescue operation. In rare cases, if the Stockholm syndrome is not severe, some hostages have been known to exaggerate the motives and weaponry of the hostage takers to the negotiators, with the intent of having the SWAT team conclude the hostage takers were more dangerous than in fact they were, and the tactical team eventually would feel compelled to initiate an active entry and perhaps kill the hostage takers.

The Influence of Power Tactics and Face-Saving The second component in the negotiation process is incremental display of power, in the hope of avoiding its actual use during the negotiation process. A highly

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visible tactical containment combined with the third component, the presentation of face-saving issues, becomes the most integral component of the negotiation process. The process of negotiation and active listening assumes that the interchange among individuals even within a crisis situation possesses rewards and costs for both factions. The goal is to maximize mutual benefits while concurrently minimizing costs—an interaction in which the lead negotiator emphasizes a process of quid pro quo (something for something). Face-saving techniques allow both law enforcement and the subjects to maintain some semblance of control while agreeing on options of mutual gain. For example, a barricaded subject may have agreed to resolve the crisis by meeting the tactical officers outside his home, but the media have positioned their cameras where he will easily be videotaped being taken into custody. A facesaving negotiation is for both the TOC personnel and the subject to agree that he or she will be taken into custody at the back of his or her home to avoid the humiliation of his or her arrest being filmed by the local media.

Active Listening and the Resolution Process The successful negotiator is highly skilled in active listening, the ability to focus on what the subject is speaking and to accurately process not only what the subject is saying but also the accurate emotional content that is actually being communicated. In other words, active listening is a technique to maximize an empathic exchange between the negotiator and the subject. There are 14 identified communications techniques within the active listening process. Experience has established that the most effective techniques are those of clarification and paraphrasing, primary-level empathy, and especially self-disclosure. Clarification and paraphrasing are most typically used during the initial contacts with the subject so that during these more emotionally laden contacts, the likelihood of miscommunication and misunderstanding is minimized. For example, Negotiator:

By “old lady,” do you mean your wife?

Subject:

Yeah, that’s right, her.

Negotiator:

So, it sounds like things have been going very badly between you two today.

Now, over time, the negotiator will begin to insert primary-level empathy and self-disclosure: Negotiator:

Boy, it sure sounds like everything appears to be falling apart, and you’re pretty angry and scared.

Subject:

Yeah, but you really don’t know what it’s like for me now!

Negotiator:

Maybe, maybe not, but I know that I was feeling really hurt and scared when I was going through my divorce a few years ago.

The relatively long process of establishing an empathic rapport between the lead negotiator and the subject is known as the “hook.” The hook is the point at which the negotiator has established a position of trust with the subject and is now able to lead the subject through the concrete process of either releasing hostages and/or being taken into custody. In all situations, once the subject is taken into custody by the SWAT team, the individual is arrested and taken to jail or, in the case of a crisis situation (suicidal subject), he or she is transported to the nearest crisis response unit. The negotiation process for hostage and barricade incidents is the responsibility of highly trained and experienced SWAT teams. Communication, a clearly articulated and flexible plan, creativity, and patience are the key components predictive of a successful outcome. The negotiator’s application of active listening skills and the demonstration of empathic communication are critical skills for the successful resolution of critical incidents. Scott W. Allen See also Critical Incidents; Police Psychologists; Police Psychology

Further Readings

Allen, S. W. (1991). Assessment of personality characteristics related successful hostage negotiators and their resistance to post-traumatic stress disorder. In J. T. Reese, J. M. Horn, & C. Dunning (Eds.), Critical incidents in policing (Rev. ed., pp. 1–16). Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Butler, W. M., Leitenberg, H., & Fuselier, G. D. (1993). The use of mental health professional consultants to police hostage negotiation teams. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 11, 213–221.

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Fuselier, G. D. (1988). Hostage negotiation consultant: Emerging role for the clinical psychologist. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 19, 175–179. Hatcher, C., Mahondie, K., Turner, J., & Gelles, M. G. (1998). The role of the psychologist in crisis/hostage negotiations. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 16, 455–472. Lancely, F. J. (1999). On-scene guide for crisis negotiators. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. McMains, M. J., & Mullins, W. C. (2000). Crisis negotiations: Managing critical incidents and hostage situations in law enforcement and corrections. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson.

CRITICAL INCIDENTS This entry examines the causes of critical incident stress in law enforcement officers. It discusses how, by identifying critical incident stressors and the personal, team, and organizational factors that render them meaningful, law enforcement agencies can proactively influence officers’ critical incident stress outcomes. To appreciate how this can be accomplished, it is necessary to understand the role of mental models in the etiology of critical incident stress. Through their training and operational experiences, officers develop mental models that determine their ability to adapt to and impose meaning on the incidents they attend. Furthermore, officers respond to incidents as members of law enforcement organizations whose culture (through interaction with colleagues, senior officers, and organizational procedures) influences the development and maintenance of mental models and thus how challenging critical incident experiences are made sense of. An incident becomes critical when its characteristics fall outside expected operational parameters and officers’ mental models are unable to make sense of and adapt to the novel, challenging circumstances that ensue. Law enforcement officers experience critical incidents regularly. These can range from multivehicle traffic accidents and mass homicides to natural disasters and acts of terrorism. While traditionally viewed as a precursor to posttraumatic pathology (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]), growing recognition of a link with positive outcomes (e.g., posttraumatic growth) have implications for how critical incident stress in law enforcement is conceptualized and managed.

Conceptualizations of critical incident stress must encompass how officers’ mental models can either increase vulnerability to adverse stress reactions or increase their resilience and their capacity to experience posttraumatic growth, with each outcome being influenced by prevailing approaches to critical incident stress management. With regard to the latter, the dominant approach has involved critical incident stress management or debriefing. In addition to issues regarding the efficacy of debriefing, growing evidence for significant team and organizational influence on posttrauma outcomes calls for more comprehensive and proactive approaches to critical incident stress management. Two approaches to managing critical incident stress are discussed here. The first involves developing officers’ mental models to increase the range of circumstances they can adapt to. Because officers will continue to experience challenging incidents, the second involves developing their capacity to render novel experiences meaningful.

Developing Mental Models Incidents become critical when their circumstances (e.g., deliberately flying a passenger aircraft into a building) and associated levels of uncertainty (e.g., regarding the nature and duration of a threat, length of involvement), personal danger (e.g., being secondary targets of terrorist attacks, exposure to biological or radiation hazards), or operational demands (e.g., performance expectations, crisis decision making, interagency role stress) fall outside the expected parameters of officers’ operational mental models. By incorporating these characteristics into training programs, it is possible to increase the range of critical experiences officers can render meaningful, reduce levels of posttrauma pathology, and contribute to officers realizing a sense of personal and professional growth from critical incident work. Training can also increase officers’ knowledge of stress reactions and how to use support mechanisms to create positive emotions. Although training can reduce critical incident stress risk, a need to prepare for the unexpected means that critical incident stress management must also proactively develop officers’ capacity to adapt to critical circumstances and reduce their vulnerability to adverse reactions (e.g., PTSD). Research has identified several personal and team and organizational factors that inform how these goals can be accomplished.

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Personal Factors Vulnerability to adverse critical incident stress outcomes has been linked to, for example, preexisting psychopathology (which increases vulnerability directly) and social skills and problem-solving deficits that have an indirect effect by reducing officers’ ability to develop solutions to novel problems or limiting their ability to effectively use available social support. In contrast, officers characterized by their relatively high levels of extraversion, hardiness, and selfefficacy are more resilient and better able to render novel, challenging experiences meaningful. Training not only plays an important role in developing hardiness and self-efficacy but it also helps socialize officers into the fabric of the organizational culture, introducing a need to consider how sense making occurs in teams and in relationships with senior officers.

Finally, predicting all the eventualities that law enforcement officers could encounter is impossible. Consequently, support procedures must be in place to manage any residual posttrauma reactions. This can include counseling strategies designed to facilitate positive resolution and coworker and peer support provided within a supportive team and organizational culture. Exposure to critical incidents will remain a reality for law enforcement officers. Critical incident stress management involves both reducing vulnerability (e.g., enhancing problem-solving skills, reducing inappropriate operational procedures) and increasing resilience (e.g., increasing hardiness, developing team mental models, delegating operational responsibility). By developing personal and team competencies and support resources and ensuring they are enacted within a supportive organizational culture, law enforcement agencies can act proactively to positively influence the critical incident outcomes officers will experience.

Team Factors Although generally considered to ameliorate stress reactions, if demands on a social network occur at a time when all its members have support needs, social support mechanisms can increase officers’ vulnerability to experiencing posttrauma stress reactions. This problem can be managed by developing a supportive team culture. Renee Lyons and colleagues coined the term communal coping to describe how cohesive teams contribute to stress resilience through, for example, facilitating cooperative action and collective efficacy to resolve problems associated with responding to critical incidents. Realizing the full benefits of personal and team resources, however, is a function of the quality of the organizational culture in which officers work.

Organizational Factors The severity of stress reactions is greater if officers experience them in an organizational culture that discourages emotional disclosure and that attributes blame for response problems to officers. Similarly, cultures characterized by poor consultation and communication and excessive paperwork increase vulnerability to posttrauma pathology. In contrast, police organizations that delegate responsibility to and empower officers, and encourage senior staff to work with officers to identify the strengths that helped them deal with an incident and to use this knowledge to develop future capabilities, increase officers’ stress resilience.

Douglas Paton See also Police Occupational Socialization; Police Stress; Police Training and Evaluation; Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Terrorism

Further Readings

Paton, D., Violanti, J. M., & Smith, L. M. (2003). Promoting capabilities to manage posttraumatic stress: Perspectives on resilience. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. Violanti, J. M., & Paton, D. (2006). Who gets PTSD? Issues of vulnerability to posttraumatic stress. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.

CROSS-RACE EFFECT IN EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION The cross-race effect (CRE, also referred to as the own-race bias or other-race effect) is a facial recognition phenomenon in which individuals show superior performance in identifying faces of their own race when compared with memory for faces of another, less familiar race. Over three decades of research on the CRE suggests a rather robust phenomenon that carries practical implications for cases of mistaken eyewitness identification, particularly in situations that involve a poor opportunity to encode other-race faces and when

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a significant amount of time occurs between observation of the perpetrator and a test of the witness’s memory. While the CRE has not generally been observed in the accuracy of descriptions for own-race versus otherrace faces, research has found that individuals often attend to facial features that are diagnostic for ownrace faces and misapply these feature sets when attempting to identify and describe other-race faces. As such, theorists have proposed that encoding and representational processes are largely responsible for the CRE, including the role of interracial contact and perceptual categorization processes. This entry summarizes this research on the CRE, including how it operates in eyewitness identification and person descriptions, the influence of certain social and cognitive psychological mechanisms that may underlie the effect, and the potential role of training programs for improving other-race face identification.

Laboratory Studies of the CRE Research in cognitive and social psychology over a span of three decades has examined the CRE, providing a substantial body of work demonstrating the reliability and robustness of the effect. The vast majority of the research has focused on individuals’ attempts to identify both own-race and other-race faces. Across studies, a “mirror effect” pattern is generally observed, such that individuals demonstrate both significantly greater correct identifications of own-race faces (referred to as “hits”) and significantly fewer false identifications of own-race faces (referred to as “false alarms”). Overall, participants are 1.40 times more likely to correctly identify an own-race face, while they are 1.56 times more likely to falsely identify an other-race face. Composite signal detection measures of discrimination accuracy (i.e., the ability to distinguish between faces seen previously and novel faces) and response criterion (i.e., the tendency for responding “yes” versus “no” to faces regardless of whether they have been seen before or not) have also been used to describe the CRE. As might be expected, discrimination accuracy is better for own-race faces, and individuals generally demonstrate a more liberal response criterion for other-race faces (indicating that they are more likely to say “seen before” to such faces). Several factors have been shown to moderate the CRE. For example, studies have shown that shorter viewing times are more likely to produce the effect such that under brief encoding conditions performance

is superior on own-race faces. As viewing time increases, however, the CRE reduces in size such that performance can become equivalent on own-race and other-race faces with a sufficient opportunity for encoding. Retention interval, or the time between stimulus presentation and test, has also been shown to moderate the effect. Studies indicate that as the retention interval increases, participants’ response criterion becomes more liberal for other-race faces, thereby producing a CRE on measures of response criterion. As such, participants are more willing to identify otherrace faces (i.e., to respond “seen before”) when a lengthy delay occurs between study and test phases. Studies have evidenced the CRE across a wide variety of ethnic and racial groups. While the original research in this area dealt primarily with Whites and Blacks in the United States, more recent studies have included samples from Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Turkey, South Africa, and parts of the Middle East and Asia. Whites, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Natives/Indians, Jews, and Arabs, among others, have been included in these studies with each demonstrating a CRE in face identification performance. Research has shown that, in general, Whites demonstrate a larger CRE than Blacks with respect to measures of discrimination accuracy and that “majority-group” individuals demonstrate a more robust CRE than do “minoritygroup” individuals.

The CRE in Eyewitness Identification and Person Descriptions Laboratory research on the CRE has suggested a rather robust phenomenon with some practical implications, particularly with regard to witnesses in real cases who may be confronted by an assailant of a different race or ethnicity. The question naturally arises whether such situations could lead to an increased risk of mistaken identification and/or failures to identify the perpetrator. Studies that have investigated eyewitness identification suggest that the CRE occurs just as frequently in laboratory “facial recognition” paradigms as they do in simulated “eyewitness identification” paradigms involving a single “perpetrator” at study and a six- or eight-person “lineup” presented at test. As such, researchers have suggested that the CRE is likely to be seen in real cases of eyewitness identification, especially when the opportunity to view the perpetrator is limited and when a significant amount of time passes between the crime event and the attempted lineup identification (consistent with

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the moderating factors discussed above). Along these lines, researchers have examined whether mistaken eyewitness identification, and the CRE in particular, may play a critical role in cases of wrongful conviction. Data from these studies indicate that nearly 40% of cases involving mistaken identification result from the CRE. Archival studies of real cases have also indicated that the likelihood of identifying an own-race suspect is significantly greater than that of an other-race suspect, particularly when there is strong evidence to suggest his or her culpability. Witnesses to a crime are frequently asked to provide a verbal description of the perpetrator they viewed. These descriptions are then used by investigators in attempting to identify a suspect in the immediate vicinity. Given the robustness of the CRE in face identification, researchers have also investigated whether a similar effect might be evidenced in person descriptions. To date, only a handful of studies have examined this possibility, with the majority concluding that no differences exist in the accuracy of descriptions provided for own-race versus other-race faces. However, researchers have found that individuals of different races/ethnicities often report different features when differentiating faces and further that these features are most useful for characterizing faces of their own race. For example, caucasians frequently use hair color, hair texture, and eye color to distinguish faces, whereas African Americans rely on face outline, eye size, eyebrows, chin, and ears. While it is clear that we try to distinguish faces of other races by the facial features that are distinguishable within our own race, the problem appears to lie in that those same features are generally less useful when applied to other-race faces.

Theoretical Underpinnings of the CRE Several theoretical mechanisms have been identified with regard to the CRE, including interracial contact and social attitudes, encoding and representational processes, perceptual-memory expertise, and perceptual categorization. First, racial contact and attitudes have been implicated as moderators of the CRE. Across studies, interracial contact has been shown to account for a small, but significant, amount of variance in performance on other-race faces such that greater interracial contact tends to reduce the size of the observed CRE. Furthermore, studies have suggested that the form of interracial contact may be important to

its influence on face identification such that individuals must be motivated to individuate other-race members through contact (i.e., social utility). The properties of natural social environments that foster the development of high performance levels with other-race faces are presently unknown. While social attitudes have not been shown to directly moderate the CRE, an indirect relationship appears to exist such that social attitudes may account for the amount of interracial contact one engages in and thereby influence the CRE. For example, individuals who profess prejudiced attitudes toward other-race groups are less likely to have significant amounts of contact with such individuals and, as a result, appear more likely to demonstrate the CRE. However, the causal direction of the contact-attitude relationship is more difficult to identify and could work in either direction. A great deal of research suggests that encoding and representational processes may be responsible for recognition differences in the CRE. As noted above, individuals of different races/ethnicities appear to rely on different feature sets when encoding faces, and these feature sets appear to be most useful when encoding faces of one’s own race. In addition, individuals have been shown to attend to greater numbers of features for own-race faces and to group or “chunk” these features when representing the face. As a result, own-race faces are better differentiated in memory based on these feature sets, while other-race faces appear to be more clustered and less differentiated. This encoding and representational advantage allows individuals the ability to better “recollect” own-race faces at test based on those features identified and selected at encoding. In contrast, the clustering of other-race faces in memory leads to poorer recognition performance at test and, prominently, a greater likelihood of falsely identifying a novel other-race face. Studies that have validated the role of encoding and representational processes in the CRE also suggest that individuals’ processing of own-race faces might be likened to that of an “expert” perceptual-memory skill. One such theory proposes that faces may be encoded with respect to individual features or isolated aspects (i.e., “featural” processing) and with regard to configural or relational aspects among features (i.e., “configural” processing). Studies suggest that “experts” encode objects (such as faces) in a more configural manner, while “novices” encode objects on a more featural basis. Using a variety of paradigms, researchers have demonstrated that own-race faces

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appear to be processed in a more configural manner (consistent with expert-level processing), while otherrace faces are processed with respect to individual features (consistent with novice-level processing). Research studies have also noted that the CRE may be due to a process of racial categorization. In particular, individuals appear to process other-race faces at a superficial level that is consumed with a focus toward racial categorization. As a result of these categorization processes, other-race faces are coded with an emphasis on category-related information (stereotypes) and less with regard to individuating information. Researchers have demonstrated that such categorization processes can both influence our perception of a face (i.e., stereotype consistent) and lead to deficits in performance consistent with the CRE.

Improving the Recognition of Other-Race Faces Given the bulk of research suggesting that the CRE may be a product of interracial contact and the role of encoding-based mechanisms (e.g., perceptual learning), researchers have attempted to develop a variety of training programs over the years to improve participants’ recognition of other-race faces. While some of these studies included forms of positive and negative feedback, others have focused on improving participants’ ability to distinguish between other-race faces and teaching participants to identify “critical” feature sets that are useful for discriminating such faces. Taken together, these studies have generally met with some success in producing short-term improvements in recognition performance; however, when participants are tested at longer posttraining retention intervals, this improvement in performance tends to diminish. Nevertheless, these studies suggest that individuals may be trained to improve their face recognition performance to a certain extent, and researchers continue to develop training protocols that might be employed by government agents or business professionals who may be sent abroad. Jessica L. Marcon, Christian A. Meissner, and Roy S. Malpass See also Estimator and System Variables in Eyewitness Identification; Expert Psychological Testimony on Eyewitness Identification; Exposure Time and Eyewitness Memory; Eyewitness Descriptions, Accuracy of; Eyewitness Identification: Field Studies; Eyewitness Memory; Training of Eyewitnesses

Further Readings

Brigham, J. C., Bennett, L. B., Meissner, C. A., & Mitchell, T. L. (2006). The influence of race on eyewitness memory. In R. Lindsay, D. Ross, J. Read, & M. Toglia (Eds.), Handbook of eyewitness psychology: Memory for people (pp. 257–281). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Meissner, C. A., & Brigham, J. C. (2001). Thirty years of investigating the own-race bias in memory for faces: A meta-analytic review. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law, 7, 3–35. Sporer, S. L. (2001). Recognizing faces of other ethnic groups: An integration of theories. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law, 7, 36–97.

CSI EFFECT The CSI effect refers to the belief that jurors’ expectations about forensic evidence at trial are changing due to the popularity of crime investigation programming such as CBS’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Much of the support for this effect comes from anecdotal evidence. The limited empirical evidence on this topic indicates that CSI may influence some of jurors’ case perceptions but has no effect on verdict decisions. CSI is one of the most popular shows on network television, consistently ranking high in the Nielsen ratings and spawning several spin-off shows. These shows depict crime scene investigators using highly technical procedures to recover microscopic evidence that ultimately reveals the details of the crime, including the perpetrator. Criminal investigations in real life differ markedly from this representation. In actuality, forensic evidence such as DNA and fingerprints are not always available from a crime scene, and when they are available, they may only be analyzed in important cases or in larger departments due to the expense. Furthermore, forensic laboratories may take weeks to return results that are less than conclusive. According to attorneys and the media, inaccurate portrayals put forth by programs such as CSI are causing jurors to expect more, and stronger, forensic evidence at trial. The concern is that when prosecutors fail to present this evidence, jurors are being more lenient, providing fewer convictions. Belief in the CSI effect is pervasive among the legal and media communities. According to news reports, evidence of the CSI effect has been found in courtrooms around the country. For instance, in Phoenix,

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Arizona, jurors in a murder trial voiced concern that a bloody coat introduced as evidence had not been tested for DNA, even though tests were not considered necessary because the defendant had admitted being at the murder scene. Some observers have attributed the 2005 acquittal of actor Robert Blake, charged with murdering his wife, Bonnie Bakley, to the CSI effect. Even though the prosecutor presented more than 70 witnesses against Blake in this case, it is believed that the jury wanted to see forensic evidence such as blood splatter or gunpowder residue and found Blake not guilty when such evidence was not presented. Attorneys have even begun questioning potential jurors about their viewing habits during voir dire and warning jurors about the fictional nature of CSI. The CSI effect is most commonly defined as leading to a prodefense bias, as the above examples illustrate. In this sense, exposure to crime investigation programming serves to raise jurors’ conviction threshold, requiring more incriminating evidence to find guilt. However, this effect can also be conceptualized in another way. Some commentators note that crime investigation programming enforces the belief that forensic science is infallible and can provide definitive evidence of guilt. Adherence to this belief would actually work for the prosecution, leading to more convictions when any type of forensic evidence is presented, regardless of quality. In this way, crime investigation programming may actually lower jurors’ conviction threshold, requiring less incriminating evidence to find guilt. To date, little empirical research has examined the impact of crime investigation programming on jurors’ verdicts and case perceptions. The little research that does exist, consisting of a few law reviews and conference presentations, typically examines this effect by measuring mock jurors’ exposure to crime investigative programming (e.g., hours per week) and having them read through a case summary and answer various questions about the case, including verdict. The results of these preliminary studies are mixed, but most suggest that watching crime investigation programming does not influence verdict. In three studies, mock jurors who report watching CSI a lot were no less (or more) likely to find a defendant guilty than are mock jurors who watch little or no CSI. However, one study did find the predicted prodefense effect, such that more hours of TV watching was related to a perception of less strength in the prosecution’s case, which was related to more acquittals. Also, most studies have found that the more a mock

juror finds the shows to be believable and realistic, the more likely the juror is to favor the prosecution and find the defendant guilty. Thus, whether jurors believe the shows are realistic may be a better predictor of decisions than how much the juror watches the shows. Finally, there is also some suggestion that prosecution’s warning against CSI-caliber evidence may produce a backfire effect, weakening the prosecution’s case among jurors who do not watch CSI. Why is there no direct relationship between CSI and verdict? Intuitively, it seems like such programming should have an effect on jurors’ expectations for evidence. There is a large body of research identifying the media as an important source of knowledge and expectations, particularly for events for which people have little experience, such as a trial. Should a relationship between exposure to criminal investigation programming and juror behavior truly exist, there are a variety of possible reasons a clear effect has not emerged in research. As already noted, there are at least two possible effects viewing CSI can have on juror behavior: It can make jurors expect high-quality forensic evidence and therefore raise the conviction threshold, or it can lead jurors to believe that all forensic evidence is infallible, thereby lowering the conviction threshold when forensic evidence is present. It is plausible that both effects may be occurring simultaneously, such that jurors are coming to require forensic evidence at trial but at the same time are finding any forensic evidence sufficient for guilt. These two effects may therefore be working against each other, leading to no noticeable change in verdict. Another possibility is that CSI programming may only influence the behavior of certain types of people. It has been suggested by Tom Tyler that the overvaluing of forensic evidence caused by exposure to CSI may be strengthened among those greatly in need of closure or belief in a just world. Similarly, jurors who do not have much need for cognition may be more likely to rely on expectations generated by crime investigation programming as a cognitive heuristic. In conclusion, empirical research has yet to identify a clear CSI effect, at least as conceptualized by the legal community and the media. Research efforts continue in an attempt to ascertain what influence, if any, such programming has on juror expectations and behavior. Margaret C. Reardon and Kevin M. O’Neil See also Jury Competence; Pretrial Publicity, Impact on Juries; Statistical Information, Impact on Juries

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Further Readings

Tyler, T. R. (2006). Viewing CSI and the threshold of guilt: Managing truth and justice in reality and fiction. Yale Law Journal, 115, 1050–1085.

CYBERCRIME There is no agreed precise definition of the term cybercrime, but in a general sense, it has been used to describe any illegal activities conducted through the use of a computer or network of computers. Some researchers have emphasized that it is crime that takes place on the Internet, which has led to a more comprehensive definition of illegal computer-mediated activities that often take place in global electronic networks. Such crime includes computer hacking, Internet fraud, identity theft, and the illegal transfer of technologies. Increasingly, psychological research in this area also makes reference to cyberstalking, cyberterrorism, and Internet child pornography as examples of cybercrime. Much of what is referred to as cybercrime might be thought of as traditional crime that is committed through the use of new tools. If we think of cybercrime in this way, we can see that many traditional crimes can be conducted with the Internet as a source of communication—for example, the sharing of pedophile information. The Internet has also opened up new opportunities for other traditional crimes, such as fraud and deception. In both these instances, the criminal activity is not dependent on the new technologies but is certainly aided and possibly transformed by them. There are many newer crimes that can only be perpetrated within cyberspace, among which are intellectual property theft, identity theft, and spamming. As new technologies occupy an increasingly large space in our lives, criminals are increasingly using them to engage in criminal activities. It may also be the case that the nature of the technologies, in particular the Internet, is a catalyst for the emergence of some criminal behaviors that might otherwise not have been evidenced. Although there is lack of agreement as to what precisely constitutes a cybercrime, one element common to most definitions is that it involves the use of a computer. The computer may be the focus, or target, of the crime—for example, hacking or the use of a virus to infect a computer network. It may also be the tool used to commit the crime, such as downloading or distributing child pornography, or fraud. It may also be a

medium for the use of materials gained through criminal activity, such as copyright theft of DVDs, where the person using the computer did not commit the original illegal act but subsequently engages in illegal activity. In this way, the computer might also be a source of invaluable forensic evidence. The emergence of cybercrime has mirrored the development of the new technologies. A survey conducted in 2002 by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Computer Security Institute suggested that in the previous 12 months, 90% of business respondents had detected security breaches, from which 80% had suffered financial loss. It is of concern that a substantial number of these breaches were from people within the organization, and this has become a focus for some of the emerging research. What is it about the new technologies that increases the likelihood of people taking risks, breaching moral or ethical codes, and committing crimes? Such is the concern about the potential for widespread criminal activity that in 2001, 30 countries, including the United States, signed the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention, which was the first multilateral instrument drafted to address the problems posed by the spread of criminal activity on computer networks. This Convention requires parties to establish laws against cybercrime, ensure that law enforcement agencies have the necessary procedural authority to investigate and prosecute cybercrime offenses, and provide international cooperation to other parties in the fight against computer-related crime.

Major Types of Cybercrime Cybercrime has been broadly divided into two types, which might lie at opposite ends of a spectrum. The first type of cybercrime is often experienced as a discrete event by the victim and is facilitated by the introduction of crimeware programs, such as viruses or Trojan horses, into the user’s computer. Examples of this type of cybercrime might include identity theft and bank or credit card fraud based on stolen credentials. The second type of cybercrime, which lies at the other end of the spectrum, includes activities such as cyberstalking, child solicitation, blackmail, and corporate espionage. Viewed in this way, cybercrime represents a continuum ranging from crime that is almost entirely technological in nature to crime that is largely related to people. Sarah Gordon and Richard Ford divide cybercrime into two distinct categories: Type I cybercrime, which is mostly technological in nature,

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and Type II cybercrime, which has a more pronounced human element. The following is a brief description of some of the major types of cybercrime. Computer hacking refers to the unauthorized access to a computer or computer network, which may or may not result in financial gain. For example, hackers may attack a network solely to protest against political actions or policies or simply to show that they can do it, but equally, it can be used to access bank accounts or data banks. The level of disruption caused may be localized within a given organization or may, for example, in extremis, potentially disrupt the availability of power to a large geographical area. Were this to occur, it would result in widespread social disruption, which may be motivated by ideology and which traditionally may have been seen as terrorist activity. The illegal transfer of technology, or piracy, includes industrial espionage and the piracy of software, logo, and hardware designs. The perpetrator may be an individual (a young person sharing a program with a friend) or a network (a company installing software on multiple computers for which it owns a restricted license), and it may be enabled by others (such as a government). Its intended use may be financial, recreational, or for military or terrorist activities, and it may be motivated by a complex array of factors. The theft can breach contracts, trade secrets, and national and international laws involving copyrights. Identity theft is broadly defined as the unlawful use of another’s personal identifying information (name, address, social security number, date of birth, registration number, taxpayer identification number, passport number, driver’s license information, or biometric information such as fingerprint, voiceprint, or retinal image). Such information is obtained in a variety of ways. Low-technology routes include theft of wallets or handbags or sifting through garbage to look for bank statements, utility bills, and so on. Hightechnology methods include skimming, where offenders use computers to read and store information encoded on the magnetic strip of an ATM or credit card. This information can be re-encoded onto another card with a magnetic strip. Identity thieves steal identities to commit an array of crimes, such as taking out loans, cash advances, and credit card applications, which may include large-scale operations such as taking control of entire financial accounts. Spamming has also been identified as a cybercrime, although most of us would not generally consider it to be so. Spamming is the distribution of

unsolicited bulk e-mails that contain an array of messages, including invitations to win money; obtain free products or services; win lottery prizes; and obtain drugs to improve health, well-being, or sexual prowess. David Wall has argued that spamming embodies all the characteristics of cybercrime in its global reach: networking capabilities; empowerment of the single agent through the (re)organization of criminal labor; and use of surveillant technologies, which creates small-impact bulk victimizations. Currently, over half of all e-mails are spam, and this constitutes a major obstacle to effective use of the Internet and its further development. Cyberstalking generally refers to using the new technologies to harass or menace another person by engaging in behavior that persists in spite of another’s distress or requests that it should stop. It can take many forms, such as unsolicited hate mail, e-mail whose content is obscene or threatening, malicious messages posted in newsgroups, e-mail viruses, and electronic junk mail or spam. It is analogous to other forms of stalking but uses technology to achieve its aims and is motivated by a desire to gain control over the victim. Online pornography is considered a cybercrime only when its content is illegal (such as abusive images of children). Criminal activity may relate to downloading, trading, and producing such images, although the criminality of the act will depend on the geographical location of both the material and the person accessing or distributing it. Some countries do not have laws that criminalize child pornography, and therefore an individual producing such images within that jurisdiction would not be seen to engage in cybercrime, but another individual in a country where such laws exist may access the images and thereby commit a criminal act. This highlights one of the difficulties in relation to cybercrime, in that while the Internet has no boundaries, legislation does. This has probably been the main impetus for the European Convention on Cybercrime.

Cybercriminals It has been suggested that cyberspace opens up infinitely new possibilities and that with the right equipment, technical know-how, and inclination, you can go on a global shopping spree with someone else’s credit card, break into a bank’s security system, plan a demonstration in another country, and hack into the Pentagon—all on the same day. As Yvonne Jewkes and Keith Sharp note, going online undermines the

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traditional relationship between physical context and social situations, and this is coupled with perceived anonymity, access, and affordability. As a consequence, this increases disinhibition and risk taking, in part because through the new technologies we can constantly re-create ourselves. The Internet has also changed the boundaries of what constitutes acceptable, problematic, or deviant behavior. Cybercriminals are not a homogeneous group, and while some criminal activities (such as stalking and engagement with child pornography) are more likely to be carried out by males, psychologists have noted that students, terrorists, amateurs, and members of organized crime have also been identified as being involved in cybercrime. The motivations for such criminal activities include revenge, a desire for notoriety, the technical challenge, monetary gain, or the promotion of ideology. As previously noted, the largest proportion of cybercrime is perpetrated by a company’s own employees and includes people with highly sophisticated technical skills and those who are relative novices. Attempts to generate profiles or taxonomies of computer criminals have been limited in their scope. There is little empirical research in this area, but analyses of cybercrime subjects suggest that the majority are male, have at least a high school education, commit their crimes alone, and are students within the 18- to 23-year age range.

Responses to Cybercrime The emergence of cybercrime has resulted in changes in legislation within and between jurisdictions, mirroring the fact that the new technologies are not limited by geographical boundaries. Indeed, the location of the offender in relation to the scene of the crime is an important characteristic. In traditional crime, such as burglary, the criminal is physically present at the scene of the crime. This is very different from cybercrimes, in which offenders not only are often not present but

also may be located in another country. Cybercrime has also opened up many gray areas in terms of what constitutes a crime. For example, many people may engage in activities that they do not even realize are criminal, such as pirating software from a friend. There are many challenges for the future in relation to cybercrime. Criminal activities on the Internet are not analogous to similar behavior in the physical world. The Internet enhances the potential for criminal and deviant behavior in several ways. The first of these relates to the dramatic increase in access to the Internet worldwide, providing limitless opportunities for criminal behavior and a vast marketplace for such activities. The Internet also provides a sense of anonymity or disconnectedness for the offender, lowering the risk of detention and reducing the level of physical risk normally associated with criminal activity. It also challenges traditional concepts of time and space. Ethel Quayle See also Pornography, Effects of Exposure to; Stalking; Terrorism; Victimization

Further Readings

Gordon, S., & Ford, R. (2006). On the definition and classification of cybercrime. Journal in Computer Virology, 2(1), 13–20. Jewkes, Y., & Sharp, K. (2002). Crime, deviance and the disembodied self: Transcending the dangers of corporeality. In Y. Jewkes (Ed.), Dot.cons: Criminal and deviant identities on the Internet (pp. 1–14). Cullompton, UK: Willan. Speer, D. L. (2000). Redefining borders: The challenges of cybercrime. Crime, Law & Social Change, 34, 259–273. Taylor, M., & Quayle, E. (2003). Child pornography: An Internet crime. Brighton, UK: Routledge. Wall, D. S. (2004). Digital realism and the governance of spam as cybercrime. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 10, 309–335.

D damage award to cover any medical costs, lost wages, and pain and suffering related to the injuries sustained in the accident. As another example, a business may receive a compensatory damage award to cover any revenues lost to competitors involved in price-fixing, trademark infringement, or sharing of trade secrets. Compensatory damage awards are themselves of two sorts: economic and noneconomic. Economic damages are intended to cover the financial or economic costs incurred by the injured party. These can include past and future lost wages, past and future expenses related to medical care and rehabilitation, past and future lost profits, and loss of reputation or business opportunity. In theory, these awards should be relatively easy to gauge because they are generally tied to objective data such as hospital bills, costs of property repairs, and amount of time away from work. In fact, even these losses are difficult to assess because they require jurors to make predictions about the future and then to discount their awards to present value (i.e., the injured party is given an economic damage award now that will, over time, grow to equal the amount that the jury has deemed appropriate). In addition, they may require a jury to agree on economic uncertainties such as future interest rates, the likelihood that injured persons would have been promoted or received raises or that businesses would have been profitable had they not been harmed, and projected life expectancies for persons who require lifelong care. Determining noneconomic damages can be even more problematic. Their function is to compensate the injured party for “pain and suffering,” including bodily harm; emotional distress, such as fear, depression, and anxiety; loss of enjoyment of life; and pain and

DAMAGE AWARDS Damage awards function as a remedy for wrongdoing in civil lawsuits; they constitute money awarded to an injured party as compensation for injuries or other losses (“compensatory” damages). They can also serve as punishment for the wrongdoer (“punitive” damages). These awards are made mostly by juries and occasionally by judges who previously determined that a wrongdoer was liable for damages. Determining damages—especially for intangible injuries such as pain and suffering—can be difficult, and juries have been criticized for issuing awards that seem extravagant and unpredictable. Although some of the criticisms are unfounded (e.g., jurors are not especially sympathetic toward plaintiffs), jurors occasionally do experience difficulty in applying jury instructions and following procedures that blindfold them to the consequences of their verdicts. Reforms intended to address these issues should be based on empirical analysis, and psychologists are well-positioned to provide the relevant data.

Various Kinds of Damage Awards Damage awards are of two general types, compensatory and punitive, and they serve different functions. Compensatory awards are intended to return an injured person or entity (e.g., a business, agency, or corporation) to pre-injury levels of functioning—that is, to restore that party to the position it was in prior to the injury or harm. For example, a person injured in an automobile accident may receive a compensatory 181

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disfigurement. For example, after the drug manufacturer Merck was found liable for the death of a Houston man who had been taking the painkiller Vioxx, it was required to pay millions of dollars to the man’s widow to compensate her for pain and suffering. Noneconomic damages are especially difficult to assess because they have no obvious metric: There is no cost accounting of one’s pain and suffering. Juries have sometimes been criticized for being capricious and unpredictable in determining damages (as described below), and criticism often focuses on an unexpected award for pain and suffering. Punitive damage awards are intended not to compensate for injuries but rather to punish wrongdoers for malicious and egregious behavior or gross negligence and to deter that party and others from similar conduct in the future. For example, juries have assessed large punitive damage awards against tobacco companies after finding that the companies knew about the health risks of cigarette smoking long before they made those risks known to the public. As another example, juries have awarded billions of dollars in punitive damages in cases stemming from the 1989 grounding of an Exxon oil tanker in Prince William Sound, Alaska, which devastated miles of shoreline, destroyed wildlife habitats, and financially ruined the local fishing industry. Punitive awards are usually not made in the absence of compensatory awards, and appellate court decisions require some reasonable relationship between the two.

Size of Damage Awards The examples provided above were of large damage awards in high-profile cases; jurors have often been criticized for assessing damages of these magnitudes. In fact, though, multimillion dollar awards are atypical. According to data compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics from the 75 most populous counties in the United States in 2001, the median damages awarded to plaintiffs who prevailed at trial (only approximately half of all plaintiffs who went to trial) was a modest $27,000. Awards varied considerably by type of case. For example, the median awards in automobile negligence and medical malpractice cases were $16,000 and $422,000, respectively. Awards in excess of $1 million were rare, given in only 8% of cases in which plaintiffs prevailed. Punitive damage awards were also rare and, when provided, were modest. According to the Bureau of Justice data, only 6% of winning plaintiffs were

awarded punitive damages, and these awards were given only in certain kinds of cases: tort cases involving slander/libel or intentional wrongdoing and contract cases involving partnership disputes, employment discrimination, and fraud. Punitive damages are rare in personal injury cases. The median punitive damages awarded in jury trials in 2001 was $50,000 ($83,000 in contract trials and $25,000 in tort trials), and only 12% of plaintiff winners who received punitive damages were awarded $1 million or more. Despite the fact that the median damage award is modest, some damage awards—particularly punitive damage awards—are indeed very large and contribute to the perception that juries are erratic and capricious in the manner in which they assess damages. Indeed, this perception has gelled into significant criticism of jurors’ ability to be fair and impartial in the awarding of damages, and on several occasions the U.S. Supreme Court has considered appeals based on the apparent excessiveness of a punitive damage award.

Controversy Surrounding Decisions About Damages Criticism regarding damage award decision making has centered on two concerns: first, that juries are overly sympathetic to plaintiffs in awarding excessive sums of money, especially for punitive damages, and second, that they are biased against wealthy or deeppocketed defendants. Valerie Hans and colleagues have examined both of these assumptions empirically by interviewing jurors who served in civil cases and by conducting laboratory-based research studies. Their data indicate that rather than favoring plaintiffs, most jurors tend to be skeptical of their motives. For example, the majority of jurors agreed that there are far too many frivolous lawsuits and that people are too quick to sue. When questioned about their own deliberations, jurors indicated that they questioned the legitimacy of plaintiffs’ complaints and scrutinized their motives. Jurors said they looked unfavorably on plaintiffs who did not seem as badly injured as they claimed or who had preexisting medical conditions. Jurors also scrutinized whether plaintiffs might have contributed to their own injuries and were unsympathetic to those who did little to mitigate their injuries. In fact, some jurors described themselves as acting as a defense against illegitimate grievances and frivolous lawsuits. So, far from being overly sympathetic to plaintiffs, jurors apparently tend to be skeptical of their claims.

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The second concern is that juries are biased against wealthy defendants, including large corporations, and act as a sort of “equalizer” in transferring monies from wealthy defendants to poor or needy plaintiffs. There is some evidence that awards tend to be higher in cases that involve corporate defendants than in cases with individual defendants. Other data suggest, however, that this finding may not be the result of the defendant’s financial well-being. Rather, juries apparently treat corporations differently than individual defendants because they hold the former to a higher standard than the latter (a “reasonable corporation” standard) and reason that corporations are better positioned than individuals to anticipate harms and to work to minimize or prevent them. In general, these concerns may be related to the fact that jurors have relatively little guidance from their jury instructions about how to assess damages or translate their judgments onto a monetary scale. The laws of damages are relatively vague, leading some critics to suggest that this situation allows jurors’ biases to operate freely and that extravagant and unpredictable awards are the result. The problem is especially acute in areas of the law that are still developing or that lack precision: sexual harassment claims, libel actions, and cases involving intentional infliction of emotional distress. Some commentators have suggested that a solution to the unbounded nature of jury decisions on damages is to make judges responsible for determining punitive damages. Judges already have occasion to award damages in bench trials and can control damage awards in jury trials through the mechanisms of additur and remittitur, which allow them to add to or reduce damage awards to the levels that they deem appropriate. In some states, only judges can assess punitive damages. An obvious question, then, is how punitive awards issued by judges compare with those assessed by juries. Data suggest that in most cases (particularly in cases with modest punitive awards), juries’ and judges’ awards are of similar size and variability and that both are based on the actual and potential severity of harm to the plaintiff.

Determining Jury Damage Awards Psychologists have been especially interested in analyzing the factors that influence jurors’ decisions about damage awards. In part, this reflects an objective of much psycholegal research conducted to assess the validity of legal assumptions about human behavior. In the context of damage awards, the law assumes that

particular factors will be considered by jurors in their decisions about compensatory damages and that different factors will be considered in decisions about punitive damages. Psychologists have asked whether jurors are able to compartmentalize their decision making in this way. The data on this topic are mixed; many studies suggest that jury awards are influenced by variations in legally relevant evidence, yet simulation studies show that jurors occasionally consider information that is theoretically unrelated to the decision at hand. For example, though most studies show that evidence of a defendant’s egregious conduct appropriately influences punitive but not compensatory damage awards, a few studies have found that it is sometimes considered (inappropriately) by jurors in assessing compensation. Similarly, though most studies have found that the severity of the plaintiff’s injuries appropriately influences compensatory but not punitive damage awards, a few studies have shown that jurors inappropriately factor injury severity into their judgments of punitive damages, at least in cases involving medical defendants. Interestingly, jurors’ intuitions about what normally or typically occurs in various injury-producing situations also influence their awards. Injuries that are perceived as atypical (e.g., suffering a whiplash after a fall) evoke greater sympathy in jurors than do typical injuries (e.g., suffering a broken bone in a fall) and result in greater compensation. There are many ways in which damages can be assessed; some data suggest that jurors assimilate their awards to the monetary figures provided by the attorneys during the trial. The ad damnum is the amount of money requested by the plaintiff; defense attorneys sometimes counter this with their own suggested amounts. These suggested figures (sometimes referred to as “anchors”) are likely to influence jurors because people tend to doubt their abilities to attach monetary values to unquantifiable injuries. According to the pioneering jury researcher David Broeder, the ad damnum does “yeoman service as a kind of damage jumping-off place for jurors” (Broeder, 1959, p. 756). More recent studies have shown that, in general, the higher the ad damnum, the larger the award. There is an upper limit to this effect, however; damage awards boomerang if the request is wildly excessive and out of line with the evidence. Another way in which jurors assess damages involves evaluating separate components of a plaintiff’s request (e.g., lost wages, loss of future earning capacity, loss of life’s pleasures), attaching monetary

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values to each of these components, and then summing them to arrive at a total compensatory damage award. Jurors are forced to perform a componential analysis in courts that use special verdict forms that require them to answer specific questions about the facts of the case and to calculate awards related to each set of facts. Finally, some data suggest that rather than analyzing the components of an injury, jurors reason more holistically by agreeing on a general figure that “seems” right. Interviews with jurors who served in tort and contract cases revealed that approximately one third of juries determined damages by picking a number that seemed fair and just. A peculiar aspect of some civil jury trials is the application of “blindfold rules,” which prohibit disclosure to jurors of the implications of their verdicts. Judges sometimes blindfold the jury regarding information such as attorneys’ fees, the tax consequences of damage awards, the insurance carried by the parties, and the possibility of additions to or reductions in damage awards by appellate courts. The rationale for these rules is that with blindfolds in place, jurors will not become confused by complex evidence or influenced by evidence that is lacking in probative value. In fact, there is substantial evidence that blindfolding rules may result in, rather than prevent, verdicts based on misinformation. Jurors are naturally inclined to consider information to which they are blindfolded even when this information is not presented in court. On occasion, these discussions involve explicit reference to these so-called “silent topics.” A large percentage of jurors interviewed about their deliberations report that their juries discussed factors such as attorneys’ fees and the defendant’s insurance. Even if these factors are not explicitly talked about, jurors’ implicit beliefs (not always correct) can influence their verdicts on damages. As a result, awards are sometimes unpredictable and inconsistent. Research suggests that it may be preferable to treat jurors like the careful and thoughtful arbiters they usually are and to provide them with clear and complete instructions, at least about those facets of damage awards on which all parties agree.

Reforming Jury Damage Awards Given the controversial nature of some jury damage awards, it is not surprising that proposals for changing the system have been offered, primarily by groups interested in tort reform. In fact, during the 1980s and

1990s, a majority of state legislatures implemented laws aimed at reducing jurors’ discretion and reining in large awards. Among the reforms are laws that cap damage awards at some specified amount (primarily for noneconomic and punitive damages) or eliminate them altogether (for punitive damages), clarify the elements of damage award decisions, bifurcate the trial into two segments so that jurors are presented with discrete questions and sets of evidence in each segment and cannot consider irrelevant evidence, require some portion of a damage award to be paid to a governmental or charitable organization rather than to the injured party, and (as previously mentioned) move punitive damage assessments from the jury to the judge. Importantly, many of these reforms were instituted without empirical backing; as a result, their implications are only now being understood. But recently conducted studies have brought into focus some unintended consequences, at least in terms of caps on damages. For example, mock jury research has shown that in cases with injuries of low to moderate severity, limits on awards for pain and suffering actually increased both the size and the variability of the awards. Other research has shown that although caps on punitive damage awards certainly reduce the size of punitive awards, they also increase the size and variability of compensatory awards. Similarly, caps on noneconomic damages result in larger economic damages, which are unbounded. Further research suggests that if jurors are altogether prevented from awarding punitive damages, the compensatory award may be augmented as a way to punish the defendant. These findings reflect the holistic reasoning notion described previously. Sometimes, jurors have a sense of “total justice”—an idea of what they think is fair in terms of compensation for the injured party and payment by the injurer—and, lacking clear guidance on the complementary functions of various kinds of damage awards, do what they can to deliver it. Psychologists have much to offer in this realm, particularly by conducting sophisticated psycholegal research that mirrors jurors’ actual task demands and that can illuminate the effects of these reform laws on jurors’ judgments. Carefully conducted empirical research studies can show how jurors manage the difficult task of awarding damages and what procedural changes can help them function more effectively. Edith Greene See also Jury Competence; Jury Decisions Versus Judges’ Decisions; Jury Reforms

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Further Readings

Broeder, D. (1959). The University of Chicago jury project. Nebraska Law Review, 38, 744–760. Diamond, S., Saks, M., & Landsman, S. (1998). Juror judgments about liability and damages: Sources of variability and ways to increase consistency. DePaul Law Review, 48, 301–325. Greene, E., & Bornstein, B. (2003). Determining damages: The psychology of jury awards. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Hans, V. (2000). Business on trial: The civil jury and corporate responsibility. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Vidmar, N. (1998). The performance of the American civil jury: An empirical perspective. Arizona Law Review, 40, 849–899.

DANGER ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENT (DA) The Danger Assessment Instrument (DA), in its current form, is a 20-item actuarial test designed to assess the risk of serious or lethal intimate partner violence. It is intended for use with adult women who have suffered physical abuse at the hands of men who are their current or former intimate partners. Although originally developed to assist in safety planning conducted by people delivering services to victims, the DA more recently has been used by some law enforcement agencies to help manage the risks posed by perpetrators. Systematic review of the DA is complicated by the fact that it has been used in several different forms for a variety of different purposes and by the lack of a formal test manual.

Description and Development Development of the DA began in the early 1980s. The DA differs from other tests designed to assess the risk of intimate partner violence—such as the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide (SARA) and the Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI)—in that its development focused specifically on risk of serious or lethal violence. In its original form, it comprised 15 risk factors that were identified in retrospective studies of intimate partner homicide—cases in which battered women killed or seriously injured their abusive partners or in which battered women were killed or seriously injured by their abuser partners. In 2004, the DA item pool was revised and expanded to 20 items, based on the findings of a multisite study that compared

risk factors for life-threatening (lethal or near lethal) versus less serious intimate partner violence. Some of the items reflect the nature or severity of intimate partner violence in the victim’s relationship with the perpetrator, such as a history of threats to kill, forced sex, or strangulation; some reflect characteristics of the victim, such as whether she has children from a previous relationship or has a history of suicidal threats or attempts; and others reflect characteristics of the perpetrator, such as whether he has a history of problems with employment or substance use. The DA can be completed independently or in collaboration with a service provider. Administration of the DA begins with a calendar assessment, in which the victim reviews a calendar to determine the nature of frequency of intimate partner violence experienced by the victim in the previous year. The victim identifies the approximate dates of any abuse and rates the seriousness of each incident using a 5-point scale (1 = slapping, pushing; no injuries and/or lasting pain to 5 = use of weapon; wounds from weapon). This history taking gathers information that is useful when rating the 20 risk factors, but it also is intended to decrease the extent to which victims minimize the intimate partner violence that they have experienced. Next, victims are asked to rate the presence of the 20 risk factors on a 2-point scale (0 = no, 1 = yes). Some are rated on the basis of lifetime presence, whereas others are rated on their presence in the past year. Items ratings are then summed using a simple unit-weighting procedure to yield total scores that range from 0 to 20; alternatively, a more complex differential weighting procedure can be used that yields total scores ranging from −3 to 37. Total scores can be classified into four categories that reflect the risk of life-threatening violence: 18 = extreme danger. The risk categories are associated with suggested intervention strategies and directions regarding what should be communicated to the victim. For example, if a victim’s DA score falls in the severe danger category, the service provider is advised to inform the victim that she is in severe danger, engage in assertive safety planning with her, and recommend a high level of supervision for the perpetrator.

Psychometric Evaluation The psychometric properties of different versions of the DA have been evaluated only to a limit extent and solely within the framework of classical test theory.

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Evaluations of structural reliability have reported Cronbach’s alpha averaging about .75 to .80, and evaluations of short-term test-retest reliability have reported correlations averaging about .90. Given that the DA is an actuarial test of violence risk, these findings are actually somewhat disappointing: First, they indicate that the risk factors included in the test are at least moderately correlated, which suggests that they are likely to be substantially redundant as predictors of intimate partner violence. Second, they indicate that the DA is apparently insensitive to short-term changes or fluctuations in violence risk. Little or no information is available concerning the interrater reliability of the DA—that is, agreement between victims and evaluators or agreement among evaluators with respect to the item or total scores. There have been no studies evaluating the psychometric properties of the DA within the framework of modern test theory.

Validity Some support for the validity of the DA comes from retrospective studies that found a significant association between total scores and measures of the seriousness of past intimate partner violence. Some research has attempted to determine whether the DA can discriminate between victims of lethal (or life threatening) versus nonlethal intimate partner violence, with disappointing results; but this may be because the DA must be scored on the basis of information provided by collateral informants (e.g., relatives, friends) when victims are deceased, possibly resulting in decreased validity of test scores. There is also some research supporting the predictive validity of the DA with respect to intimate partner violence. First, indirect evidence comes from studies that found moderate to high correlations, typically between .55 and .75, between DA total scores and scores on other measures related to risk of intimate partner violence, such as the Conflict Tactics Scale and the Index of Spouse Abuse. Second, direct evidence comes from prospective studies that have found a moderate association between DA total scores and repeated intimate partner violence. Although there have been few direct comparisons, the predictive validity of the DA appears to be about the same as that of other procedures for assessing risk of intimate partner violence. To date, there has been no investigation of the predictive validity of the DA specifically with

respect to life-threatening violence, the purpose for which it was originally developed.

Recommendations The DA can be useful as part of a comprehensive assessment of risk of intimate partner violence. It has two important strengths: It systematically gathers information from victims, who can provide a unique perspective on the history of violence in the relationship and on the perpetrator’s background and psychosocial adjustment, and it considers victim vulnerability factors that are relevant to safety planning. The DA also has some important limitations. There is no formal manual to guide proper administration, scoring, and interpretation or that provides the technical information necessary to undertake a comprehensive review of the test. There is a lack of information concerning the interrater reliability of DA item and total scores. There is a lack of systematic research on the predictive validity of the DA with respect to intimate partner violence in general and no research with respect to life-threatening intimate partner violence. At the present time, then, it may be best to use the DA as structured professional guidelines for risk assessment rather than as a quantitative or actuarial test. Stephen D. Hart and Kelly A. Watt See also Domestic Violence Screening Instrument (DVSI); Intimate Partner Violence; Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA); Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

Campbell, J. C. (1995). Assessing dangerousness. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Campbell, J. C., Webster, D., Koziol-McLain, J., Block, C., Campbell, D., Curry, M., et al. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 1089–1097.

DEATH PENALTY Most countries have abolished the death penalty. The United States retains the death penalty, although it has attempted to make executions more humane. The

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Supreme Court has restricted use of the death penalty based on the type of crime and the characteristics of the criminal. Psychologists and other social scientists have conducted research on issues such as whether the death penalty serves as a deterrent, what drives public support for capital punishment, how jurors decide whether to sentence a defendant to life in prison or death by execution, and the possibility of wrongful convictions and executions.

The International Context Killing is one of the oldest forms of punishment for criminal behavior, and even today, executions are widespread. Worldwide, shooting, hanging, beheading, lethal injection, and stoning are the most frequently used methods of execution. According to Amnesty International, China currently leads the world in the annual number of executions, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Pakistan. The United States and Japan are the only industrialized democracies that still execute criminals. There is a clear international trend toward abolition—between 1985 and 1995, 37 counties abolished the death penalty; and between 1995 and 2005, another 22 countries did so. More than half the countries in the world have now eliminated capital punishment or have ceased to carry out executions. Once abolished, capital punishment is rarely reinstated. Only four countries have reinstated the death penalty (Gambia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines) after abolishing it, and of those, two have since abolished it again.

American Methods of Execution The three “modern” methods of execution practiced in the United States—electrocution, poisonous gas, and lethal injection—were developed in an effort to make executions more civilized. Prior to the first electrocution in 1890, hanging was the dominant means of execution in the United States. Hangings were often botched, resulting in gruesome spectacles. Government officials wanted not only to end such spectacles but also to put an end to hangings, which were strongly associated in the public mind with lynching and vigilante justice. Each time a new method of execution was developed—first the electric chair, then the gas chamber, then lethal injection—the main argument was that the new method would be more humane and reliable than its predecessor. Of course, no method of

killing is completely humane or reliable. Lethal injection, the method now used in 37 of the 38 states that impose the death penalty, has been challenged on the grounds that it can cause great pain, although the condemned prisoner’s suffering is masked by the paralyzing drugs that are part of the execution process. As some commentators have noted, discussions of whether the death penalty is humane must take into account not only the actual killing of the prisoner but also the long process preceding an execution, including the years spent waiting on death row and the rituals leading up to the execution.

The Supreme Court and the Death Penalty The constitutionality of capital punishment has been challenged on the grounds that it violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment” or the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection” under the law. In the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia, in a 5:4 decision, the Supreme Court held that because of the “uncontrolled discretion of judges or juries,” the death penalty was being “wantonly and freakishly” applied. Capital punishment—as administered at the time—was ruled unconstitutional. However, by 1976, the Court had approved a series of reforms aimed at controlling the discretion of judges and jurors (Gregg v. Georgia). The most important reforms included bifurcated capital trials, where guilt is decided in the first phase and, if the defendant is found guilty, a second “penalty phase” is conducted to determine whether the person found guilty should be sentenced to death or life in prison. More recent decisions by the Supreme Court have placed further restrictions on the penalty of death. The Court has held that mentally retarded murderers cannot be put to death (Atkins v. Virginia, 2002), only juries (not judges) can decide whether a convicted murderer should be sentenced to death, and those who commit their crimes as juveniles cannot be sentenced to death (Roper v. Simmons, 2005). In states that authorize the death penalty, only “aggravated” murder or murder with “special circumstances” is eligible for the death penalty. State laws vary, but examples of capital crimes include murder for hire, murder during the commission of a robbery or rape, murder of a police officer, or kidnapping and murder. The federal crimes of espionage and treason can also result in a death sentence.

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The Capital Murder Trial Many researchers have explored how the unique features of capital murder trials affect guilt and sentencing. One such unique feature is the death qualification process. During jury selection, potential jurors in capital cases are asked whether they would be willing to consider imposing a sentence of death if the defendant is eventually found guilty of capital murder. Prospective jurors who say they would be unwilling to vote for a sentence of death are not permitted to serve on capital juries. Research has shown that the process of death qualification results in a less demographically representative jury (e.g., fewer females and fewer nonWhite jurors) as well as a jury that is more receptive to the prosecution and more likely to impose a sentence of death. A second distinctive feature of capital trials concerns the penalty phase instructions to jurors. In most states, jurors are instructed to weigh or balance aggravating factors that support a sentence of death against mitigating factors that support a sentence of life. Based on postverdict interviews with hundreds of capital jurors, the Capital Jury Project has found that jurors have great difficulty in understanding both the concept of “mitigation” and the concept of “weighing.” In addition, many jurors often wrongly assume that unless they vote for a death sentence, the defendant will be eligible for parole and may eventually be released from prison. Like the death qualification process, the ambiguity of penalty phase instructions tends to increase the probability of a death sentence.

Deterrence Deterrence—the theory that the existence of the death penalty will prevent potential murderers from actually committing murder—was one the earliest justifications for executing criminals. Barbarous forms of execution such as breaking at the wheel, burning at the stake, decapitation, and disemboweling were thought to be especially effective at creating the fear necessary to deter those who might consider committing a capital crime. Despite the intuitive appeal of this theory, research does not support a deterrent effect for the death penalty. The introduction of the death penalty does not suppress murder rates, and its abolition does not cause murder rates to rise. Scores of studies have investigated whether capital punishment has a deterrent effect. These studies have looked at homicide rates in jurisdictions with and without the death penalty

(e.g., adjacent states) or examined homicide rates over time when the death penalty is abandoned or reinstated. In examining the possibility of a deterrence effect, social scientists have attempted to control statistically for factors that are known to contribute to rates of violence—for example, size of the police force, number of young males in the population, and unemployment rates. Specific analyses have also been conducted to determine whether only crimes punishable by death (e.g., aggravated murder) are deterred, and studies have been conducted to determine whether it is the actual number of executions (as opposed to whether the death penalty is an available punishment) that deters. The overall finding of more than 40 years of research is that the death penalty does not deter murderers. Although some researchers have found a deterrent effect for some jurisdictions over a specific period of time, other researchers have found what has been called the “brutalization effect”—a small but consistent increase in the number of murders in the weeks following an execution. Research on deterrence tends to rely on large data sets collected over long periods of time. But the theory of deterrence also relies on a psychological explanation of what happens in the minds of potential killers. For capital punishment to effectively deter, potential murderers would need to believe that there is a high probability of being caught, convicted, sentenced to death, and eventually executed for their crimes. And if the availability of the death penalty is to have a deterrent effect beyond that provided by life in prison, the potential killer would also need to judge the possibility of eventual execution as substantially more frightening than the prospect of spending the rest of his or her life in prison. Even a rational analysis of these probabilities would not necessarily deter a potential killer, and because most murders are committed under the influence of drugs or powerful emotions, it seems implausible that murderers rationally weigh out alternatives.

Public Opinion Media coverage often emphasizes that a majority of Americans support capital punishment. It is true that when Americans are asked the general question, “Do you favor or oppose the death penalty for persons convicted of murder?” approximately 66% of respondents indicate their support. This support has fluctuated over time. In 1966, support for capital punishment dropped to 42%, but by 1988, support had risen to 79% of the

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public. Overall, males are significantly more supportive than females, Whites are more supportive than Blacks, and Republicans are more supportive than Democrats. While responses to a broad question about support for or opposition to the death penalty may give a rough indication of American attitudes at a particular time, such general responses can be misleading. More detailed survey research reveals that support often rests on mistaken assumptions about issues such as cost, fairness of application, or deterrence. In addition, support falls when alternative punishments are mentioned. The public is about evenly divided if respondents are asked to choose between the option of “the death penalty” or “life in prison without the possibility of parole” for “persons convicted of murder.” When the punishment of “life without parole plus restitution” is offered as an alternative to the death penalty, a majority of Americans endorse it.

Wrongful Conviction and Execution Decisions about who is guilty of capital murder and who should be executed are entrusted to a fallible legal system. The possibility of wrongful conviction and execution of an innocent defendant has always been part of the public debate over capital punishment, but the emergence of DNA as a means of criminal identification has made this argument much more prominent. During the past 30 years, more than 120 people have been released from death row because of new evidence or reanalysis of existing evidence. It is important to note that the number of wrongful convictions exposed by DNA analysis is only a fraction of the total. Such DNA-based exonerations are only possible if biological evidence (e.g., blood, semen, skin cells) has been collected at the crime scene and preserved for later testing. It is impossible to know how many prisoners currently on death row are actually innocent. For most death row inmates, there is clear evidence of guilt. And many who claim to be innocent could be lying. But it is likely that there are also cases where wrongfully convicted death row inmates are unable to prove their innocence because of lack of evidence or lack of resources. More than 1,000 condemned prisoners have been executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. It is impossible to know exactly how many of these prisoners were actually innocent. Once a prisoner has been killed, courts rarely entertain claims of innocence, and lawyers, investigators, and journalists

turn their attention to cases where possibly innocent prisoners can still be saved. Despite the difficulty of conclusively proving wrongful executions, there are a handful of cases where there is persuasive evidence that the wrong man was executed (e.g., Ruben Cantu, Gary Graham, Larry Griffin, James O’Dell, Leo Jones). The reality of wrongful conviction and wrongful execution raises the issue whether retention of the death penalty is so valuable that it justifies occasionally sending an innocent person to death row and perhaps to the execution chamber. If the decision to retain or abandon capital punishment was based solely on research findings, it would have been abolished long ago. However, like many important social policies, the decision is driven by emotional and political as well as empirical considerations. Mark Costanzo See also Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances, Evaluation of in Capital Cases; Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances in Capital Trials, Effects on Jurors; American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty; Competency for Execution; Death Qualification of Juries; Juveniles and the Death Penalty; Mental Illness and the Death Penalty; Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty; Moral Disengagement and Execution; Racial Bias and the Death Penalty

Further Readings

Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). Bedau, H. A. (2004). Killing as punishment. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Costanzo, M. (1987). Just revenge: Costs and consequences of the death penalty. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Dow, D. R. (2005). Executed on a technicality. Boston: Beacon Press. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). Myers, B., & Greene, E. (2004). The prejudicial nature of victim impact statements: Implications for capital sentencing policy. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10, 492–515. O’Neil, K. M., Patry, M. W., & Penrod, S. D. (2004). Exploring the effects of attitudes toward the death penalty on capital sentencing verdicts. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10, 443–470. Osofsky, M. J., Bandura, A., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2005). The role of moral disengagement in the execution process. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 371–393.

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Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). Zimring, F. E. (2003). The contradictions of American capital punishment. New York: Oxford University Press.

Web Sites

Death Penalty Information Center: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org

DEATH QUALIFICATION

OF JURIES

Death qualification is a unique form of jury selection that is used only in capital cases. Potential jurors are screened beforehand on the basis of their attitudes toward death penalty, and persons holding “disqualifying” attitudes or beliefs about capital punishment are dismissed from further participation. In the late 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court established the standard by which prospective jurors could be constitutionally excluded from service on a capital jury as one of “unequivocal opposition” (i.e., if the prospective juror said that he or she could never impose the death penalty no matter what the facts or circumstances of the case). Since then, the process of death qualification has been the subject of extensive legal commentary and social science research, as well as the focus of a number of constitutional challenges and revisions in the legal standard of exclusion itself.

The Nature and Effect of Death Qualification In modern death penalty jurisprudence, all capital trials are bifurcated. If a capital defendant is convicted of a crime for which the death penalty is a possible punishment (first-degree murder plus some special circumstance or feature that is found to be present in the case), a second sentencing or penalty phase of the trial is held. In this phase, the capital jury decides whether to sentence the defendant to death or some lesser punishment (typically life in prison without possibility of parole). To accommodate the state’s interest in having only those jurors serve who can consider imposing the death penalty in the second part of the capital trial, should one occur, the law permits the screening of all potential jurors on the basis of their death penalty views. However, this selection or screening process transpires at the very outset of the trial, before any

evidence has been presented and, perforce, before the actual jury has decided whether the defendant is guilty or not. Because it occurs so early in the trial, death qualification may have a significant impact on all of the jury’s subsequent decision making. In fact, social science research has established the fact that death-qualified juries are significantly different from non-death-qualified juries in a number of important ways. For one, death qualification produces juries that are less representative than nondeath-qualified juries. That is, because women and minorities (especially African Americans) are more likely to oppose the death penalty, they are more likely to be excluded from death-qualified juries. Also, because attitudes toward the death penalty tend to be correlated with other attitudes about the criminal justice system, researchers have found that death qualification produces juries that hold a more homogeneous perspective than other juries, where attitudinal diversity would be more likely to occur. Among other things, death-qualified juries are generally more favorable to the perspectives of prosecutors and law enforcement, more susceptible to things such as potentially prejudicial pretrial publicity and aggravating evidence that may be introduced at trial, and simultaneously more oriented toward “crime control” goals and less committed to “due process” values. Perhaps not surprisingly—given the way death qualification skews the composition of the group deemed eligible to serve, death-qualified juries also tend to be “conviction prone.” That is, based on the same set of case facts and circumstances, research shows that they are more likely to find a defendant guilty than are nondeath-qualified juries. Of course, because they are selected precisely on the basis of their willingness to impose the death penalty, they also are “death prone”— that is, they are more likely to render death verdicts than a non-death-qualified jury would be. In addition, research has shown that the process of death qualification itself produces biasing effects among persons exposed to it. That is, because it requires jurors to consider the issues that would be germane only after they had found the defendant guilty (e.g., whether they actually could impose the death penalty) and to commit themselves to a course of action that would occur only in the sentencing phase of the trial (i.e., pledge to consider all punishment options, including the death penalty)—before any evidence has been presented, the process of death qualification itself appears to increase prospective jurors’

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belief in the defendant’s likely guilt. The nature of the questioning that occurs during death qualification also has the potential to desensitize jurors to the issue of imposing the death penalty, to lead some jurors to believe that they have committed themselves to actually imposing the death penalty if they find the defendant guilty, and to imply that death penalty imposition is the legally approved sanction in the penalty trial of their case. Obviously, these process-related biases occur in addition to the effects that death qualification has on the composition of the capital jury. There is one additional aspect of death qualification that continues to have legal and social scientific significance. The process of excluding potential jurors from participation in capital trials solely on the basis of their feelings about the death penalty has implications for an important legal judgment that courts make about the scope of death penalty support in the United States. In particular, as Justice John Paul Stevens and others have acknowledged, one of the key “societal factors” that the U.S. Supreme Court has continued to look to “in determining the acceptability of capital punishment to the American sensibility is the behavior of juries” (Thompson v. Oklahoma, 1988, p. 831). Thus, the behavior of capital juries, each one of which has been created through a process that includes death qualification, continues to serve as a measure of the “national consensus” on the death penalty and an important index of the extent to which certain death penalty laws offend evolving standards of decency, the hallmark of an Eighth Amendment analysis. However, because death-qualified juries are selected precisely on the basis of their willingness to actually impose the death penalty, and therefore differ from non-death-qualified jurors on this dimension (as well as many others), their death-sentencing behavior is unlikely to be representative or reflective of the true “American sensibility” with respect to capital punishment.

Legal Challenges to Death Qualification Social science research documenting the range of biasing effects produced by death qualification has served as the basis for a number of constitutional challenges arguing that the unrepresentative and conviction-prone nature of the capital jury compromises the fair trial rights of capital defendants. In one of the first of these cases, the U.S. Supreme Court raised the threshold of legal exclusion from one of mere

“scruples” against the death penalty (which had been the operative death qualification standard for more than 100 years) to “unequivocal opposition”—a belief strong enough to preclude the juror from ever returning a death verdict. (See Witherspoon v. Illinois, 1968.) However, the social science data offered in support of the petitioner’s claim that death qualification was unconstitutional were deemed too “tentative and fragmentary” to support such a ruling. A little more than a decade later, a major challenge to death qualification was lodged in California. It relied on a large body of more recently assembled social science data and was based on state constitutional grounds. Although the state Supreme Court cited and discussed the numerous social scientific studies that were introduced in an evidentiary hearing in the case, the court stopped short of prohibiting death qualification, at least as it was practiced in California. However, the court did seek to minimize the biasing effects of the process of death qualification itself by requiring that it be conducted on an individual, sequestered basis (to minimize the extent to which any one juror was repeatedly exposed to it; see Hovey v. Superior Court, 1980). In Lockhart v. McCree (1986), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a federal constitutional challenge that was based on many of the same studies that had been introduced in the California case. The Court questioned the validity of the relevant social science research, noting that none of the studies was methodologically perfect and, of course, could entirely recreate the “felt responsibility” of an actual capital jury. In addition, however, the Court ruled that, even if valid, the research was not dispositive since juries biased in the ways that death-qualified juries appeared to be could have arisen by chance. Specifically, Justice Rehnquist wrote for the majority that “it is hard for us to understand the logic of the argument that a given jury is unconstitutionally partial when it results from a State-ordained process, yet impartial when exactly the same jury results from mere chance” (p. 178).

Changes in the Legal Standard of Exclusion The legal standard that is used in the death qualification process has changed several times. As noted earlier, in 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court modified the operative standard that had been in use for more than a century. In addition, however, some 17 years after this

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decision, the Supreme Court again revised the threshold for excluding jurors from participation in capital cases—this time broadening it from unequivocal opposition to merely holding death penalty attitudes that would “prevent or substantially impair the performance of his [or her] duties as a juror in accordance with his [or her] instructions and oath” (Wainwright v. Witt, 1985, p. 852). The significance of the Witt opinion was acknowledged by legal practitioners and scholars alike, who suggested that the less precise language and seemingly broader scope of the Witt formulation would result in a substantial increase in the size of the excludable group as well as complicate the precise application of the legal standard of exclusion. Finally, the death qualification standard underwent yet another doctrinal change in 1992, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that persons whose support of the death penalty is so strong that it would “prevent or substantially impair” the performance of their duties (sometimes called “automatic death penalty” or “ADP” jurors) also should be legally disqualified from serving in capital cases. (See Morgan v. Illinois, 1992.) Thus, “modern” death qualification now operates to exclude persons whose death penalty attitudes would merely “impair” the performance of their functions in a capital trial, and it eliminates persons on the basis of both support for as well as opposition to extreme death penalty. In practical terms, the intended “balancing” of the standard of exclusion (by including extreme death penalty supporters as well as opponents) does not seem to have significantly altered the biasing effects brought about by death qualification. Scholars and practitioners acknowledge that extreme death penalty supporters are not as readily identified as the comparable group of death penalty opponents. As a result, death-qualified juries continue to suffer from many of the biases identified in the earlier research and relied on as the basis for constitutional challenges (albeit, in some jurisdictions, on an attenuated basis). Craig Haney See also Death Penalty; Jury Selection; Voir Dire

Further Readings

Allen, M., Mabry, E., & McKelton, D. (2004). The impact of juror attitudes about the death penalty on juror evaluations of guilt and punishment. Law and Human Behavior, 22, 715–731.

Bersoff, D. (1987). Social science data and the Supreme Court: Lockhart as a case in point. The American Psychologist, 42, 52–58. Haney, C. (Ed.). (1984). Death qualification [Special issue]. Law and Human Behavior, 8. Haney, C., Hurtado, A., & Vega, L. (1994). “Modern” death qualification: New data on its biasing effects. Law and Human Behavior, 18, 619–633. Hovey v. Superior Court, 28 Cal. 3d 1 (1980). Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U.S. 162 (1986). Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719 (1992). Thompson, W. (1989). Death qualification after Wainwright v. Witt and Lockhart v. McCree. Law and Human Behavior, 13, 185–215. Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988). Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412 (1985). Witherspoon v. Illinois, 389 U.S. 1035 (1968).

DELUSIONS Delusions are firmly held false beliefs. They are associated with numerous disorders, including schizophrenia and delusional disorder, but can also be found in patients with affective disorders and dementia. Several different types of delusions are recognized, including erotomanic delusions, grandiose delusions, jealous delusions, persecutory delusions, delusions of control, nihilistic delusions, delusions of guilt or sin, somatic delusions, and delusions of reference. Assessment of delusions involves determination of the etiology as well as the severity and tenacity of symptom presentation. Treatment is dependent on the etiology of the symptoms and can include antipsychotic, antidepressant, or mood-stabilizing medications as well as cognitive therapy.

Definition of Delusions Delusions are fixed beliefs that are false and have no basis in reality. Delusions can be either bizarre, such as thinking that aliens are controlling your thoughts and behaviors, or nonbizarre, such as believing that one is being watched or spied on. In addition, delusions can be mood congruent, in which the delusion is consistent with the emotional state—such as depression or mania, or mood incongruent, whereby the delusion is not consistent with the emotional state. An example of a mood-congruent delusion would be believing oneself to be God during the height of a manic episode; an

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example of a mood-incongruent delusion would be a depressed person’s belief that his or her thoughts are being controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency. For a belief to be considered a delusion, it must be pathological in nature.

Disorders Associated With Delusions Delusions are symptoms of several psychological disorders and are indicative of a psychotic mental illness. Along with hallucinations, delusions are the most recognizable symptoms of schizophrenia. However, the presence of delusions alone is not sufficient to warrant a diagnosis of schizophrenia. In schizophrenia, the delusions can be either bizarre or nonbizarre. Delusions are the predominant symptom of delusional disorder, which is a mental disorder in which the person holds one or more nonbizarre delusions in the absence of any other psychopathology. In addition, the person must not have ever met any of the diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia. In many instances, a person with delusional disorder can function normally in most aspects of life, and the only indication of mental illness is the behavior that results directly from the delusional belief. For example, a person could believe that he or she is being spied on through the electrical outlets in his or her house, so that person covers all the outlets with electric tape. With the exception of this behavior, which is directly related to the delusional thought, the person is able to maintain a job and relationships. Historically, delusional disorder was referred to as paranoia. Delusions have also been associated with dementia, severe depression, and the manic phase of bipolar disorder.

Types of Delusions There are several different types of delusions, such as erotomanic delusions, delusions of grandiosity, jealous delusions, persecutory delusions, delusions of control, nihilistic delusions, delusions of guilt or sin, somatic delusions, and delusions of reference. Erotomanic Delusions

An erotomanic delusion is a delusion in which the individual believes that he or she has a special, loving relationship with another person, who is usually a famous individual or someone of high standing. The

subjects of delusions are often popular media figures such as politicians, actors, and singers. In certain instances, the delusional individuals believe that the subject of their delusion is communicating secret love messages to them through signals such as gestures and body posture. As part of the delusion, the delusional individuals believe that their feelings are reciprocated by the subject of their delusion. In the case of celebrities, these gesture are usually transmitted to the delusional individual through the radio or television. In most cases, the subject of the delusion has no contact with, or awareness of, the delusional individual. Erotomanic delusions are most often found in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia or delusional disorder. Erotomanic delusions can lead to stalking or other potentially dangerous behaviors. In some extreme cases, the delusional individual has broken into the house of the subject of the delusion and even killed the person. A number of widely reported crimes have been associated with erotomanic delusions: in 1989, Rebecca Schaeffer, a young actress, was shot and killed at her home by an individual who had an erotomanic delusion about her. Also, it was reported that the assassination attempt on the former U.S. president Ronald Reagan was driven by an erotomanic delusion: John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan in the deluded belief that this action would cause the actress Jodie Foster to publicly declare her love for him. There is some controversy about the prognosis for those who are diagnosed with erotomanic delusions. According to some researchers, such individuals respond poorly to treatment, while other researchers view the delusions as symptomatic of an underlying psychotic disorder that generally will respond to antipsychotic medications and supportive psychotherapy. There is some evidence that individuals with delusional disorder have poor compliance with treatment, as they are often so enthralled with the subject of their delusion that they cannot be persuaded to take medications that may diminish the symptoms. Grandiose Delusions

Individuals who have delusions of grandiosity often have an exaggerated sense of self-importance or inflated worth. They may be convinced that they possess superior knowledge or skills or that they have a special relationship to a deity or a celebrity. In certain cases, the delusional individuals may actually believe that they themselves are a deity (such as Jesus Christ)

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or a famous person. More commonly, those with delusions of grandiosity may believe that they have achieved a great accomplishment for which they have not received sufficient appreciation and respect. Some theorists believe that delusions of grandiosity result as a consequence of low self-esteem and negative emotions. This is known as the delusion-asdefense hypothesis. Other researchers argue that the delusions of grandiosity are an exaggerated manifestation of the individual’s true emotions and belief. This is known as the emotion-consistent hypothesis. One study investigated both hypotheses in a sample of 20 patients with grandiose delusions and found that there were no differences between covert and overt self-esteem in the sample. The authors of the study concluded that the grandiose delusions may be exaggerations of the emotional state of individuals. Grandiose delusions can be associated with schizophrenia or delusional disorder and are a common symptom of the manic phase of bipolar disorder. Jealous Delusions

Jealous delusions, or delusions of infidelity, involve the false belief that the delusional individual’s spouse or sexual partner is unfaithful or having an affair. Delusional jealousy can involve stalking or spying on the spouse/lover as the delusional individual seeks evidence to confirm the existence of the affair. This type of delusion often stems from pathological jealousy and can seriously affect romantic relationships, and in certain cases the delusional individual’s jealousy can escalate into violence and even murder. Persecutory Delusions

Individuals with persecutory delusions believe that specific individuals, or people in general, are “out to get them.” Individuals with delusions of persecution suspect that others are participating in intricate plots to persecute them. In some cases, they may believe that they are being spied on, drugged, or poisoned. In more extreme cases, the individuals may believe that they are the subject of a conspiracy and someone (often a government agency) wants them dead. Some delusions of persecution are vaguer and more general, such as the false belief that one’s coworkers are giving one a hard time. In other cases, the delusions can be a network of numerous well-formed false beliefs that are highly intricate and involved, such as an elaborate

governmental conspiracy that can explain every aspect of the individual’s life. Persecutory delusions are a hallmark symptom of several disorders, including paranoid schizophrenia; delusion disorder, paranoid type; and paranoid personality disorder. Paranoid delusions have also been noted in cases of severe depression and dementia. Other Delusions

Other types of delusions include delusions of control, nihilistic delusions, delusions of guilt or sin, somatic delusions, and delusions of reference. Those with delusions of control have the false belief that someone else is controlling their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. This can include the belief that outside forces are inserting or removing thoughts from their mind, that their thoughts are being broadcast out loud, or that someone is controlling their bodily movements. Nihilistic delusions refer to false beliefs that the world is coming to an end. Delusions of sin or guilt refer to intense feelings of guilt or sin for something the person has not done; for example, individuals with such delusions may falsely believe that they have committed a horrible crime for which they should be punished or that they are somehow responsible for natural disasters, even though this is impossible. Somatic delusions usually involve the false belief that the individual has a medical disorder or a physical deformity. These beliefs differ from hypochondriasis, as somatic delusions are often very specific and in some cases quite strange. Finally, individuals who experience delusions of reference believe that they may be receiving special messages from the television, newspaper, radio, or the way things are arranged around them. Individuals with this disorder may believe that people are talking about them or taking special notice of them even when that is not the case. Delusions of control, nihilistic delusions, and delusions of reference are considered bizarre delusions. However, persecutory delusions, somatic delusions, grandiose delusions, as well as most delusions of jealousy and guilt are generally considered nonbizarre.

Assessment of Delusions If a delusional disorder is suspected, an individual should be evaluated by a physician to rule out any organic etiology (such as dementia). This may include a thorough medical history, a review of the medications the patient is taking, blood workup, and possibly brain

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scans. If the delusions do not appear to be related to an organic cause, then the patient should undergo an evaluation by a psychiatrist or a psychologist. This evaluation will generally involve an interview and psychological assessment. There are several instruments that are used by psychologists to assess delusions. These include the MacArthur-Maudsley Delusions Assessment Schedule, the Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale, the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, and the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms.

Treatment of Delusions Delusions that are symptoms of schizophrenia will generally respond to treatment with antipsychotic medications such as thioridazine, clozapine, haloperidol, or risperidone. Delusions that are not associated with schizophrenia may not respond to antipsychotic medications, and in those cases, medications other than, or in addition to, antipsychotic medications should be used. Delusions that are symptoms of a mood disorder should be treated with antipsychotic medications as well as antidepressants or mood stabilizers. If the etiology of the delusions is medical, then resolution of the medical disorder should alleviate the delusional symptoms. Additionally, cognitive therapy has been recommended as an adjunctive therapy for individuals who experience delusions. Elizabeth L. Jeglic See also Hallucinations; Mental Health Courts; Police Interaction With Mentally Ill Individuals; Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text revision). Washington, DC: Author. Appelbaum, P. S., Robbins, P. C., & Monahan, J. (2000). Violence and delusions: Data from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 566–572. Eisen, J. L., Phillips, K. A., Baer, L., Beer, D. A., Atala, K. D., & Rasmussen, S. A. (1998). The Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale: Reliability and validity. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155(1), 102–108. Leeser, J., & O’Donohue, W. (1999). What is a delusion? Epistemological dimensions. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108, 687–694.

Mullen, P. E., & Pathe, M. (1994). The pathological extensions of love. British Journal of Psychiatry, 165, 614–623. Smith, N., Freeman, D., & Kuipers, E. (2005). Grandiose delusions: An experimental investigation of the delusion as defense. Journal of Mental Disorders, 193(7), 480–487.

DETECTION OF DECEPTION: COGNITIVE LOAD Cognitive load interview protocols are designed to make interviews more demanding for suspects. This increased demand has a greater effect on liars than on truth tellers because liars already find being interviewed more mentally taxing than do truth tellers. The result is that cognitive load interview protocols facilitate discrimination between liars and truth tellers. Lying in an interview setting is often more cognitively demanding than truth telling. First, formulating the lie itself is cognitively taxing. Liars need to make up their stories while monitoring their fabrications so that they are plausible and adhere to everything the observer knows or might find out. In addition, liars must remember their earlier statements and know what they told to whom, so that they appear consistent when retelling their story. Liars should also avoid making slips of the tongue and should refrain from providing new leads to investigators. Second, liars are typically less likely than truth tellers to take their own credibility for granted, in part because truth tellers typically assume that their innocence will shine through. As such, liars will be more inclined than truth tellers to be conscious of, and hence monitor and control, their demeanor so that they will appear honest to the lie detector. Monitoring and controlling one’s own demeanor are cognitively demanding. Third, because liars do not take their credibility for granted, they may monitor the interviewer’s reactions more carefully to assess whether they are getting away with their lie. Carefully monitoring the interviewer also requires cognitive resources. Fourth, liars may be preoccupied with the task of reminding themselves to act and role-play, which requires extra cognitive effort. Fifth, liars have to suppress the truth while they are lying, and this is also cognitively demanding. Finally, whereas activating the truth often happens automatically, activating a lie is more intentional and deliberate and thus requires mental effort.

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Many sources support the premise that lying is cognitively demanding. First, in police interviews with real-life suspects, lies are accompanied by increased pauses, decreased blinking, and decreased hand/finger movements, all of which are signs of cognitive load. Second, police officers who saw videotapes of suspect interviews reported that the suspects appeared to be thinking harder when they lied than when they told the truth. Third, participants in mocksuspect experiments directly assessed their own cognitive load during interviews and reported that lying is more cognitively demanding than truth telling. Finally, deceiving is associated with activating executive, “higher” brain centers (such as the prefrontal cortex), which are typically activated when high cognitive load is experienced. By using protocols that introduce additional cognitive load, investigators can exploit liars’ higher cognitive demand to facilitate discrimination between liars and truth tellers. For example, interviewees could be asked to recall their stories in reverse order. This task is cognitively more demanding than recalling a story in chronological order. Liars, whose cognitive resources are depleted by the more demanding act of lying, find reverse order recall more debilitating than do truth tellers because liars have fewer cognitive resources left over than truth tellers. Indeed, research has demonstrated that liars and truth tellers differ more from each other in terms of displaying signs of cognitive load when they recall their stories in reverse order than in chronological order. The occurrence of more noticeable differences between liars and truth tellers should facilitate lie detection. Indeed, investigators were more accurate in discriminating between liars and truth tellers when the interviewees told their stories in reverse order than in chronological order. An alternative technique to induce additional cognitive load is to require interviewees to perform a concurrent secondary task (time-sharing) while being interviewed. Again, liars, whose cognitive resources are already partially depleted by the act of lying, find this additional, concurrent task particularly debilitating. An experiment revealed that this showed up as poorer performance on the primary task (e.g., providing a statement during the interview) and also on the secondary task (e.g., determining whether each figure presented on a screen was similar to the target figure presented earlier). Investigators sometimes have evidence available, such as fingerprints and closed-circuit TV footage,

that may link a suspect to a crime. They can then present this incriminating evidence against a suspect in a strategic fashion to increase cognitive load by limiting the number of acceptable explanations suspects can offer to account for the current situation. Suppose that the suspect’s car was noticed near the crime scene just after the crime had taken place but that the suspect did not refer to the car in his or her alibi. After being confronted with this piece of evidence, the suspect may reply that he or she had simply failed to mention previously that he or she had used the car on that particular day, thereby adapting his or her story to match the evidence. However, suppose that the police officer does not reveal at this stage that the car was noticed near the crime scene but asks some questions about the car instead (e.g., “Did you use your car that day?”). When confronted with the evidence after these questions, the suspect has fewer opportunities to provide acceptable solutions if he or she has already told the interviewer that he or she did not use the car on that particular day. The number of acceptable solutions would be reduced even further if the suspect indicated that he or she did not lend the car to anyone else and that nobody else had the car keys. In sum, investigators using cognitively based interview protocols increase their ability to discriminate between liars and truth tellers by making the interview situation more taxing for interviewees. Aldert Vrij, Ronald Fisher, Samantha Mann, and Sharon Leal See also Detection of Deception: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI); Detection of Deception: Use of Evidence in; Detection of Deception in High-Stakes Liars

Further Readings

Hartwig, M., Granhag, P. A., Strömwall, L., & Kronkvist, O. (2006). Strategic use of evidence during police interrogations: When training to detect deception works. Law and Human Behavior. Vrij, A., Fisher, R., Mann, S., & Leal, S. (2006). Detecting deception by manipulating cognitive load. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 141–142. Vrij, A., Fisher, R., Mann, S., & Leal, S. (in press). Increasing cognitive load in interviews to detect deceit [Invited chapter]. In B. Milne, S. Savage, & T. Williamson (Ed.), International developments in investigative interviewing. Uffculme, UK: Willan.

Detection of Deception: Event-Related Potentials———197

DETECTION OF DECEPTION: EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS P300 is a brain wave derived from the electroencephalogram (EEG), which has recently been used as a novel information channel in the detection of deception. The traditional channels are recorded from the autonomic nervous system and include physiological activity such as respiration pattern, blood pressure, and skin conductance. In contrast, the EEG is a record of sequential, spontaneously changing voltages as a function of time, recorded from the scalp surface in humans. It reflects the spontaneous activity from the underlying cerebral cortex. If as these changing voltages occur, a discrete stimulus event (such as a light flash) occurs, the EEG breaks into a series of somewhat larger peaks and troughs, called components. This series of waves is called an event-related potential (ERP). These early peaks and troughs represent sensory activity (exogenous ERP components), and the later (endogenous) components may represent the psychological reaction to the sensory events. P300 is the name of one heavily researched ERP. It is elicited by stimulus events that are rare and meaningful to subjects. For example, if a stimulus series consists of a set of randomly occurring first names, each presented singly on a display screen about every 3 s, and the subject’s own first name is one of the stimuli presented about 15% of the time, with the remaining 85% of the presentations being of other, unfamiliar names, the P300 will be elicited by the rare, meaningful (subject’s own) name. P300 is named in respect of its positive (P) polarity and its occurrence at about 300 to 800 ms after the stimulus onset. Simple stimuli such as brief sounds elicit early P300 peaks (300–400 ms), whereas more complex stimuli such as words elicit later peaks (500–800 ms). It occurred to Dr. J. Peter Rosenfeld and colleagues in the early 1980s that P300 might be used in deception detection situations to index recognition of the presentation of crime scene details known only to perpetrators (and the authorities) and not to innocent suspects. The protocol would involve presentation (usually on a display screen) of items of information, such as possible murder weapons (e.g., pistol, rifle, knife, axe). The guilty party, but not the innocent subject, would react with a P300 to the actual murder weapon (e.g., the pistol), called the probe stimulus. Neither guilty nor innocent subjects would react to the other,

irrelevant items from the weapons category, which were not actually used in the crime, as the guilty party would know. Thus, the difference in P300 amplitude between the probe-evoked ERP and the irrelevantevoked ERP indicates guilt. This protocol was closely related to the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) invented by David Lykken in 1959, which used autonomic nervous system responses to stimuli. One difference was that in the P300 protocol, there was usually a third stimulus type used, also rarely presented, called the target. This was typically one other irrelevant item but one to which the subject is told to respond by pressing a unique button. In one version of the protocol, the subject is told to press a “No” button (for “No, I don’t recognize this”) in response to both probes and irrelevant items and “Yes” (“I do recognize this”) in response to targets. Of course, in saying “No” to the probe, the guilty subject lies, but it is hoped that his P300 ERP reveals his guilty recognition all the same. The target stimulus is used to force attention onto the display screen, since the three stimulus types are presented unpredictably in random sequence, and if the subject neglects to respond to the target stimulus as instructed, the operator knows that the subject is not paying attention and will report this to the authorities. But if the subject is always paying attention, he or she cannot avoid seeing the probe stimuli, which evoke P300s in guilty subjects. Early reports in the 1990s (by J. Peter Rosenfeld and colleagues and by John J. B. Allen and Emanuel Donchin and their respective coworkers) with this protocol reported high overall accuracy (80–95% correct classification of guilty and innocent subjects), and they were received with considerable enthusiasm; it was naively believed that because the P300s occurred with such short reaction times (fractions of a second poststimulus) relative to the slow autonomic reaction times in the GKT, the P300-based protocols would resist countermeasures (CMs), intentional covert responses subjects can learn to make that can defeat the GKT. Unfortunately, J. Peter Rosenfeld and colleagues showed in 2004 that P300-based GKTs were also vulnerable to CMs. The guilty subjects were simply trained to covertly respond (e.g., with secret toe wiggles) systematically to irrelevant stimuli, thus turning them into P300-evoking targets. It then became impossible to distinguish between probe and irrelevant P300s, whose typical difference without CMs indexed guilt. Reports from John J. B. Allen’s lab showed similar results.

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However, in 2006, J. Peter Rosenfeld and colleagues reported that a second-generation P300based deception test using a wholly novel protocol was accurate and highly resistant to CMs. More than 100 subjects have been studied to date, and the accuracy rates have been 90% to 100% in many experiments, dropping by only 0% to 10% with CM use. Moreover, a new feature built into this new protocol alerts operators about CM use. In the new protocol—called the Complex Trial Protocol (CTP), two stimuli are presented on each trial, and there are four possible trial types. The first stimulus is either a probe or an irrelevant, and the subject responds with one simple behavioral acknowledgment that the stimulus has been seen. About 1 to 1.5 s later, a second stimulus is presented, which is either a redefined target or not one. The subject here signals target or nontarget. The subject’s absolute behavioral reaction time to the first stimulus is significantly increased if a CM is being used, and the reaction time to irrelevants, which without a CM is less than or the same as that to probes, is usually increased to much greater than probe reaction time if a CM accompanies the irrelevant. Thus, occasionally successful CM use or attempted but unsuccessful CM use has always been detected. The probe P300 amplitude actually increases during CM use (unlike what is seen with the older protocol based on three trial types—probe, irrelevant, or target). Such an increase means that the CTP is still likely to see a probe-irrelevant difference even if the irrelevant P300 increases, as expected, during CM use. It appears that this new protocol is powerful because its multiple demands made on the subject force attention on the key stimuli, thus enhancing P300 responses to them. Other brain-activity-based dependent indices of deception have been suggested and researched in preliminary ways. These approaches have different theoretical foundations. Dr. J. Peter Rosenfeld and colleagues have also examined the P300 amplitude distribution (not simple amplitude) across the scalp (a kind of “brain map”) as a promising new index of deception. The motivation for pursuing this new approach is, again, the possibility of removing CMs. It was simple to develop CMs for the earlier P300-amplitude-based protocols because the antecedents of P300 amplitude—rareness and meaningfulness—are relatively well-known. If one knows the antecedents of P300, then one knows how to manipulate it. On the other

hand, very little is known about how to manipulate the amplitude distribution across the scalp, thus facilitating the creation of a CM method. J. Peter Rosenfeld See also Detection of Deception in Adults; Polygraph and Polygraph Techniques

Further Readings

Allen, J., Iacono, W. G., & Danielson, K. D. (1992). The identification of concealed memories using the event-related potential and implicit behavioral measures: A methodology for prediction in the face of individual differences. Psychophysiology, 29, 504–522. Farwell, L. A., & Donchin, E. (1991). The truth will out: Interrogative polygraphy (“lie detection”) with event-related potentials. Psychophysiology, 28, 531–547. Johnson, R., Jr., Barnhardt, J., & Zhu, J. (2004). The contribution of executive processes to deceptive responding. Neuropsychologia, 42, 878–901. Lykken, D. T. (1998). A tremor in the blood. Reading, MA: Perseus Books. Rosenfeld, J. P. (2006). The Complex Trial (CT) Protocol: A new, countermeasure-resistant protocol for deception detection [Abstract]. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 61, 300. Rosenfeld, J. P., Angell, A., Johnson, M., & Qian, J. (1991). An ERP-based, control-question lie detector analog: Algorithms for discriminating effects within individuals’ average waveforms. Psychophysiology, 38, 319–335. Rosenfeld, J. P., Cantwell, G., Nasman, V. T., Wojdac, V., Ivanov, S., & Mazzeri, L. (1988). A modified, event-related potential-based guilty knowledge test. International Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 157–161. Rosenfeld, J. P., Ellwanger, J. W., Nolan, K., Wu, S., Bermann, R. G., & Sweet, J. J. (1999). P300 scalp amplitude distribution as an index of deception in a simulated cognitive deficit model. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 33, 3–19. Rosenfeld, J. P., Soskins, M., Bosh, G., & Ryan, A. (2004). Simple effective countermeasures to P300-based tests of detection of concealed information. Psychophysiology, 41, 205–219. Tardif, H. P., Barry, R. J., Fox, A. M., & Johnstone, S. J. (2000). Detection of feigned recognition memory impairment using the old/new effect of the event-related potential. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 36, 1–9.

Detection of Deception: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)———199

DETECTION OF DECEPTION: MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING (MRI) Traditional means of lie detection, such as the polygraph, rely on measurements of peripheral nervous system (PNS) activity. Recent advances in noninvasive brain imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have aroused public and academic interest in developing a viable alternative. This entry briefly explains the technique of MRI and its application in the detection of deception.

How MRI Works An MRI scanner is a powerful superconducting electromagnet with a central bore large enough to accommodate a human body. This magnet generates a magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of the central bore. It is equipped with electromagnetic gradient coils that produce weaker, rapidly changing magnetic fields. These magnetic “pulses” cause the hydrogen nuclei in the body to resonate and emit radiofrequency signals used to create tomographic images with a spatial resolution of less than a millimeter that can be reconstructed into a three-dimensional image. Blood oxygenation level–dependent (BOLD) fMRI is an enhanced technology that measures regional changes in the levels of oxygenated hemoglobin and reflects regional brain activity with a time resolution of seconds. The small effect size of the BOLD fMRI signal associated with most cognitive phenomena ( 1 criterion recommended in the MCMI–III manual, would be viewed as interpretable protocols. Failing to exclude random protocols potentially confounds the research on malingering and diagnostic accuracy and in clinical practice is likely to inappropriately characterize random responders as pathological.

Diagnostic Accuracy of the MCMI–III Probably the most difficult issue confronting the MCMI–III is the current controversy regarding diagnostic accuracy. Two validity studies conducted by the test author in 1994 and 1997 and reanalyses of the data from these studies make up the findings on diagnostic accuracy. A reanalysis of the 1994 database, by Richard Rogers and colleagues, demonstrated that the convergent validities of the personality scales was “disconcertingly low ranging from .07 to .31” and that the “discriminant correlations were higher than the convergent validities.” These findings are consistent with other studies conducted by Paul Retzlaff. Frank Dyer and Joseph McCann argued that the Rogers and colleagues study was flawed due to selection of poor criterion measures and use of data from the 1994 validation study, where there were obvious deficiencies in the diagnostic criterion. The 1997 validation study attempted to address this limitation by including a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fourth edition; DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association criterion guide for diagnosis. Louis Hsu reanalyzed both the 1994 and 1997 data and found marked improvement in the diagnostic accuracy for the 1997 data. However, serious methodological flaws including criterion contamination, confirmatory bias, and availability heuristics led him to conclude that the results potentially overpredict the

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2)———505

diagnostic accuracy of the MCMI–III. Noteworthy in the discussion of the diagnostic accuracy is the lack of any information regarding the accuracy of the Thought Disorder scale, a scale particularly relevant to criminal forensic practice.

Applicability and Admissibility of the MCMI–III The research to date suggests that the MCMI–III has significant limitations for forensic practice in terms of its ability to detect malingering and denial. Use of the recommended VI > 1 criterion is likely to result in inappropriate inclusion of random protocols in past research studies and clinical interpretation of protocols of questionable validity. The diagnostic accuracy controversy remains an issue owing to methodological flaws in the validation studies. The diagnostic accuracy of the MCMI–III in the identification of Axis I disorders is particularly underresearched. These are important issues that must be considered in selecting an assessment instrument not only from the perspective of the best measure for the forensic task but also for the effect it will have on court proceedings, including Daubert challenges to admissibility. One would be wise to heed Robert Craig’s advice that a thorough knowledge of the research supporting the test’s applicability and limitations will best serve the interests of the client. In this regard, the paucity of studies involving forensic populations; poor detection of malingering, denial, and random responding; and the diagnostic accuracy controversy are important issues to be aware of. Experts are in agreement that the use of the computer-generated report for the MCMI–III is inappropriate because the sensitivity for detecting pathology was artificially increased, resulting in overpathologizing of the respondent. All these issues need to be resolved before the MCMI–III can be considered a useful measure in forensic practice. L. Thomas Kucharski and Joseph Toomey See also Forensic Assessment; Malingering

Further Readings

Craig, R. J. (1999). Testimony based on the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory: Review, commentary, and guidelines. Journal of Personality Assessment, 73, 290–304.

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993). Dyer, F. J., & McCann, J. T. (2000). The Millon Clinical Inventories, research criteria of their forensic application, and the Daubert criteria. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 487–497. Rogers, R., Salekin, R. T., & Sewell, K. W. (1999). Validation of the Millon Clinical Muliaxial Inventory for Axis II disorders: Does it meet the Daubert standard. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 425–443.

MINNESOTA MULTIPHASIC PERSONALITY INVENTORY–2 (MMPI–2) The original Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and its successor have been recognized as the most widely used and researched objective clinical personality inventories. Using 567 true-false items, the MMPI–2 assesses a diverse range of personality characteristics; symptoms of psychopathology; and patterns of behavior, attitudes, and concerns. First published in 1942 and revised in 1989, the instrument yields a wealth of clinical data and is used across multiple clinical and medical settings, for employment screening and selection, and in a variety of forensic situations. The test includes multiple validity indices, assessing test-taking attitudes and approach; 10 basic, numbered clinical scales (1 = Hypochondriasis, 2 = Depression, 3 = Hysteria, 4 = Psychopathic Deviate, 5 = Masculinity-Femininity, 6 = Paranoia, 7 = Psychasthenia, 8 = Schizophrenia, 9 = Hypomania, 0 = Social Introversion, with all but scales 5 and 0 considered core clinical scales) and their subscales; as well as more than five dozen content scales (e.g., Antisocial Practices, Anxiety), content component scales (e.g., Negative Treatment Indicators: Low Motivation), personality psychopathology trait scales (e.g., Aggressiveness, Negative Emotionality/Neuroticism), and supplementary scales (e.g., Addiction Potential, Overcontrolled-Hostility). Raw scores on these scales are transformed to norm-based T-scores (mean = 50, standard deviation = 10) to enhance the interpretability of results. Scales with a T-score of 65 or greater are considered clinically significant. In addition to interpretive

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material linked with individual scale and subscale scores, considerable research has identified and supported descriptions associated with particular patterns of elevations, known as code types, reflecting the 1 to 3 most elevated clinical scales and their combinations. As Roger Greene emphasizes, these descriptions are probabilistic statements based on modal patterns and, as such, do not necessarily describe individuals obtaining a specific code. Nevertheless, they provide potentially useful information about problem areas, personality types and correlates, and treatment implications.

History and Development The MMPI is an empirically derived test. Through a multistep process, Starke Hathaway and J. C. McKinley developed the original MMPI by selecting items for inclusion that discriminated a criterion group (i.e., those with a given clinical diagnosis) and comparison groups (i.e., nonpatient normative groups and those with other diagnoses). After decades of use, the need for restandardization became clear. As James Butcher and colleagues, Greene, and others have described, several factors underscored the need to revise the MMPI, including the need for current norms, a larger and more nationally representative normative sample that appropriately included ethnic and racial minorities, and updated item content. Those involved in the restandardization took steps to maintain continuity between the MMPI and its revision so that the extant research would not be made obsolete. As Gary Groth-Marnat notes, although some differences have been detected, research has largely supported comparability in findings for the two versions; the MMPI–2 seems to describe the same types of characteristics and behaviors as the MMPI.

Psychometric Properties In light of the complex issues involving the MMPI–2’s reliability (many relating to the initial version’s construction), the reader is referred to the readings below for discussions of the test’s development and psychometrics. A substantial body of research has supported the conclusion that, with some exceptions, its scales evidence moderate levels of internal consistency and stability over time. Thousands of studies have attested to the test’s validity and the meanings of scale and code type descriptions, as well as the incremental

validity obtained when using the MMPI–2 in an assessment.

Recent Refinements In an attempt to address issues related to item overlap across the clinical scales and conceptual heterogeneity (i.e., multidimensionality) within them, Auke Tellegen and colleagues published the Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales in 2003. First, they developed a Demoralization scale, thought to represent much of the common “affective” variance shared across the core clinical scales. Subsequent steps were designed to yield scales assessing distinct constructs and resulted in the following: Somatic Complaints, Low Positive Emotions, Cynicism, Antisocial Behavior, Ideas of Persecution, Dysfunctional Negative Emotions, Aberrant Experiences, and Hypomanic Activation. Tellegen and colleagues reported that the RC scales have comparable or greater internal consistencies than the clinical scales, improved discriminant validity, and equivalent or improved convergent validity. They concluded that the RC scales predicted variables linked conceptually to the scales’ core constructs at least as well as and, in some cases, better than the original clinical scales. Leonard Simms and colleagues further documented the increased measurement efficiency of the RC scales, reporting that they were less intercorrelated, related more clearly to measures of personality and psychopathology, and had greater incremental utility than the clinical scales.

Assets and Limitations Groth-Marnat cogently summarizes the MMPI–2’s limitations as well as its assets. As he details, issues related to scale construction (i.e., item overlap; high intercorrelations among scales; clinical scale content reflecting multidimensional variables that, in some cases, lack clear definition) are frequently highlighted shortcomings that impact psychometrics and raise interpretive challenges. Numerous authors have also pointed out that the clinical scale names are misleading or confusing because they reflect traditional diagnostic categories (e.g., Schizophrenia) or outdated terms (e.g., Hysteria), and their content does not translate directly to current disorder classification systems. In that vein, he points out that although the test was initially intended as a means of differential diagnoses, it does not provide diagnoses, and research has not

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supported its utility as a direct diagnostic tool; rather, it contributes information to assist diagnostic formulations and allows for enhanced understanding of symptoms. Other limitations include the test’s length and the fact that although multiple demographic variables (e.g., age, ethnicity, education) may impact interpretation, the onus is on the test user to take such factors into account. Finally, research suggests that moderate scale elevations must be interpreted with caution. Despite these limitations, numerous advantages lend credence to the MMPI–2’s wide use. Indeed, Groth-Marnat deems its popularity and familiarity assets. In fact, the test has been translated into more than 50 languages and has multiple studies supporting its use in other cultures. The MMPI–2’s extensive research base, detailing the validity of profile descriptors and scale correlates, contributes to this popularity and has been labeled by Groth-Marnat and others as the test’s strongest asset. Furthermore, the test’s multiple validity indices aid the detection of response sets or attempts to over- or underreport psychological difficulties. Consequently, in addition to its standard clinical use, the MMPI–2 can play a role in “gatekeeping” assessments, such as required psychiatric evaluations, employment screenings, or court proceedings. The MMPI–2 offers substantive value for professionals. Administration is straightforward and may be done via pencil and paper or computer software, and computer scoring and interpretation options are also available. If stamina or time is a concern, the MMPI–2 offers the option of a shorter version that still allows for interpretation of clinical scales and code types. With its revision and restandardization, the introduction of new scales and indices, and the development of the RC scales, the test also continues to evolve to meet practical needs. Ryan P. Kilmer and George J. Demakis See also Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2) Validity Scales

Further Readings

Butcher, J. N., Graham, J. R., Ben-Porath, Y. S., Tellegen, A., Dahlstrom, W. G., & Kaemmer, B. (2001). MMPI–2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2): Manual for administration, scoring, and interpretation (Rev. ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Greene, R. L. (2000). The MMPI–2: An interpretive manual (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Pope, K. S., Butcher, J. N., & Seelen, J. (2006). The MMPI, MMPI–2 & MMPI–A in court: A practical guide for expert witnesses and attorneys (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Tellegen, A., Ben-Porath, Y. S., Mcnulty, J. L., Arbisi, P. A., Graham, J. R., & Kaemmer, B. (2003). The MMPI–2 Restructured Clinical (RC) scales: Development, validation, and interpretation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

MINNESOTA MULTIPHASIC PERSONALITY INVENTORY–2 (MMPI–2) VALIDITY SCALES A strength of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2) is its multiple indicators regarding an examinee’s approach to the test. Ideally, examinees answer all questions, respond consistently, and do not distort test findings by overreporting or underreporting experienced psychopathology. However, some individuals may approach the test in a manner that deviates from this optimal scenario, and MMPI–2 profiles can be interpreted with confidence only when these issues have been addressed. Overall, the MMPI–2’s measures of test-taking approach and validity may qualify clinical findings or lend credence to interpretations yielded by the test in multiple situations, particularly in forensic situations such as criminal proceedings as well as in gatekeeping evaluations (e.g., child custody assessments), in which examinees may have motivation to modify their clinical presentation. The most commonly used validity measures include the L (Lie), K (Correction), and F (Infrequency) scales. A first step in assessing response validity involves evaluating the Cannot Say scale, which indicates the number of unanswered items or items answered both true and false. A high number of such items renders a profile invalid and may suggest that the examinee perceived the items as irrelevant, was uncooperative, was defensive or indecisive, or could not understand the items. Second, to assess response consistency, the Variable Response Inconsistency (VRIN) and True Response Inconsistency (TRIN) scales are evaluated. VRIN measures the degree to which the examinee responded consistently to items similar in content,

508———Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2) Validity Scales

with logically inconsistent responses of particular note. Though some inconsistent responding is not unusual, high levels suggest that the examinee may have responded randomly or had reading comprehension difficulties or had been confused, careless, uncooperative, or overtly psychotic. TRIN offers additional information about response sets or styles that may affect the profile, measuring the degree to which the examinee responded inconsistently by endorsing items similar in content, but phrased as opposites, as both true or as both false. High scores indicate a tendency to yea-say (i.e., endorse many items as true), and low scores indicate a tendency to nay-say (i.e., endorse many items as false). Third, the extent to which the examinee accurately self-described symptoms and did not over- or underreport psychopathology is evaluated. Underreporting is more common in personnel, presurgical, or child custody evaluations, whereas overreporting is more common in personal injury or criminal evaluations. Several scales provide information about possible overreporting or symptom exaggeration. The F (Infrequency) scale includes items selected to detect unusual or atypical responses. Reflecting bizarre sensations, strange thoughts, and peculiar experiences, they were answered in the deviant direction by no more than 10% of an early subsample of the normative sample. There are several possible interpretations for elevations on this scale including malingering, random responding, or expressing a “cry for help.” Though different in content relative to F, the Fb (Infrequency-Back) scale is similar in purpose and format, consisting of items at the end of the test, so that response style can be evaluated throughout the entire administration. The F(p) (InfrequencyPsychopathology) scale consists of items that no more than 20% of two samples of psychiatric inpatients, as well as a normative sample, was endorsed in a deviant direction; it was developed to detect malingering in settings with high base rates of serious psychopathology. The FBS (Fake Bad Scale) consists of items infrequently endorsed by personal injury litigants that tap somatic rather than psychiatric symptoms. High elevations of these scales invalidate an MMPI–2 profile and may indicate confusion or reading problems, random responding, severe psychopathology, symptom exaggeration, or malingering. In all, if an overreporting scale is elevated, it is likely the examinee responded in a manner that exaggerated impressions of experienced psychopathology.

The two primary scales designed to detect underreporting of psychopathology are the L (Lie) and K (Correction) scales. The L scale includes items selected to identify examinees who are trying to avoid answering items honestly so as to create an overly positive impression. Because many L scale items are obvious, elevations indicate that the examinee is engaging in a psychologically unsophisticated and naive attempt to portray himself or herself as possessing high moral value, without even minor personal flaws or shortcomings that most individuals would endorse on a self-report test. Poor insight and denial of problems are likely in these individuals. K scale items were selected to assist in identifying individuals who displayed significant psychopathology yet had profiles within the normal range. Because such defensive responding masks experienced symptoms, several clinical scales (e.g., Schizophrenia) are corrected for K scale scores. K scale elevations may indicate that an examinee was being defensive, has poor insight, and may be seeking to maintain a façade of adequacy and control without admitting to problems or weaknesses. As compared with L, the K scale assesses more sophisticated and subtle defensive responding. In addition to the L and K scales, the Wiggins’ Social Desirability Scale, with items assessing self-confidence, social skills, and effective decision making, evaluates the degree to which examinees present themselves in a positive and socially desirable fashion. A similar scale, the Superlative scale, evaluates the degree to which individuals present themselves in a superlative or highly virtuous fashion, while denying problems. As with L and K, elevations on these scales may represent defensiveness, impression management, or poor insight or awareness into one’s behavior. Overall, if an underreporting scale is elevated, it is likely the examinee approached other items in a manner that attempted to present the most favorable self-image and deny psychological difficulties. In addition to specific measures of over- and underreporting, test users can examine various configurations and interrelations of the L, F, and K scales. An example of this is the F-K Index, also known as the Gough Dissimulation Index, for which the raw score on the K (Correction) scale is subtracted from the raw F (Infrequency) scale. Specific interpretive cut scores points are available but, generally, high scores (i.e., a significantly higher F than K) indicate overreporting of psychopathology, low scores (i.e., a significantly higher K than F) indicate underreporting of

Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R)———509

psychopathology, and intermediate scores indicate accurate item endorsement. George J. Demakis and Ryan P. Kilmer See also Malingering; Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 (MMPI–2)

Further Readings

Butcher, J. N., Graham, J. R., Ben-Porath, Y. S., Tellegen, A., Dahlstrom, W. G., & Kaemmer, B. (2001). MMPI–2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2): Manual for administration, scoring, and interpretation (Rev. ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Graham, J. R. (2005). MMPI–2: Assessing personality and psychopathology (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Greene, R. L. (2000). The MMPI–2: An interpretive manual (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

MINNESOTA SEX OFFENDER SCREENING TOOL–REVISED (MNSOST–R) The Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R) is a 16-item, “actuarial” risk assessment tool initially developed for the Minnesota Department of Corrections (MDOC) to provide empirically based estimates of risk for sexual recidivism for incarcerated male sex offenders. Indices of reliability have ranged from .76 to .86 across four studies and have generally been .80 or greater. The MnSOST–R has been successfully validated in Minnesota; North Dakota; and Ontario, Canada; however, it failed to predict significantly better than chance in an Arizona study.

Description and Development The MnSOST–R was developed in response to a 1991 MDOC report calling for a more formal and uniform process to identify predatory and violent sex offenders. An actuarial approach was used in an attempt to bring greater accuracy and utility to sex offender risk assessments, enabling the MDOC to more effectively use limited resources. The development sample for the MnSOST–R included 256 incarcerated sex offenders in Minnesota

who were released primarily in 1988 or 1990. This sample excluded only those offenders whose offenses consisted exclusively of “fondling” offenses against family members that did not involve vaginal or anal penetration of a child aged 13 or younger or the rape of an older family member. Research on an earlier version of the instrument indicated that this group was substantially different from other sex offenders and generally presented fewer concerns regarding release decisions (e.g., level of supervision, level of community notification, and potential referral for civil commitment). Sex offenders were sampled from each relevant Minnesota correctional facility, and the offenders were 32–42 years, on average, with a range from 17 to 70 years. Sixty-six percent of the sample was White, 24% was Black, 5% was Hispanic, 4% was Native American, and 2% were from other ethnic groups. There was some oversampling of sexual recidivists in the development sample to provide more stability in any observed relationships between sexual recidivism and potential predictor variables. Potential predictors were drawn from research on an earlier version of the tool and from an updated review of the literature. Only variables based on information routinely available in correctional records were considered as predictors to ensure that the resulting tool could be scored for the majority of sex offenders based on a file review. Sexual recidivism, the criterion variable, was defined as a formal charge for a new sex offense within 6 years of release from prison. Empirically based item selection and scoring procedures identified 16 items as the optimal predictors of sexual recidivism, including 12 historical/static items and 4 institutional/dynamic variables. The 12 historical variables included the number of convictions for sex offenses, length of sex offending history, commission of a sex offense while under court supervision, commission of a sex offense in a public place, use or threat of force in any sex offense, perpetration of multiple sex acts in a single event contact, offending against victims from multiple age groups, offending against a 13- to 15-year-old victim with more than a 5-year age difference between the offender and the victim, victimization of a stranger, persistent pattern of adolescent antisocial behavior, recent pattern of substantial substance abuse, and recent employment history. The four institutional variables included discipline history, chemical dependency treatment recommendations and outcomes, sex offender treatment recommendations and outcomes, and age of the offender at the time of release.

510———Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R)

Total MnSOST–R scores were significantly predictive of sexual recidivism in the development sample, as reflected by an area under the receiver operator characteristics (ROC) curve of .77 (95% confidence interval [CI] of .71 to .83). Total MnSOST–R scores were equally predictive of sexual recidivism in the development sample for rapists (ROC = .79) and molesters (ROC = .75) and for minorities (ROC = .75) and nonminorities (ROC = .77).

Reliability Reliability studies have yielded positive results across a variety of settings with varying degrees of training. A Minnesota study involving a minimal 2-hour training session for 10 participants, who then scored the same 11 cases by the end of the day, produced intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) of .80 for relative agreement and .76 for absolute agreement. A Florida study involving an optimal 1.5-day training session for 27 participants, who then scored the same 10 cases over the next 3 months, yielded ICCs of .87 for relative agreement and .86 for absolute agreement. Two Canadian studies produced interrater reliability coefficients of .80 and .83.

with two Canadian samples. Because the second, bigger sample largely subsumed the first sample, the results of the second study are summarized here. That sample of 354 sex offenders who were at risk for an average of 5.9 years yielded a significant ROC = .70 for the MnSOST–R (95% CI of .62 to .77). Darci Bartosh and her colleagues conducted a validation of several risk assessment tools, including the MnSOST–R, with a sample of 186 sex offenders in the state of Arizona who were at risk for approximately 5 years. The resulting ROC = .58 missed the threshold for statistical significance in this study, though it was only slightly lower than the ROC values for the other instruments assessed. The North Dakota, Canadian, and Arizona studies also assessed the Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR) and the STATIC–99, and none of these studies identified significant differences between the tools. In fact, the scores were clustered fairly tightly within each of these studies. The respective ROC values for the MnSOST–R, STATIC–99, and RRASOR were, respectively, .76, .75, and .73 in the North Dakota prison study; .75, .78, and .77 in the North Dakota probation study; .70, .64, and .68 in the Canadian study; and .58, .64, and .63 in the Arizona study.

Validity The MnSOST–R was validated in Minnesota with an exhaustive sample of 220 sex offenders released from prison in 1992 who met the same inclusion criteria used in the development study. This sample was very similar demographically to the development sample, and sexual recidivism was defined in the same way. Total MnSOST–R scores were significantly predictive of sexual recidivism in this sample (ROC=.73, 95% CI of .65 to .82). Two validation studies were conducted in North Dakota. The first sample included 182 incarcerated sex offenders with an average time at risk of 8 years, and the second sample included 271 probated sex offenders with an average time at risk of 10 years. No sex offenders were excluded in either of these samples. The MnSOST–R significantly predicted sexual recidivism in the incarceration sample (ROC = .76, 95% CI of .66 to .85) and in the probation sample (ROC = .75, 95% CI of .63 to .88). Howard Barbaree, Calvin Langton, and their associates conducted a validation study of the MnSOST–R

Douglas L. Epperson See also Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR); Risk Assessment Approaches; Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG); Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20); STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments

Further Readings

Epperson, D. L., Kaul, J. D., Goldman, R., Huot, S. M., Hesselton, D., & Alexander, W. (2005). Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised Scoring Guidelines. Retrieved January 2, 2007, from http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/epperson/ MnSOST-RManual12-22-2005.pdf Epperson, D. L., Kaul, J. D., Huot, S. M., Goldman, R., & Alexander, W. (2003). Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R) Technical Paper: Development, validation, and recommended risk level cut scores. Retrieved January 2, 2007, from http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/epperson/ TechUpdatePaper12-03.pdf

M’Naghten Standard———511

M’NAGHTEN STANDARD The M’Naghten Standard is a legal test to guide juries and courts in their determination of whether a defendant should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Although defendants were acquitted for crimes they committed while they were legally insane for centuries before the M’Naghten Standard was established, no uniform legal test was adopted by the courts until the middle of the 19th century following the case of Daniel M’Naghten (Regina v. M’Naghten, 1843). Daniel M’Naghten was acquitted for killing the private secretary of the Prime Minister of England, Sir Robert Peel. Mr. M’Naghten had a mental illness that was most likely a form of paranoid schizophrenia. His mental illness was characterized by the belief that he was the victim of an international conspiracy. He believed that if he killed the prime minister, it would lead to the second coming of Christ and the salvation of humanity. Rather than shooting the prime minister, though, he mistakenly shot his private secretary, Edward Drummond, who died a few days later. After he shot Mr. Drummond, he attempted to fire a second shot, but he was apprehended and arrested. Daniel M’Naghten’s father was able to secure a well-financed defense led by a leading barrister of the day. The central issue in M’Naghten’s case was the proper standard for establishing a legal defense of insanity. M’Naghten was apparently only “partly insane,” and purportedly suffered from delusions concerning politics. Apart from his specific paranoid beliefs, he was able to make plans and was able to live in the society. At the trial, his barristers argued that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury acquitted Daniel M’Naghten because of his insanity. M’Naghten was committed to Bethlem and, later, Broadmoor Mental Institution, where he died approximately at the age 50 on May 3, 1865, some 20 years following his trial. As soon as the verdict in the M’Naghten case was announced, the public became alarmed that insane people could kill without fear of punishment. In addition to the concern the public showed, Queen Victoria (who herself had been the target of would-be assassins on several occasions) and members of the House of Lords also made their disapproval of the verdict known. Just over 2 months after the decision in M’Naghten was made public, 15 common law judges in Great

Britain were summoned to the House of Lords to help determine the proper standard for criminal responsibility of the criminally insane. Fourteen of the judges agreed that essentially the same standard employed in M’Naghten was the correct legal standard. The opinion delivered included the language pertaining to the legal test of insanity, known as the M’Naghten Standard: A person is presumed sane unless it can be clearly proven that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong. The mode of putting the latter part of the question to the jury . . . had generally been, whether the accused at the time of doing the act knew the difference between right and wrong. (Regina v. M’Naghten, 1843, 10 Cl. & Fin. At 203, 8 Eng. Rep. at 720) A person labouring under a “partial delusion only, and [who] is not in other respects insane . . . must be considered in the same situation, as to responsibility, as if the facts, in respect to which the delusion exists, were real.” (Regina v. M’Naghten, 1843, 10 Cl. & Fin. At 203, 8 Eng. Rep. at 723)

There are three significant substantive elements of the M’Naghten Standard. First, the decision maker must determine that the defendant was suffering from “a defect of reason, from disease of the mind.” Today, these words are interpreted to mean that the defendant is suffering from a mental disorder. Next, the decision maker must decide whether the evidence shows that the defendant did not “know” the “nature and quality of the act he was doing.” Thus, the defendant must not have understood exactly what he or she did. Finally, the M’Naghten Standard also requires an inquiry to determine whether the defendant knew “what he was doing was wrong.” Therefore, the defendant who understands his or her act, yet does not have the capability of knowing that the act was wrong, may also be acquitted under the M’Naghten test. Because the final two elements require a subjective exploration of the defendant’s thinking, the M’Naghten test is referred to as a “cognitive” test of insanity. It is also known as the “Right/Wrong Test” since it focuses on an enquiry of the defendant’s capacity, at the time of the offense, to be able to know right from wrong.

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Almost immediately, the M’Naghten Standard was employed in cases throughout England, the United States, Canada, Australia, and other common law countries. The substantive requirements of the M’Naghten rule are still being used by numerous jurisdictions around the world, including 26 of the United States. Despite its widespread acceptance, the M’Naghten Standard has been strongly criticized, and it has long been abandoned in England, the country in which it originated so long ago. A number of competing tests for legal insanity have been adopted and some jurisdictions have abandoned the defense of insanity. James R. P. Ogloff See also Guilty but Mentally Ill Verdict; Insanity Defense Reform Act (IDRA)

Further Readings

Moran, R. (1981). Knowing right from wrong: The insanity defense of Daniel McNaughton. New York: Macmillan. Moran, R. (1985). The modern foundation for the insanity defense of Daniel McNaughton. New York: Macmillan. Regina v. M’Naghten, 10 Cl. and F. 200, 8 Eng. Rep. at 718 (1843).

MOOD DISORDERS Mood disorders are among the most common mental disorders in the Western world. Formerly called affective disorders, these disorders involve a predominant disturbance in mood. In each case, the mood disturbance leads to other problems, which frequently include physical symptoms (such as fatigue), behavioral symptoms (such as social withdrawal), and cognitive symptoms (such as self-critical thoughts). The various mood disorders differ based on the type and duration of symptoms. Severe mood disorders develop from a combination of biological, stressful experiences and personality types or interpersonal factors. Treatment options usually include a combination of medication and psychotherapy. The various mood disorders can be distinguished based on the nature of the mood disturbance, the severity of symptoms, and their duration. The depressive disorders (sometimes known as unipolar disorders) are primarily characterized by a sad mood or a

profound loss of enjoyment in most activities. In younger persons, the mood may be irritable rather than despondent. The depressed mood is often experienced as sadness, tearfulness, discouragement, and feeling “down in the dumps.” In some cases, the person may complain of feeling emotionless. The loss of enjoyment or loss of pleasure, called anhedonia, is virtually always present to some extent in the depressive disorders; it is often experienced as a loss of interest in one’s hobbies and usual activities. A reduction in sex drive is another common experience. Other common symptoms of depressive disorders include sleep problems, low energy, and changes in appetite. Common sleep problems include insomnia in the form of nighttime waking and difficulty returning to sleep or early morning waking. Because of low energy and fatigue, the smallest tasks may seem overwhelming. Changes in appetite may be so profound as to cause extreme unintended changes in weight, usually weight loss, over a short period of time. During periods of depressed mood, cognitions frequently involve a sense of worthlessness and excessive guilt. Trivial events may be misinterpreted as proof of one’s inadequacy, consistent with the negative mood. Decision making and concentration are compromised. Thoughts about death and suicide are common. The disturbance in bipolar disorders involves periods of depressed mood and separate periods in which the mood is abnormally elevated. The signs of a manic mood include feelings of euphoria, a “high,” or an abnormally cheerful mood. The mood may rapidly turn to irritability if others are perceived as interfering with the individual’s plans. Inflated self-esteem occurs invariably; it may range from boastful selfconfidence to grandiose delusions, such as having the firm belief that one has supernatural powers. Many symptoms of the manic phases of bipolar disorders are opposite to those experienced in the depressive disorders. In a manic phase, the individual may demonstrate an uninhibited enthusiasm for pleasurable activities, which could include irresponsible spending sprees and indiscriminate sexual pursuits. The need for sleep is markedly reduced and surplus energy abounds. In a manic phase of bipolar disorder, a person may speak in an incessant, rapid, and loud manner. Thoughts may flow at such a rapid pace that the person may seem unable to keep up with them, a phenomenon known as flight of ideas. Excess energy, combined with unbridled enthusiasm and a euphoric mood, often lead unknowing observers to conclude

Mood Disorders———513

that the individual is under the influence of a stimulant drug, such as cocaine. Indeed, many of the symptoms of bipolar disorder seem excessive and uncontained.

Types of Mood Disorders The most prevalent depressive disorder, known as major depressive disorder, corresponds loosely to the popular concept of a clinical depression. At the very minimum, major depressive disorder involves experiencing one episode of deep depression characterized by a sad mood or loss of enjoyment in life. Other common symptoms include sleep problems, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, and suicidal thoughts. The depressive episode will typically last for months, during which the person experiences these problems most of the time. The symptoms usually remit 6 to 12 months after the onset. There is, however, a significant chance of future depressive episodes. A significant number of people who have recovered from major depressive disorder will have recurrent episodes although these can occur years apart. Major depressive disorder is usually first experienced in late adolescent or early adulthood. Nearly 17% of the U.S. population is likely to experience major depressive disorder, and the rates are twice as high for women as for men. Major depressive disorder can take many varied forms. The variant with psychotic features involves an unusually severe form of depression accompanied by auditory hallucinations (such as hearing accusing or insulting voices), delusional beliefs, and overwhelming feelings of guilt. The melancholic form, which is more common in older adults, is characterized by early morning waking, weight loss, and anhedonia. The seasonal pattern describes a cyclical form of depression that recurs every fall or winter and involves weight gain and excessive sleep. The seasonal mood disturbance typically lifts in the spring. Dysthymic disorder is a mild but long-lasting depressive disorder. Whereas the duration of major depressive disorder is measured in months, dysthymic disorder is evident over several years (the minimum is 2 years). Low self-esteem, loss of pleasure, social avoidance, and poor concentration are typical symptoms. The onset of dysthymic disorder is gradual and occurs at an early age. The types of bipolar disorders are mostly distinguished on the basis of the manic symptoms. The most well-known is Bipolar Disorder Type 1, which

was formerly called manic depression. It involves multiple recurrent episodes of depression and mania. The manic episodes, which are shorter, usually either precede or follow a severe depressive spell. Mood may temporarily return to normal between episodes. Bipolar Disorder Type 1 is less prevalent than major depressive disorder, affecting fewer than 2% of the population; the gender ratio is equal. Bipolar Disorder Type 2 is similar with the exception that it does not involve full-blown manic symptoms. The mild manic episodes, or hypomania, evidence bursts of energy, elevated or irritable mood, and poor judgment, but without the extremes of a full-blown manic episode. Cyclothymic disorder, the mildest bipolar disorder, involves chronic and fluctuating mood changes. The severity and duration of these mild mood changes are less than those witnessed in major depressive disorder or Bipolar Disorder Type 1, yet they are serious enough to cause disruptions in important areas of life and to cause significant unhappiness. To an outsider, the person with cyclothymic disorder may come across as abnormally moody.

Suicide Suicide is the conscious and deliberate taking of one’s own life. Worldwide, it is one of the top 10 leading causes of death. More than 31,000 individuals die by suicide in the United States annually, and an additional 600,000 people attempt suicide each year. The fatality figures are probably underestimates because some suicidal deaths are mistaken for accidents and surviving family members are often reluctant to label the deaths as intentional because of stigma or guilt. The rates of suicide vary significantly according to age, gender, occupation, life situation, and health. Many young adults, as many as 1 in 10, have seriously contemplated suicide. However, the highest rates of completed suicides occur in older adults above the age of 65. Women are more likely than men to attempt suicide, but men are more likely to die of suicide because they tend to use more lethal methods. Whereas suicidal women often rely on overdosing or cutting their wrists, men tend to use firearms or hanging. People in the midst of relationship problems, such as separation or divorce, have higher suicide rates, as do people with terminal illnesses. As many as 15% of persons with mood disorders will commit suicide, and the risk is particularly high during or following an episode of severe depression.

514———Mood Disorders

Suicide rates also vary across ethnic and racial groups in the United States. For example, Native Americans have the highest rates of suicide, while White men have the second highest rates. The risk is relatively lower for Black women. Creative or successful scientists, artists, and professionals have a higherthan-average lifetime suicide risk. Suicide is best understood as a desperate act designed to end seemingly inescapable emotional, physical, or interpersonal suffering. Some suicidal gestures are also intended to convey to others the depth of one’s despair, as a “cry for help.” Most persons who have suicidal thoughts experience some ambivalence; this is often reflected in the chosen method and in prior communications of intentions. The majority of people who commit suicide have previously communicated their suicidal intent with others, often in explicit terms. However, highly distressed persons who are determined to die will use highly lethal methods and are unlikely to have shared their intentions with others. Using a very deadly method without sharing the plan with others nearly guarantees that it will be successful. Suicide notes can be useful for understanding the motives and desperation that drive suicidal gestures. Approximately one-third of individuals who commit suicide do leave behind a note, usually for the benefit of surviving relatives and friends. Many notes are brief and to the point, and they betray profound distress. Suicide notes may be designed to explain the act or relieve surviving relatives’ feelings of guilt.

Causes of Mood Disorders Biological Factors

It has long been known that severe mood disorders run in families, which suggests that heredity plays a role in their development. The rates of mood disorders are nearly three times higher than average among the blood relatives of persons with depressive disorders. Studies of twins, of which one has a mood disorder, show a higher rate of mood disorders among identical twins than among fraternal twins. Heredity plays a greater role in the causation of bipolar disorders. Twin studies reveal that approximately twothirds of identical twins who have bipolar disorder have a co-twin who shares a mood disorder. In fact, the best predictor of a person’s risk of developing a Bipolar Disorder is having a family history. Biological

factors, however, play a smaller role in the onset of minor mood disorders. A growing body of research reveals that severe mood disorders are related to abnormalities in the brain areas that regulate emotions and basic biological needs, such as hunger and sleep. Problems with the brain’s internal biological clock are related to inefficiencies in the brain’s chemistry. There is evidence that the brain’s own chemical signals, known as neurotransmitters, are not functioning properly in persons with severe depression. It is believed that imbalances in the brain’s chemical signals, combined with disruptions in the sequencing of the brain’s biological clock, may account for most of the common symptoms of mood disorders. Specifically, the disruptions in the internal clock could lead to problems with sleep, energy, and loss of enjoyment. Some people may be especially vulnerable to these problems, either because of their family history or because of other nongenetic risk factors. Life Experiences

The link between stressful life experiences and depression is well established. Several specific stressful events seem to be especially troubling for persons who are prone to mood disorders. Major losses, such as the death of a loved one or financial losses, often precede significant depression. Losses that are ego threatening (such as a divorce or job termination) are usually difficult for persons who are at risk for mood disorders, especially if they feel personally responsible for the event. In other words, being fired from a job for poor performance will be more threatening than losing a job to downsizing. Chronic and ongoing stressors also increase the risk of becoming depressed, in contrast to an abrupt and isolated source of stress. Personality and Interpersonal Factors

Certain personality traits, such as negative affectivity, may help predict a person’s risk of developing a depressive disorder in the face of stressful life events. Negative affectivity is a personality type that is prone to negative emotions, including worry, anxiety, and sadness. Because of this proneness to negative emotions, the individual is ill equipped to deal with major losses or threats to the ego. From another perspective, it is suggested that some people are prone to depression because of distorted beliefs about themselves, the world, and the future. Rigid and distorted beliefs

Moral Disengagement and Execution———515

become activated by stressful experiences, causing the person to blow events out of proportion and feel personally responsible for failure and disappointment. According to this viewpoint, negative and self-critical thoughts are directly related to the onset of depression following a stressful life event. Additionally, a number of interpersonal problems are linked with the risk for depressive disorders. Individuals who are socially isolated and those who lack the social skills for maintaining rewarding relationships are at high risk for depression. Once depressed, pessimism and negative thinking may further isolate the individual from other people who are trying to avoid the negativity, setting up a self-perpetuating cycle. The importance of interpersonal factors in the causation of depressive disorders is further highlighted by the strong association between marital distress and depression. Separation and divorce are common antecedents of depression, as is ongoing marital conflict. The direction of cause, however, is not always obvious—relationship problems could cause depression or the reverse could occur. Alternatively, a separate factor, such as negative affectivity, could be responsible for both depression and relationship problems.

Treatment The two major approaches to treatment of the mood disorders include medication and therapy. For bipolar disorders, medication is the first line of treatment. It usually consists of a mood stabilizer, which reduces the frequency and intensity of manic episodes, often in combination with an antidepressant. Approximately 75% of individuals with a bipolar disorder who comply with medication will experience some improvement. The amount of improvement, however, is variable, ranging from mild to dramatic. Supportive therapy and family therapy may be helpful supplements for patients with severe bipolar disorder. The unpleasant side effects of mood stabilizers, such as drowsiness, upset stomach, and impaired coordination, along with the stigma of taking medication for a mental disorder, cause problems with medication compliance in many cases of bipolar disorder. The depressive disorders are often treated with a combination of antidepressant medication and psychotherapy. Approximately two-thirds of patients will benefit from antidepressant medications such as Prozac (fluoxetine is the generic name), although it may take several weeks before any improvement is

noticed. The newer antidepressant medications produce relatively few side effects; however, it is not uncommon to experience a decline in sex drive and feelings of restlessness. Cognitive therapy for depression is one of the best documented treatments. Several large-scale studies show that its effectiveness rivals medication in the long term. Additionally, unlike medication, cognitive therapy can reduce a person’s risk for future depressive episodes. As a brief and structured form of treatment, cognitive therapy is designed to help the patient identify and modify distorted thinking. Marital and family therapy may be useful for severe mood disorders that are related to conflict at home. Richard D. McAnulty and Jocelyn M. Brineman See also Mental Health Law; Psychotic Disorders

Further Readings

Butcher, J. N., Mineka, S., & Hooley, J. M. (2007). Abnormal psychology (13th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Comer, R. J. (2007). Abnormal psychology (6th ed.). New York: Worth. Klein, D. F. (2005). Understanding depression: A complete guide to its diagnosis and treatment. New York: Oxford University Press. Reamer, F. G. (2003). Criminal lessons: Case studies and commentary on crime and justice. New York: Columbia University Press. Schneidman, E. S. (2001). Comprehending suicide: Landmarks in 20th century suicidology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Schneidman, E. S. (2004). Autopsy of a suicidal mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

MORAL DISENGAGEMENT AND EXECUTION People ordinarily refrain from behaving in ways that violate their core moral standards because such conduct will bring self-censure. In some institutional role functions, however, such as military combat and state executions, the taking of human life presents a grave moral predicament. Intentional infliction of death and destruction can, therefore, exact a heavy emotional toll and leave a troubled and haunted life for those who have to do it. The challenge is to explain how

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individuals who are caring and compassionate in other aspects of their lives can perform roles that require them to take a human life. In the course of socialization, people adopt standards of right and wrong that serve as guides and deterrents for conduct. They do things that give them satisfaction and a sense of self-worth and refrain from behaving in ways that violate their moral standards because such conduct will bring self-condemnation. However, moral standards do not function as fixed internal regulators of conduct. Moral self-sanctions do not come into play unless they are activated, and there are a variety of psychosocial mechanisms by which such sanctions can be selectively disengaged from lethal conduct. This enables individuals to carry out lethal functions without the restraint and personal costs of self-censure. This entry examines the critical role of selective moral disengagement in state executions.

Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement Figure 1 presents the eight psychological mechanisms by which moral self-sanctions are suspended and the four sites in the moral control process where this can occur. At the behavioral locus, worthy ends are used to vindicate lethal means. This is achieved by moral and utilitarian justifications. They include biblical imperatives that murder must be avenged and the necessity to execute murderers to maintain societal order, deter

others from homicidal crimes, and to spare societies the costs of life imprisonment. Euphemistic language sanitizes the taking of human life as simply a legal penalty and clothes executions in pallid legalese. Advantageous comparison renders executions merciful by contrasting them with the heinous homicides committed by the condemned inmates. At the agency locus, one’s role in the lethal activity is obscured or minimized by displacement and diffusion of responsibility. The path to death of a condemned inmate involves fragmentation of the execution process across jurisdictional systems and subfunctions of the lethal procedure so that no one feels that he or she is the actual agent of the death penalty. At the outcome locus, the experience suffered during the execution is minimized or disputed. At the inmate locus, the condemned are dehumanized, bestialized, and blamed for bringing the execution on themselves by their heinous crimes. Among the various mechanisms of moral disengagement, moral justification is especially influential because it serves a dual function. Investing lethal means with moral and humanitarian purposes both enlists moral engagement in the service of the enterprise and disengages self-censure for those who have to implement the deathly means. The mechanisms usually work in concert. Moreover, they operate at the social systems level as well as at the individual level. Moral disengagement is enlisted at each of the three levels in the application of the death penalty—at the

Moral justification Palliative comparison Euphemistic labeling

Minimizing, ignoring, or misconstruing the consequences

Dehumanization Attribution of blame

Agent

Death penalty

Inmate

Displacement of responsibility Diffusion of responsibility

Figure 1

Mechanisms Through Which Moral Self-Sanctions Are Selectively Disengaged From Detrimental Conduct at Different Points in the Self-Control Process

Source: Osofsky, Bandura, and Zimbardo (2005). Reprinted with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media.

Moral Disengagement and Execution———517

societal, judicial, and execution levels. At the societal level, moral disengagement eases the public’s qualms about the use of executions for capital offenses. The higher the moral disengagement, the stronger the public support for the death penalty. Moral concerns are mitigated when state executions are viewed in the abstract under the sanitized label of “capital punishment.”

Jurors and Capital Sentencing Those who favor the death penalty are far removed from its implementation in the execution chamber. It is a graver moral predicament for jurors who make decisions that sentence a person to death. Craig Haney identified the unique conditions built into the sentencing process that enable jurors to sentence a person to death. These conditions reflect the various modes of moral disengagement. Because of the widespread public support for state executions, most jury members are already favorably disposed to the death penalty through repeated societal justifications. Politicians trade on it. Individuals who unalterably oppose the death penalty are eliminated when the jury is impaneled. Attorneys battle over the personalization and dehumanization of defendants. As previously noted, displacement and diffusion of responsibility for the execution also figure prominently in the sentencing process. Jurors view their decisions as compelled by the sentencing instructions rather than as a personal decision. This displacement of responsibility is aided by prosecutors who often present them with misleading and forced choices on capital sentencing. Jurors not only minimize their personal responsibility for their collective decision but play down its consequences as well. They contend that appellate judges will ultimately decide the question. They also believe that even if the death sentence is upheld, the execution is unlikely to happen. “They don’t put you to death. You sit on death row and get old.” The weakening of moral engagement by the distal role in the execution process is captured by journalist Sara Rimer in the remarks of a retiring warden: “If jurors had to draw straws to see who was going to pull the switch or start the lethal injection, there wouldn’t be as many executions.”

Executioners and Moral Disengagement The gravest moral predicament is faced by executioners who have to kill a human up close and by their own

hand. If they did not suspend moral self-sanctions for the intentional taking of a human life, they would have difficulty doing it and would be burdened by a troublesome legacy were they to do so. In a 2005 study, Michael Osofsky, Albert Bandura, and Philip Zimbardo examined, in three penitentiaries, the pattern of moral disengagement in three subgroups of prison personnel depending on the type and degree of their involvement in the execution process. Prison guards who had no involvement in the execution process and were thus spared a grave moral predicament exhibited little moral disengagement. Members of the support team, who provide solace to the families of the victim and the inmate, disavowed moral disengagement. Members of the execution team, who perform key roles in the execution itself, enlisted all the modes of moral disengagement. They adopted biblical, economic, and societal security justifications for the death penalty, ascribed subhuman qualities to condemned inmates, and disavowed a sense of personal agency in the taking of life. In the course of providing ameliorative aid, the support personnel hear the families of the victims recount the brutal ways in which their loved ones were murdered. As a consequence, members of the support team change from moral engagers to moral disengagers with increasing participation in executions. The study also showed that the members of the execution team see themselves as doing society’s work as in any other job in an institutional service facility. Their focus is on performing the subfunctions proficiently. To negate moral self-sanctions, executioners seek solace in the dignity of the process and in the view that condemned killers have a degraded aspect to their nature and executing them will protect the public. The executioners described the desensitization through routinization as follows: “No matter what it is, it gets easier over time. The job just gets easier.” The routinization is fostered by a sense of duty and professionalism in carrying out the executions. However, some were distressed by the fact that they no longer were perturbed by their deadly activity: “The hardest thing for me is that the first one really affected me and the next two to three didn’t. It affected me that it didn’t affect me.” Executions are achieved through the collective effort of many people, each efficiently performing a small part. Responsibility for the executions is displaced to societal policies, the dictate of the law, and jurors’ decisions. As one of the guards put it, his job is simply to carry out the order of the state. “It’s not up

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to me to say yea or nay. That’s for the judges and juries. I’m not a part of the deal-making process. I’m here to do the job.” The study indicated that the institutional arrangement diffuses the agentic subfunctions across a variety of individuals, each performing only a small bit in the division of labor. The strap-down is accomplished by highly fractionated, diffused responsibility. Each member straps a particular part of the body: left leg, right leg, left arm and torso, right arm and torso, head. They approach their task with a strong sense of technical responsibility: “We each have a small role on the team. We carry out a job for the state.” Fragmentation structurally builds a low sense of personal responsibility into the death penalty system. The moral disengagement power of diffusion of responsibility through task fractionalization is reflected in the remarks of a guard in San Quentin who strapped down the offenders’ legs to the death chair in 126 executions: “I never pulled the trigger,” he said. “I wasn’t the executioner.” The executioners relied on a variety of strategies to manage the emotional aspects of a work life that requires them to put a person to death. Construing executions as serving high moral and societal purposes spared them a heavy emotional toll. “I wouldn’t do it at all if it didn’t feel right. I’d stop if I felt it were against my morals and the Bible.” Societal legal sanctions had similar effects: “According to the law this was justified. I never felt pain or sorrow.” Depersonalization of the relationship with condemned inmates was another ameliorative strategy: “It makes it really stressful getting to know the inmates. By not knowing them, you can do your job. Getting to know them makes it tough.” Inmates’ expressed attitudes of cruelty also made it easier to execute them: “Some of the inmates talk about killing people like eating a bag of potato chips. That makes it easier.” Selective control of one’s own consciousness is still another emotion-regulation strategy for lessening perturbing ruminations. Members of the execution team adopted a firm compartmentalization of their work life and home life: “My life is like a switch. I turn it on when I get here and turn it off when I leave. I won’t let myself take my job home.” As shown by Samuel Gross and Phoebe Ellsworth, the American public is experiencing a conflicting view regarding state executions. People voice substantial support for the death penalty while doubting its deterrent value and acknowledging that the judicial system is often administered unfairly and cannot fully protect innocent defendants from being put to death.

Erosion of public support leaves executioners with the ghastly task of executing individuals stripped of moral justifications for it. “Having the whole country concerned about the death penalty creates more stress for us than the actual execution.” Albert Bandura See also Death Penalty; Death Qualification of Juries; Juries and Judges’ Instructions; Jury Selection; Jury Understanding of Judges’ Instructions in Capital Cases

Further Readings

Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 193–209. Gross, S. R., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2003). Second thoughts: Americans’ views on the death penalty at the turn of the century. In S. P. Garvey (Ed.), Beyond repair? America’s death penalty (pp. 7–57). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Haney, C. (1997). Violence and the capital jury: Mechanisms of moral disengagement and the impulse to condemn to death. Stanford Law Review, 49, 1447–1486. Haney, C. (2005). Death by design. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Osofsky, M. J., Bandura, A., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2005). The role of moral disengagement in the execution process. Law and Human Behavior, 29(4), 371–393. Osofsky, M. J., & Osofsky, H. J. (2002). The psychological experience of security officers who work with executions. Psychiatry, 65, 358–370.

MOTIONS TO SUPPRESS EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION Serving as an important safeguard against wrongful convictions, motions to suppress help keep evidence that was gathered improperly or unfairly from consideration at trial. Psychological research has examined the validity of several assumptions underlying the effectiveness of motions to suppress lineup identifications. These studies have examined judges’ and attorneys’ knowledge about eyewitness memory in general and lineup procedures in particular. Research using an experimental paradigm raises some questions on the effectiveness of the motions to suppress lineup identification safeguard. Moreover, judges are applying the criteria outlined by Manson v. Brathwaite (1977),

Motions to Suppress Eyewitness Identification———519

which indicates that the suggestive aspects of the identification procedure should be weighed against the likelihood that the identification is accurate. The two prongs that constitute the Manson test are not independent of each other because suggestive lineup procedures can readily infect the criteria that judges must consider when evaluating the probability that the identification is accurate. Moreover, the identification accuracy criteria that are to be considered have little to do with eyewitness memory or lineup identification accuracy. In summary, there are several reasons to question the effectiveness of motions to suppress lineup identifications as a safeguard against wrongful convictions. A motion to suppress is a request to the court to exclude evidence on the grounds that it was obtained unfairly or illegally. These motions are typically filed by criminal defense lawyers in an attempt to keep the evidence in question from consideration at a hearing or at trial. A motion to suppress must be accompanied by supporting arguments or facts that speak of the reliability of the evidence or violations of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. For example, a lawyer may file a motion to suppress evidence that the police obtained during a search and seizure that was conducted without a warrant or without consent. Lawyers may also file a motion to suppress hearsay testimony, confession evidence, or information gleaned during the course of an interrogation. Finally, lawyers may file motions to suppress eyewitness testimony that stems from a police lineup on the grounds that the lineup identification procedure was conducted unfairly. There is psychological research that bears on issues surrounding motions to suppress lineup identification evidence. A defense lawyer who believes that a witness erred in the lineup identification because the lineup procedure was conducted unfairly or in a biased manner may (and probably should) file a motion to suppress this evidence from relevant hearings and from trial. Such motions are designed to safeguard against wrongful convictions that are the product of mistaken eyewitness identifications produced by suggestive lineup procedures.

Judges’ Sensitivity to Suggestive Lineup Procedures Psychological research has raised some serious questions about the effectiveness of motions to suppress lineup identifications by challenging the validity of assumptions that form the backbone of this safeguard.

One assumption underlying the effectiveness of motions to suppress the lineup identification as a safeguard is that judges are sensitive to unfair lineups and that their rulings on motions to suppress lineup identifications are a function of their evaluations of lineup suggestiveness and fairness. In an effort to determine what judges know about eyewitness memory and the factors that affect lineup identification accuracy, a few surveys of judges in the United States have shown that judges are aware of some factors that affect eyewitness memory and lineup identification accuracy but not others. Judges’ knowledge about eyewitness testimony probably plays an important role in their motion rulings. Richard Wise and Martin Safer surveyed 160 judges and found that familiarity with eyewitness memory issues was related to their tendency to permit the use of legal safeguards such as jury instructions on memory issues and expert testimony. The Wise and Safer research did not examine the link between education and motions to suppress, however. Taking an experimental approach, Stinson and colleagues presented Florida criminal judges with a description of a simulated crime and eyewitness’s description of the perpetrator as well as a photo lineup that varied in terms of the suggestiveness of the lineup instructions, lineup composition (i.e., the extent to which the photos in the lineup matched the eyewitness’s description of the perpetrator), and lineup presentation (sequential or simultaneous). Judges recognized the unfairness of suggestive lineup composition and instructions, and they ruled on the simulated motion accordingly. Interestingly, some judges indicated that they very rarely see these types of motions. Neither the reason for this finding nor the extent to which results generalize to other areas is clear. Until fairly recently, the only record of a lineup procedure was a photograph of the array or the lineup members, so defense lawyers would not be able to evaluate the fairness of the lineup procedure nor obtain much evidence to support a motion to suppress. Additionally, some judges indicated that their general practice was to deny these types of motion; their justification typically revolved around the notion that jurors ought to evaluate and weigh the lineup identification evidence and that judges should not be gatekeepers of this type of evidence.

Defense Lawyers’ Sensitivity to Suggestive Lineup Procedures Another assumption impinging on the motion to suppress safeguard is that lawyers are sensitive to

520———Motions to Suppress Eyewitness Identification

suggestive lineup procedures and file motions to suppress lineup evidence in these situations. Several survey studies have reported that lawyers recognize some biased lineup procedures such as lineup composition and instructions but not others (e.g., lineup presentation). One experiment tested the effects of biased lineup procedures on defense attorneys’ reactions to the lineup. These data showed that lawyers were sensitive to some unfair lineup procedures. Compared with lawyers who saw a fair lineup procedure, those who saw lineups that were unfair with respect to the composition were more likely to express their intention to file a motion to suppress the lineup identification evidence and predict that a judge would grant such a motion. Having direct implications for the motion to suppress safeguard, defense lawyers reported that they rarely attend their clients’ lineups. Most lineups are pre-indictment photo arrays during which there is no right to counsel (Kirby v. Illinois, 1972; United States v. Ash, 1973). Thus, it is difficult for defense lawyers to observe and record biased lineup procedures and to substantiate a motion to suppress the lineup identification. In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice produced guidelines for law enforcement that included a recommendation that lineup identification procedures be documented. In theory, proper recording of lineup procedures ought to contribute toward the effectiveness of the motions to suppress safeguard.

Why the Manson Test Compromises Motions to Suppress There are also U.S. Supreme Court decisions and case law that speak of the effectiveness of motions to suppress lineup identification evidence. In Simmons v. United States (1968), the Supreme Court ruled that judges should not suppress lineup identification evidence solely because it was gathered in a suggestive manner. Instead, the Court ruled that judges should determine whether the eyewitness identification was likely to be accurate by considering the circumstances surrounding the identification. In subsequent decisions, the Supreme Court further eroded the suggestiveness test by outlining criteria that judges should consider when making their motion decision (Neil v. Biggers, 1972). In the Biggers decision, the Supreme Court proposed that judges consider five factors when determining the reliability of an eyewitness identification: opportunity for the eyewitness to view the perpetrator, the eyewitness’s degree of attention during the

crime, the eyewitness’s confidence in the lineup identification, the accuracy of the eyewitness’s description of the perpetrator, and the length of time between the crime and the identification procedure. Psychological research has demonstrated that these five criteria are not particularly predictive of lineup identification accuracy. Finally, in Manson v. Brathwaite (1977), the Supreme Court advised judges to weigh any suggestive elements in the identification procedure against the five criteria outlined in Biggers. Timothy O’Toole and Giovanna Shay have chronicled how protections against due process violations have eroded since the Manson decision and how this decision has compromised the motion to suppress safeguards. Bringing psychology to bear on this issue, Gary Wells demonstrated the fundamental flaw with the Manson decision. Suggestive lineup procedures can distort several of the self-report criteria spelled out by Biggers, virtually guaranteeing that an identification produced by suggestive lineup procedures would not be suppressed. In other words, the Manson decision makes it unlikely that judges would grant a motion to suppress the identification because they are likely to find at least one of the five redeeming Biggers criteria. One Connecticut case, State v. Thompson (2004), delineates clearly the flawed analysis in Manson. The Thompson case involves a shooting that seriously wounded the victim, Wesley Gray. Two firefighters at a nearby fire station heard the gun shots, went outside, and saw a man carrying a shotgun. One of the firefighters indicated that he caught a “quick glance” at the man’s face before he returned to the fire station, where he continued to observe the man for a few moments. Subsequently, the firefighter went back outside where he saw the individual climbing a fence. The firefighter retrieved the shotgun, handed it to the police, and provided a description. Shortly thereafter, a police officer drove the firefighter witness to a dead-end alley, the location where other officers had apprehended the suspect. The police officer told the witness that the police had apprehended the person who was “probably the shooter,” shined the headlights from the police car at the defendant, and asked the firefighter to make an identification. The firefighter indicated that he was “absolutely certain” that suspect was the shooter. The defendant, Jerry Thompson, filed a motion to suppress the identification on the grounds that it was highly suggestive and unnecessary, but the court denied the motion because the “totality of the circumstances” indicated that the identification was sufficiently reliable for the jury to consider. The court relied on three

Mug Shots———521

of the Biggers criteria for making its decision: the witness was confident, he had a good look at the suspect, and the identification took place shortly after the incident. The defendant was convicted of assault and possession of a firearm; he appealed on several grounds, including that the trial judge erred in denying the motion to suppress, but the appellate court affirmed the trial court’s decision. Neither the trial nor appellate courts recognized that the suggestive identification procedure, perhaps in concert with other factors, can easily distort eyewitnesses’ estimates of their opportunity to view the perpetrator, their confidence in their identification, and their estimate of their “degree of attention” at the time of encoding. In addition to the obvious calls for eliminating any suggestive aspects of lineup identification procedures and adopting best practices for identification tests, Gary Wells recommends a series of alternatives that would remedy the problems created by Manson. One of these proposed remedies is to shift the burden of proof in situations where the lineup procedure was suggestive so that the prosecutor would have to demonstrate why the identification should be allowed. This is a simple and reasonable solution to this problem. Should this recommendation be implemented in the future, the decisionmaking process of judges considering a motion to suppress the lineup identification would change. Veronica Stinson See also Confidence in Identifications; Confidence in Identifications, Malleability; Exposure Time and Eyewitness Memory; Eyewitness Descriptions, Accuracy of; Eyewitness Memory; Identification Tests, Best Practices in; Instructions to the Witness; Neil v. Biggers Criteria for Evaluating Eyewitness Identification; Presence of Counsel Safeguard and Eyewitness Identification; Showups; Wrongful Conviction

Further Readings

Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682 (1972). Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98 (1977). Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188 (1972). O’Toole, T. P., & Shay, G. (2006). Manson v. Brathwaite revisited: Towards a new rule of decision for due process challenges to eyewitness identification procedures. Valparaiso University Law Review, 41, 109–148. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 385 (1968). State v. Thompson, 81 Conn. App. 264 (2004). Stinson, V., Devenport, J. L., Cutler, B. L., & Kravitz, D. A. (1997). How effective is the motion-to-suppress

safeguard? Judges’ perceptions of the suggestiveness and fairness of biased lineup procedures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 211–220. United States v. Ash, 413 U.S. 300 (1973). Wells, G. L. (2007). What is wrong with the Manson v. Braithwaite test of eyewitness identification accuracy? Retrieved February 22, 2007, from http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/FACULTY/gwells/ Mansonproblem.pdf Wise, R. A., & Safer, M. A. (2004). What US judges know and believe about eyewitness testimony. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 427–443.

MUG SHOTS In cases where a criminal’s identity is unknown to an eyewitness and investigators have not yet pinpointed a suspect, witnesses may be asked to search through a large number of photographs for a picture of the criminal. This process is known as a mug shot search because the photographs typically come from a database of photographs of arrested people (either computerized or from a file drawer system). Researchers have examined whether viewing hundreds of photographs in search for a criminal may have detrimental effects on a witness’s memory of the criminal or later identification accuracy. Specifically, researchers have focused on three potential effects: interference, unconscious transference, and commitment. Regardless of the effect, one caveat with this body of research to date is that it has not yet been tested with real-world witnesses in real criminal cases.

Interference Interference, in mug shot research, is when postcrime information, in the form of viewing many new faces, weakens or interferes with the witness’s memory of the actual criminal. Interference is most commonly tested in research laboratories by exposing two groups of participants to a mock crime, asking one group to look through mug shot photographs and then asking both groups of witnesses to make an identification of the criminal from a six-person lineup. Researchers also manipulate whether or not the mock criminal’s photograph is present in the lineup to test whether or not witnesses who viewed the mug shots are more likely to choose an innocent person when the actual target is not present. Although it is reasonable to assume that the process of viewing hundreds of faces in search for a

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criminal may influence a witness’s ability to later make a correct identification of the criminal, research results to do not support this assumption. Research has shown that viewing mug shots has virtually no effect on later identification accuracy from lineups.

Unconscious Transference Unconscious transference from viewing mug shots refers to the event in which an innocent lineup member, who is also the only lineup member previously viewed by the witness in a prior mug shot task, seems more familiar than do the other lineup members because he was viewed in the mug shots. The concern is that this sense of familiarity on the part of the witness may lead to an increased rate of selection of the (only) lineup member who was seen previously in a mug shot task. The phenomenon of unconscious transference has likely plagued most adults at one time or another as evidenced in the common question, “Where do I know that face?” For witnesses who view mug shots, followed by a lineup that contains one person seen in those mug shots and five photographs never seen before, they are faced with a similar question. The correct answer is for witnesses to say, “I saw that face in the mug shot task,” and the erroneous conclusion is that the face is familiar because it is the face of the criminal. Support for unconscious transference from mug shots is mixed, with only a few published studies finding support for the effect. Researchers have manipulated variables such as the number of mug shots viewed (from 10 to more than 600) and the delay from viewing the mug shots to the lineup task (immediately to several weeks later) but have been unable to find a consistent predictor of the unconscious transference effect.

Commitment Commitment refers to the event when a witness selects a (innocent) person from a mug shot task and then selects the same (incorrect) person from a later lineup procedure. Research on the commitment effect is consistent in that it is relatively easy to produce and that it has the largest negative impact on lineup identification accuracy when considered with the other two effects described above. In one research example, almost two-thirds of witnesses who selected an innocent person from a mug shot task went on to later identify that same innocent person from a lineup. A comparison group of participants who did not see mug shots picked the innocent person at a rate of only 20%.

Procedural Matters As with any identification procedure, there are numerous ways that investigators could conduct the mug shot task that may have differential effects on the outcome. Some procedural variations that have been examined include whether the photographs are sorted by gender, age, race, and type of crime before viewing; the ideal number of mug shots to view; and whether a computerized sorting system yields more accurate identification results than do standard mug shot methods. In sum, mug shot research has not supported the intuitive concerns that interference and unconscious transference effects generate. Commitment to a photograph, however, does seem to be a strong predictor of identification errors from mug shot searching. Regardless of the area of research described above, an increase in real-world data obtained from field studies will be highly beneficial and informative for future mug shot research. Jennifer E. Dysart See also Eyewitness Descriptions, Accuracy of; Eyewitness Memory; Identification Tests, Best Practices in; Unconscious Transference

Further Readings

Deffenbacher, K. A., Bornstein, B. H., & Penrod, S. D. (2006). Mugshot exposure effects: Retroactive interference, mugshot commitment, source confusion, and unconscious transference. Law and Human Behavior, 30, 287–307. Dysart, J. E., Lindsay, R. C. L., Hammond, R., & Dupuis, P. R. (2001). Mug shot exposure prior to lineup identification: Interference, transference, and commitment effects. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 1280–1284. Gorenstein, G. W., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1980). Effect of choosing an incorrect photograph on a later identification by an eyewitness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 616–622. McAllister, H. A., Stewart, H. A., & Loveland, J. (2003). Effects of mug book size and computerized pruning on the usefulness of dynamic mug book procedures. Psychology, Crime & Law, 9, 265–277.

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER See DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER

N Although the Biggers criteria are intuitively appealing, psycholegal researchers generally disapprove of them for several reasons. First, reports on the extent to which these criteria are met, especially confidence, are not reliably related to identification accuracy. Second, most of the reports are subjective, provided by the very person whose memory is in dispute when an identification is challenged. Finally, they attempt to postdict accuracy, a goal that has had limited success throughout the empirical study of eyewitnesses. The background of the criminal case that prompted the criteria and the empirical data related to each criterion are presented below. In the crime for which Biggers was convicted, the victim was taken from her home and raped along the railroad tracks a short distance away. The attack lasted between 15 and 30 minutes. Several times after the assault, the victim was shown photos in both lineups, where multiple photos are shown at a time, and showups, where only one photo is presented. She did not identify anyone from these photos. Seven months after the assault, Biggers was identified in a police station showup. The showup was conducted because the police claimed that they were unable to locate appropriate fillers for a lineup. After the police escorted the victim past the defendant, she asked them to have him say, “Shut up, or I’ll kill you,” a phrase used by her assailant. She then identified Biggers and indicated that she had “no doubt” about the accuracy of her identification. The critical issue decided by the Supreme Court was whether the showup was “unnecessarily suggestive” and therefore violated due process. In previous cases, the Court argued that it was possible for identification procedures to be so unnecessarily

NEIL V. BIGGERS CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION In its 1972 ruling in Neil v. Biggers, the U.S. Supreme Court outlined five criteria that should be used in evaluating the accuracy of eyewitness identifications: the witness’s certainty, his or her quality of view, the amount of attention paid to the culprit, the agreement between the witness’s description and the suspect, and the amount of time between the crime and the identification attempt. For many reasons, these criteria are suboptimal. Some of them directly contradict empirical research, and others can actually be misleading under certain circumstances. Preferable methods for evaluating accuracy include assessing the suggestiveness of the identification procedure, including the instructions given to the witness; examining the structure of the lineup or photo spread; and checking whether the person administering the photo spread knew who the suspect was. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Neil v. Biggers (1972) was the first time that the Court had made explicit recommendations about evaluations of eyewitnesses in criminal cases. These criteria, known to eyewitness researchers as the Biggers criteria, are the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation. 523

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suggestive as to render the identification unreliable and therefore a violation of due process. However, such a determination must be considered “on the totality of the circumstances.” For example, in Stovall v. Denno (1967), the identification procedure did not violate due process because the victim’s critical medical condition justified the hospital room showup and the victim subsequently identified the defendant at trial. In another case, the totality of the circumstances analysis indicated that due process was violated because the witness was not able to definitively identify the defendant during either a suggestive lineup or a showup. In that case, it was only after the third exposure to the defendant that the witness produced a confident identification. Using the criteria described above, the Court (with five justices in the majority) concluded that the showup procedure was not unnecessarily suggestive. First, the victim had ample opportunity to view her attacker, both “under adequate artificial light . . . and under a full moon outdoors.” Second, the witness was “no casual observer,” suggesting that she had paid close attention to the culprit’s face during the assault. Third, her description was “more than ordinarily thorough,” including mention of the assailant’s height, age, skin tone, and voice. Fourth, she displayed a high level of certainty in her identification, saying “I don’t think I could ever forget [that face].” Finally, although 7 months had passed between the crime and the identification of Biggers, the Court reasoned that because the victim never made any other identifications, in spite of many opportunities to do so, “her record for reliability was thus a good one, as she had previously resisted whatever suggestiveness inheres in a showup.” Therefore, according to the totality of the circumstances analysis, reports on the criteria were acceptable, suggesting that the witness’s identification was accurate in spite of the suggestive procedure used to obtain it. The recommendations articulated in Biggers were upheld in Manson v. Brathwaite (1977); the Court has not revisited recommendations for evaluating eyewitnesses since 1977. At the time these recommendations were issued, the field of psychology and law was in a nascent stage; the flagship journal of the field, Law and Human Behavior, had not yet been established. Therefore, the justices relied on intuition rather than empirical evidence when designing a set of criteria. Although the criteria are intuitively appealing, several significant problems exist.

Certainty, View, and Attention: Subjective Criteria Three of the five Biggers criteria—certainty, view, and attention—are subjective reports produced by the eyewitness, the very person whose accuracy is at issue in a criminal trial. The most problematic of these is undeniably witnesses’ certainty. Perceivers naturally assume that a confident witness is an accurate one. This belief is well-founded under certain circumstances. When witnessing conditions vary widely, there is a strong relationship between confidence and accuracy: Witnesses who had a poor view are less confident than witnesses who had a good view. However, the integrity of the relationship between confidence and accuracy is easily compromised. For example, information suggesting that a co-witness identified the same person inflates certainty, as does identifying the person believed to be the culprit by the photo-spread administrator. The details of the Court’s certainty recommendation suggest that there may have been some awareness that confidence is malleable. The critical confidence report, from the Court’s perspective, was certainty “at the time of the confrontation,” not confidence at the time of the in-court identification. It is possible that the Court’s specification derived from an awareness that subsequent reports were vulnerable to influence by external variables. Unfortunately, the Court’s stipulation that certainty at the time of the identification is the relevant report does not ensure that this reported certainty provides useful information about accuracy. Indeed, simple manipulations can dramatically distort witnesses’ memories of how certain they were at the time of their identification. A recent meta-analysis summarized the results of 20 experimental tests with more than 2,400 participants. Witnesses who were told that their identification was correct (i.e., “Good, you identified the suspect”) reported recalling greater certainty in their identification than did witnesses who were told nothing about the accuracy of their identification. This inflation is especially troubling because in the original experiments, witnesses made identifications from target-absent photo spreads, meaning that their inflated confidence accompanied an incorrect identification. More troubling, this simple manipulation also distorted reports on the two other subjective criteria. Eyewitnesses who heard that their identification was correct reported better views and paying more attention compared with witnesses who heard nothing

Neil v. Biggers Criteria for Evaluating Eyewitness Identification———525

about their accuracy. In conclusion, three of the five reports are distorted by simple, legal comments from investigators.

Description and Time: Objective Reports Description and time are primarily objective reports— evaluations of these criteria do not rely on witnesses’ own reports. Evaluators can examine for themselves the degree of match between a witness’s description and the appearance of the defendant. Similarly, there is a record of the date of the crime and the date the suspect was positively identified. Psychological literature generally supports the time criterion: Accuracy diminishes as the time between the witnessed event and the identification attempt increases. However, the literature on the description criterion is mixed. One study concluded that there is no connection between an eyewitness’s description and identification accuracy. Other studies suggest that witnesses are more likely to identify suspects if the witnesses have given a detailed description. Still other studies complicate the relationship even further by suggesting that the mere process of providing a verbal description of a perpetrator harms identification accuracy (i.e., verbal overshadowing). An empirically validated interviewing style, known as the cognitive interview, increases the quality of witnesses’ descriptions but, as predicted by verbal overshadowing, decreases identification accuracy. Fortunately, identification accuracy rates are preserved if a delay exists between the verbal description and the identification attempt. Even though description and time are primarily objective, they are not immune to influence by external variables such as interviewing style.

System Variables Versus Estimator Variables Most of the Biggers criteria are estimator variables— that is, variables that are not under the control of the justice system. For example, the justice system has no control over what kind of view the eyewitness had of the culprit. Similarly, the justice system has no control over how much or what kind of attention the witness paid to the culprit. In contrast, the time criterion falls into the system variable category—that is, variables that the justice system can control. For example, investigating officers can decide whether to show photos to a witness immediately after a crime is reported

or wait until a suspect is located for a live lineup. The ability to make these decisions means that time is a system variable rather than an estimator variable. The two remaining variables, confidence and description, straddle both categories. In some ways, they are estimator variables because the justice system cannot ensure that crime characteristics lead to high confidence or good descriptions (e.g., by ensuring that the culprit is in view for a long time and has no disguise). However, both criteria have system variable elements. Confidence can be easily manipulated by external factors having nothing to do with identification accuracy. Myriad variables, such as postidentification feedback, co-witness information, and repeated questioning, affect eyewitnesses’ confidence. The quality of a witness’s description is also influenced by external variables such as the style of interviewing. The cognitive interview increases both the amount and the quality of information gathered from eyewitnesses.

The Biggers Criteria Attempt to Postdict Accuracy The final problem with the Biggers criteria is that they attempt to postdict accuracy—that is, to determine from eyewitnesses’ own reports whether an identification that had already occurred was accurate or inaccurate. Empirical research reveals limited success in postdicting accuracy. This will be especially difficult when the variables intended to postdict accuracy are so vulnerable to distortion. A preferable strategy is to minimize the likelihood of inaccurate identifications at the time of the confrontation. One clear example of such a change is to require investigators to warn eyewitnesses that the culprit might or might not be present in the set of photos. Another is to obtain a report of the witness’s confidence immediately after the identification is made, allowing defense attorneys to challenge inflated confidence reports at trial. The continuing publicity surrounding DNA exonerations of individuals wrongfully identified should impress on the Court the need to revisit the Biggers criteria. Should the Court undertake such a challenge, some preference for system variable changes would likely be articulated by many psycholegal researchers. In the meantime, defense attorneys and expert witnesses alike should continue to challenge the utility of these criteria, especially confidence, in contributing to meaningful evaluations of eyewitness identification accuracy. At best, the criteria outlined by the Court

526———Novaco Anger Scale

provide limited information about accuracy. At worst, the criteria provide misleading information, suggesting that triers of fact rely on variables that have tenuous relationships with accuracy. Amy Bradfield Douglass See also Confidence in Identifications, Malleability; Estimator and System Variables in Eyewitness Identification; Expert Psychological Testimony on Eyewitness Identification; Eyewitness Memory; Juries and Eyewitnesses; Showups; U.S. Supreme Court; Wrongful Conviction

Further Readings

Bradfield, A. L., & Wells, G. L. (2000). The perceived validity of eyewitness identification testimony: A test of the five Biggers criteria. Law and Human Behavior, 24(5), 581–594. Douglass, A. B., & Steblay, N. (2006). Memory distortion in eyewitnesses: A meta-analysis of the post-identification feedback effect. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 859–869. Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 114 (1977). Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188 (1972). Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967). Wells, G. L. (1978). Applied eyewitness-testimony research: System variables and estimator variables. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(12), 1546–1557. Wells, G. L., & Murray, D. M. (1983). What can psychology say about the Neil v. Biggers criteria for judging eyewitness accuracy? Journal of Applied Psychology, 68(3), 347–362.

Provocation Inventory (PI), in conjunction with its publication by Western Psychological Services (WPS). The NAS subscales pertain to anger disposition domains, as linked to an environmental context. The PI assesses self-reported anger intensity in response to provoking situations. Both instruments were developed and validated for use with mentally disordered and normal populations.

Description and Development The NAS was first constructed in 1990 as a two-part instrument, which entailed the PI as “NAS Part B.” In its formal publication in 2003, the NAS and PI were designated as separate instruments, and the Anger Regulation subscale was added. In the 2003 revision, a subset of four “attentional focus” items within the NAS Cognitive subscale was replaced by a subset of 4 items concerning “justification.” Some item-wording changes were also made across the instrument. Scale norms, reliability, and validity were first established for clinical populations in studies with 300 male and female patients, both civil commitment and forensic, at three California State hospitals; 119 male forensic patients in Scotland; 129 male intellectual disability forensic patients in England; and 143 Vietnam combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The WPS standardization sample of 1,546 participants was age stratified (9–84 years) and was obtained from various nonclinical settings across the United States; also added were 171 male offenders in various correctional settings.

Scale Components

NOVACO ANGER SCALE The Novaco Anger Scale (NAS) is a self-report questionnaire with Cognitive, Arousal, and Behavioral subscales that constitute a 48-item NAS Total score. It has a separate 12-item Anger Regulation subscale. This questionnaire is designed to index a person’s disposition for anger, which is a risk factor for violence and a dynamic variable amenable to treatment. The NAS was developed in conjunction with the violence risk project of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Mental Health and Law. It was later revised, along with its companion scale, the 25-item

NAS Cognitive

The arousal of anger is cognitively mediated, being a function of perception and information processing. A schematic network of memories and meanings centrally influence the experience of anger and its expression. The NAS Cognitive subscale is composed of items operationalizing justification, rumination, hostile attitude, and suspicion. NAS Arousal

Anger arousal is marked by physiological activation in the cardiovascular, endocrine, and limbic

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systems and by tension in the skeletal musculature. Transfer of arousal or excitation residues from a prior provocation can intensify anger to a new one. The NAS Arousal subscale items operationalize intensity, duration, somatic tension, and irritability. NAS Behavioral

Implicit in the cognitive labeling of anger is an inclination to act in an antagonistic or confrontative manner. The NAS Behavioral subscale items operationalize impulsive reaction, verbal aggression, physical confrontation, and indirect expression. The NAS Behavioral score is the principal NAS index expected to be associated with violence. NAS Total

This is a summary anger disposition index, created by adding the Cognitive, Arousal, and Behavioral subscales. It does not include the NAS Anger Regulation subscale. NAS Anger Regulation

A central characteristic of problematic anger is loss of regulatory control, which of course hinges on the environmental context in which the anger has been activated. This subscale is composed of cognitive, arousal, and behavior items. It is an overall index of the person’s report of his or her ability to regulate anger-engendering thoughts and thinking styles, effect self-calming, and engage in constructive behavior when faced with provocation. Inconsistent Responding Index (INC)

As a validity check, the NAS contains an index of response inconsistency, computed from a subset of 8 item pairs that have high correlations in the WPS standardization sample. Details are given in the NASPI manual.

Reliability In its initial version, the NAS Total had an internal reliability (alpha) of .95 and a 2-week test-retest reliability of .84 in studies with psychiatric patients in the California State hospitals. An independent study with

male offenders in Canada found NAS Total alpha equal to .95 and test-retest reliability to be .89 for a 4-week interval. In the MacArthur Violence Risk Project involving 1,101 civil commitment psychiatric patients, who were given the NAS while in hospital, the alpha for NAS Total was .94. For the WPS standardization sample, it was .94. In other studies, the NAS Total alpha was .97 for Vietnam combat veterans, .95 for forensic patients in Scotland, .92 for developmental disabled forensic patients in England, .94 for violent prisoners in Sweden, and .90 to .93 for undergraduates in California, Australia, and Sweden.

Validity The initial NAS-PI was validated in the MacArthur Violence Risk Project, directed by John Monahan and conducted in three U.S. metropolitan areas. The NAS was a significant predictor of postdischarge violence at 10-week and 1-year follow-ups. It was also significantly related to patients’ imagined violence while in hospital. In the scale development studies with California patients, it correlated .42 and .47 with Spielberger State Anger, prospectively at 1 and 2 months, respectively. It has robust correlations with the Spielberger Trait Anger measure in concurrent testing in studies with psychiatric patients in California, Scotland, England, Canada, and Sweden and with Vietnam veterans in Hawaii. Independent studies have found it to be related to violence by psychiatric patients before hospital admission, during hospitalization, and in the community after hospital discharge. Among combat veterans, it is strongly related to PTSD symptoms and PTSD diagnosis. Its adaptation to developmental disabilities patients has been demonstrated to have high reliability and validity and to be predictive of assaultive behavior in hospital.

Future Directions The NAS-PI manual elaborates on the theoretical background and history of instrument development, the principles for its use and interpretation, validity issues, and the psychometric properties ascertained from a number of research investigations. One intended use of the NAS is for evaluation of the treatment received. An important extension in this domain would be for case formulation. Given that anger is now

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recognized as a dynamic variable associated with violent behavior and that anger treatment efficacy has been demonstrated, the NAS would seem to have value for case formulation as the cognitive, arousal, and behavioral domains lend themselves to identification of the psychological deficits associated with anger dysregulation. Raymond W. Novaco See also Forensic Assessment; MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study; Risk Assessment Approaches; Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

Novaco, R. W. (1994). Anger as a risk factor for violence among the mentally disordered. In J. Monahan & H. J. Steadman (Eds.), Violence and mental disorder: Developments in risk assessment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Novaco, R. W. (2003). The Novaco Anger Scale and Provocation Inventory (NAS-PI) Manual. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services. Novaco, R. W., & Taylor, J. L. (2004). Assessment of anger and aggression in male offenders with developmental disabilities. Psychological Assessment, 16, 42–50.

O community standards criteria. However, these definitions failed to address what constitutes a community. States have much flexibility in determining what behaviors are considered patently offensive sexual material. The Miller ruling and state court rulings have provided some examples. For instance, the Illinois state court in Ward v. Illinois (1977) named bestiality and sadomasochism as examples of patently offensive sexual conduct. Currently, seven states do not have obscenity laws. Of those that do, most states include the Miller definition as well as provide examples of patently offensive materials. Other than these definitions, stores selling such material and individuals have no explicit guidance on whether a material is obscene or not. Because the definition of obscenity is determined by community sentiment, it is difficult to know whether a material is obscene until a jury makes that determination. Researchers can conduct studies and testify about the community’s standards.

OBSCENITY Obscenity is a unique legal phenomenon for three reasons. First, the defendant does not have to know the exact content of the material at issue; he or she only has to know the general nature of the material in order to be convicted. Second, the defendant almost necessarily has to employ social scientists to conduct a study indicating that the material does not offend the community’s standards. Third, because the crime of obscenity depends on the community’s sentiment, the defendant does not know if he or she has committed a crime until the verdict is returned. Thus, someone can own obscene material and not know that the material is illegal until a jury decides whether it offends community standards. Psychological research is used to measure community standards. The legal definition and method of determining obscenity were established in Miller v. California (1973). Obscenity depends primarily on three factors. A material is obscene if an average person applying community standards would find that it (a) appeals to a prurient interest (i.e., an unhealthy, morbid, or degrading interest in sex), (b) depicts sexual conduct specifically defined by the state as patently offensive, and (c) lacks any artistic, literary, political, or scientific value. In Smith v. United States (1977), the court clarified that “prurient interest” and “patently offensive” were to be determined by an average person applying contemporary community standards. Additionally, in Pinkus v. United States (1978), the court found that children are not part of the community included in the

Community Standards and Expert Testimony Following Miller (1973), courts began to address whether parties had either the right or the requirement to produce scientific data. Kaplan v. California (1973) determined that defendants have the right to introduce expert testimony on the issue of community standards. In Commonwealth v. Trainor (1978), the judge stated that public opinion polls are uniquely suited to inform community standards debates. People v. Nelson (1980) generally held that experts are needed because otherwise jurors would rely on their own standards instead of the community’s standards as the law 529

530———Optimality Hypothesis in Eyewitness Identification

requires. However, Hamling v. United States (1974) found that expert testimony was not needed if the jury could view the material themselves. More important, the court determined that the defendant does not have the right to produce a poll. Generally, the current trend is to allow polls as long as they are well conducted and not biased. Psychological research has investigated various aspects of community standards. Research has determined that community standards may vary over time; they may be restrictive at one time while lenient at another. Additionally, research has discovered that urban communities often have less conservative views of obscenity than less populated areas. Males, younger individuals, and Whites are less likely to consider a material obscene than their counterparts. Furthermore, research has determined that viewing obscene materials does not change an individual’s opinion of whether it is obscene or not, but it may make individuals less likely to consider that the material appeals to a prurient interest in sex. Finally, individuals’ perceptions of obscenity do not match their perceptions of the community’s standards of obscenity. That is, individuals indicate that their personal views are more lenient than those of the community, even though they are part of the community. This may be problematic in court if individuals believe that their views do not match their community’s view; they may determine that a material is obscene by community standards when they personally do not believe it is. Jury members are supposed to overlook their own standards and apply community standards in these cases. Yet if they do not have information about community standards, they may be inclined to believe that the community is much more restrictive than it truly is. As such, expert testimony from researchers who have polled the community can provide jurors with insight into what the community truly believes to be obscene.

Obscenity and the Internet The most current challenge to the obscenity laws concerns sexual material posted on the Internet, which did not exist when the obscenity definition was established in 1973. Jurisdictional issues become problematic when obscenity cases involve the Internet. Although the material may not be viewed as obscene in the community of the individual who placed it on the Web site, it may be obscene in other communities

where it is viewed. Courts have determined that the individual responsible for the obscene material will not be held to the standards of the town where he or she posted the Web site (Voyeur Dorm, L.C. v. City of Tampa, 2001). Instead, he will be held to the standards of the community where the material is delivered (Miller v. California, 1973). This decision was furthered by Ashcroft v. ACLU (2002), which established that Internet material can be judged by the standard of the community that is most likely to be offended by it. As these examples demonstrate, obscenity laws pose difficulties for both lawmakers and psychologists. Alicia Summers and Monica K. Miller See also Expert Psychological Testimony; Public Opinion About Crime

Further Readings

Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564 (2002). Commonwealth v. Trainor, 374 Mass. 796, 801–802 (1978). Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87 (1974). Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115 (1973). Miller v. California, 93 S. Ct. 2607 (1973). People v. Nelson, 88 Ill. App.3d 196 (1980). Pinkus v. United States, 436 U.S. 293 (1978). Reese, D. A., & Kyle, D. A. (2002). Obscenity and pornography. Journal of Gender and the Law, 4(1), 137–168. Scott, J. E. (1991). What is obscene? Social science and the contemporary community standard test of obscenity. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 14(1–2), 29–45. Smith v. United States, 431 U.S. 291 (1977). Voyeur Dorm, L.C. v. City of Tampa, 265 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir. 2001). Ward v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 767 (1977).

OPTIMALITY HYPOTHESIS IN EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION As originally proposed by Kenneth Deffenbacher, the optimality hypothesis states that the likelihood of obtaining statistically reliable positive correlations of witness confidence and accuracy varies directly with the degree of optimality of information-processing conditions present for the witness at stimulus encoding,

Optimality Hypothesis in Eyewitness Identification———531

during memory storage (retention interval), and at memory test. The more nearly ideal the processing conditions are for witnesses, the more they should be able to track accurately the adequacy of their memory performance in overtly expressed confidence ratings. The context in which the optimality hypothesis was proposed is discussed next. By the end of the first decade of the modern resurgence of interest in conducting research concerned with the psychology of testimony, several dozen studies had accumulated wherein both witness accuracy and confidence in their identification decisions was measured. The commonsense intuition of laypersons, jurists, and researchers alike was that witness confidence should accurately track witness accuracy. In addition, signal detection theory, perhaps the most widely accepted theory of human judgment, made the same prediction. That is, the expectation was that when the accuracy of an identification decision made by each of a number of witnesses was correlated with a measure of their confidence in their decisions, the correlation coefficient expressing the predictability of accuracy from expressed confidence should be positive and relatively strong. The problem was that the empirical findings in this regard were decidedly mixed. Approximately half these initial studies reported positive correlation coefficients, ranging from +.20 to +.95, and the other half reported either correlation coefficients not statistically different from 0 or reversed (negative) correlations of witness accuracy and certainty. At least on the surface, there would appear to be equal arguments both for and against the prior expectation that witness confidence should track witness accuracy with reasonable fidelity. In an effort to resolve this apparent contradiction of expectation and to account for the very large range of obtained correlation coefficients, a close examination of the studies in question revealed that there was substantial statistical support for the optimality hypothesis. Studies were first classified as having provided either high optimal or low optimal information processing conditions for witnesses. High optimal studies were defined as those wherein overall accuracy was at least 70% and that possessed at least three of the following information-processing conditions: warning of an impending memory test, stress levels low enough to permit adequate monitoring of the environment, ample opportunity to observe the target person, a brief retention interval, high familiarity with the target, similar condition of the target at encoding and memory test,

low similarity of the target to foils (an innocent person in a police lineup) at test, unbiased memory test instructions, and additional consistent information presented during the retention interval. Then, both the number of significant positive accuracy-confidence correlation coefficients and the number of not significant or reversed accuracy-confidence correlations were determined for each category of study, those possessing of high and those possessing low optimal processing conditions. Fully 77% of studies had either high optimal processing conditions and a significant positive accuracy-confidence correlation or low optimal conditions and a not significant or reversed correlation coefficient. This proportion of cases is significantly greater than the proportion (.23) of cases wherein high optimal conditions resulted in not significant or reversed correlation coefficients or low optimal conditions produced significant positive correlations. Further analysis showed that this strong support for the optimality hypothesis was not related to whether the information-processing conditions in a study were of greater or lesser forensic relevance. Since the proposal of the optimality hypothesis, publication of substantially greater numbers of investigations in which accuracy-confidence correlations were computed has occurred, and at least two metaanalyses (assessments of the average effect size, for the accuracy-confidence correlation in this case) have been conducted. As a result, two conclusions may be drawn. First, the average effect size has been estimated to be in the range of +.25 to +.35. That is, only 6% to 12% of the variation in accuracy judgments can be explained by variations in witness confidence. This result can be contrasted with the finding in one study that variations in juror perceptions of witness confidence accounted for as much as 50% of the variance in juror judgments as to witness accuracy. Second, additional empirical support for the optimality hypothesis has been obtained. In one published metaanalysis, clear evidence was found of longer target exposures being associated with a higher accuracyconfidence correlation (+.31) than shorter target face exposures (+.19). Other separate empirical investigations have found moderately strong positive correlations between target face distinctiveness and the size of the accuracy-confidence correlation. Still other studies have obtained markedly higher accuracyconfidence correlations in no-disguise conditions versus disguise conditions and in conditions with lower stress than in conditions with higher witness stress.

532———Outpatient Commitment, Involuntary

Finally, a theoretical analysis has been conducted in which the optimality hypothesis has been derived within the framework provided by signal detection theory. This analysis has resulted in the prediction of the average size of the accuracy-confidence correlation at six different levels of accuracy ranging from zero to very high levels. An example illustrates the utility of this analysis. Within the range of accuracy levels typically obtained in field experiments, a midrange predicted value of the accuracy-confidence correlation coefficient would be +.256, quite close to the estimated population value of +.252 obtained in a published meta-analysis. Kenneth Allan Deffenbacher See also Confidence in Identifications; Confidence in Identifications, Malleability; Expert Psychological Testimony on Eyewitness Identification

Further Readings

Bothwell, R. K., Deffenbacher, K. A., & Brigham, J. C. (1987). Correlation of eyewitness accuracy and confidence: Optimality hypothesis revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 691–695. Deffenbacher, K. A. (1980). Eyewitness accuracy and confidence: Can we infer anything about their relationship? Law and Human Behavior, 4, 243–260. Deffenbacher, K. A. (1996). Updating the scientific validity of three key estimator variables in eyewitness testimony. In D. Herrmann, C. McEvoy, C. Herzog, P. Hertel, & M. K. Johnson (Eds.), Basic and applied memory research: Vol. 1. Theory in context (pp. 421–438). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

OUTPATIENT COMMITMENT, INVOLUNTARY Involuntary outpatient civil commitment is a form of civil commitment in which a court orders an individual to receive treatment and related services in a community setting. Nearly all states in the United States permit outpatient civil commitment, though the manner in which it occurs varies among the states. It is also used in other countries. Whether outpatient commitment should be used has been a source of much debate since the 1970s. While it continues to be controversial, the

courts that have considered it have upheld its legality. Research to date suggests that it may be effective in some circumstances for some patients when combined with long-term treatment, though the reasons for its effectiveness are not known at this time.

Outpatient Civil Commitment Defined Civil commitment is a form of compulsory treatment. Every state has a civil commitment statute that permits the involuntary hospitalization of an individual if certain conditions (generally a mental illness with behavioral consequences, most typically dangerousness to self or others) are found to exist. Many states have broadened the application of involuntary civil commitment statutes to permit individuals to be committed to treatment in outpatient settings. Because outpatient civil commitment, like inpatient civil commitment, involves some deprivation of individual liberty, state statutes must specify the criteria that will be applied before someone can be ordered into outpatient care. There are three general types of outpatient commitment. The first is a form of “conditional release” used in some circumstances when an individual is going to be discharged from inpatient psychiatric care. The individual must agree on discharge to comply with one or more conditions, including the receipt of treatment in the community. A second type of outpatient commitment statute (most common among the states) uses the same criteria for both inpatient and outpatient commitment but permits a judge to order outpatient treatment as an alternative to inpatient treatment if the judge finds that the person meets the criteria for civil commitment. In the third type of outpatient commitment statute, there are separate statutory provisions for outpatient commitment, and the criteria differ from those used for inpatient commitment.

Criteria for Outpatient Commitment While most states use the same criteria for inpatient and outpatient commitment, since the mid-1990s there has been more emphasis on the creation of discrete and separate criteria for outpatient commitment. These statutes, best exemplified by those found in New York and North Carolina, use many or all of the following criteria in defining those individuals who may be involuntarily ordered into outpatient treatment:

Outpatient Commitment, Involuntary———533

• The person is 18 years of age or older. • He or she suffers from a mental illness. • The individual is unlikely to survive safely in the community without supervision. • He or she has a history of lack of adherence to treatment for mental illness. • As a result, within a defined period in the past (usually 36 or 48 months), he or she has been hospitalized or jailed or has engaged in dangerous conduct (including threats). • The individual refuses treatment or lacks the capacity to accept treatment voluntarily. • In light of the person’s history and condition, the person requires treatment to prevent a relapse or deterioration that could result in harm to the person or others.

A primary difference between criteria such as these and more typical involuntary commitment criteria is that these criteria are preventive in nature, permitting intervention in anticipation of the person’s relapse or deterioration. In contrast, most civil commitment statutes permit intervention only after the occurrence of specified behavior, typically defined as being dangerous to either self or others, or an inability to meet basic needs. These “pure” outpatient commitment statutes also typically require a finding by the judge that treatment will be available to the person if the court orders it. The statute may specify the types of treatment that may be ordered as part of an outpatient treatment order. For example, the New York law (which uses the phrase “assisted outpatient treatment” rather than involuntary outpatient civil commitment) states that ordered treatment shall include case management services or assertive community treatment services to provide care coordinate, and may also include any of the following categories of services: medication; periodic blood tests or urinalysis to determine compliance with prescribed medications; individual or group therapy; day or partial day programming activities; educational and vocational training or activities; alcohol or substance abuse treatment and counseling and periodic tests for the presence of alcohol or substance abuse; supervision of living arrangements; and any other services . . . prescribed to treat the person’s mental illness and to assist the person in living and functioning in the community, or to attempt to prevent a relapse or deterioration that may reasonably

be predicted to result in suicide or the need for hospitalization. (N.Y. Mental Hygiene Law § 9.60(a)(1))

The specific definition of services that must and may be included as part of an outpatient treatment order also differs from a typical involuntary commitment statute, which does not provide such specificity.

Consequence of Noncompliance With an Outpatient Treatment Order If the person fails to comply with the treatment order, state law typically permits one of two responses. The person may be brought back to court, and the court may impose new conditions, emphasize the importance of complying with the existing conditions, or hold the person in contempt of court—something that rarely, if ever, happens. Second, the person may be ordered to an inpatient setting for assessment to determine whether the person now meets the criteria for inpatient commitment. If so, the person may be hospitalized under the state’s involuntary commitment provisions. One of the primary reasons for the enactment of outpatient civil commitment provisions is the argument that individuals with mental illnesses who quit taking prescribed medication are the group of people most at risk for deterioration and ultimately behavior that endangers them or others. Outpatient commitment laws typically permit a judge to order the person to take medication as part of the commitment order. However, before a person may be forced to take medication, state laws usually require another court hearing to determine if the person lacks the capacity to make decisions regarding medication. If the person is found to have the capacity (i.e., the legal competency) to make decisions about medication, then the person is usually permitted to continue to refuse medication despite the fact that he or she is under an outpatient treatment order.

The Legality of Outpatient Commitment Statutes Some have criticized outpatient commitment statutes on legal grounds, arguing that they represent an unwarranted and legally suspect extension of the state’s authority to force people to accept treatment against their will. However, courts have uniformly upheld the constitutionality of outpatient commitment statutes and in doing so have provided judicial endorsement of

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the state’s authority to act preventively in certain circumstances. For example, in upholding the constitutionality of New York’s outpatient commitment statute, the New York Court of Appeals observed that the statute forwarded the state’s interest in “warding off the longer periods of hospitalization that, as the Legislature has found, tend to accompany relapse or deterioration” (In the Matter of K.L., 2004, p. 487).

Issues in Implementing Outpatient Commitment The implementation of outpatient commitment statutes varies by state. A number of implementation issues have been reported. First, it appears that regardless of the type of statutory provision a state has, outpatient commitment orders are used most frequently at the point of discharge, as a way of attempting to ensure treatment compliance as the person enters the community. Second, there are a number of practical barriers that sometimes reduce the use of outpatient commitment. These include difficulties in transporting the individual, limits on treatment capacity, and lack of adequate social supports such as housing. Third, perceived difficulties in enforcing outpatient commitment orders may reduce its use in some situations.

The Impact of Outpatient Commitment Statutes There have been two generations of research into the effectiveness of outpatient commitment statutes. The first generation of research generally relied on anecdotal evidence from a particular state or jurisdiction, and while this research often suggested that outpatient commitment was effective, there were significant methodological problems that called the reliability and generalizability of the findings into question. The second generation of research has been more methodologically rigorous and has examined the impact of pure outpatient commitment statutes, principally in New York and North Carolina. The most comprehensive studies have been conducted in North

Carolina. The North Carolina studies relied on random assignment of involuntarily hospitalized individuals meeting the state’s criteria for outpatient commitment to either be released from treatment or undergo outpatient commitment. Patients in the latter group could receive a renewable 180-day treatment extension after the original 90 days of treatment. While outcomes between the two groups did not differ significantly on most measures, patients in the latter group who received comparatively more intensive outpatient commitment over a longer time had fewer hospital admissions, had fewer days in hospital, were less likely to be violent or victimized, and were more likely to comply with outpatient treatment. However, a comparably designed study in New York did not find similar outcomes. While it is not clear from the extant research precisely how outpatient commitment might result in better outcomes for some individuals, the North Carolina studies in particular suggest that outpatient commitment orders must be accompanied by treatment over time to be effective. John Petrila See also Civil Commitment; Patient’s Rights

Further Readings

In the Matter of K.L., 806 N.E.2d 480 (N.Y. 2004). Monahan, J., Swartz, M. S., & Bonnie, R. (2003). Mandated treatment in the community for people with mental disorders. Health Affairs, 22, 28–38. Ridgely, S., Borum, R., & Petrila, J. (2002). The effectiveness of outpatient commitment. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Institute. Swartz, M. S., Swanson, J. W., Hiday, V.A., Wagner, H. R., Burns, B. J., & Borum, R. (2001). A randomized controlled trial of outpatient commitment in North Carolina. Psychiatric Services, 52, 325–329. Swartz, M. S., Swanson, J. W., Kim, M., & Petrila, J. (2006). Use of outpatient commitment or related civil court treatment orders in five U.S. communities. Psychiatric Services, 57, 343–349.

P Parens patriae translates from the Latin as “father of the people” and is the legal principle that allows the state to intercede on behalf of juveniles, those who are mentally ill, and others who are unable to protect themselves. The parens patriae doctrine was first enunciated in English common law and referred to the king as exercising protective functions in his role as “father of the country.” The parens patriae doctrine should not be confused with the in loco parentis doctrine, which is more temporary in nature and not limited to governmental entities. It should also be noted that in the United States parens patriae power is a state government’s exercise of power and not one that can be exercised by the federal government. The doctrine was conceived as a benevolent intercession by the government and addressed the obligations of the government to protect individuals. However, because this doctrine allows the usurpation of the rights of natural parents and legal guardians, as well as individuals deemed incapacitated, it has generated controversy on several fronts with regard to the limits of those powers.

questions arose with regard to the truncation of civil liberties that occurred with incarceration for mental illness and whether or not the state was necessarily acting in a citizen’s best interests. Challenges to civil commitment proceedings revolved around the state’s reliance on the medical model in determining when a mentally ill individual met criteria for incarceration and whether commitment was, in fact, in an individual’s best interests given the conditions and lack of treatment in mental institutions. Issues were also raised as to whether commitment proceedings unreasonably deprived citizens of due process, particularly in situations where the deprivation of rights for the mentally ill was greater than for individuals who were dealt with through the criminal system. Reforms in civil commitment proceedings have considerably narrowed the state’s ability to intercede on behalf of the mentally ill and have replaced the assumption of benevolence with the recognition that the state can only deprive individuals of liberty through due process of law. While the state’s parens patriae power allows the state to make decisions regarding mental health treatment, the extent of intrusion is limited to “reasonable and necessary treatment.”

Civil Commitment

Juvenile Law

Civil commitment proceedings, in which the mentally ill are held in a restrictive setting for treatment, appear to have been the earliest exercise of parens patriae power. Until the 1960s, there were few restrictions on the states’ exercise of paternalistic benevolence in dealing with the mentally ill. At that time, however,

The evolution of juvenile courts is also intimately connected with the parens patriae concept and is another arena in which challenges have generally resulted in a more careful definition of when the state may intercede and how. Originally, the parens patriae doctrine gave the state power to intervene whenever this was

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536———Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI)

viewed as being in the best interests of the child. However, in 1966, in Kent v. United States, there was a recognition that juveniles had the same rights as adults with regard to due process, and the entire juvenile justice system came under scrutiny. In many ways, challenges to the state’s ability to intercede in juvenile matters paralleled the challenges raised with regard to incarceration of the mentally ill: the lack of due process, the lack of consistency in defining which juvenile behaviors required intervention, and the absence of clear indicators that the state’s intercession resulted in appropriate rehabilitative efforts. Ultimately, it became clear that juveniles, as with the mentally ill, were receiving worse treatment under the parens patriae doctrine than would be afforded to them as adults in criminal settings. Reforms resulted in the state having less discretion than had previously been afforded under parens patriae as formal procedures were subsequently implemented in juvenile hearings.

Child Abuse and Neglect Another arena in which the doctrine of parens patriae is fundamental has been in the state’s intercession on behalf of abused and neglected children. This is an area fraught with conflict between the care and protection of children, on the one hand, and constitutional freedoms related to family privacy and parental liberty, on the other. This conflict is particularly evident in cases involving religious tenets of the parents clashing with recommended medical treatment for their children. In general, courts have concluded that religious freedom does not allow parents to risk impaired health or death for their children. In these cases, the state has relied on the parens patriae doctrine to justify intervention on behalf of the children. As with the previously described arenas in which parens patriae is a fundamental legal concept, the concept has been exercised with considerable latitude historically and then limited by reforms more recently. Difficulties in operationally defining abuse and neglect, as well as the state’s inability to prove that its interventions result in a superior outcome for children, have complicated the delicate balance between protecting children and respecting family privacy. This issue has been particularly relevant with regard to the removal of children from the family for placement in the foster care system given the documented flaws in that system. Other areas that have been raised under parens patriae with regard to child abuse and neglect issues

have revolved around child labor and school attendance, with clearer justification for the state’s interest in intervening. Parens patriae has been an important doctrine in delineating a protective role by the government toward vulnerable members of society. Although a setting forth of state’s obligations toward citizens who are incapable of protecting their own interests is an important aspect of governmental functioning, this doctrine also has the potential to justify incursions into fundamental liberties. In each arena in which this doctrine has been prominent, historically there has been a trend toward limiting the broad powers of the state to intervene in favor of achieving an appropriate balance between the exercise of the state’s obligations to its vulnerable citizens and the retention of fundamental freedoms. Marsha Anne Hedrick See also Child Maltreatment; Civil Commitment; Juvenile Offenders; Mental Health Law

Further Readings

Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966). Koocher, G. P., & Keith-Spiegel, P. C. (1990). Children, ethics, and the law. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Melton, G. B., Petrila, J., Poythress, N. G., & Slobogin, C. (1987). Psychological evaluations for the courts. New York: Guilford Press.

PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP INVENTORY (PCRI) The Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI) is a 78-item self-report instrument designed to measure mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of their relationship with an individual child and their attitudes about being parents. Responses are made on a 4-point Likert scale, with high scores indicating parenting behaviors that could advantageously contribute to this relationship and low scores suggesting difficulties. Five scales assess interpersonal dimensions of the individual parent-child dyad. These include Satisfaction with Parenting (SAT), Involvement (INV), Communication (COM), Limit Setting (LIM), and Autonomy (AUT).

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The Parental Support (SUP) and Role Orientation (ROL) scales measure parental characteristics that may influence interactions with a child. Each of these scales yields a separate score. Evaluation of the validity of parents’ responses is facilitated by the inclusion of a Social Desirability scale (SOC) and 10 correlated items for examining the consistency of their responses in the inventory.

Description and Development The PCRI was developed, for individual or group administration, to evaluate the quality of parent-child relationships in both applied and research settings. Construction of the scales combined experts’ ratings, empirical tests, and subjective critiques by parents and professionals to identify items for inclusion in the measure. The final version of the PCRI was based on standardization data collected from a predominately White sample of 668 mothers and 471 fathers whose children were between the ages of 3 and 15. In most cases, responses were collected from both parents in a family regarding their dyadic relationship with the same child. These normative data were used to develop separate tables for the interpretation of mothers’ and fathers’ responses that potentially reflect gender differences in parenting. Raw scores can be transformed to percentiles and T scores.

Reliability In the test manual, Anthony Gerard reports alphas (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient) for the seven scales ranging from .71 (SUP) to .87 (LIM). Test-retest reliability after 1 week ranges from .68 (COM) to .93 (LIM) and after 5 months from .44 (AUT) to .71 (SUP and ROL).

Validity Content validity of the PCRI is substantiated by how well the scale items represent parents’ attitudes and values based on parenting theory, comparison with the extant literature, and experts’ ratings of the items. An iterative process resulted in statistical evidence that the PCRI’s scales, and the items included therein, characterize well-established domains of the parent-child relationship. During measure development, construct validity was examined by the assessment of internal consistency and item-scale correlations. Intercorrelations between

the scales are attributed to an expected correspondence between particular domains. For example, parents who report that they participate in activities with their children are more likely to respond that they have open and effective communications with their children as well. However, concerns have been raised regarding overlapping constructs that contribute to redundancy among the scales. Evidence of predictive and criterion-related validity is presented in the PCRI manual. Responses from couples involved in divorce litigation and custody mediation revealed that these parents were more likely to report difficulties in their relationship with their children than did the normative sample. Likewise, adolescent mothers who reported lower satisfaction with their parenting role were more likely to discipline by means of scolding and physical punishment. Recently, cross-informant convergence was reported for mothers’ and fathers’ independent self-appraisals of family unity with their own responses on the PCRI. However, only the mothers’ self-assessments of family discord corresponded systematically with the PCRI. A similar pattern was found between adolescents’ and mothers’ appraisals of family unity and discord. The lack of correspondence between mothers’ and fathers’ responses, as well as between those of fathers and adolescents, is consistent with the literature regarding differences in the relationships mothers and fathers have with their children. Hence, the PCRI may not accomplish convergent validity for both mothers and fathers.

Future Research Emerging research has corroborated the internal consistency, stability, and validity of the PCRI. Additional research would enhance the measure’s external validity. First, families from diverse backgrounds followed longitudinally would contribute to norms for agerelated changes in the parent-child relationship as children mature. These data could also contribute to the examination of whether the lower internal consistency reported for the AUT scale is related to a child’s age and parental adjustments in nurturing age-appropriate independence. Additionally, norms are not available for differing ethnic or cultural groups. Certain parenting behaviors (i.e., autonomy, discipline, communication) may vary between cultural groups in correspondence to family hierarchies and expectations placed on family members. Given the diversity within

538———Parenting Satisfaction Scale (PSS)

the United States, alternative family configurations— and an extension of the international use of the PCRI— and representative norms are especially needed for clinical and legal arenas. Second, research that extends cross-informant convergence is needed to describe the bidirectionality of parent-child relationships and the unique parenting roles of mothers and fathers. The contributing influence includes factors such as the following: (a) Who fulfills the primary caretaking role? (b) What is the frequency of time together? (e) Is there ease of communication? (d) Is there mutual knowledge of each other? (f) Do personal as well as cultural or societal expectations influence parent-child relationships in gender-based ways? What needs to be determined is whether mothers’ and fathers’ self-reports of their dyadic relationships with their children can have convergent validity. Jacqueline K. Coffman See also Child Custody Evaluations; Children’s Testimony; Divorce and Child Custody; Forensic Assessment; Guardianship; Parenting Satisfaction Scale (PSS); Uniform Child Custody Evaluation System (UCCES)

Further Readings

Coffman, J. K., Guerin, D. W., & Gottfried, A. W. (2006). Reliability and validity of the Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI): Evidence from a longitudinal cross-informant investigation. Psychological Assessment, 18, 209–214. Gerard, A. B. (1994). Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI): Manual. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services. Gottfried, A. W., Bathurst, K., & Gottfried, A. E. (2003). What judicial officers and attorneys should know about psychological testing in child custody matters. Family Law News: Official Publication of the State Bar of California Family Law Section, 26, 9–16.

PARENTING SATISFACTION SCALE (PSS) Child rearing has always been one of life’s major challenges and potential sources of self-fulfillment. In today’s world, divorce and unwed parenthood often alter parenting time and commitment for both parents, and attractive occupational options or excessive job

requirements may affect motivation, time, or energy available for parenting. Connections between parental attitudes and child-rearing behaviors have previously been documented, but standardized instruments to measure parenting satisfaction are not available. The Parenting Satisfaction Scale (PSS) was constructed to meet this need for reliable assessment of an important family variable at a time of a major family change. Scores derived from this 45-item scale enable mental health and judicial personnel to define, compare, and communicate levels of parent satisfaction in three domains: satisfaction with spouse or other parent’s child-rearing performance, satisfaction with the responding parent’s relationship with the child, and satisfaction with the responding parent’s own parenting performance.

Scale Development Initially, scale items were generated from an openended questionnaire administered to a heterogeneous sample of approximately 100 adults ranging in age from 21 to 54 years. A total of 259 items were generated from this procedure. Thirty-five members from the original group then reviewed the items for clarity and critical relevance to the parenting role, and a panel of three experts from the field of child and family development assessed the items’ face validity. A pool of 211 items remained after these refining procedures. A volunteer pilot sample of 78 mothers and 52 fathers was then selected from local community groups. This sample ranged in age from 21 to 71 years, and 91% were Caucasian. Educational levels ranged from less than high school to postdoctoral study, and the ages of children in their families ranged from 6 weeks to 38 years. The PSS responses from the pilot sample were analyzed using principal components factor analysis and equimax rotation, yielding five factors with the 10 highest-loading items used to construct each scale. These pilot phase factors were examined for criterion validity, using four related scales: the Dyadic Adjustment Scale developed by Spanier; two Marital and Life Satisfaction Scales developed by Lee; and the Life Satisfaction Index developed by Neugarten, Havighurst, and Tobin. The PSS total score related significantly to each of the criterion scales, with correlations ranging from .46 to .56. The internal consistency of this pilot version was examined with Cronbach’s alpha, and reliabilities ranged from .76 to .93 for the five individual scales and the total score.

Parenting Satisfaction Scale (PSS)———539

Standardization Time 1

The final phase of PSS development involved national standardization and validity analyses. In a nationwide “impact of divorce” study by the National Association of School Psychologists, 144 psychologists from 38 states were selected in a stratified random sample based on regional population density. The psychologists randomly selected 699 children from the first, third, and fifth grades to represent samples of divorcedfamily and intact-family children. From the total sample of 699 families, 341 married and 303 divorced parents completed the scale by the project deadline date. The sample was composed primarily of mothers (89%), Caucasians (88%), and public school parents (97%). The sample was evenly balanced by child’s gender, grade in school, and school demographic area. Factor analyses of these data yielded three factors with eigenvalues greater than one. Separate analyses were done for divorced and intact families, and the factors were found to be equivalent, with congruence coefficients at .93 or greater. The first factor was labeled Satisfaction with Spouse/Ex-Spouse Parenting Performance, the second factor was labeled Satisfaction with Parent-Child Relationship, and the third factor was labeled Satisfaction with Parenting Performance. Internal reliabilities for the three factors were r = .96, r = .86, and r = .82, respectively. These three factors of 15 items each made up the final scale. Time 2

Two years later, data were gathered on a followup subsample of 137 subjects. Chi-square analyses on demographic variables verified that this sample was representative of the original study group. Internal reliabilities for follow-up sample PSS scores were calculated and found again to be high (r is equal to .95, .89, and .82 for the three scales, respectively). Testretest reliability was moderate across this 2-year span (r is equal to .81, .59, and .64, respectively, for the three factors).

Validity The extensive battery of instruments used in the nationwide study and the assessment of subjects at two points in time enabled an unusual number of validity comparisons. At Time 1, PSS scales showed consistently

significant relationships with children’s social and academic performance; family health ratings; children’s ratings of parent-child relationships; and parental marital, vocational, and life satisfaction scores. Time 1 PSS scores also significantly predicted a number of important child and parental variables 2 years later. For example, with regard to PSS 1 (Satisfaction with Spouse/ Ex-Spouse Support), teachers rated the children of satisfied parents as less withdrawn, happier, working hard, having fewer behavior problems, and receiving higher grades in several school subjects. Time 2 children’s health status and teacher ratings of social competence were predicted across the 2-year time interval by all three PSS scales. Comparing families of high and low parenting satisfaction yielded additional validity information. Using only subjects falling into the top or bottom one third of the PSS distribution at Time 1, consistently significant differences in criterion scores favoring the highly satisfied parents were noted. PSS total scores differed significantly on seven of the eight selected criteria, including total teacher ratings of classroom behavior for two rating scales, academic achievement test scores, parents’ ratings of children’s behavior problems, parents’ life and marital satisfaction scale scores, and children’s interview responses about the quality of their relationships with their parents. In other studies, the PSS demonstrated additional substantial evidence of validity. For example, a study of stress in the lives of college-educated women used PSS 2 and PSS 3 to assess satisfaction with the parentchild relationship and parenting performance. For the 630 women respondents, these PSS scales were strongly related to a broad array of other life measures, including total support from friends, relatives, and the community; marital satisfaction; life satisfaction; and physical health. Two additional studies conducted in urban schools with high-risk special education populations and one done in a child guidance center with behavioral problem children showed strong positive relationships between child adjustment variables and PSS scores. PSS assessment of 1,710 Chinese parents was done as part of a cross-cultural study conducted in the People’s Republic of China. Correlations with child variables were consistently in the expected direction. Better PSS scores related to better academic and social adjustment of children. This crosscultural validity demonstration further strengthened confidence in the PSS instrument, illustrating that

540———Parenting Stress Index (PSI)

the item content and the three scales have broad applicability. The PSS has been refined and validated through large-scale studies on both national and international populations. This standardized instrument can be useful in a variety of situations where individual emotional health is assessed or when parenting or coparenting relationships are the subject of study. For example, court personnel may find it useful when examining the quality of parent-child interactions prior to custody determination or following parenting education interventions. School psychologists may find PSS information useful in understanding the etiology of children’s school problems. John Louis Guidubaldi See also Divorce and Child Custody; Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI); Parenting Stress Index (PSI) Further Readings

Guidubaldi, J., & Cleminshaw, H. K. (1994). Manual for the Parenting Satisfaction Scale. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation. Guidubaldi, J., & Cleminshaw, H. K. (1985). The development of the Cleminshaw-Guidubaldi Parent Satisfaction Scale. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 14, 293–298. Guidubaldi, J., Perry, J., & Cleminshaw, H. K. (1984). The legacy of parental divorce. In B. B. Lahey & A. E. Kazdin (Eds.), Advances in clinical child psychology (Vol. 7, pp. 109–147). New York: Plenum Press.

PARENTING STRESS INDEX (PSI) The Parenting Stress Index (PSI), developed by Richard Abidin in 1976, is a screening and diagnostic assessment tool commonly used to measure the magnitude of stress in the parent-child system. Abidin describes several potential uses of the PSI including screening for the early identification of parenting and family characteristics that fail to produce normal development and functioning in children, identifying children with behavioral and emotional problems, and screening for parents who are at risk for dysfunctional parenting. Abidin has also suggested that the PSI would be useful as a measure of intervention effectiveness and in clinical research. In recent years, the PSI has been used frequently in research investigating child maltreatment and its sequelae.

Description and Development The development of the PSI has been influenced by changes in theoretical models specifying the determinants of dysfunctional parenting. Early formulations of the model emphasized “stress” as the central construct leading to dysfunctional parenting. By 1982, a more complex model had emerged. Research revealed that stress and dysfunctional parenting were not related in linear fashion. Instead, child characteristics, parent characteristics, family contact, and life stressors all appeared to contribute to the functioning of the parent-child system. The parenting stress construct had become more complex and multifaceted. In recent years, research has revealed that stress in the parenting system, especially within the first 3 years of life, is critical to the child’s emotional/ behavioral development and the parent-child relationship. Moreover, parenting stressors are additive and include objective events such as the death of a family member, as well as more subjective experiences of parental social isolation and concerns about a child’s potential to achieve developmental milestones. In 1995, the PSI was revised to improve scoring ease and to introduce a short form of the measure. The standard PSI is a 120-item self-report inventory with an optional 19-item Life Stress Scale. There are six Child Domain subscales (Distractibility/Hyperactivity, Adaptability, Reinforces Parent, Demandingness, Mood, and Acceptability) and seven Parent Domain subscales (Competence, Isolation, Attachment, Health, Role Restriction, Depression, and Spouse). Subscale scores are combined to generate the Parent Domain, Child Domain, and Total Stress factors. Parents of children as young as 1 month and as old as 12 years may complete the measure.

Administration and Scoring The PSI can be administered and scored by individuals without professional training, but interpretation of the measure should involve an individual with graduatelevel training in tests and measurement. Most parents complete the questionnaire in about 20 minutes, though no time limit is given. Respondents are asked to read the instructions on the first page of the item booklet and then respond to each item by circling SA (strongly agree), A (agree), NS (not sure), D (disagree), or SD (strongly disagree) on the answer sheet. The respondent’s answers are recorded on the scoring sheet via carbon transfer (if the EZ score form is

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used). The PSI includes a validity scale (Defensive Responding), which should be calculated first. Individuals with a Defensive Responding score of 24 or less are likely to be underreporting stress, and caution should be exercised when interpreting such test protocols. Subscale scores are calculated by summing each of the responses that correspond with the subscale. The subscale scores and the Life Stress scale score (if used) are then transferred from the score sheet to the profile form. The Child Domain subscale and the Parent Domain factor scores are calculated by summing the appropriate subscales within each domain. To obtain the Total Stress score, users sum the Child Domain score and the Parent Domain score. Percentile scores corresponding to each of the subscale raw scores are provided on the profile page. Percentile scores are derived from the frequency distribution of the normative sample. Subscale scores may be interpreted individually; however, scores are best considered in relation to each other. The Total Stress score can be used to gauge whether professional intervention might be warranted. Total Stress raw scores greater than 260 suggest a need for referral to an appropriate professional for consultation.

Standardization Normative data were collected from 2,633 mothers of children ranging from 1 month to 12 years. Normative data were also collected from 200 fathers with children ranging in age from 6 months to 6 years. The PSI’s reading difficulty level is estimated at the fifth grade.

Reliability and Validity Internal consistency (reliability) has been estimated at .70 to .83 for the subscales comprising the Child Domain and .70 to .84 for the Parent Domain subscales. Broad domain and Total Stress reliability coefficients are greater than .90. Test-retest reliability coefficients (ranging from 3 weeks to 1 year after initial administration) were relatively stable across four studies: .55 to .82 for the Child Domain, .69 to .91 for the Parent Domain, and .65 to .96 for Total Stress. Several studies support the construct and predictive validity of the PSI. The PSI has been used to identify specific stressors for mothers of children with developmental delays, behavioral disorders, and chronic illness. Validation studies have been conducted in Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Latin American Hispanic, and French Canadian populations. Collectively, these

studies suggested that the PSI’s psychometric characteristics are stable and robust across cultural and socioeconomic boundaries.

Parenting Stress Index– Short Form (PSI–SF) The Parenting Stress Index–Short Form (PSI–SF) was derived from the PSI using factor-analytic procedures at the request of clinicians and researchers who wanted a valid measure of stress in the parent-child system that could be administered in less than 10 minutes. At 36 items, this parent self-report inventory allows rapid screening of parenting stress that derives from parenting a difficult child, problems in the parent-child relationship, and stress that derives from personal factors directly related to parenting. Total Stress and Defensive Responding indicators are also obtained. Research to date has suggested that the PSI–SF performs similarly to the full-length PSI. The PSI manual reports correlations of .87 to .94 between the major PSI and PSI–SF domains noted above. Jennifer L. Gagné and David Reitman See also Divorce and Child Custody; Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI); Parenting Satisfaction Scale (PSS)

Further Readings

Abidin, R. R. (1992). The determinants of parenting behavior. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 21, 407–412. Abidin, R. R. (1995). Parenting stress index (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Reitman, D., Currier, R. O., & Stickle, T. R. (2002). A critical evaluation of the Parenting Stress Index–Short Form (PSI–SF) in a Head Start program. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 31(3), 384–392.

PAROLE DECISIONS Parole decisions have important implications. For prisoners, such decisions mean early release or define the conditions of release. For the public, prisoner reentry raises concerns about safety and community integration. Despite waning enthusiasm for rehabilitation in some countries, by using advances in risk

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assessment and by partnering with correctional agencies, parole is ideally situated to contribute to offender rehabilitation while also addressing ongoing concerns by the public and politicians regarding the costs of corrections and risk to public safety. Notwithstanding changes in legislation over the past three decades, parole remains an integral part of the criminal justice system. At both international and domestic levels, parole continues to be relied on to ensure the timely and safe transition of offenders from the confines of incarceration to community supervision. In this manner, it acts as a tollbooth for offenders as they pass from prison back to the community. Parole decision makers, informed by law and policy and on a case-by-case basis, determine the amount of toll required. Despite variations across countries and jurisdictions, their decision is typically informed by guidelines regarding eligibility, some element of desert or judgment that the prisoner has served sufficient time according to the seriousness of his or her crime(s), and a judgment that community safety would not be jeopardized by the offender’s release.

Definition Variability in the use of the term parole has been an obstacle in conducting a review of parole research and practice. In this entry, parole refers to discretionary or conditional release. The former reflects release prior to the expiration of the sentence, whereas the latter reflects the designation of conditions that must be met by the offender when he or she is granted mandatory parole. Typically, if the conditions are not met, the offender may be returned for a further period of incarceration. Some jurisdictions impose guidelines regarding limits to eligibility for parole release following breaches in the community on an earlier release.

Context Despite the waning interest in parole due to a gradual shift in public policy toward a focus on punitive solutions to crime, a 2001 review of U.S. paroling jurisdictions conducted by the Association of Paroling Authorities International indicates that parole boards with legislative discretionary release authority have survived in approximately two thirds (34) of state and federal correctional jurisdictions. Similarly, in Canada, all provinces and the federal correctional system have parole boards, although the federal board has jurisdiction for some provincial

offenders. Indeed, Canada has served as a model for numerous countries in terms of parole policy and training (e.g., Australia, Bermuda, Great Britain, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Russia). Several examples will serve to highlight the scope of parole and its potential impact on corrections and communities. In 2003, the U.S. Parole Commission made 10,771 decisions regarding release or revocation. In the fiscal year 2004 to 2005, the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole conducted 9,588 hearings regarding parole violations and 19,624 panels/ interviews for parole. In 2005, the Massachusetts Parole Board conducted approximately 10,000 faceto-face hearings and rendered decisions on approximately 20,000 cases. It is difficult to determine the exact number of parole decisions made annually, but a reasonable extrapolation from these data suggests that 400,000 would not be inflated. Moreover, since offenders are released on both parole and expiration of sentence, it is not surprising that close to 600,000 offenders are released and return to communities across the United States each year. In Canada, the numbers are smaller but equally compelling. In 2005, the National Parole Board made an estimated 22,295 decisions. Also, this board made more than 16,711 contacts with victims regarding release decisions and reviewed 22,900 pardon requests. Although these data do not control for population rates, parole decisions clearly affect the lives of a significant number of offenders, their families, and the community at large. In the United States, from 1980 to 2003, the proportion of discretionary parole releases from state prisons markedly diminished from about 55% to about 22%. During the same time period, mandatory parole releases (conditions imposed) increased from about 18% to about 36%, whereas expiration of sentence releases only modestly increased from 14% to 19%. These changes are partly due to statutory changes eliminating parole release and partly due to increased reluctance on the part of boards of parole to release offenders prior to expiration of sentence. This trend in parole decision making situates potential contributions of parole decision research and can perhaps best be understood through the lens of public policy, particularly in North America. Prior to 1970, the belief was that the criminal justice system should be used to rehabilitate offenders; this was reflected in indeterminate sentencing and discretionary release practices. However, doubts

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regarding evidence of effective rehabilitation programs emerged, paralleling an increase in interest in retribution as a means of addressing criminal justice concerns. This just-deserts model focused on determinancy and consistency in sentencing, clearly at odds with the earlier discretionary model. This justice model also advocated using incarceration sparingly. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, theories of deterrence came to the fore and with them an appetite for harsher punishments. This quickly led to increased incarceration rates and, subsequently, increased costs of prisons. Public policy in this era generally disputed evidence regarding interventions to reduce re-offending and ignored parole as a viable strategy to address increased prison populations. Only since the late 1990s has an abundance of evidence regarding risk assessment and correctional programming been accumulated and more widely disseminated to criminal justice officials, suggesting that a new model for parole might be profitably integrated into the criminal justice system. Nonetheless, these data are still often hotly debated on ideological grounds. Encouragingly, in 2005, the U.S. Congress introduced legislation to allocate $300 million over 4 years in an effort to more successfully transition prisoners to the community. These reentry initiatives highlight how parole might be well situated to complement existing sentencing and correctional strategies, thereby enhancing public safety through attention to evidence-based practice. Importantly, government publications describing parole policy, parole board member training, and contemporary roles of parole abound. Surprisingly, few of these publications overtly address the issue of parole decision making as a process, although the training handbook referenced above illustrates several different methods employed. Moreover, with the notable exception of the flurry of research on standardized risk assessment instruments in the 1970s and 1980s, academia has generally ignored parole decision making as a research topic. Considering parole research in terms of content (risk assessment, decision frameworks), process (decision strategies), and outcome (recidivism, effective correctional programs) highlights areas warranting further systematic investigation.

Content Initially, in the mid-1970s, given the reliance on clinical opinion, researchers sought to improve accuracy through the development of statistical instruments that

distinguished between successful releases and parole failures. Many parole boards continue to use such instruments to distinguish risk levels among prisoners, and risk is routinely considered in parole decision trees and matrices. Such instruments have consistently been found to be more predictive of outcome than subjective professional judgments. Moreover, they assist in diminishing the frequency with which offenders who are poor parole risks are inappropriately released, increasing the speed with which offenders who are good parole risks are released, and diminishing unnecessary incarceration expenditures. For mandated parole, assessment of risk appears to be used to inform the type and number of conditions imposed by the board. Risk assessment tools, however, expressly eliminate from consideration any factors unique to the offender or to his or her context. As such, it is important that they not be used without consideration of additional information. Indeed, empirical research demonstrates that estimates of risk derived from statistical tools are not the only factors considered by decision makers in reaching release decisions. For example, offenders’ criminal and institutional history and previous release recommendations have been found to affect parole decisions. Interestingly, the use of interviews appears not to improve accuracy in predicting parole success. In Canada, a framework to guide parole decision makers in integrating statistical and additional information has been developed. Using a statistical risk assessment instrument as its anchor, the framework outlines specific additional areas for consideration (criminal history, risk management, disinhibitors, case-specific factors, institutional adjustment, offender change, and release plan). Preliminary results demonstrate that the use of this framework leads to reductions in decision errors and high rates of predictive accuracy regarding parole outcome. Moreover, feedback suggests that the framework assists in the provision of a decision rationale and is useful in the training of new parole board members.

Process Parole release obviously involves making judgments; hence, discretion is required. Research, however, is required to demonstrate that parole decisions are consistent and discriminating—that is, board members would arrive at similar decisions for the same case, and

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they would distinguish between cases representing good and poor parole risks. Importantly, this distinction should also lead to demonstrations of parole decisions’ validity through follow-up research. To date, two structured approaches for parole decision making have been described in the literature. The first is a matrix or grid method, as seen in Maryland, which integrates severity of crime (arson, manslaughter, murder, rape, robbery crimes vs. assault, burglary crimes) and risk (scored information on prior criminal history, age at time of current offense, time crime free, prior escapes or parole violations, substance use) in establishing a range of time to be served corresponding to each cell of a matrix. The second is a sequential or decision tree method, as seen in Pennsylvania. Through the assignment of a rating for type of offense, risk/need assessment, institutional programming, and institutional behavior, a cumulative score helps determine whether the offender is likely or unlikely to be a good parole risk. The sequential method typically incorporates more factors into the process than the matrix. Both approaches are intended to provide structure to parole decision making, but empirical evidence describing and validating the mechanisms underlying these methods is almost absent. Nonetheless, transparency of the decision process should yield less capricious parole decisions.

Outcome Ultimately, parole boards are held accountable for parole violations, yet this is an imprecise dependent measure of parole decision making. Dynamic risk prediction suggests that proximal factors are important in risk assessment and its management. Hence, if a decision is made to parole a prisoner and 6 months later, owing to deterioration while in the community (e.g., reinvolvement with drugs, loss of job, loss of stable accommodation), the parolee is returned to prison, does this mean that the original decision to grant parole was flawed? In part, it would seem desirable to have a standard of practice that defines a quality decision model against which decisions can be compared. Congruence with this standard of practice may be a more suitable criterion for evaluating parole decision making than outcome. Encouragingly, from a reentry perspective, discretionary parole release appears to be more successful than mandatory release. The latter study controlled for offense type, prior record, age, ethnicity, education, and gender,

finding that those released from prison via discretionary parole were more than twice as likely as those on a mandatory release to successfully complete their parole period. Given the numbers of parole decisions made, as well as the consequences of inaccurate decisions, parole would appear to be an area for optimism. Indeed, parole can serve as an important motivation for prisoners to engage in programs and adhere to supervision conditions. Most important, even modest reductions in decision errors will yield significant gains—individual, social, and financial. Ralph C. Serin and Renée Gobeil See also Bail-Setting Decisions; Community Corrections; Conditional Release Programs; Homicide, Psychology of; Probation Decisions; Psychopathy; Risk Assessment Approaches; Sex Offender Treatment; Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

Burke, P. (2003). A handbook for new parole board members. Retrieved from http://www.apaintl.org Burke, P., & Tonry, M. (2006). Successful transition and reentry for safer communities: A call to action for parole. Silver Spring, MD: Center for Effective Public Policy. Serin, R. C., & Gobeil, R. (n.d.). Situating parole decision making research in an era of pessimism. Manuscript submitted for publication.

PATIENT’S RIGHTS Patients who are subjected to involuntary hospitalization in a psychiatric facility or who accept voluntary admission retain certain rights within the institution. Patients hospitalized because of mental illness do not shed their rights at the hospital door. Although they may not leave the hospital, they retain their rights to the fullest extent consistent with their status as mental patients. The Constitution protects the right of patients to communicate with others outside the hospital, to consult with counsel, to petition the courts, to practice their religion, to have reasonably safe conditions of confinement, to be free of unreasonable seclusion and restraint, to receive adequate treatment, to refuse certain treatments, and to receive a hearing if any of these rights are sought to be curtailed or if their

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commitment is extended. Modern civil commitment statutes also guarantee these rights as a matter of state law and afford additional rights to patients, including the right to convert their status from involuntary to voluntary admission, to the confidentiality of their clinical records, and to have access to their records.

Right to Treatment Many state mental hospitals suffer from chronic underfunding that may undermine their ability to deliver effective care and treatment, the very function for which they exist. Although psychotropic medication has become the treatment of choice for the major mental illnesses, other forms of treatment are needed to prepare patients for discharge and the resumption of life within the community with a high level of functioning. These include psychotherapy and other verbal approaches, behavioral therapy, occupational therapy, and social skills training. Psychotropic drugs should be used in conjunction with these other forms of treatment, not as an exclusive therapeutic intervention. Inadequate staffing and funding at many mental institutions, however, sometimes prevents this from occurring. Can patients assert a right to more treatment than the hospital is delivering? Such a right to treatment is inherent in the fairness principles embodied in notions of due process and is supported by the often vaguely worded statutory right to treatment that state law typically protects. Due process requires a reasonable relationship between the nature and duration of commitment and its purposes. The purposes of commitment are to protect the best interests of patients who are incompetent to make hospitalization and treatment decisions for themselves or to protect the community from the patient’s potential dangerousness. Although confinement alone might seem to satisfy this latter purpose, when those with mental illness who are predicted to be dangerous are confined in a mental hospital rather than a prison or a preventive detention facility, the rationale for hospitalization would seem to be the promise of treatment for mental illness designed to reduce the risk of dangerousness. Otherwise, the deprivations and stigma associated with hospitalization would be unnecessary and hence arbitrary, in violation of due process. If treatment can reduce the patient’s dangerousness, it may reduce or eliminate the need for further hospitalization, thereby making hospitalization without the provision of such treatment an unnecessary and arbitrary deprivation of liberty. When commitment

is justified on parens patriae grounds, the asserted justification is that hospitalization will provide treatment that is necessary to ameliorate the patient’s condition that he or she would not choose for himself or herself as a result of his or her incompetency. If the hospital fails to provide adequate treatment tailored to the patient’s needs, it would constitute an arbitrary deprivation of liberty in violation of due process. Several lower federal courts have recognized that patients involuntarily committed have a legally enforceable right to adequate treatment grounded in due process and that hospitals may be mandated to provide needed treatment and services. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has not gone this far. The Court has recognized that when hospitals fail to provide adequate treatment, it results in an unjustified infringement on liberty for patients who can survive safely in the community. In a case involving an institution for those with mental retardation, the Court recognized that residents have a due process right to minimally adequate facilities, reasonable habilitation and training, and freedom from undue restraint. Whatever the basis of their hospitalization, depriving patients of the treatment needed to restore them to a degree of functioning that will allow return to community life consistent with their safety and that of the public would render hospitalization an unjustified deprivation of liberty. It also could exacerbate their mental illness in ways that require lengthier hospitalization than otherwise would be needed. Without the provision of needed treatment that could ameliorate suffering and restore functioning, detention in a hospital, with all its deprivations and stigmatization, would seem unnecessary, purposeless, and arbitrary. The massive curtailment of liberty that psychiatric hospitalization imposes can only be justified if such hospitalization is beneficial, and not harmful, to the mental health of those subjected to it. Hospitalization without adequate treatment, therefore, violates the essentials of due process.

Right to Refuse Treatment Although treatment is an essential purpose of hospitalization, certain treatments delivered in the hospital, notably psychotropic medication and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), are intrusive and impose direct effects and side effects that many patients find highly unpleasant and debilitating. Can patients refuse these

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interventions? Courts and legislatures have accorded patients a qualified right to do so, imposing limitations on the involuntary administration of these treatments. Psychotropic medication and ECT intrude powerfully and directly into mental processes, bodily integrity, and individual autonomy and, therefore, should be justified only on a showing of compelling necessity. To be imposed involuntarily, they must be medically appropriate and the least intrusive means of accomplishing one or more compelling governmental interests. This standard would be satisfied if treatment were necessary to protect other patients or hospital staff from the patient’s dangerousness, but only if less intrusive alternatives, such as seclusion and restraint, would not achieve this purpose. When the state’s parens patriae power to protect those whose mental illness renders them incompetent to protect themselves serves as the justification for their hospitalization, this standard also may be satisfied. Many patients with severe mental illness, however, are competent to make treatment decisions. Unless they have been determined to be incompetent to do so, they should participate in treatment decisions and their informed consent should be required. When patients seek to refuse unwanted treatment within the hospital, procedural due process will require a hearing to determine whether the justifications for imposing treatment involuntarily are satisfied.

Communication and Visitation Rights State statutes typically protect a patient’s right to communicate with others. These statutes effectuate the patient’s First Amendment right to communicate with those outside the institution. The institution may place reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on communication and visitation, but it should not be unduly restricted. Patients should enjoy a broad right to freely communicate with and receive visitation from counsel, judges, the press, and friends and relatives. Free and open communication between patients and the outside world serves as important First Amendment interests, including the deterrence and exposure of institutional abuse. Moreover, free expression has considerable therapeutic value. By continuing the patient’s ties to family and friends, it also will facilitate the patient’s reentry into the community and the successful resumption of community life.

Right to Be Free of Unreasonable Seclusion and Restraint Physical restraint and seclusion are standard measures used by hospitals to protect the patient and other patients and staff within the institution from a patient who is dangerous to self or others. Psychotropic medication also sometimes is used for this purpose. All these constitute an additional deprivation of liberty protected by the due process clause, and as a result, they may not be used arbitrarily and must be justified. They should be limited to emergency situations when other measures have failed to prevent serious and imminent harm. Moreover, as clinical tools, these techniques must be medically appropriate for the patient and should not be used as punishment, for the convenience of staff, or to ease hospital administration. State civil commitment statutes typically contain protections against unreasonable or arbitrary use of these techniques, and regulations of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, applicable to all state and local facilities that accept federal funding, limit their use to emergency situations needed to ensure the patient’s physical safety when less restrictive interventions have been determined to be ineffective. Because all these techniques involve serious intrusions on liberty, the least restrictive alternative principle of constitutional adjudication applies. Under this principle, all feasible alternatives to these intrusive techniques should first be attempted. Hospital staff should receive training in these alternative methods of containing the risk of violence and should be required to document in the patient’s record the various approaches attempted. When other approaches have not succeeded and violence appears imminent, then seclusion, restraint, or medication may be considered, but the patient should be given the opportunity to choose the alternative he or she finds less intrusive and more acceptable. A good way to obtain patient preferences in this regard is through the use of advance directive instruments. Because these techniques infringe on liberty, they also trigger procedural due process requirements. When time permits, patients should be given notice and at least an informal hearing concerning the need for these measures. When an emergency requires immediate action, however, alternative administrative safeguards should be used in lieu of a hearing, including detailed entries in the patient’s chart, authorization by medical staff, and administrative review by a

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physician or hospital administrator. Standing orders for these techniques are inappropriate; they should be applied only on an as-needed basis when less restrictive alternative possibilities have proven unsuccessful. The treating physician should be consulted as soon as practicable if such an order is issued by another staff member; the physician should review the medical necessity of such an approach within 1 hour of its imposition; and the duration of the use of these approaches should be sharply limited. Department of Health and Human Services regulations impose these and additional restrictions on the use of seclusion and restraint.

Therapeutic Jurisprudence Perspectives on a Patient’s Rights Recognition that patients have various rights within the institution, including, for example, the right to refuse treatment, gives the patient a choice of whether to exercise the right in question or to refrain from doing so. A patient possessing the right to refuse treatment may decline to exercise it and instead to accept treatment. If so, this choice in favor of treatment has psychological value. It constitutes goal setting and engages positive expectancies that can become selffulfilling prophecies that set in motion psychological forces that help to bring about goal achievement. Choice provides a measure of intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation, an important ingredient in goal achievement. Coerced treatment, in contrast, can encourage resentment, anger, and oppositional behavior. According patients the right to refuse treatment thus can have important therapeutic value. Therapeutic jurisprudence considerations also support the protection of other rights of patients within the institution. The protection of such rights constitutes an important measure of respect for patients’ dignity and personhood. When these basic rights are not respected, patients will feel demoralized and dehumanized and will likely experience a diminished sense of self-efficacy. Recognizing that patients within the institution continue to have rights that they can exercise allows patients to retain an important measure of self-determination and to exercise a degree of autonomous decision making that itself is healthy and can help facilitate their recovery. Denying patients these rights or failing to take their rights seriously can have the effect of depriving them of these opportunities for self-determination, impair their

functioning, diminish motivation, and produce feelings of depression and in some cases a form of institutional dependency. Bruce J. Winick See also Civil Commitment; Forcible Medication; Mental Health Law; Therapeutic Jurisprudence

Further Readings

Perlin, M. L. (1998). Mental disability law: Civil and criminal. Albany, NY: LexisNexis. Winick, B. J. (1997). The right to refuse mental health treatment. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Winick, B. J. (2005). Civil commitment: A therapeutic jurisprudence model. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

PEDOPHILIA Pedophilia, a sexual preference for prepubescent children, appears early in life, is stable over time, and directs the person’s sexuality with regard to thoughts, fantasies, urges, arousal, and behavior. Pedophilia can be diagnosed on the basis of self-report, sexual history, and (among men) penile responses. These indicators of pedophilia predict sexual recidivism among male sex offenders. There is accumulating evidence that pedophilia is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Different treatment approaches for pedophilia have been evaluated but with only mixed success.

Definition Pedophilia is defined as a sexual preference for prepubescent children, reflected in the person’s sexual thoughts, fantasies, urges, arousal, and behavior. There are three key features in this definition: (1) the sexual interest is persistent, so individuals who have occasionally fantasized about sex with a prepubescent child or who have engaged in sexual contact with a child are not necessarily pedophiles; (2) the persons of interest are prepubescent and thus show few or no signs of secondary sexual development; and (3) the person would sexually choose children even when adult partners are available. Individuals who seek sexual contacts with

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sexually mature minors are unlikely to be pedophiles, though they may be engaging in illegal behavior given a jurisdiction’s legally defined age of sexual consent. Pedophilia is probably the best-understood paraphilia, given society’s concerns about preventing children from becoming victims of sexual offenses. Pedophilia is an important motivation for sexual offending against children, but the two concepts are not synonymous: Some pedophiles have no known history of sexual contacts with children, and perhaps half the sex offenders against children are pedophiles. Most of what we know about pedophilia is based on research on adult males and samples recruited in clinical or correctional settings. We know little about female pedophiles, though some women meet the diagnostic criteria, and we know relatively little about pedophiles who are not involved in clinical services or who have not been criminally charged for sexual offenses involving children. Pedophiles are much more likely to be male; otherwise, pedophiles are a heterogeneous group with regard to characteristics such as education level, occupation, and socioeconomic status. The prevalence of pedophilia in the general population is not known because epidemiological surveys of sexuality have not included the pertinent questions about the frequency and intensity of sexual thoughts, fantasies, urges, arousal, or behavior regarding prepubescent children.

Assessment and Diagnosis Pedophilia can be diagnosed on the basis of self-report, sexual history, and penile responses. Self-report is the simplest and most direct source of information, but it is limited by individuals being reluctant to admit to pedophilia. Among sex offenders, pedophilia is positively associated with having boy victims, multiple child victims, younger child victims, or unrelated child victims and the possession of child pornography and is negatively associated with the number of adult sexual partners. One of the most consistent assessment research findings is that pedophilic men (such as sex offenders with many unrelated child victims) can be distinguished from other men in their penile responses when presented with sexual stimuli depicting children or adults during phallometric testing. Phallometric testing involves the recording of changes in penile circumference or volume as men are presented with audiotaped or visual stimuli. Penile responses are more specific to sexual arousal than

other psychophysiological parameters such as skin conductance, heart rate, and pupil dilation. For pedophilia, the measure of interest is how much a man responds to stimuli depicting children compared with stimuli depicting adults. Because the overall penile responsivity can vary for many reasons, including the man’s age and health and the amount of time since he last ejaculated, an index of relative response is more informative than absolute responses. For example, interpreting the responses of an individual who exhibits a 10-mm increase in penile circumference in response to pictures of children is possible only when we know whether he exhibits a 5-or a 20-mm increase, for example, in response to pictures of adults. The first set of responses is from someone who is more sexually aroused by children than by adults, indicating a sexual preference for children; the second pattern of responses is from someone who is more sexually aroused by adults than by children, indicating a sexual preference for adults. Using cutoff values that produce high specificity among nonpedophilic men (e.g., community volunteers, offenders who have committed only nonsexual crimes), the sensitivity of phallometric testing among men who deny pedophilia is approximately 60% using optimal procedures and stimuli. The sensitivity is approximately 90% among men who admit pedophilia. Specificity refers to the proportion of nonpedophilic men identified as such by the phallometric test, while sensitivity refers to the proportion of sex offenders against children who are identified as pedophilic. Phallometrically assessed sexual arousal by children is one of the strongest single predictors of sexual recidivism in quantitative reviews of sex offender followup research. Studies have also shown that pedophiles and sex offenders with child victims can be distinguished from other men in the unobtrusively recorded amount of time they look at pictures of children relative to pictures of adults. No studies have yet demonstrated, however, that viewing-time measures predict sexual recidivism. There are challenges in making the diagnosis of pedophilia. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (fourth edition, text revision; DSM-IV-TR) diagnostic criteria have not been rigorously evaluated for interrater or test-retest reliability, and different assessment methods may identify overlapping but nonidentical groups of men as pedophiles. In addition, many phallometric

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laboratories do not use validated procedures and stimulus sets. Diagnosis is more likely to be reliable and more valid when assessment procedures are standardized. For example, sexual history variables that are associated with pedophilia can be combined to create a short, easy-to-score scale that organizes diagnostic decisions on the basis of these variables (Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interests).

Development Pedophilia can be described as a sexual preference that is phenomenologically similar to heterosexual or homosexual orientation, in that it emerges prior to or during puberty; is stable over time; and directs the person’s sexuality in terms of his thoughts, fantasies, urges, arousal, and behavior. Retrospective studies indicate that some adult sex offenders admit to pedophilia when they were adolescents, and the average age of onset of paraphilic behavior among adolescent sex offenders is around 11 or 12 years. Some pedophiles have reported being aware of their sexual interest in children from a very early age, just as other individuals report being aware of their opposite-sex or samesex attractions early in life.

Risk Assessment All other things being equal, pedophilic sex offenders are more likely to sexually re-offend than nonpedophilic sex offenders. There is an interaction between pedophilia and antisocial tendencies; offenders who score higher on measures of both factors are much more likely to sexually re-offend than others. Reflecting the importance of pedophilia in the prediction of sex offender recidivism, many of the actuarial risk scales developed for adult sex offenders include variables that pertain to pedophilia (e.g., phallometrically assessed sexual arousal by children, having boy victims). Examples of these scales include the Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide, STATIC–99, and Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism. A recent study found that child pornography offenders with no known history of sexual contacts with children are significantly more likely than men who have sexually offended against children to be identified as pedophilic on the basis of their phallometric responses. This suggests that pedophilia may not be a sufficient factor to explain the onset of sexual offending

against children. Antisocial tendencies are also expected to play an important role, but research on the onset (vs. maintenance) of sexual offending is only just beginning.

Etiology There is accumulating evidence that pedophilia is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Recent studies have shown that pedophilic men score lower on measures of intelligence and other cognitive abilities than nonpedophilic men. In addition, pedophilic men are significantly more likely to have incurred head injuries before age 13 and differ by having less white-matter volume in two tracts that are thought to connect areas of the brain involved in the identification of visual stimuli as sexually relevant. Other research has confirmed the common belief that many sex offenders against children have themselves been victims of sexual abuse as children. Metaanalytic reviews have found that adolescent sex offenders have almost five times the odds of having been sexually abused than other adolescent offenders, while adult sex offenders have almost three times the odds of having such a history. These significant differences are obtained whether the analysis is restricted to studies based on self-report or studies based on other sources of information. Moreover, sex offenders with child victims are more likely to have been sexually abused than offenders with peer or adult victims; adult sex offenders who report having been sexually abused are more likely to admit being sexually aroused by children; and adolescent sex offenders who were sexually abused showed relatively greater sexual arousal by children, when assessed phallometrically, than those who were not abused. The mechanisms underlying this association between childhood sexual abuse and sexual offending against children are not known. Possibilities include imitation of the perpetrator’s behavior, disruption of emotional and sexual development, and familial transmission of predisposition(s) for sexual offending (because many incidents of child sexual abuse are committed by relatives). The large majority of sexually abused children do not go on to offend, so there must be individual differences in vulnerability. The most obvious candidate for a vulnerability factor is being male, because most sex offenders against children are male, yet the majority of child victims of sexual abuse are female. Other writers have suggested that other vulnerabilities include

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poor parent-child attachment, social skills deficits, and emotional regulation problems.

Comorbidity Pedophilia co-occurs with other paraphilias, such that the prevalence of paraphilias is higher in a sample of pedophiles than in the general population. Two studies suggest that approximately one in six pedophiles has engaged in exhibitionistic behavior, and approximately one in five pedophiles has engaged in voyeuristic behavior. Comorbidity of paraphilias has implications for risk assessment and intervention because evidence of any paraphilic behavior is significantly related to sexual recidivism, and treatment may need to target multiple paraphilias. This comorbidity also has implications for etiological theories because it suggests that the factors influencing the development of one paraphilia may also influence the development of other paraphilias. One implication of the neurodevelopmental research mentioned earlier is that the nature, location, and timing of perturbations (e.g., maternal malnutrition, illness, exposure to toxins) might determine which paraphilias emerge.

Treatment The most common approaches to the treatment of pedophilia involve arousal conditioning, pharmacological sex drive reduction, or cognitive-behavioral treatments designed to teach pedophilic sex offenders how to identify risky situations and other situational triggers that they can avoid or cope with in order to avoid sexual contacts with children. The evidence regarding these approaches is not strong, however. Many clinicians and investigators assume that pedophilia is a sexual disorder that can be managed but not changed. There is evidence that aversive conditioning is effective in reducing sexual arousal by children, but it is unclear how long such changes can be maintained once the conditioning sessions have stopped. It is likely that booster sessions are required to maintain any treatment gains. The changes in sexual arousal by children are unlikely to represent a change in pedophilia; instead, participants learn to voluntarily control their sexual arousal in the laboratory. The hope is that this voluntary control can generalize outside the laboratory.

Several randomized clinical trials suggest that some medications can reduce sex drive and subsequently reduce the frequency or intensity of sexual thoughts, fantasies, urges, arousal, and behavior. Surgical castration can also reduce sex drive. Treatment attrition and compliance are serious issues in the drug treatment of pedophilic sex offenders, however, and castration is controversial; it has not been demonstrated that reduced sex drive leads to reductions in recidivism. There is much debate as well about the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral treatments for pedophilic sex offenders. A recent meta-analysis of sex offender treatment-outcome studies suggested that such treatments are indeed effective, because there was a significant difference between sex offenders in treatment versus those in comparison conditions; however, the methodologically strongest study, California’s Sex Offender Treatment and Evaluation Project (SOTEP), found no significant difference between sex offenders randomly assigned to treatment or to a control condition. There was a nonsignificant trend for those who victimized children to be more likely to re-offend after treatment (22% of treated offenders and 17% of controls). In light of these discouraging results, innovative treatment approaches and rigorous evaluations are needed if we are to make advances in the treatment of pedophilia. Michael C. Seto See also Child Sexual Abuse; Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR); Sex Offender Assessment; Sex Offender Civil Commitment; Sex Offender Community Notification (Megan’s Laws); Sex Offender Recidivism; Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG); Sex Offender Treatment; Sex Offender Typologies; STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments Further Readings

Blanchard, R., Klassen, P., Dickey, R., Kuban, M. E., & Blak, T. (2001). Sensitivity and specificity of the phallometric test for pedophilia in nonadmitting sex offenders. Psychological Assessment, 13, 118–126. Cantor, J. M., Blanchard, R., Robichaud, L. K., & Christensen, B. K. (2005). Quantitative reanalysis of aggregate data on IQ in sexual offenders. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 555–568. Rice, M. E., Quinsey, V. L., & Harris, G. T. (1991). Sexual recidivism among child molesters released from a maximum security psychiatric institution. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 59, 381–386.

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Seto, M. C. (2004). Pedophilia and sexual offenses involving children. Annual Review of Sex Research, 15, 321–361. Seto, M. C. (in press). Pedophilia and sexual offending against children: Theory, assessment, and intervention. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

PERSONAL INJURY AND EMOTIONAL DISTRESS Personal injury and emotional distress claims are civil court matters in which psychologists may become involved in several ways. A claim of psychological injury or emotional distress resulting from the intentional or reckless actions of another sets in motion the collection of data to buttress or refute the claim. Treatment providers, whose interventions occur in a helping context, may offer an opinion to the court about the nature, causation, and consequences of the psychological injury. A more objective, investigatory, and wide-ranging investigation offers greater utility to the fact finder, however, and this is the primary contribution of the forensic psychologist in court. This examination may be accomplished at the request of the plaintiff’s or the defendant’s counsel, and it is characterized by multiple sources and methods of data collection, reliance on reliable and valid measures and techniques, and respect for the limits of psychological expertise in determining matters of interest to the law.

Context Personal injury claims (also known as tort claims) are made in civil court when one party, usually an individual (the plaintiff), seeks compensation from another party, an individual, a corporation, or an agency (the defendant), for an injury allegedly suffered because of the negligent act of the defendant. This process of tort litigation exists to make whole again those who are damaged by the willful action of another. This allows society to protect its members from exploitation by others’ intentional actions or their failure to take reasonable steps to avoid doing harm. The legal system is called on to first determine whether the defendant had a duty of some sort to the plaintiff. Second, the legal system must determine whether the duty was breached— that is, whether the defendant failed to fulfill its responsibility to the plaintiff. Third, the court must determine

whether the plaintiff was harmed by the breach of responsibility. Fourth, the court must determine whether that harm suffered by the plaintiff was reasonably foreseeable—that is, whether the defendant knew, or should have known, that by its negligent action the plaintiff was likely to suffer damage. Different categories of personal injury or tort litigation include claims against providers of professional services (malpractice cases); claims against employers for discriminatory hiring processes, negligent treatment, workplace harassment, or physical injury on the job (including workers’ compensation cases); and claims against manufacturers or suppliers of products (product liability cases). Claims may be made directly by an injured individual or on behalf of an injured dependant, including a child or an adult who lacks competency to manage personal affairs. Suits may be brought on behalf of groups or classes of people, such as all people who received certain services from a provider or all people who purchased a defective product; these are referred to as class action suits. If the class of plaintiffs prevails, the awards are split, after payment of attorneys’ fees, among the plaintiffs.

Psychologists’ Role Psychologists may become involved in personal injury claims at any of several points. The most common application in forensic psychology is when the plaintiff claims mental health injury beyond that which would normally be expected to occur under the alleged circumstances. The plaintiff generally offers expert testimony to support that claim. The treating mental health professional’s testimony may be offered, by affidavit or in person, to support the claim that the plaintiff has suffered psychological injury. On notice of this offer, the defendant may seek to have its own expert examine the plaintiff, which is often referred to as an independent medical examination (IME). Whether or not the plaintiff intends to offer expert testimony to buttress a claim of mental anguish or other psychological injury, the claim itself is often sufficient to trigger a compelled mental health examination. The forensic psychologist retained by the plaintiff or the defense conducts a comprehensive examination of the plaintiff to determine whether there is clinical evidence of psychological injury and what data exist to support or refute the claim that that injury was caused by the alleged wrong. This examination, when

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sought by the defense, may be resisted on the ground that it will further traumatize the plaintiff or that it is unnecessary because the defendant can probe the same areas of inquiry through cross-examination of the plaintiff’s treating experts. However, there are often limitations to the information that can be derived from treatment professionals, and forensic examination may make a significant contribution to the fact finder’s deliberation. The treating professional may accept the plaintiff’s reports with less scrutiny, may not seek verification or refutation of reported functioning, and may fail to explore other potential contributors. In contrast, the forensic examiner may develop opinions based on wide-ranging, investigative examination employing multiple data sources and assessment methods. This reliable testimony is useful to the court in establishing causation. Finally, forensic examiners are mindful of the need to stop short when they lack the data to make assertions; clinical practitioners may not fully grasp the implications of offering opinions on matters of causation.

Focus of Examination To determine whether the plaintiff suffered psychological injury, the forensic psychologist explores the plaintiff’s functioning across three periods of time— before, during, and immediately following the alleged event—and then considers how the plaintiff may be expected to function in the future. Of particular interest to the court is whether there will be a need for ongoing mental health treatment and, if so, the type and frequency or duration of that treatment. Other factors or events in the life of the plaintiff may have contributed to the changes in psychological functioning or may account for the plaintiff’s future need for treatment. If it is found that the plaintiff was significantly psychologically injured before the instant event, the psychologist will attempt to determine whether the earlier injury wholly accounts for the plaintiff’s present psychological injury. Alternatively, the earlier event may have increased the plaintiff’s vulnerability to the present injury. This previously injured plaintiff is sometimes called an “eggshell” plaintiff. It is often difficult to clearly determine the contribution of this psychological vulnerability to the present symptom picture or to future treatment needs. While the law must attempt to make such fine distinctions in causation, psychological expertise can provide only some assistance to the fact finder in the search for causation.

The stress of litigation alone may add to the litigant’s suffering. The plaintiff may lack financial resources, while the defense, possibly an insurance company or a large corporation, may be able to afford extended litigation with a team of experts. The plaintiff’s counsel may pay for the expertise out of its own pocket or have experts work under a letter of protection, to be paid only if and when the case is settled in the plaintiff’s favor. There are potential ethical implications in such arrangements, specifically regarding compromised objectivity, and forensic psychologists decline such engagements. An exception may be warranted when the forensic psychologist is retained as a nontestifying trial consultant whose objectivity will therefore not be relied on by the court.

Informed Consent When the examination of the plaintiff is compelled rather than voluntarily sought for treatment purposes, the process of informed consent becomes particularly significant. The court order makes the assessment involuntary, so the plaintiff, by definition, cannot “freely and voluntarily consent.” The psychologist nevertheless notifies the plaintiff or the authorized legal representative, or both, of the purpose of the assessment, the range of potential consequences, the party responsible for payment for the examiner’s time, and the absence of confidentiality in the process.

Observers The plaintiff may request an observer, such as the attorney, a therapist, or a family member, in the examination. This is especially likely when the plaintiff is a child. In some jurisdictions, the law clearly permits this accompaniment, and the examiner may have limited options to oppose it; in other jurisdictions, the matter of an observer may be decided on a case-by-case basis. One concern about observation of the examination is that it renders the administration of some instruments a nonstandard administration and may affect the outcome in unknown ways. Some efforts have been made to assess the effects of observers or of audio recording on tests of cognitive functioning, and although there have been mixed results, there appears to be a modest impact on performance in some cognitive domains. Second, the presence of an observer who has a stake in the outcome may significantly affect the plaintiff’s presentation. The plaintiff may be less able to answer

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questions honestly or spontaneously when someone else is in the room. The effect of the observer on the outcome may be particularly powerful when the plaintiff is a child and the observer is the therapist or a parent who has a distinct opinion about what happened and how it affected the child. The child may be aware of the parent’s or therapist’s view and may capitulate to it in any case, but it is possibly more likely to do so when the parent or the therapist is in the room. Third, observers sometimes have difficulty remaining passive or silent. They may attempt to contribute to the discussion, speaking for the plaintiff. Indirectly, they may telegraph their attitudes to the plaintiff and affect the plaintiff’s answers to questions. When multiple interviews occur, observers may intervene between interviews by pointing out to the examinee any problem areas and suggesting alternative answers to questions. Examiners may, for all of these reasons, object to the presence of an observer or may attempt to structure the observation. This structuring might include, for example, offering to audio or video record the examination (possibly through an observation window) in lieu of having an observer in the room, requesting a neutral observer whose input is limited to ending the interview if the plaintiff seems to be in need of such protection, or seating the observer outside the line of vision of the examiner. Ultimately, however, the court may override these requests in favor of unrestricted observation.

Techniques Used in Personal Injury Assessment The techniques and instruments that may be useful in personal injury assessment are as varied as the nature of the claimed psychological injury. Often the data collected by the forensic examiner through interview or questionnaires address day-to-day functioning. The examiner may ask for collateral data in the form of documents, records, or interviews with people who would have relevant information about the plaintiff’s past and present lifestyle. Information is gathered regarding how the plaintiff lived before, including the interests, activities, and pleasure in life that are reflected in collateral information. Also explored are the plaintiff’s coping resources as manifested in the handling of previous crises or trauma. Testing may include formal assessment of any claimed loss in cognitive function, as well as assessment of general personality functioning, response style,

or impression management and in-depth exploration of specific reported symptoms. While there is a proliferation of instruments designed to assess trauma or posttraumatic stress, face validity may render these instruments so vulnerable to dissimulation that their utility is limited for forensic purposes. Similarly, checklists without well-designed measures of response style may generate unreliable results regarding depression or anxiety. Multisource, multimethod assessment accomplished with reliable tools leads to robust psychological findings that are useful to the court.

Report of Findings Ordinarily, the referring attorney is given the findings of an examination, and then, he or she determines whether they are sufficiently useful to justify calling the psychologist to testify. If the psychologist is designated as a testifying expert, opposing counsel may request a deposition to determine what opinions will be offered and the foundation for those opinions. Personal injury matters are often, but not always, resolved at some point before the case is set for trial. If settlement efforts fail and the case goes to court, the expert may testify to the findings of the examination. The fact finder (generally a jury but sometimes a judge alone) makes the determination about whether the defendant owed a duty, whether that duty was breached, whether the plaintiff was injured as a result of the breach, and what the defendant owes to make the plaintiff whole. This determination may be reached, at least in part, by relying on expert testimony, but the expert does not make the determination. Rather it is a matter for the fact finder to decide. Mary Connell See also Capacity to Consent to Treatment; Damage Awards; Detection of Deception in Children; Detection of Deception in High-Stakes Liars; Disability and Workers’ Compensation Claims, Assessment of; Forensic Assessment; Litigation Stress; Malingering

Further Readings

Boccaccini, M. T., & Brodsky, S. L. (1999). Diagnostic test usage by forensic psychologists in emotional injury cases. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 30, 253–259. Foote, W. E., & Shuman, D. W. (2006). Consent, disclosure and waiver for the forensic psychological evaluation: Rethinking the roles of psychologist and lawyer.

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Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 37, 437–445. Goldberg, M. A. (2006). Examining children in personal injury claims. In S. N. Sparta & G. P. Koocher (Eds.), Forensic mental health assessment of children and adolescents (pp. 245–259). New York: Oxford University Press. Greenberg, S. A. (2003). Personal injury examinations in torts for emotional distress. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Comprehensive handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology (pp. 233–257). New York: Wiley. Greenberg, S. A., & Shuman, D. W. (1997). Irreconcilable conflict between therapeutic and forensic roles. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 28, 50–57.

especially in its prodromal or residual phases. This cluster includes paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personality disorders. Cluster B: Individuals with these disorders are commonly described as dramatic, impulsive, and erratic. This cluster includes histrionic, narcissistic, antisocial, and borderline personality disorders. Cluster C: Individuals with these disorders often present as anxious and fearful. It can be difficult to distinguish these personality disorders from the anxiety-based Axis I disorders in some individuals. This cluster includes avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders.

Paranoid Personality Disorder

PERSONALITY DISORDERS Personality disorders, formerly known as character disorders, make up a class of heterogeneous mental disorders characterized by chronic, maladaptive, and rigid patterns of cognition, affect, and behavior. They are coded on Axis II of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV) and reflect patterns of thought, affect, and behavior that deviate from the expectations of a person’s culture and impair social and occupational functioning. Some, but not all, cause emotional distress. Personality disorders do not stem from inadequate reactions to acute stress, but rather, they develop gradually and are expressed in adolescence or early adulthood. Many traits associated with personality disorders may be shared by nondisordered individuals. Although the signs and symptoms of personality disorders may describe characteristics that all people exhibit from time to time to a certain extent, a personality disorder is defined by the maladaptive pervasiveness and inflexibility of certain character traits.

Specific Personality Disorders The DSM-IV arranges personality disorders into three clusters on the basis of similarities among the disorders. Cluster A: Individuals with these disorders often seem odd or eccentric. The symptoms of these disorders are somewhat similar to the less severe symptoms of schizophrenia,

Individuals with paranoid personality disorder (PPD) are suspicious of others, expecting to be mistreated by others. They expect harm to come to themselves and are sensitive to any evidence of impending attacks, without sufficient basis or without considering alternative explanations. They tend to see themselves as blameless, instead finding fault for their misfortunes in others, and they are likely to look for clues that validate their expectations. They are preoccupied with doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of others and are, therefore, unlikely to confide in others. They are hypersensitive in interactions with others, often ascribing pejorative intent to even benign remarks or events. Behaviorally, they are often described as “vigilant,” and their interpersonal relationships are marked by hostility. Their internal anxiety is related to their almost constant fear of being harmed by others. They commonly bear grudges and are unlikely to forgive perceived slights, often reacting with anger. Although some individuals diagnosed with PPD exhibit transient psychotic symptoms (e.g., persecutory delusions), they are typically in contact with reality and do not exhibit the perceptual disturbances and cognitive and behavioral disorganization often found in psychoses. Some research has suggested that PPD may be more closely related to delusional disorder than schizophrenia. PPD occurs more frequently in men and is most likely comorbid with schizotypal, avoidant, and borderline personality disorders. Its prevalence rate in the general population is between 2% and 4%, and its prevalence in outpatient psychiatric settings is about 4%.

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Schizoid Personality Disorder

Individuals with schizoid personality disorders (SPD) typically exhibit an inability to form social relationships, including relationships with their family, as well as a lack of interest in doing so. The DSM-IV criteria for SPD include a pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of affect in interpersonal settings, as evidenced by at least four of the following characteristics: the individual with SPD neither desires nor enjoys close relationships (including with his or her family); almost always chooses solitary activities; has little or no interest in sexual experiences; takes pleasure in few activities; lacks friends or confidants (except for first-degree relatives); is indifferent to praise or criticism; exhibits emotional detachment, coldness, or flattened affect. Although it was earlier believed that SPD was a precursor to schizophrenia, there has been no strong genetic link found between these two disorders. Research has suggested that there are genetic links between SPD and Asperger syndrome, autism, and pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified. Recent epidemiological studies suggest that the prevalence rate of SPD in the general population is between 1% and 3%, and the prevalence rate in outpatient psychiatric settings is about 1%. The preference for solitude and the lack of general distress in SPD may account for the low prevalence rates in psychiatric populations. Behaviorally, individuals with SPD are often described as “loners” or “lethargic,” and interpersonally they desire distance from others. They are likely to feel comfortable with the interpersonal emptiness of their lives.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

Individuals with schizotypal personality disorder (STPD) typically have odd or peculiar beliefs or appearance accompanied by social and interpersonal deficits. They tend to have cognitive and perceptual disturbances and are eccentric in their communication with others. Like individuals with schizoid personality disorder, those with STPD are socially isolated and withdrawn, but the schizotypal personality also involves oddities of thought, speech, and perception. DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for STPD include a pervasive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort with close relationships

as well as eccentricities in thought, perceptions, and behavior, as evidenced by at least five of the following: ideas of reference (but not delusions of reference); odd or magical thinking; unusual perceptual experiences; odd thinking and speech; suspiciousness or paranoid thinking; inappropriate or constricted affect; odd, eccentric behavior or appearance; lack of a close friend other than first-degree relatives; and excessive social anxiety that is associated with paranoid fears. Individuals with STPD may present with an erratic or bizarre manner, peculiar speech (vague or overelaborated), ruminative thinking, and atypical perceptual experiences that do not reach the level of psychosis (e.g., illusions). These individuals may report being clairvoyant or telepathic and are likely to be superstitious. Epidemiological studies place prevalence rates in the general population at less than 1% and prevalence rates in outpatient psychiatric settings at less than 1%. Research has suggested a genetic link between STPD and schizophrenic spectrum disorders. Oddities of speech and behavior have been found in children who later develop the disorder. Histrionic Personality Disorder

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD), formerly called hysterical personality, describes individuals who are overly dramatic, attention seeking, and highly emotional. They are often uncomfortable in situations where they are not the center of attention, and they are likely to exhibit sexually seductive or provocative behavior in their interactions with others. They consistently use their physical appearance (i.e., unusual clothes, makeup, hair color) to draw attention to themselves. They exhibit rapidly shifting, shallow emotions that are often theatrical and exaggerated. Their speech is impressionistic but lacking in detail. They often misinterpret relationships to be more intimate than they actually are, and they are often highly suggestible. They are usually self-centered and can be overconcerned about the approval of others. Behaviorally, they may be seen as seductive, and interpersonally, they tend to have stormy interpersonal relationships. They often are seen as emotionally labile, capricious, and emotionally superficial. HPD has a prevalence rate in the general population of about 2% and is more common among women. It remains unclear whether the differential rate of diagnosis is due to gender bias. Comorbidity with borderline personality disorder is

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relatively high. The prevalence rate in outpatient psychiatric settings is about 1%. The lower prevalence rate in psychiatric settings may be due to the culturally adaptive characteristics associated with the symptoms of the disorder. Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) have a grandiose view of their own uniqueness or worth, a preoccupation with being admired, a preoccupation with fantasies of success, and a lack of empathy for others. They often present as conceited and boastful, they are self-centered, they have a sense of entitlement, and they have a tendency to try to dominate conversations with others. They, therefore, frequently alienate others, and their lack of empathy makes the creation and maintenance of meaningful relationships difficult. Although they are sensitive to criticism, they present as arrogant and superior as a way of protecting themselves. They are often envious of others or believe that others are envious of them. When their expectations of others are not met, they are likely to react with rage, avoiding shame or dysphoria. Like individuals with borderline personality, those with NPD are likely to vacillate between idealizing and devaluing others, depending on how the other person makes them feel about themselves. Recent epidemiological studies indicate that the prevalence rate of NPD in the general population is less than 1% and that prevalence in outpatient psychiatric populations is about 2%. Some studies suggest that it may be more frequently observed in men than in women. Antisocial Personality Disorder

Individuals with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) consistently violate and show disregard for the law or the rights of others. They control or manipulate others without remorse or shame. This pattern of deceit and manipulation begins in childhood or early adolescence and is reflected in at least three of the following DSM-IV diagnostic criteria: failure to conform to social norms as indicated by unlawful behaviors; deceitfulness; impulsivity, aggressiveness, and irritability; reckless disregard for the safety of self or others; irresponsibility in work or financial matters; and lack of remorse. Furthermore, a prerequisite for the diagnosis is the presence of conduct disorder prior to age 15. Thus, for a diagnosis of ASPD, not only should

there be antisocial behavior, but this pattern of behaviors should have begun in childhood. Historically, the diagnosis was synonymous with psychopathy, but this term has come to have a specific meaning (see below). Behaviorally, antisocial individuals may be described as aggressive and controlling, and interpersonally, they manipulate others through deceit or coercion. Antisocial individuals are likely to take risks, break laws, and seek excitement and sensation. They fail to plan ahead, as evidenced by impulsive and reckless behaviors. They seldom take responsibility for their behaviors, and they are motivated by their own selfish needs. They lack the responsibility and feelings for others that are required to maintain meaningful long-term relationships and are likely to be occupationally and financially irresponsible. They may be cunning, glib, and socially skilled, thereby hiding their selfish motives from others. They are likely to be easily bored and have a low tolerance for frustration or depression, acting out aggressively in response to negative emotions. Once they have acted out aggressively, they are unlikely to experience remorse for any harm to others. Any overt expression of shame or remorse is likely to be shallow, transient, or insincere. Antisocial individuals are unlikely to seek mental health treatment independently, instead presenting for treatment when coerced by others, especially legal authorities. Epidemiological research suggests that prevalence rates in the general population is about 1% to 4% and prevalence in outpatient psychiatric settings between 3% and 4%. The prevalence is thought to be three times higher in men than in women and much higher among young adults than older adults. Diagnosis is also more common among people of low socioeconomic status. It has been estimated that about 75% of convicted felons meet the diagnostic criteria for ASPD. ASPD is comorbid with a number of other diagnoses, especially substance abuse. Psychopathy

Although psychopathy is not included in the DSMIV, it is a widely accepted and clearly defined personality disorder supported by a growing body of empirical research. Despite a significant overlap in the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy remains a distinct disorder. Whereas the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder focuses primarily on overt behaviors, psychopathy also includes affective and interpersonal deficits. Although the majority of psychopaths would meet the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder, only a minority of antisocial

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individuals would also meet the criteria for psychopathy. The “psychopathic personality” was described by Emil Kraepelin in 1915 while referring to a subgroup of criminals who lacked a sense of morals. In 1941, Hervey Cleckley elaborated the construct through detailed case studies in his groundbreaking book, The Mask of Sanity. Cleckley’s conceptualization of the psychopathic personality as manipulative, selfish, impulsive, and lacking empathy, remorse, and anxiety has since remained more or less intact. The defining characteristics of psychopathy include a combination of both interpersonal and affective deficits as well as overt antisocial behavior. These two factors were referred to as primary and secondary psychopathy, respectively, and remain at the foundation of modern assessment. Borderline Personality Disorder

The term borderline personality was originally used to refer to individuals who were thought to be on the “border” between neurosis and psychosis. As it is currently defined, however, borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by instability in affect, interpersonal relationships, and self-image, as well as markedly impulsive behavior. Individuals with BPD exhibit serious disturbances in basic identity. As a result of their unstable self-images, they also have highly unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation of others. They make desperate efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Borderline individuals commonly have an intolerance for being alone. Their behavioral impulsivity may be in the areas of sex, gambling, spending sprees, substance abuse, reckless driving, or binge eating. Recurrent suicidal behavior is common, including self-mutilation or “cutting” behavior. Suicide attempts or gestures are often clearly manipulative, intended to elicit the response of others. They report chronic feelings of emptiness and often have difficulty controlling inappropriate expressions of anger. They may experience transient stress-related symptoms such as paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms. BPD is one of the most lethal psychiatric disorders, with up to 10% of identified patients completing suicides. Those who successfully suicide are more likely to have comorbid major depressive disorder and/or a family history of substance abuse. Recent studies estimate that prevalence rates in the general population are at about 1% and about 9% in an outpatient psychiatric setting. Women are three times more likely than men

to be diagnosed with the disorder. There is an ongoing debate regarding the possibility of gender bias and the power of applying the label of borderline to a female patient. BPD is associated with increased utilization of psychological services and psychopharmacological treatment. Recent research has suggested that the etiology of BPD can be explained by an interaction of genetic/biological and environmental factors. Comorbidity is found with substance abuse, PTSD, eating disorders, mood disorders, and personality disorders from Cluster A. Avoidant Personality Disorder

Individuals with avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) have a pattern of extreme social inhibition and withdrawal due to the fear of being rejected, embarrassed, or criticized. They often report feelings of inadequacy. Because of their hypersensitivity to criticism and potential rejection, they avoid other people, but, unlike schizoid individuals, they desire interpersonal contact and are often lonely or bored. DSM-IV diagnostic criteria include at least four of the following characteristics: avoidance of occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact due to a fear of criticism, disapproval, or rejection; unwillingness to get involved in relationships unless certain of being liked; restraint in intimate relationships due to a fear of being shamed or ridiculed; preoccupation with being criticized or rejected in social situations; inhibition in new interpersonal situations due to feelings of inadequacy; view of self as socially inept, unappealing, or inferior; reluctance to take personal risks or engage in new activities that might result in embarrassment. Behaviorally, individuals with AVPD are described as shy and guarded, and although they desire interpersonal relationships, they are unlikely to engage in them. They may present as aloof and apprehensive and are likely to make little eye contact. Epidemiological estimates place the prevalence of AVPD at between 2% and 5% in the general population and at about 15% in an outpatient psychiatric setting. Dependent Personality Disorder

Individuals with dependent personality disorder (DPD), due to a lack of both self-confidence and autonomy, have an intense need to be taken care of. They view themselves as weak and incompetent and others as strong, leading to submissive and clinging behaviors due to an extreme fear of separation. They

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cultivate relationships that provide protection and support, and they often defer to others excessively. They often fail to express anger at or disagreement with others for fear of losing their support and love, and they are prone to being involved in psychologically or physically abusive relationships. They often have difficulty making everyday decisions without excessive advice and reassurance from others, and they look for others to assume responsibility for major areas of their lives. They have difficulty initiating projects due to lack of self-confidence in their judgment or abilities. They often will volunteer to do things that are unpleasant in order to obtain nurturance from others. They report feeling uncomfortable or helpless when they are alone due to an exaggerated fear of being incapable of caring for themselves. When a close relationship ends, they often will seek another relationship immediately as a source of support. Current estimates suggest that the prevalence rate of the disorder is 0.5% in the general population and around 1.5% in an outpatient psychiatric population. These data conflict with the DSM-IV assertion that DPD is one of the most frequently reported personality disorders encountered in outpatient clinics. Studies on inpatient rates suggest a higher prevalence rate, between 15% and 25%. DPD frequently co-occurs with other personality disorders as well as mood, anxiety, and eating disorders. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCPD) exhibit a pervasive pattern of perfectionism, orderliness, and control that interferes with flexibility, efficiency, task completion, and social interactions. Such individuals are often driven to maintain mental and interpersonal control through their preoccupation with details, lists, schedules, and rules. Their perfectionism interferes with their ability to complete a task because they believe that they cannot meet their overly strict standards. Although they are excessively devoted to work to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships, they often are inefficient in work because they are preoccupied with trivial details. They tend to be inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values. Behaviorally, they are often described as stubborn and perfectionist, and they may have difficulty with interpersonal relationships due to their inflexibility. Although it was previously thought that OCPD reflected a predisposition for Axis I obsessivecompulsive disorder, more recent research suggests that OCPD is more highly comorbid with avoidant

personality disorder. Prevalence rates in the general population are estimated to be between 2% and 8% and between 8% and 9% in an outpatient psychiatric setting.

Categorical Versus Dimensional Approaches One of the most controversial topics in psychopathology over the past few decades has been the classification of personality disorders. The categorical model (e.g., DSM) assumes that personality disorders can be defined by a relatively small number of “disorders” or “types” that are essentially orthogonal. Each disorder has a specific set of symptoms and signs, and individuals within each diagnostic category are presumed to make up a homogeneous group. Dimensional approaches would replace the categorical classification now in use with a recognition that mental disorders lie on a continuum with mildly disturbed and normal behavior rather than being qualitatively distinct. Personality disorders, therefore, could be regarded as extreme variants of common personality characteristics, and personality disorder symptoms could be described in terms of relative standing on a number of traits. Personality disorders were first placed on a separate axis in the DSM in 1980, based primarily on the expert opinions of DSM work group members and without strong empirical evidence that these disorders existed with discrete and distinct clinical features. Later researchers have argued that the categorical classification approach of the DSM is inadequate. For example, they point to high levels of comorbidity; many individuals meet the diagnostic criteria for more than one personality disorder or for a personality disorder and an Axis I disorder. Work continues on the development of dimensional models (e.g., the five-factor model). Nonetheless, until a unified system of classification is developed and agreed on, the categorical system employed by the DSM will be the mostly widely-used by clinicians. Matt C. Zaitchik and Trevor H. Barese See also Antisocial Personality Disorder; Psychopathy

Further Readings

Hare, R. D., Hart, S. D., & Harpur, T. J. (1991). Psychopathy and the DSM-IV criteria for antisocial personality disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100, 391–398.

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McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1990). Personality in adulthood. New York: Guilford Press. Wirth-Cauchon, J. (2001). Women and borderline personality disorder. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

PLEA BARGAINING Plea bargaining is a process in a criminal case whereby the defendant agrees with the prosecutor to plead guilty (or no contest) in exchange for a reduction in charges or a reduction of sentence. By pleading guilty, the defendant gives up the right to go to trial. Contrary to the widespread belief that criminal cases are usually resolved through jury trials, in reality as many as 95% of criminal cases are handled by plea bargaining. This bargaining process has been viewed by some as a rational one in which the participants take into account both the probability of conviction and the likely sentence if the defendant were to be found guilty at trial; the participants arrive at a bargain that is fair to both sides. Critics of plea bargaining have focused on the flaws in the system that distort the process, such as heavy case loads, which cause prosecutors or public defenders to favor plea bargains over trials in almost all circumstances, regardless of the merits of the case. Additional causes for imperfect bargains involve psychological influences that lead to poor decision making. In spite of its importance to the criminal justice system, only a limited amount of research exists on the topic of plea bargaining.

Decision Theory Approach Decision theory’s concept of value maximization has been used to explain the plea bargaining decisions made by the prosecution and the defense. According to this model, both sides consider both the probability of conviction at trial and the severity of sentence given a jury finding of guilt; multiplying the probability of conviction by the sentence gives one the expected value of going to trial. The desirability of a plea bargain offer is based on its comparison with the expected value of going to trial. For example, consider a case in which, based on the evidence, there was a 50% chance that the jury would find the defendant guilty and, if found guilty, the sentence would be 10 years of imprisonment. The expected value of going to trial would be 5 years (.5 × 10 years). A plea

bargain agreement of anything less than 5 years would be a good bargain for the defense, whereas anything over 5 years would be a good bargain for the prosecution. A bargain that would be acceptable to both sides would be close to 5 years. In a perfectly rational world, taking the case to trial and plea bargaining would have the same value, and one might expect the participants to be somewhat indifferent between trial and plea bargain. Research has shown that plea bargaining participants do, in fact, consider the probability of conviction and the severity of the sentence. Plea bargaining decisions by prosecutors and the defense have been found to be influenced by both variables; however, these two variables alone do not suffice to explain the plea bargaining decisions. Other factors are involved.

Self-Interests of the Bargainers Certain influences on plea bargaining that are exogenous to the merits of the case affect all the major participants—prosecutor, defense attorney/defendant, and judge. Each of these participants has self-interests outside the merits of the case that might distort the plea bargaining process. Prosecutors

It has been argued, and there is some empirical support for the idea, that prosecutors favor resolving cases by plea bargaining as opposed to trials. Trials involve a much greater commitment of the prosecutor’s time and resources. It has been argued that prosecutors do not have the resources to take any more than a small proportion of their cases to trial; thus, by necessity they must use the more efficient plea bargain to resolve most cases. However, some research has shown that even in districts where the case loads are light, plea bargaining rates remain at the same high level. Even when the case load is low, a prosecutor might prefer not to devote all the time and energy required for a jury trial, particularly given the way prosecutorial performance is evaluated. Prosecutors’ reputations are based on their conviction rates. A case in which a defendant pleads guilty as a result of a plea bargain counts as a conviction for the prosecutor. Thus, for the prosecutor, even if a plea-bargained sentence is under the decision theory expected value, from a self-interest standpoint, it is still desirable because it counts as a conviction.

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Public Defenders

Judges

Defense attorneys may also have certain selfinterests that affect their plea bargaining decisions. One type of defense attorney, the public defender, has much in common with the prosecutor. Like prosecutors, public defenders are paid a fixed salary; whether they plea bargain a case or take it to trial has no financial impact on them. Also similar to the prosecutor, many public defenders have large case loads that would be virtually impossible to handle if any more than a limited few went to trial. Plea bargaining is a means of handling these large numbers of cases. Additional pressure on public defenders to plea bargain comes from prosecutors and judges. Due to the extremely large number of cases that public defenders must handle, there is a great deal of contact with prosecutors and judges. The personal relationships that develop as a result of this contact make them particularly vulnerable to pressure. Refusal to plea bargain on the case at hand when that process is desired by the prosecutor and/or the judge might well jeopardize clients in future cases, who might receive harsher treatment in reprisal.

Although most of the actual bargaining goes on between the prosecutor and the defense attorney, the judge plays a significant role. It is the judge who must agree to the terms of the plea bargain; this is particularly true when there has been sentence bargaining as opposed to charge bargaining. As with the other actors in this process, judges may also have self-interest concerns that bias their reactions in the direction of plea bargaining. First, there is the workload issue. Plea bargains are an efficient way to reduce a judge’s workload. A second, more subtle issue concerns a judge’s reputation. A judge’s reputation is harmed when through some judicial error the results of a trial are reversed on appeal. However, when a case is plea bargained, there is no trial and hence no possibility of a judicial trial error. The judge’s interest in plea-bargained solutions often results in direct or indirect pressure on the other actors to plea bargain.

Privately Hired Attorneys

Privately hired defense attorneys also have selfinterests that influence their plea bargaining decisions. Prominent defense attorneys with wealthy clients may favor trials over plea bargaining for financial reasons. Attorneys for wealthy clients are paid by the hour, in most cases. The time spent in preparing for a trial and on the trial itself are all billable hours; in contrast, if a case is resolved through plea bargaining, the billable hours are considerably fewer. Taking a case to trial and winning is important to such attorneys for building their reputation as outstanding trial lawyers; such a reputation is crucial for attracting wealthy clients. Other privately hired attorneys may attempt to maximize their financial gain by emphasizing quantity over quality. Many individuals who are charged with crimes have very limited resources; they lack the means to pay an attorney to do all the background work to prepare a case and present it at trial. However, some defense attorneys take on a large number of these cases at a modest fixed rate and then handle the cases very quickly through plea bargaining. Plea bargaining allows this type of attorney to have a profitable practice based on quantity.

Defendant

Obviously the defendant has a self-interest in the way the case is handled; it is his or her freedom that is at stake. However, there are a number of issues that affect a defendant’s preference for trial or plea bargain above and beyond the merits of the particular case. There are financial concerns. For those defendants represented by a private attorney, a plea bargain may be seen as a financially less expensive option than the much more costly trial. Furthermore, there may be incarceration time issues above and beyond the potential outcome of a trial. For the defendant who cannot make bail for a relatively minor offense, it is possible that even being found not guilty at trial would result in more jail time than a plea bargain of guilt. A major concern of critics of plea bargaining is that innocent defendants will plead guilty to a crime that they did not commit. Rather than basing decisions on a rational assessment of the strength of the case and the probability of conviction, defendants base their decisions on faulty information and advice from the actors who are a part of the system. Although it would be extremely difficult to document how frequently innocent individuals actually accept a plea bargain, some experimental research has found that innocent defendants are less likely to agree to a plea bargain than are guilty defendants.

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Psychological Influences In addition to the various ways in which the selfinterest of the various actors might distort plea bargaining decisions, a number of psychological influences have been found to distort decision making in any number of situations. For example, how decision alternatives are framed has been found to have a major impact on people’s willingness to take risks. It has often been shown that when the decision alternatives are framed in terms of losses, the decision makers become more averse to risk; in contrast, when the alternatives are framed in terms of gains, individuals are more willing to take chances. Consider the case in which a plea bargain of 5 years is being evaluated in light of the probability of conviction at trial of 50%, with a sentence of 10 years. Defendant A is told that if he goes to trial, there is a 50% chance that he will lose an additional 5 years of his life above the plea bargain. In contrast, defendant B is told that if he were to go to trial, there is a 50% chance that he would gain an additional 5 years of his life as compared with the plea bargain. Although both defendants are facing the same situation, Defendant A will plea bargain to avoid the loss, and Defendant B will take the risk of going to trial for the potential gain. Framing can influence defense attorneys and prosecutors as well as defendants. When people attempt to form judgments in ambiguous situations, they will often start from some anchor point and then make adjustments. If a prosecutor makes an unreasonable initial plea bargain offer of 20 years, which is summarily rejected, it still acts as an anchor against which subsequent bargains are evaluated. A subsequent offer of 10 years that would have been rejected had it been the first offer now becomes desirable when compared with the 20-year anchor. As with framing, anchoring effects influence prosecutors and defense attorneys as well as defendants. Various types of attributional biases also play a part in plea bargaining. For example, one type of attribution bias that protects us from feelings of vulnerability is unrealistic optimism. Individuals tend to believe that bad things happen to other people but not to them. It would be quite natural for the defendant to believe that if the case were to go to trial, there would be a verdict of not guilty; this bias would be one of the factors causing a defendant to prefer a trial to a plea bargain.

Limitations of Research on Plea Bargaining It should be noted that our knowledge about plea bargaining is based on an extremely small body of research. In contrast to other topics in psychology and law, such as juror decision making or eyewitness testimony, for which there are literally hundreds of studies, only a handful of studies exist on plea bargaining. It is particularly surprising that the topic of juror decision making has been so heavily researched, since only 5% to 10% of cases are resolved by jury. In addition to the limited number of studies on plea bargaining, much of the research that has been conducted has been poorly controlled. Much of our understanding of plea bargaining is based on interviews or observations of individuals who were available to the researcher as opposed to individuals selected through systematic sampling techniques. Most of the support for psychological influences is based on generalizations from other bargaining situations rather than on plea bargaining situations themselves. Given the centrality of plea bargaining to the criminal justice system, it is imperative that we increase both the quality and the quantity of research on how this process works. Hunter A. McAllister See also Alternative Dispute Resolution; Legal Negotiation; Litigation Stress Further Readings

Alschuler, A. W. (1975). The defense attorney’s role in plea bargaining. Yale Law Journal, 84, 1179–1314. Bibas, S. (2004). Plea bargaining outside the shadow of trial. Harvard Law Review, 117, 2463–2547. Fisher, G. (2003). Plea bargaining’s triumph: A history of plea bargaining in America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Heumann, M. (1979). Plea bargaining: The experience of prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

POLICE AS EYEWITNESSES Criminal cases often hinge on the testimony of eyewitnesses; sometimes those eyewitnesses are police officers. Police eyewitnesses perform the same tasks as

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civilian eyewitnesses: They provide descriptions to police officers during interviews, attempt to identify perpetrators from lineups, and provide testimony during court trials. Laboratory research, along with evidence from actual court cases, has shown that eyewitness identifications are often unreliable or inaccurate. It is not clear if we can expect the abilities of a police officer as an eyewitness to be better than those of the average citizen. Findings and theories from a variety of psychological disciplines provide several hypotheses about police eyewitness performance, and research that compares police with civilian performance has produced varying results. Surveys indicate that most people believe that police eyewitness reports are more accurate and of better quality than civilian reports. When police eyewitnesses testify in court, the jury may view them as more credible, regardless of whether their identifications are indeed accurate. Psychologists sometimes testify as experts on eyewitness accuracy and face the question whether the police may be a more accurate population of eyewitnesses. Findings from psychological research on perception and memory do not provide much evidence to support the notion that any one group of adults would perform better at eyewitness tasks. There is little evidence that certain groups of adults are inherently better at recalling and communicating the details of events or recognizing people, although there are some performance differences based on age and some variability in skill among individuals. Although some studies show that training can enhance identification abilities, others do not. Research in the area of expert cognitive processing demonstrates that as people develop domain expertise, they improve their ability to notice important details and filter out useless information. These research findings indicate, perhaps not surprisingly, that police officers may not have innately better memories but, rather, their specialized training and experience may increase their ability to recognize and recall specific details of crime situations. Theories grounded in social psychology indicate that police eyewitnesses may be less accurate than civilians because of increased internal and external pressures to perform well. This social pressure may be particularly salient for new officers looking to impress their peers and superiors. Officers may unintentionally choose an innocent suspect from a lineup because they trust that their peers have arrested the correct suspect or they are highly motivated to capture the perpetrator. Furthermore, investigators may not use standard

eyewitness safeguards with their peers, such as careful interviewing techniques and lineup instructions. The psychological research that has directly investigated police officers as eyewitnesses provides only inconclusive answers. These studies used a wide variety of methodologies, such as live incidents, video incidents, verbal descriptions, and written descriptions, and compared police officers with a variety of civilian samples, such as college students, teachers, lawyers, and the general public. In these studies, the participants performed tasks such as providing descriptions and/or making identifications after witnessing a mock crime, distinguishing criminal activity from noncriminal activity, matching previously viewed faces with new faces, and performing eyewitness tasks while under stress. Research comparing the police with civilians as they recall the details of an event sometimes has found that police descriptions are more detailed and accurate. When researchers examined the types of descriptive information the police and civilians provide, they found that the police provide more detail about perpetrators and the crime events. In some studies, the police show a greater tendency to perceive, or misperceive, suspicious or criminal events. Other research found no difference in description accuracy between police officers and civilians. Researchers found no differences in recall ability between police officers and civilians in stressful situations; however, both groups perform better in nonstressful than in stressful conditions. Research investigating eyewitness abilities based on police experience shows that experienced police officers outperform less experienced officers and civilians. In addition, experienced officers tend to provide more crimespecific information, such as details concerning violence and technical information related to the scene, than do newer officers and civilians. Research tends to show that police officers and civilians are equally accurate when identifying criminal perpetrators from lineups. However, some studies found that police officers tend to misidentify innocent lineup members at greater rates than do civilians. This finding varies with experience, with newer officers making a greater number of incorrect identifications than do experienced officers. Police officers testify as eyewitnesses in court just as do civilians. Surveys have found that jurors give greater weight to the testimony of witnesses who appear more confident. Some studies indicate that the police tend to have high confidence in their identification accuracy, irrespective of whether they are in fact

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correct or incorrect. Because police officers regularly testify in court and may appear more reliable as witnesses, this leaves open the possibility that jurors may weigh the accuracy and importance of police officer identifications above other evidence. When psychologists testify about eyewitness accuracy, they have only these varied results to guide them in the courtroom. Laura A. Zimmerman See also Expert Psychological Testimony on Eyewitness Identification; Eyewitness Descriptions, Accuracy of; Eyewitness Identification: Field Studies; Eyewitness Memory; Eyewitness Memory, Lay Beliefs About; Juries and Eyewitnesses; Police Decision Making; Training of Eyewitnesses

Further Readings

Kassin, S. M., Tubb, V. A., Hosch, H. M., & Memon, A. (2001). On the “general acceptance” of eyewitness testimony research: A new survey of the experts. American Psychologist, 56, 405–416. Yarmey, D.A. (1986). Perceived expertness and credibility of police officers as eyewitnesses. Canadian Police College Journal, 10, 31–59.

POLICE DECISION MAKING Police officers are gatekeepers of the criminal court system and must make a number of critical decisions during their interactions with citizens and in the performance of their duties. To make decisions, officers use normative criteria such as responsibility and blameworthiness as well as pragmatic and efficiency criteria such as the likelihood of conviction, the amount of time and effort needed, and the organizational barriers that may prevent a desired result. Because officers have much legal authority and make many critical decisions that affect citizens’ liberty and safety, it is important to understand how officers arrive at their decisions and the societal consequences of these decisions. This entry examines what criteria police officers use to make these decisions and what community, departmental, and personal factors affect how they interpret situations, interact with citizens, decide when to stop citizens, ask for consent to search, conduct searches, informally warn suspects, arrest suspects, and decide whether suspects are lying during questioning or interrogation. Using

schema theory to examine officers’ decision frames, this entry discusses racial disparity in police decision making. Much research supports the contention that compared with Caucasians, African Americans are disproportionately stopped, searched, arrested, and subjected to physical force. Cultural stereotypes and organizational policies contribute to this racial disparity. This entry explores this research on racial disparities, particularly with regard to surveillance, the decision to arrest, and the use of force. Police work traditionally has been reactive and involves responding to citizens’ calls when crimes have already been committed and when community peace has been disrupted. Police duties also involve proactive surveillance to detect criminal activity as it is being committed; for example, police officers may patrol areas that have high rates of drug dealing, prostitution, or gang-related crimes and must decide when to intervene and whether to arrest offenders. Similarly, officers may park their car to detect speeders; officers must decide which of the speeders to pull over, whether to give the speeder a ticket, and whether to search citizens or vehicles for possible illegal contraband such as drugs or weapons. Community policing, where police officers are assigned certain neighborhoods to patrol using bikes or walking, is part of proactive police work and has been implemented to prevent criminal activity and to improve the relationship between the police and citizens so that citizens are more likely to report crimes or suspicious activity to the police. Thus, it is important to examine decision making in both proactive and reactive policy work.

Officers’ Decision Frames and Response Styles Researchers have investigated whether police officers have certain operational styles, developed from their general attitudes regarding justice and law enforcement duties, that guide their decisions to arrest. Several studies have examined three overarching response styles: (1) the tough law enforcer, who arrests serious criminals and rule violators; (2) the negotiator, who emphasizes maintaining community peace and often uses mediation and other informal methods to resolve disturbances; and (3) the rule follower, who bases arrest decisions on organizational policies or legal statutes. Research generally has found that officers do not consistently decide whether to arrest on the basis of their operational ideals or overall attitudes. Moreover,

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officers have much discretion on how to interpret organizational policies and legal statutes because such policies are difficult to apply consistently to ambiguous situations. Rather than operational styles that are linked to overall attitudes and personalities, schema theory provides a more empirically supported framework to understand how officers make decisions. Schema theory suggests that officers have several possible guiding decision frames about how to investigate incidents, what information is most critical, and what questions should be asked to arrive at a decision. The situational context and characteristics of the incident determine which decision frame is given priority in a specific situation. Two major decision frames are the normative frame and the efficiency frame. In the normative frame, officers focus on who is responsible for the harm; in the efficiency frame, they focus on whether there is sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction, the repercussions if they do not arrest, and the credibility of the witnesses. The number of years on the force has been shown to be the only consistent officer characteristic related to arrest decisions. More experienced officers, compared with rookie officers, tend to resolve calls more often without making an arrest, and experienced officers make fewer arrests because they are more likely to assign greater importance to efficiency and pragmatic concerns. Efficiency or pragmatic framing also can explain why officers often arrest mentally ill persons who have not committed crimes but may need involuntary commitment to a mental health hospital. Several interview studies indicate that officers are frustrated by barriers to the mental health system, by the amount of time they spend off the streets and in hospitals trying to obtain an involuntary commitment, and by the hospital staff’s releasing individuals back on the streets within a few days of admittance. All these system barriers indicate to the officers that involuntary commitment decisions are neither pragmatic nor efficient decisions. In proactive community policing duties, collegeeducated officers may have better performance and achieve greater neighborhood trust of the police. Studies have found that compared with high-schooleducated officers, college-educated officers have higher citizen satisfaction ratings, fewer citizen complaints, and higher job performance ratings from their superiors. Based on empirical research, collegeeducated officers are more likely to be open minded,

to have better communication skills, and to be less authoritarian. Several studies have examined whether African American officers and Caucasian officers differ in their arrest rates, use of force, and other attitudes. Among the findings are that general attitudes toward the job are similar for African American and Caucasian officers. Research has generally found that African American and Caucasian officers do not differ on arrest rates. Only one study, however, has examined whether they differ on the criteria they use to make arrest decisions. Caucasian and African American officers both were more likely to arrest suspects if they were juveniles, visibly intoxicated, or disrespectful toward officers or if the offense was a felony. However, African American officers also considered other criteria that Caucasian officers did not: whether a crime was committed in their presence, the number of bystanders witnessing the encounter, whether the suspect was male, and the length of the officer’s time on the job. Recent research has found that African American and Caucasian officers have a similar likelihood of arresting African American suspects, but African American officers are significantly less likely to arrest Caucasian suspects. Thus, racial disparity in arrest rates occurs among both Caucasian and African American officers.

Police Decisions and Racial Disparity Racial stereotypes are widespread and permeate the media, the schools, the business community, and the criminal justice system. Individuals of all races are aware of negative racial stereotypes—for example, that African Americans are more prone to violence and more likely to be involved in the use and sale of illegal drugs. Even when individual officers are not prejudiced against African Americans or members of other ethnic minorities, these cultural stereotypes affect how police officers perform their duties. Furthermore, in attempting to reduce the distribution of illegal drugs, some studies indicate that police departments place disproportionate resources in areas where there is a high concentration of ethnic minorities. For example, based on a needle exchange survey and ethnographic observations of two open-air drug markets in Seattle, researchers determined the racial composition of dealers who distributed heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, crack, or ecstasy. In this study, the majority of drug dealers (more than 80%)

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who distributed heroin, methamphetamine, or ecstasy were Caucasian; about equal proportions of Caucasians, Latinos, and African Americans sold cocaine; and only in the distribution of crack cocaine were African Americans more frequently dealers (47%) than Caucasians (41%). In comparing the racial composition of dealers with Seattle’s police departments arrest data for the sale of these five illicit drugs during the same time period, researchers found that African Americans were disproportionately arrested for drug dealing: 64% of all arrests involved African Americans, 17% involved Caucasians, and 14% involved Latinos. Although only 47% of crack cocaine dealers were African Americans, 79% of those arrested for dealing crack cocaine were African Americans; only 8.6% of arrestees were Caucasians, even though Caucasians comprised 41% of crack cocaine dealers. Similar and significant racial disparity was found for heroin dealers. Two police department mandates contribute to this substantial racial disparity in arrests for drug dealing: greater emphasis on formally arresting crack cocaine dealers than dealers of other illicit drugs and greater surveillance resources in ethnically diverse open-air drug markets. A greater propensity of violence among crack cocaine dealers cannot explain the departments’ allocation of resources; arrests of crack dealers were less likely to involve gun seizures than arrests of other illicit drug dealers, and the police department noted that violence was typically not associated with crack dealing at the time of the study. Second, the primarily Caucasian open-air drug market received undersurveillance as determined by the amount of drug and other crime activity, whereas the ethnically diverse open-air market received oversurveillance, and 25 times more arrests were made there. Higher crime rates or a higher number of citizens’ complaints cannot explain the police department’s oversurveillance of the ethnically diverse market. The racial disparity also cannot be explained by the possibility that Caucasian drug dealing occurs in more private indoor areas. African Americans were more likely to be arrested in both outdoors and indoors areas and also were overrepresented in arrests in both the primarily Caucasian open-air and the ethnically diverse open-air drug markets. Other research also found that African Americans were more likely to be disproportionately arrested for drug possession. Police officers may follow these organizational mandates to concentrate resources in specific areas, and then the cultural racial stereotype, which may not

be a part of conscious awareness, may affect their choice of which drug dealers to arrest. Research does not show that African Americans are more likely to be drug dealers or users, nor does it indicate that African Americans are more likely to be caught because their activity is more visible. Instead, officers follow organizational mandates that increase the chances of perceiving drug dealing by African Americans, and even in primarily Caucasian open-air drug markets, officers’ unconscious awareness of cultural stereotypes may direct their attention toward African American dealers. In short, cultural stereotypes may affect officers who are not racially prejudiced. Much research suggests that young African American and Latino men are more likely to be stopped, given traffic citations, searched or asked for a consent search, arrested, and subjected to officers’ use of force than are Caucasian men. Racial profiling, begun during the U.S. government’s “war on drugs,” is a controversial decision strategy in law enforcement that has reinforced using race as a criterion in law enforcement decisions. The use of racial profiling as a legitimate decision strategy is now being widely questioned. Numerous studies suggest that officers pull over African American drivers less for obvious traffic violations and more on the basis of race (e.g., “driving while black/brown”). Research further does not support that the stopping and subsequently higher rate of searching of minority offenders indicates a higher rate of illegal contraband possession. Thus, minorities compared with Caucasians do not have a higher rate of actual drug possession. Studies have found that minority drivers are not more likely to have illegal drugs or weapons than are Caucasian drivers, and a few studies have found that searched Caucasian drivers are significantly more likely to have illegal contraband than are minority drivers.

Police Decisions on the Use of Force During questioning of potential suspects, police officers must decide when and how much physical force to use to stop citizens who are perceived as resisting or disrespecting their legal authority. Police departments receive much negative publicity when officers decide to use what the public perceives as excessive force to restrain citizens or when officers incorrectly perceive resistance and use weapons to force citizens to comply. For example, in recent years, media reports have revealed incidents in which officers, using

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batons, flashlights, and fists, have beaten citizens who are having seizures because they incorrectly labeled the citizens’ actions as unresponsive and resistant. Officers also have used inappropriate force when they misperceived mentally ill persons’ actions as disrespectful and unresponsive to their legal authority; media publicity about such incidents has served as an impetus for police departments to develop special units, strategies, and training to improve officers’ interactions with mentally ill citizens. It is difficult to examine what situational and officers’ characteristics contribute to the use of excessive or incorrect force because individuals cannot agree (except at the most extreme) on what actions constitute excessive force. However, based on surveys completed by police officers, between 13% and 20% of officers reported having observed a fellow officer using considerably more physical force than was necessary or harass a citizen based most likely on his or her race. Good police performance requires the ability to know when to use any coercive verbal statements or physical actions. Officers may use coercive actions, most of which are verbal, in attempting to get persons to comply with their orders and acknowledge their legitimate legal authority. Studies of the use of force often examine verbal commands and threats as well as physical force, with physical force sometimes ordered from least to more severe. Several studies have found that officers are more likely to arrest and use force against suspects who have a disrespectful demeanor than suspects who are respectful. The influence of suspects’ demeanor on arrest and use-of-force decisions cannot be accounted for entirely by disrespectful suspects being more likely to commit crimes during their interactions with officers. Demeanor also receives significant consideration in officers’ decisions to take juvenile offenders into custody. Demeanor and citizens’ resistance also contribute to officers’ use of verbal and physical force. That is, officers are more likely to use verbal or physical force against suspects who resist responding to commands or questions and/or who are more verbally or physically aggressive toward police officers. Studies have determined a relationship between citizens’ resistance and officers’ use of force, but it is unclear how often officers use verbal threats or physical force against nonresisting and respectful citizens. Research has shown inconsistent findings on whether minority offenders are more likely to resist answering officers’ questions or complying with commands and to use verbal or physical aggression against officers. Given the mixed results, the racial

disparity in the use of force against minority offenders cannot be explained by offenders’ propensity to resist or use verbal or physical aggression. Several situational characteristics are related to officers’ use of force. Officers have indicated that departmental policies concerning use of force affect their decisions to use force. In addition, studies have found that officers are more likely to use verbal coercion or physical force in situations involving conflict, against intoxicated suspects or offenders who have a weapon, when there is evidence of a crime, when two or more officers are present, when bystanders are not present, and when they are attempting to prevent crime or intervene while a crime is in progress. Officers may be more likely to use force when other officers are present because they have witnesses who can testify that the force was reasonable given the suspect’s behavior; similarly, the presence of a greater number of bystanders reduces the likelihood of officers using verbal or physical force, because it increases the chance of witnesses testifying against them. Younger suspects and those of a lower socioeconomic status have a greater chance of both verbal and physical force being used against them. Minorities and male suspects are more likely to experience physical force but are not more likely to experience verbal coercion. Some officer characteristics are related to the use of force. Officers who have job burnout reported more support for the use of force, reported greater frequency of using force, and were more likely to be independently observed using force. Officers with a greater number of years on the police force are less likely to use verbal or physical force. Compared with officers having only a high school education, officers with a college degree and those with some college experience are less likely to use coercive verbal demands or threats, and officers with a college degree are less likely to use physical force. Loretta J. Stalans See also Police Decision Making and Domestic Violence; Police Interaction With Mentally Ill Individuals; Police Psychology; Police Training and Evaluation; Police Use of Force

Further Readings

Beckett, K., Nyrop, K., & Pfingst, L. (2006). Race, drugs, and policing: Understanding disparities in drug delivery arrests. Criminology, 44(1), 105–137.

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Brown, R. A., & Frank, J. (2006). Race and officer decision making: Examining differences in arrest outcomes between Black and White officers. Justice Quarterly, 23(1), 96–126. Engel, R. S. (2003). Explaining suspects’ resistance and disrespect toward the police. Journal of Criminal Justice, 31(5), 475–492. Engel, R. S., & Calnon, J. M. (2004). Examining the influence of drivers’ characteristics during traffic stops with police: Results from a national survey. Justice Quarterly, 21(1), 49–90. Lundman, R. J. (1996). Demeanor and arrest: Additional evidence from previously unpublished data. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 33(3), 306–323. Palone, E. A., & Terrill, W. (2007). Police education, experience, and the use of force. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 34(2), 179–196.

POLICE DECISION MAKING AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE All states have enacted mandatory or preferred arrest statutes that require or encourage officers to arrest the batterer in domestic violence incidents when probable cause exists. Mandatory arrest laws still allow officers much choice about when to arrest, because the criteria for whether there is enough evidence to meet the standard of probable cause are ambiguous. Officers use several legal and extralegal criteria to make arrest decisions and also rely on stereotypes to form inferences about specific cases. This entry describes findings from numerous studies that have examined how officers interpret, investigate, and respond to domestic violence situations. A focus on how officers infer and interpret information is important to design effective academy training that addresses the unintentional effects of stereotypes and improves police decision making so that equal protection is provided to all victims of domestic violence. Although research shows that academy training has little effect on police arrest decisions, prior training has not focused on how officers arrive at decisions.

How Officers Think About Domestic Violence Decision frames are a set of rules about how to make arrest decisions; they guide what questions are asked, what inferences are drawn, and what criteria receive

the most consideration in arrest decisions. Decision frames derive from socialization and are connected to officers’ values, attitudes, and worldviews. Officers may use three decision frames to investigate and interpret information: legal, normative, and efficiency. The legal frame assumes that officers apply policies or statutes using only legal criteria and a strict interpretation of the statutes. The legal frame assumes a rational decision maker who does not use attitudes or stereotypes to interpret information. Much research shows that the legal frame is not an accurate portrayal of officers’ decision making. Officers typically give greater consideration to the normative and efficiency frames in asking questions during an investigation and making decisions about arrest. The normative frame emphasizes the following questions: Who is responsible? Was his or her actions justified or not? Using the normative frame, officers examine what happened in the past and evaluate the moral appropriateness of each party’s actions and their moral character. In the case of domestic violence, officers using the normative frame would arrest both disputants if the parties are equally blameworthy. However, when the normative frame is used, battered women may be blamed for the violence when they deviate from social gender-biased norms. Officers using the efficiency frame do not attempt to unravel the past but assess the credibility of each disputant to determine whether an arrest is likely to lead to a successful conviction. To avoid mistakes that cause lawsuits or unfavorable media publicity, they assess the likelihood that each party will commit further violence. In the efficiency frame, officers focus on the present and future ramifications of their decisions and are concerned with how an arrest will affect their time, raises, and promotions. The efficiency frame also allows departmental and system procedures to influence officers’ decisions. Officers are less likely to make an arrest if more paperwork is required when a suspect is arrested, and this finding has led to policies that require officers to complete a report irrespective of whether they arrest or do not arrest a suspect. Research has found that arrest rates did not increase after mandatory-arrest state laws were enacted; however, arrest rates increased if the counties had coordinated responses, whereby the prosecutors and courts followed through with certain sanctions for arrested batterers. Research has found that when departmental policy is to arrest both parties when both claim selfdefense, officers will follow this policy even when state laws discourage the arrest of both parties.

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Research also has found that novice and experienced officers employed different frames for making decisions. In making arrest decisions, novice officers focused on the blameworthiness of each party, whereas experienced officers focused on their ability to substantiate claims and the risk of future violence. The shift from focusing on normative to efficiency issues occurs relatively swiftly, after 1 year of service. Officers also use stereotypes of domestic violence, social class, mental illness, race, gender, and other salient categories. Stereotypes help officers complete missing information, interpret conflicting stories, and make assumptions about likely outcomes or responses. Research has found that experienced officers considered their stereotypic beliefs about battered women’s propensity to use self-defense in arriving at their arrest decision. Moreover, individual officers have different stereotypes about domestic violence, especially regarding how much women provoke the violence or react in self-defense. Officers inferred that men who abused wives who were hallucinating or drunk were less dangerous and that wives were more responsible for the violence, suggesting that stereotypes about mental illness also guide their interpretations when suspects or victims exhibit mental illness. These stereotypes thus affect officers’ inferences about the situation and may lead officers to provide unequal protection for victims who have a mental illness or violate social or gender norms.

Criteria Used in Arrest Decisions Legal criteria that have been found to consistently increase the likelihood of arrest include a disrespectful attitude toward the police, the presence of witnesses, the presence of a weapon, the presence of the perpetrator, and a violation of an order of protection. Officers typically make an arrest only in 20% to 50% of the cases where there is clear evidence of a violation of an order of protection. This finding indicates that officers use their discretion and interpret the dangerousness and risk to the victim in determining whether to make an arrest when a perpetrator has violated an order of protection. Several studies have found that a violation of an order of protection increases the incidence of arrest, but its effect on arrest is no greater than that of other situational criteria. Several criteria have been inconsistently related to arrest decisions: the suspect’s gender or race, victim’s or suspect’s use of alcohol, marital status of the suspect

and the victim, presence of children, presence of injuries, victim’s preference for arrest, and suspect’s gender. The influence of these criteria depends on other environmental and situational characteristics. For example, research based on police reports found that substance use or the presence of children decreased the likelihood that the batterer would be arrested if the victim was African American but increased the chance of arrest if the victim was Caucasian. Research has found that arrest rates for cases involving visible injuries vary from 30% to 73% across police departments. Across archival and vignette studies from the early 1980s until 2005, the presence or seriousness of visible injuries is not sufficient to invoke arrests, and its influence on arrest decisions depends on other situational characteristics. For example, visible injuries increased the chance of arrest when the perpetrator is present but had no effect when the perpetrator has fled the scene before the police arrived. Officers also were more likely to use the presence of visible injuries in their arrest decisions when departments had a clear policy to arrest when the victim has injuries or when the jurisdiction had a coordinated response to domestic violence. The importance of the victim’s preference in arrest decisions clearly varies across departments, studies, and cases. Police officers often do not include the victim’s preference in the police report even when it is a standard part of the police form, which suggests that it often is not an important criterion. Studies generally find that the victim’s preference for arrest has a modest impact, accounting for 4% to 5% of variation in officers’ decisions on whether or not to make an arrest. Officers often are not persuaded by the victim’s preference for arrest because they think that most victims will drop charges, do not know what they want at that time, or are not providing an honest account of what happened. Officers’ stereotypes about battered women and domestic violence also may affect how they interpret the victim’s preference for arrest. Police officers do not provide all battered women with the same protection. Several studies have shown that police officers are less likely to arrest perpetrators who attack women who are drunk or having affairs. Officers who use a normative frame are more likely to arrest the husband if the battered wife is mentally ill because they believe that he is more blameworthy for hitting someone who cannot control her actions. In contrast, officers using an efficiency frame are less likely to make an arrest in this circumstance because

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they see the mentally ill wife as less credible and more dangerous. Interview studies have found that police officers are less likely to make an arrest in cases involving minority victims than when Caucasian victims are involved. Thus, the guiding decision frame and stereotypes determine which victims who violate social norms are more likely to receive protection.

Domestic Battery Versus Stranger or Acquaintance Battery Are officers less likely to arrest perpetrators of intimate partner violence than perpetrators of violence against strangers or acquaintances? Mixed findings from research indicate that this question has not been resolved. Research in the 1980s found that both intimate partner and other violent crimes had similar arrest rates. Research conducted after mandatory arrest statutes were enacted has revealed inconsistent findings. Although several studies found that arrest is less likely to occur in intimate partner battery, these studies did not ensure that domestic and acquaintance battery cases were similar and thus were unable to eliminate alternative explanations. Other research indicates that whether officers treat acquaintance or stranger battery cases and domestic violence cases differently depends on situational characteristics. For example, when the suspect has fled the initial scene, officers are more likely to investigate, find, and arrest stranger or acquaintance batterers than domestic batterers. This bias occurs even though both types of victim request arrest as often and intimate partners are more likely to inform officers where the suspect can be found. Conversely, when the victim is the only witness, as in a typical domestic violence incident, officers are more likely to arrest domestic batterers than stranger or acquaintance batterers. Thus, officers under some circumstances may respond to domestic violence differently than to stranger violence, but further research is needed to obtain a more complete understanding of these circumstances.

Officers’ Personal Characteristics and Decision Making Several studies have investigated how police officers’ race and gender shape their interpretation and handling of domestic violence situations. Officers’ race has not been shown to influence their decisions.

However, men and women officers do have different stereotypes about domestic violence, have different responses, and consider different criteria. Compared with men, women tended to perceive that wives more often acted in self-defense and were more likely to be the only party injured and that husbands had committed intentional and unjustifiable violence. Men were more likely than women to support gender-biased attitudes. Male officers who held gender-biased attitudes were more likely to believe that few cases of domestic violence involved battered women committing violence in self-defense. Despite these differences in beliefs, male and female rookie officers typically recommended marriage counseling and only in one out of five cases referred the battered woman to a shelter. After probationary status, experienced women officers acted more in accordance with their stereotypic beliefs. Experienced female officers were less likely than males to recommend marriage counseling and more likely to refer battered women to shelters. Male and female officers, regardless of experience, had similar arrest rates but used different criteria. Both men and women were more likely to arrest when injuries were visible or they perceived that severe future injuries were likely to occur. However, women were less likely to arrest if the battered woman was willing to settle the argument, whereas men did not consider the victim’s preference. Thus, through professional socialization, women and men developed similar perceptions about their law enforcement role. However, when women officers had achieved greater job security and could defend their views, they were more likely to act on their different beliefs about domestic violence and received higher satisfaction ratings from victims. Thus, although women officers do not arrest perpetrators more often, they are more likely to provide support and information to victims and are less likely to hold gender-biased attitudes or stereotypes. Loretta J. Stalans See also Police Decision Making; Police Training and Evaluation

Further Readings

Eigenberg, H. M., Scarborough, K. E., & Kappeler, V. E. (1996). Contributory factors affecting arrest in domestic and non-domestic assaults. American Journal of Police, 15(4), 27–53.

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Finn, M. A., Blackwell, B. S., Stalans, L. J., Studdard, S., & Dugan, L. (2004). Dual arrest decisions in domestic violence cases: The influence of department policy. Crime & Delinquency, 50(4), 565–589. Hall, D. L. (2005). Domestic violence arrest decision-making: The role of suspect availability in the arrest decision. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 32(4), 390–411. Kane, R. J. (2000). Police response to restraining orders in domestic violence incidents: Identifying the custody-threshold thesis. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 27(5), 561–580. Stalans, L. J., & Finn, M. A. (1995). How novice and experienced officers interpret wife assaults: Normative and efficiency frames. Law & Society Review, 29(2), 287–321. Stalans, L. J., & Finn, M. A. (2000). Gender differences in officers’ perceptions and decisions about domestic violence cases. Women and Criminal Justice, 11(3), 1–24.

POLICE INTERACTION WITH MENTALLY ILL INDIVIDUALS Police calls for service sometimes involve the police interacting with and responding to people with mental illness. The dismantling of state mental hospitals, the changing mentally ill population, the tightening of requirements for receiving mental health support, and the offering of limited psychological services are bringing the police into contact with more people with mental illness. Police-invoked law enforcement, policeinvoked order maintenance, citizen-invoked law enforcement, and citizen-invoked order maintenance are four types of police interactions with the mentally ill who violate the law. They involve the police either initiating or responding to a call for service and either enforcing the law or maintaining social order. How the police employ their work-style attitudes and exercise their discretionary power has an impact on the outcomes of police interactions with people with mental illness. Custodial police decisions are arrest, involuntary emergency evaluation, or involuntary commitment. Noncustodial decisions are counseling, release and referral, or voluntary emergency evaluation. The police are receiving some training in these alternatives for handling people with mental illness. In some contacts with the mentally ill, police agencies that have specially trained mental health

crisis teams deploy them to carry out custodial or noncustodial options to resolve police calls for service.

Prevalence and Situational Profile Researchers have estimated that between 5% and 10% of police-citizen contacts involve people with mental illness. These numbers reflect an increase since the 1960s deinstitutionalization of state psychiatric hospitals that housed the mentally ill, offered them some treatment, kept them safe, and protected the public from the real or perceived danger of coming into contact with them. Overcrowded and poor living conditions, the insensitive treatment of the mentally ill, the economic expense of housing them, the availability of psychotropic medications such as chlorpromazine (Thorazine), the tightening of involuntary commitment procedures, and the creation of community mental health centers were the factors that shaped the deinstitutionalization movement. The closing of many state psychiatric facilities resulted in the displacement of people with mental illness—from living in locked state warehouses to living in open community settings such as group homes, family residences, halfway houses, nursing homes, and homeless shelters that offer different levels of care. Researchers estimate that 1 of every 10 persons has some form of mental illness and that between 1 and 4 million persons in the United States have a serious mental illness. Police contacts with the mentally ill often occur in the home. Interactions with them also occur in the streets, at halfway houses, at mental health agencies, and in public buildings. Police encounters are increasing during the night and weekend hours because mental health resources are usually unavailable at such times. Behaviors that the mentally ill frequently demonstrate during their contacts with the police include confusion, unusual or bizarre mannerisms, and aggression. Empirical investigations suggest a link between mental illness and criminal behavior. For example, persons who suffer from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia are more likely to express antisocial behaviors that society criminalizes. Most mentally ill offenders are under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they commit crimes. There is some increased risk of mentally ill individuals becoming violent. Because many people with mental illness now languish in a variety of community settings with too few mental heath treatment centers available, they routinely

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The police are responsible for safeguarding the wellbeing of the community. They fulfill this responsibility by enforcing laws and maintaining social order and, thus, most often respond to persons with mental illness when such persons display behaviors that rise to a level that society criminalizes. Responses may originate from police-invoked law enforcement, police-invoked order maintenance, citizen-invoked law enforcement, or citizen-invoked order maintenance. Police-invoked law enforcement is a self-initiated response by an officer to a violation of the law by a mentally ill person. The law violation and police department policies and procedures force the officer to make contact with the mentally ill law violator. Police-invoked order maintenance is also a selfinitiated officer contact with a person with mental illness who violates the law. But in this situation, the lawviolating behavior is of a less serious kind. It reflects a social order disturbance that tends to be noninjurious to others, such as public drunkenness and vagrancy. A police call for service that originates from a complaint by a citizen can bring an officer into contact with a person with mental illness. Citizen-invoked law enforcement involves a citizen reporting that a mentally ill person has violated the law. Similarly, citizeninvoked order maintenance also involves a citizen calling for police service, but like police-invoked order maintenance, it involves law-violating behaviors that are of a less serious nature, occur less often, happen at unexpected times, and take place usually in the private homes of citizens (e.g., verbal arguments). Whether the police are initiating or responding to calls for service or whether they are enforcing laws or maintaining social order, their work-style attitudes and use of discretion have an impact on the way they actually handle situations involving mentally ill individuals.

stems from the law, policy, training, and supervision, the police have some leeway or discretion in deciding on a response option from a range of possible responses available in a given law-violating police intervention situation. For example, in police-invoked situations with mentally ill law violators, there are no demands by citizens for the police to invoke the law mechanically. The police are free to exercise their work-style attitudes, which include some attitudes toward, perceptions of, and assumptions about people with mental illness. Thus, the mentally ill person who demonstrates public drunkenness is most vulnerable to an officer’s discretionary power. If, for example, the officer holds a legalistic perspective about policing—preoccupied with arresting law violators and performing to the letter of the law, then custodial police options such as arrest, involuntary emergency evaluation, or involuntary commitment are likely outcomes. If, however, the officer uses a problem-solving policing style—concerned about finding permanent solutions to problems, then noncustodial options such as counseling, release, and referral or voluntary emergency evaluation are attractive because they offer the person with mental illness some needed mental health treatment, thereby reducing future police contacts. Citizen-invoked calls for police service routinely carry with them less opportunity for the police to exercise their discretion. The police concentrate their work effort on responding to citizens’ complaints and meeting citizens’ needs. For example, a citizen may want an officer to arrest a mentally ill person who assaulted him or her. This situation gives the officer little chance to make a discretionary decision such as suggesting a voluntary emergency mental health evaluation. In a different situation, for example, the citizen may not want to press charges for assault. The officer could make an intervention decision that calls for releasing the offender and making a mental health referral. Normally, though, the officer will choose an option that satisfies both police and citizen interests in citizen-invoked interactions with the mentally ill.

Police Handling of the Mentally Ill

Police Training

Not all police-citizen contacts have an absolute set of official rules and procedures on how best to handle them, especially police contacts with the mentally ill whose behaviors amount to some infraction of the law. Although there is some official guidance that

Most police officers receive some education and training in the handling of people with mental illness. Basic recruit training hours can range from roughly 0 to 41. Fewer police officers receive continuing education at the in-service level. Among those that do,

encounter the police when they manifest abnormal behaviors that require police attention.

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some receive information at roll call, and others get it during formal annual blocks of instruction. Training time varies from a recommended 16-hour block devoted to mental illness. The content of police training varies at both the recruit and the in-service training levels. Sources of training curricula are the agency itself, the state commission on peace officers’ standards and training, profit and nonprofit organizations, and local mental health professionals. Police officers or mental health professionals, or both, usually deliver the training. One formal and well-recognized training curriculum developed by the Police Executive Research Forum includes seven learning modules that address police responses to people with mental illness. Generally, police officers learn to recognize their attitudes toward, perceptions of, and assumptions about the mentally ill and to dispel their misconceptions about them. Mental illness is not a crime, and people having mental illness live in their communities, have professional vocations, and call for police services. The police learn to recognize specific symptoms and forms of mental illness, such as schizophrenia and mood, anxiety, and dissociative and personality disorders. They learn to employ techniques to handle them effectively. For example, an officer encounters a mentally ill person whose speech is high-speed and nonstop and uncontrollable and meaningless. This behavior signals to the officer that the person is in a state of high arousal and has an anxiety disorder. The officer interrupts the person’s speech by asking a series of questions—for example, What is your name? How old are you? Where do you live? Where do you work? What the officer expects is to break the person’s pattern of compulsive behavior and control it to some extent. Not all police interactions with the mentally ill require arrests. The police learn both custodial and noncustodial alternatives to respond to people with mental illness whose behaviors amount to some infraction of the law. They learn community, problemoriented strategies to resolve problems related to the mentally ill. Handling such problems, however, sometimes involves using specialized mental health crisis teams. Some police agencies report having specially trained teams that respond to calls for service involving mentally ill persons in crisis. Police agencies that employ a team approach generally adopt one of three models: police-based response (only specially trained police officers), police/mental health–based response

(both police officers and mental health professionals), or mental-health-based response (only mental health professionals). Current research suggests that most police agencies deploy a team composed of only specially trained police. Despite variations in using particular response teams, team members are receiving the specially needed training to respond to people with mental illness. Police department policies on contacts with people with mental illness have helped departments standardize the nature of their officers’ responses while giving officers flexibility to meet the needs of people with mental illness. Although people who have mental illness may commit a crime, be a victim of crime, or report a crime, police responses to encounters with them have improved with training. Frank J. Gallo See also Police Psychologists; Police Psychology; Police Training and Evaluation Further Readings

Finn, M. A., & Stalans, L. J. (2002). Police handling of the mentally ill in domestic violence situations. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 29(3), 278–307. Hails, J., & Borum, R. (2003). Police training and specialized approaches to respond to people with mental illness. Crime and Delinquency, 49(1), 52–61. Jennings, W. G., & Hudak, E. J. (2005). Police responses to persons with mental illness. In R. G. Dunham & G. P. Alpert (Eds.), Critical issues in policing: Contemporary readings (5th ed., pp. 115–128). Long Grove, IL: Waveland. Patch, P. C., & Arrigo, B. A. (1999). Police officer attitudes and use of discretion in situations involving the mentally ill. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 22(1), 23–35. Police Executive Research Forum. (1997). The police response to people with mental illness. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum.

POLICE OCCUPATIONAL SOCIALIZATION Police occupational socialization is the process whereby individuals learn to be fit for performing police work by becoming aware of organizational and occupational practices, internalizing them, and carrying them out as participating members of their work

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group. Learning takes place through three social phases: pre-entry, entry, and in-service. This sequence involves individuals making a choice to become a police officer, learning formal and informal lessons during police recruit or academy training, and learning them on the job, respectively. How officers make sense of these social events affects the way they perceive, influence, and interact with citizens in a law enforcement capacity. At the pre-entry phase, individuals learn about themselves, evaluate their personal qualities by comparing themselves with what they know about the police, and make a decision to become a police officer. During the entry phase, they begin to construct a self-concept that is coherent with what they learn about police roles, activities, and relationships with citizens. They begin to form a social identity about themselves as group members of the police profession. They learn to make social inferences about the citizens they meet. Finally, at the in-service phase, they strengthen and defend their self-concepts and social identity. They learn to conform to organizational and occupational norms so that they can act comfortably within the police culture. Officers develop different work-style attitudes that reflect subjective outlooks that include beliefs and values affecting how they interact with citizens during police-citizen contacts. Police socialization ensures that individuals acquire the necessary knowledge to perform adequately on the job. Understanding the role that thinking or mental processes play during socialization is at the heart of comprehending why officers act the way they do in their occupational settings.

Pre-Entry Phase Who am I? What do I think of myself? Who is a police officer? What does a police officer do? These questions are a focal point of the pre-entry phase, in which the process of making a choice to become a police officer is a major social psychological paradigm. At the pre-entry phase, individuals explore what they know about themselves (or self-concept) and what they know about the roles and activities of police officers. Individuals piece together some understanding of “who I am” from both self-knowledge and knowledge held by others. They construct self-knowledge from inferring their personal characteristics or qualities from their past behaviors. They use what other people know about them or think about them when forming opinions about themselves.

When constructing knowledge of policing, individuals use factual or fictional perceptions. Friends or relatives who are police officers are factual or genuine sources of learning who is a cop, what characteristics he or she has, and what he or she does on the job. Fictional or imagined perceptions of policing often come from media sources. For example, television or movie cops as portrayed by actors such as Mel Gibson demonstrate characteristics of power, toughness, and aggressiveness. Steady streams of these media images define police officers as being tough, strong, and invulnerable and fitting into a box that defines machismo. Whether real or imagined, these values often become part of “who I must be.” Individuals reason from “who I am” to “who I must be,” including knowledge of both the self and the police. They employ four kinds of schemas that help them generate a hypothetical picture about themselves in the police role: a person schema (who is a police officer), a self-schema (who I am), a role schema (what behaviors I expect to perform in a given situation), and an event schema (how the situation will unfold). What explains in part the decision to become a police officer is the perceived discrepancy between “who I am,” on the one hand, and “who I must be,” on the other: The greater the discrepancy, the higher the probability that individuals will not self-select themselves for law enforcement training. Individuals who see themselves as trainable and suitable for the job apply for it. Before they become police officers, however, they must pass through a rigorous selection process, which most often includes a written test, a physical agility test, background investigation, a personal interview, a medical exam, and a battery of psychological tests. A police administrator considers applicants who have ideal police characteristics and the ability to perform necessary job functions. The employment decision along with the selection process usually produces a homogeneous group of applicants who demonstrate a willingness to conform to organizational (official) and occupational (both official and unofficial or working) police practices. These police applicants or recruits experience formal socialization when they enter training at the police academy.

Entry Phase Police recruit training refines the cohort of acceptable applicants through formal and informal lessons that weed out those applicants who do not conform to

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established police practices. Formal lessons involve instruction in a training curriculum, which usually includes the subject areas of administration of justice, fitness, law, police procedures, use of force, police professionalism, and community relations. Informal lessons about the job often take the form of war stories told by police academy instructors. Officers begin to learn from instructors and from their peers at the academy about unwritten rules, work attitudes, values, and beliefs of the occupational culture. During academy training, the prevailing social psychological paradigms are self-concept, social identity, and social inferences. Officers begin to identify with the police subculture by constructing self-concepts that are coherent with what they learn about policing through formal and informal lessons at the academy. They fit into their self-concepts distinct characteristics of the police subculture, such as an ethos of toughness, autonomy, suspiciousness, secrecy, solidarity, and bravery. Officers begin to form a police identity from characteristics that belong uniquely to the police subculture and that they share with other officers. Police identification turns “I” into “we,” which extends “who I am.” Officers see themselves as members of the police subculture—a process known as self-categorization. When officers self-categorize themselves, they view out-group members or non–police officers as outsiders (intergroup discrimination). They favor in-group members or police officers (in-group favoritism) because they see themselves as having more in common. The language officers use to refer to out-group members helps create and feed in-group bias. For example, “Let’s get the bad guys” or “It’s us against them.” The in-group/out-group arrangement is implicit when officers use pronouns such as “we” and “they” or “us” and “them.” Viewing themselves as part of the police subculture produces feelings of friendship, solidarity, and trust among officers. A cooperative work effort helps them tackle the challenges of contemporary policing. At times, however, there are costs for expressing in-group favoritism. Officers might see citizens as being the same or interchangeable. For example, an officer says, “They all act alike” when speaking about members of a particular group. In this instance, the officer does not appreciate the diversity of citizens. Putting citizens into an out-group category might lead officers to process information about them differently. For example, an officer legitimizes and defends ingroup beliefs and behaviors, whereas he or she marginalizes and attacks out-group ones. Officers who

hold and show in-group favoritism have a tendency to accentuate in-group/out-group differences. Citizens know the differential power arrangement of police-citizen interactions. Police power coupled with certain citizen tension sometimes leads citizens to resist the police, especially when officers make evident their “us and them” mentality. Besides officers learning to hold a worldview of “us” and “them,” formal and informal training lessons teach officers to make social inferences about policecitizen interactions. Officers learn to process people and events through a cognitive lens of present danger. For example, an officer uses force against a suspect. The event happens at 1:00 a.m. If one uses the situational cue “time of day” to help explain the officer’s behavior, the ecological validity of the model would be poor. Using the cue’s natural metric 1:00 a.m. would reduce the accuracy of the explanation because the officer’s acquisition of the cue in the force situation was subjectively different. The officer learned to form a scaled impression of 1:00 a.m. in terms of present danger. Police work involves the possibility of danger all the time. Danger shapes police-training practices. Officers learn to see citizens as potentially uncooperative, armed, and dangerous. They learn that they work in an environment of condition yellow: always occupied with the present danger of people and events. Developing a police worldview through a cognitive lens of present danger is a major social psychological theme at both the recruit and the in-service levels of training.

In-Service Phase At the in-service phase, integrative expressions of the social and the psychological disciplines emerge. Generally, officers, or now “rookies,” reconcile their self-concepts and their social identity. They conform to police norms and develop work-style attitudes. When rookies graduate from academy training, they usually ride along with field-training (or incumbent) officers who provide on-the-job training. Rookies learn formal lessons such as work-arearelevant information and agency-specific policies and procedures. They learn informal lessons that usually consist of a set of unwritten rules, outlooks, and behaviors such as being “tough” that officers in their agency consider normal and expected in the occupational culture. Field-training officers teach rookies “how it’s done here.” What lessons rookies learn help

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them to reconcile inconsistencies in their selfconcepts and social identity, and thus strengthen and defend them. Formal and informal lessons during the field-training period cause rookie and incumbent officers to become more alike. Rookies conform to police norms or shared rules of conduct that establish in-the-box behaviors that most officers in most police situations accept and expect. Rookies accept a degree of conformity to these norms because they want to feel included and accepted by their peers. They learn quickly that there is a price to pay for acting outside the box. For example, a rookie officer responds with incumbent officers to a service call for disorderly conduct. The incumbent officers endorse values of toughness, aggressiveness, and respect. When the officers arrive, a male suspect becomes verbally abusive toward the rookie. While the rookie officer has a range of verbal skills available to manage this kind of behavior, the officer fears “losing face” and the consequences of outside-the-box behaviors, such as being labeled a “wimp” or “not a real cop.” The rookie mixes his or her response choice with ideals of enforcing the law or preserving group norms. Because the incumbent officers endorse toughness, aggressiveness, and respect, the rookie becomes tough and aggressive and uses a forceful response to earn respect where none is necessary. In this way, the rookie meets the expectations of incumbent officers. Rookie officers learn that police calls for service can be tense and uncertain: Calls sometimes evolve rapidly. Once rookies graduate from their field-training period, they find themselves in a new role, having a degree of autonomy in handling police calls for service, holding a police worldview of danger, having broad discretionary power, and asserting authority to carry out police objectives. To meet the demands of police service, initial changes in their psychological makeup often occur. Rookies develop different personal work-style attitudes that reflect in part their experience and organizational and occupational practices. The content and structure of their attitudes might reflect a professional, tough-cop, clean-beat crimefighter, problem-solver, or avoider style of policing. For example, the rookie officer who assumes a toughcop perspective believes that citizens are hostile to the police, holds a police worldview of danger, and carries out an aggressive style of policing to keep safe. Initial changes in rookies’ work-style attitudes suggest that they are recognizing and responding to the role demands of a police officer. Although some rookies’

work-style attitudes might remain stable throughout their career, others might modify them to cope with changing policing strategies, job functions, calls for service, and subjective outlooks. Frank J. Gallo See also Police Decision Making; Police Decision Making and Domestic Violence; Police Psychology; Police Selection; Police Training and Evaluation Further Readings

Chappell, A. T., Lanza-Kaduce, L., & Johnston, D. H. (2005). Law enforcement training: Changes and challenges. In R. G. Dunham & G. P. Alpert (Eds.), Critical issues in policing: Contemporary readings (5th ed., pp. 71–88). Long Grove, IL: Waveland. Van Maanen, J. (1973). Observations on the making of policemen. Human Organization, 32, 407–418. Worden, R. E. (1995). Police officers’ belief systems: A framework for analysis. American Journal of Police, 14(1), 49–81.

POLICE PSYCHOLOGISTS Over the past four decades, a rapidly growing specialty area of psychology has been that of psychologists working within the realm of law enforcement. Police psychologists are involved in the selection of employees; fitness-for-duty evaluations; various therapeutic programs, both individual and group; the evaluation, treatment, and referral of substance abuse, domestic violence, and gambling; the development and facilitation of various training initiatives; and research and consultation. On a more operational level, police psychologists respond to crisis situations including officer-involved shootings, significant traumatic events, suicide interventions, and crisis and hostage negotiations. A functional dichotomy within police psychology is that of actual primary roles for the psychologist. Major metropolitan police departments will most likely employ multiple staff police psychologists. Generally speaking, the in-house staff psychologist is involved in day-to-day undertakings within the department, thereby compelling an immersion of his or her professional activities directly within the police environment. This constant exposure to the police culture allows for a more rapid and complete acceptance by departmental police officers, civilian support staff, and the senior-level

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command staff. Typically, the staff psychologist acquires confidence and, most important, trust and credibility as a member of the department. Although not often discussed, power, hence professional influence, is of utmost significance for the in-house staff psychologist. Power in this context is operationalized as the individual psychologist’s ability to professionally influence administrative and supervisory decisions. Such influence can only be attained via consistent, accurate, and professional consultative recommendations provided by the staff psychologist. Thus, it is imperative that the in-house police psychologist be administratively placed as close to the highestranking official in the department, usually the chief/ director or sheriff, as possible. In most large departments, given the sensitivity and confidentiality of some situations (e.g., substance abuse or domestic violence), it is best for the staff psychologist to be placed one rung directly below the chief/director or sheriff in the administrative chain of command. Therefore, the inhouse police psychologist is usually administratively assigned the position of an assistant/deputy chief or director. This administrative position potentially provides the staff psychologist with extraordinary positive influence within a police organization. However, the staff psychologist must always be cognizant of this fact and limit his or her activities—both professional and casual—with the senior command staff. For if the rank-and-file officers and civilian support employees perceive the in-house psychologist as being too friendly with upper-echelon supervisors, the overall trust for the staff psychologist will be severely compromised. The resulting outcome will be a significant reduction in departmental employees seeking clinical assistance with the professional staff at the psychological services section. As such, the in-house staff psychologist must always be aware of the potential impact of dual or multiple relationships. A dual or multiple relationship occurs when a psychologist is in a professional role with a person and concurrently is in another role with the same person or when a psychologist is in a relationship with a person closely associated with, or related to, the person with whom the psychologist has the professional relationship. For example, a police psychologist would enter into a multiple relationship if he or she entered into a therapeutic/clinical relationship with the commander of the special response team with whom the staff psychologist regularly consults on tactical operation callouts. Other advantages for the in-house staff psychologist

is the ability to be knowledgeable about the unspoken/ unwritten rules of the department as well as the various rumors within the organization. With this in mind, the staff psychologist is able to develop a network that can quickly ameliorate conflicts and potential opportunities. Another significant advantage for the inhouse staff psychologist is the ability to recognize critical training opportunities and rapidly implement appropriate training blocks. A secondary advantage to the rapid implementation of departmental training is the actual facilitation of the training blocks by the staff psychologist and his or her staff. The facilitation of the didactic block provides the opportunity for the staff psychologist and his or her staff to interact within the safety of the training environment. Often, departmental employees will initiate the scheduling of therapy on meeting the staff psychologist during the training experience. Other primary responsibilities of the in-house staff psychologist include the provision of direct clinical intervention—usually, short-term therapy, substance abuse intervention, clinical referral, training and consultation, and crisis and hostage negotiation training and consultation. Most likely, the in-house staff psychologist is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for crisis response, including officer-involved shootings and other crises, such as suicide and domestic violence. The latter professional demands of constant oncall responsibilities, including hostage and crisis intervention as well as other posttrauma and critical event responses (e.g., employee trauma and death), compel significant introspection by the psychologist considering the acceptance of the position of internal police psychologist. The constant on-call status itself can be insidiously stressful to the psychologist as well as to his or her family. In addition, it is evident that the vicissitudes of traumatic event response can lead to the dynamic of vicarious traumatization in some police psychologists. Vicarious traumatization occurs as a function of mental health professionals’ consistently intervening in traumatic events. As a result of routinely being exposed to the traumatic sequelae of others, the responding psychologist may develop concomitant symptoms, such as social isolation/withdrawal, sleep and appetitive disorders, burnout, and substance abuse. The other role for psychologists is that of an external consultant, sometimes jocularly referred to as the “out-house” psychologist. The external consultant’s primary responsibility is pre-employment screening,

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to be discussed in more detail later in this entry. Along with this most demanding responsibility, the external consultant is also responsible for clinical intervention, including crisis intervention, as well as training and consultation. Like the in-house staff psychologist, the external consulting police psychologist should report either directly to the chief/director or sheriff or to the next highest-ranking official in the executive chain of command. Developing a close working relationship with the highest-ranking official in the police chain of command establishes the organizational power and support necessary to effectuate departmental innovations and a more receptive consideration of professional recommendations. The most glaring disadvantage of the external consulting psychologist is that he or she is frequently perceived as an outsider and is never completely trusted by either the command staff or the rank-and-file sworn officers, as well as the civilian support personnel.

History of Police Psychology Psychologists began entering the realm of law enforcement during the 1950s and 1960s, when the concept of vicarious liability and negligent retention began to affect the provision of services by police departments. As such, the first role for the burgeoning field of police psychology was to develop psychometric instruments to predict job suitability of police officer candidates. Over the years, pre-employment testing/screening has become a precondition for hiring in the law enforcement selection process. Along with the early psychological testing, the nascent police psychologists consulting within major city departments were tasked with the development of prototypical employee assistance programs for alcohol abuse treatment. However, in some major departments such as San Francisco, Boston, and New York, there was no concomitant intervention for stress/emotional problems other than those related to alcohol. Consequently, many departments, notably those in Boston, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles County, and Miami, initiated hybrid employee assistance programs known as “stress programs.” Following the recommendations of the President’s Commission on Law, Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice (1967), the Los Angeles Police Department hired the first full-time inhouse staff psychologist, Martin Reiser, in 1968. Reiser is widely known as the “father of police psychology.” In 1971, Mike Roberts was hired as a

consulting clinical psychologist for the San Jose Police Department, and so began the dichotomy of the provision of psychological services to law enforcement personnel. Reiser provided services on both a voluntary and a mandatory basis, while Roberts provided therapy solely on a voluntary basis and referred to an external consultant any counseling or testing for which an officer or employee of the department was involuntarily mandated. Today, most mental health professionals agree that voluntary referral is preferable to mandatory referral in that the latter usually raises practical as well as ethical issues and conflicts. In organizations that use mandatory referrals (ostensibly, fitness-for-duty evaluations), external consultants are contracted to provide the clinical services. In 1973, Harvey Schlossberg became the first policeman to earn a doctoral degree in clinical psychology and become a departmental police psychologist for the New York City Police Department. Later that year, he assisted in successfully negotiating the release of hostages in the “Williamsburg Siege.” Soon thereafter, under Schlossberg’s direction, the New York City Police Department established the country’s first hostage negotiation unit. Today, almost every major department and midsize local municipal agency uses a fully operational tactical and negotiator team with access to either full- or part-time mental health professionals for consultation. As can be seen, police psychology has evolved into a recognized and robust specialty area within psychology. A contributing factor in the growing popularity and success of police psychology is the willingness of police psychology practitioners to remain actively involved in the dissemination of information through journals, books, and other publications. It should first be noted, however, that the Behavioral Sciences Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was instrumental in providing the forum for police psychologists from around the United States to meet and present papers germane to this new field of psychological application. A further energizing force is the networking dynamics of two relatively new professional organizations within the field of police psychology. During the FBI national conferences of 1977 and 1984, these pioneer police psychologists set in motion the establishment of two professional organizations, the Police and Public Safety Psychology Section of Division 18 of the American Psychological Association (APA) (1983) and the Police Psychological Services of the International Association of Chiefs of

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Police (IACP) (1986). Some of the more significant applications of this specialty area are discussed in the following sections.

Pre-Employment Selection Pre-employment selection has been the earliest known usage of psychology in law enforcement. Recent research has concluded that police recruitment selection procedures vary greatly, that there is no standard assessment process, and that there is an extensive variety of test battery composition. In an attempt to provide specific standards and constraints for a process with wide variance, both the Police and Public Safety Psychology Section of Division 18 of the APA and the Police Psychological Services section of the IACP proposed and ratified, via membership vote, a set of guidelines for pre-employment psychological evaluation. These guidelines established that only licensed or certified psychologists trained and experienced in psychological test interpretation and law enforcement psychological assessment techniques should conduct psychological screening for police agencies. Furthermore, police psychologists must adhere to the ethical principles and standards of the APA and all state and federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act. The test battery must include objective, job-related, validated psychological instruments, including a cognitive test. Every test battery must also include an individual face-to-face, semistructured interview.

Fitness-for-Duty Evaluations Along with pre-employment screening for police candidates, the external police consultant often has the task of facilitating mandatory fitness-for-duty evaluations (FFDE). According to the IACP (Psychological Fitness-For-Duty Evaluation Guidelines, 2004), a psychological FFDE is a formal, specialized examination of an incumbent employee (typically a sworn police officer) that results from objective evidence that the employee may be unable to safely or effectively perform a defined job task and/or a reasonable basis for believing that this may be attributable to psychological factors. The central purpose of an FFDE is to determine whether the employee is psychologically fit to safely and effectively carry out essential job tasks and responsibilities. At a minimum, the evaluator should be a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist with training and experience in psychological assessment, especially

in the evaluation of law enforcement personnel. The police psychologist evaluator provides recommendations to the referring department. The department is responsible for the ultimate determination of the disposition of the employee.

Clinical Intervention The more typical responsibility, especially for the inhouse staff psychologist, is the provision of clinical intervention and responses. Interestingly, in major metropolitan police departments, crisis responses— such as officer-involved shootings, severe vehicular accidents, major injuries and deaths, suicide attempts and completions, and SWAT (special weapons and tactics) callouts—are quite common, occurring on average once per week. Critical incidents within the law enforcement community are conceptualized as traumatic events. Thus, the event is conceptualized as the officer’s having experienced an event significantly outside the range of typical human experience, such that his or her responses are typical reactions to the abnormal event. The most frequently occurring psychological sequelae following a critical incident within law enforcement (especially if the police officer has the thought, “I’m going to die”) are social isolation/withdrawal, sleep disturbances, flashbacks, depression and anxiety, a heightened sense of danger, hypervigilance, and increased alcohol/substance abuse. Concurrent with crisis response capability, the staff psychologist is actively involved in providing stress inoculation training at the department’s training bureau. Stress inoculation training has been found to be successful in empowering police officers to prevent, or at least lessen, the psychological impact of stress within the responsibilities of police responses. The more typical psychological interventions police psychologists routinely undertake are individual, marital, and family counseling. The most frequent presenting issues for individual therapy are stress/ anxiety, depression, substance abuse, domestic violence, and, more recently, compulsive gambling. The affective disorders and marital and family interventions are triaged by the staff psychologist to other licensed mental health staff members of the psychological services section. These mental health professionals are then tasked with providing confidential intervention, usually on a short-term basis of 8 to 12 weeks of therapy. All substance abuse, domestic violence, and compulsive gambling cases are assigned to

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specific members of the section who have experience in the assessment, treatment, and referral (if clinically necessary) of these more complicated and long-term issues. Many departments have developed peersupport aftercare groups for long-term maintenance and groups for substance abuse and gambling cases. A final matter of profound significance for the police psychologist’s unwavering attention is police suicide. Some experts in police psychology claim that the incidence of suicide among police officers is approaching epidemic proportions. Therefore, it is incumbent on the police psychologist to develop and maintain an effective training and intervention program focused on ameliorating the incidence of police suicide.

Crisis and Hostage Negotiation Many police psychologists have become actively involved in the operational responsibility of assisting law enforcement tactical teams (SWAT teams) in the area of crisis and hostage negotiation. A hostage situation is defined as any situation in which individuals are being held via active coercion by another person or people and demands are being made by the hostage taker(s). Typically, the police psychologist maintains two overlapping roles in the SWAT team. Prior to providing any information or influence within a police tactical operation, the police psychologist must always remain cognizant that he or she is always bound by federal and state legal constraints, as well as by professional and ethical standards. In the role of a professional, the police psychologist provides the general theoretical and practical applications of behavioral science information. In the role of a consultant, the police psychologist designs and implements negotiator selection and training. A second function in the role of a consultant is the provision of specific behavioral recommendations to the operational chain of command. Owing to ethical constraints, other than in a rare exigent situation, the police psychologist never actively speaks with the affected individual.

Training for a Career as a Police Psychologist At the time of writing, there are no formal graduate programs specifically for police psychology. It is suggested that psychology students interested in becoming active in this specialty area seek a doctoral degree (Ph.D. or Psy.D.) within the established fields of

clinical, counseling, forensic, or industrial/organizational psychology. For those students with a preference for the role of the internal staff psychologist, it is highly recommended that they become experienced in the clinical areas of individual, couples, and marital therapy. Special emphasis should be directed at didactic and experiential training in crisis intervention. Once a psychologist is hired by a police department, crisis and hostage negotiation training is usually extended through a basic, introductory course on crisis and hostage negotiation facilitated by the Behavioral Sciences Unit of the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. Parenthetically, it should be mentioned that the position of psychological profiling is rarely offered as a freestanding occupational position within the law enforcement community. Psychological, criminal profiling is only one job task within the overall occupational realm of the police psychologist. For the doctoral student who endeavors to become an external consulting psychologist, it is clearly recommended that the area of psychological assessment be an educational and experiential imperative. Along with a clear understanding of all aspects of personality assessment, organizational consultation and crisis intervention should also be areas of competency. Some universities are affiliated with police departments for either a predoctoral practicum or predoctoral internship experiences, although such programs are very limited in scope. Regardless of either a practicum or an internship placement, however, it is important for anyone interested in a career in police psychology to become familiar with the dynamics and culture of law enforcement. As such, it is highly recommended that during the doctoral experience, the student actively seek membership in the Psychological Services sections of both the APA and the IACP. Finally, it is suggested that, if possible, the doctoral student seek out an established police psychologist in the vicinity of the campus of doctoral study, in the hope that this police psychologist will agree to provide information regarding the field of police psychology and also to establish a doctoral practicum at his or her professional practice. Ultimately, the goal for the doctoral student would be to develop a mentoring relationship with the police psychologist. Such a relationship would greatly facilitate the attainment of career goals for the doctoral graduate student and would include the actual experience of the practicum placement in police psychology, consistent interaction with a police psychologist to answer various occupational questions and career development

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issues, and the potential for participation in police psychology research and introduction to other police psychologists by being sponsored to attend local and national police psychology conferences. Scott W. Allen See also Crisis and Hostage Negotiation; Police Psychology; Police Selection; Police Stress; Police Training and Evaluation

not include other law enforcement settings and professionals, such as sheriffs, marshals, or correctional officers, who at times perform job tasks similar to police officers.) Psychological services for the police have traditionally involved evaluating police applicants, educating and training police officers, evaluating job tasks and duties, and carrying out fitness-for-duty assessments.

Evaluating Police Applicants Further Readings

Allen, S. W. (1986). Suicide and indirect self-destructive behavior. In J. T. Reese & H. A. Goldstein (Eds.). Psychological services for law enforcement (pp. 412–416). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Press. Allen, S. W. (2001). Suicide prevention training: One department’s response. In D. C. Sheehan & J. I. Warren (Eds.), Suicide and law enforcement (pp. 9–17). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Press. Blau, T. H. (1994). Psychological services for law enforcement. New York: Wiley. Lord, V. B. (Ed.). (2004). Suicide by cop: Inducing officers to shoot. Flushing, NY. Looseleaf. McMains, M. J., & Mullins, W. C. (2000). Crisis negotiations: Managing critical incidents and hostage situations in law enforcement and corrections. Cincinnati, OH. Anderson. Reiser, M. (1982). Police psychology. Los Angeles: LEHI.

POLICE PSYCHOLOGY Police psychology, the practice of psychology in police settings, has been part of American policing since the late 1960s and has traditionally been a clinical endeavor by clinical psychologists. Although many large police agencies and some medium-sized ones employ full-time clinical psychologists, most agencies contract for part-time work with clinical psychologists who often maintain separate private practices. The practice of psychology in police settings has also been a research, consultation, and training endeavor by psychologists who have backgrounds in, for instance, experimental, social, and industrial-organizational psychology. Therefore, generally, police psychology is a field of practice in which psychologists of different training investigate and apply psychological knowledge to police settings and problems. (Here, this does

Since the 1960s, organizations and commissions such as the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police have recommended that police agencies evaluate the psychological fitness of police applicants. Today, most police agencies recognize and use a psychological evaluation as one part of the selection of police officers. Typically, licensed clinical psychologists carry out the evaluation. Some psychologists use a “select-in” evaluation strategy, whereby they look for applicants who demonstrate the qualities necessary to be successful on the job and recommend that police agencies accept them for law enforcement training. Other psychologists screen out applicants who demonstrate undesirable characteristics and recommend that police agencies no longer consider employing them. Many psychologists use both screen-out and select-in evaluation strategies, by which they screen out psychopathology and select in ideal police characteristics. Both focus on screening for suitable applicants. Evaluations typically involve administering a battery of psychological tests, carrying out a personal interview, giving situational tests, and making a selection recommendation. Psychological test batteries administered by psychologists have included intelligence tests, personality tests, projective tests, and situational tests. Intelligence tests, such as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, measure applicants’ cognitive abilities. Scholarly research has linked intelligence tests with success on the job and in recruit training. Psychologists use personality tests to measure the relatively stable characteristics or traits of applicants. Commonly used tests are the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), and the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI). These tests are selfreport, paper-and-pencil personality inventories. Research has shown empirical support for their usefulness in

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predicting what police applicants might say or do on the job—for example, being late or absent, using drugs, violating police procedures and rules, and using excessive force. Few psychologists continue to use projective tests, which ask applicants to respond to unstructured situations or stimuli, such as the Rorschach Inkblot Test. Less frequent among psychologists is the use of situational tests, in which police applicants engage a role-playing exercise usually representative of job-related work conditions. There has been little empirical evidence supporting the use of projective and situational tests in screening police applicants for law enforcement training. Psychologists supplement test scores from a battery of psychological tests with information obtained from a personal interview, a common component of the psychological evaluation. Psychologists use a personal history questionnaire to gather information on applicants’ background (e.g., family, work, health, and any criminal behavior). Their interview, in part, usually involves a structured question format. Psychologists, however, often ask probing questions that follow up applicants’ responses and sometimes ask questions that their police agency clients request. Personal interviews with police applicants help psychologists interpret and validate test data sources.

Educating and Training Police Officers The police have the responsibility to keep the peace, maintain order, enforce laws, and safeguard the wellbeing of the community. This kind of duty to act involves the possibility of danger all the time, puts police officers at risk, and requires education and training. Critical issues in police education and training to which psychologists have given considerable attention are negotiating hostage and barricaded-suspect (HBS) situations, handling people with mental illness, conducting criminal investigations, and managing jobrelated stress. Negotiating Hostage and Barricaded-Suspect Situations. Most police agencies have and employ critical incident teams, sometimes called special response teams (SRT) or special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams, to resolve or assist in resolving high-threat or specialthreat conditions, such as HBS situations. Police use of critical incident teams has evolved since the highly publicized HBS situation during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany. The first police

approach to handling an HBS situation was an assault, which involved officers primarily using forceful options, often with lethal consequences for suspects. Sometimes, suspects’ family members subsequently took legal action against the police. In the early 1970s, psychologists and sworn personnel developed verbal tactics as alternatives to the assault option. Such tactics focused on police officers extending incident time to de-escalate the situation and talking suspects into surrendering. Police records have shown that critical incidents teams successfully resolve most HBS situations without injury to participants when police officers negotiate verbally. When police agencies used clinical psychologists to negotiate such situations, the rate of success without injury to participants increased. HBS negotiation training is available at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) academy in Quantico, Virginia. The FBI’s Crisis Negotiation Unit delivers training to all FBI negotiators and other law enforcement negotiators. There are also private companies that develop and deliver specialized training in negotiation skills. Trainers are usually experienced police negotiators who are sometimes psychologists. Police agencies that employ full-time clinical psychologists sometimes use them to educate and train their critical incident team negotiators and work at times with them to resolve, or assist in resolving, HBS calls for service. Negotiation activities primarily focus on containing suspects, negotiating with them, uncovering the personal factors motivating their behavior, and extending incident time, which gives suspects the opportunity to vent their emotions and make sensible decisions. Negotiation training typically emphasizes developing active listening skills through role-playing. Scholarly research on the effectiveness of negotiation training is in its infancy. A recent preliminary finding showed that FBI agents significantly improved their active listening skills following participation in the FBI’s National Crisis Negotiation Course. Generally, however, there is much research that needs to be done in order to evaluate the effectiveness of crisis negotiation training. Handling People With Mental Illness. The police are having more contacts with people with mental illness. Researchers have estimated that between 5% and 10% of police-citizen contacts involve people with mental illness. Contacts often occur in the home, family members sometimes call for police services, and the police usually resolve calls without incident. Some

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researchers have suggested that the dismantling of state mental hospitals, the changing mentally ill population, the tightening of requirements for receiving mental health support, and the offering of limited psychological services are possible explanations. The police are receiving education and training in the handling of people with mental illness. They recognize that mental illness is not a crime and that people having mental illness live in their communities, have professional vocations, and call for police services. The police also know that empirical investigations have found a link between mental illness and criminal behavior. For example, persons who suffer from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia are more likely to express antisocial behaviors that society criminalizes. Most mentally ill offenders are under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they commit crimes. There is some increased risk of mentally ill individuals becoming violent. Although people who have a mental illness may commit a crime, be a victim of crime, or report a crime, police responses to encounters with them have improved with training. Police personnel, psychologists, and other mental health professionals have developed training curricula that include topics such as symptomatology of mental conditions, nonarrest and arrest options, and community police responses. They have developed and made available model police policies for contacts with people with mental illness. These policies have helped police administrators standardize the nature of their departments’ response while giving the police flexibility to meet the needs of people with mental illness. Conducting Criminal Investigations. Psychologists have studied the procedures and tactics used by the police in criminal investigations. They have produced psychological knowledge and have helped the police apply it to criminal investigation techniques such as eyewitness identification. For example, a police detective has a crime suspect and asks an eyewitness to identify him or her by viewing photos. The detective shows the eyewitness eight photos one at a time (sequentially) rather than all at the same time (simultaneously) to reduce the chances of misidentification caused by the eyewitness comparing photos and trying to decide which one looks most like the suspect. Chances of misidentification are less when the detective does not know the actual identity of the suspect, tells the eyewitness that the suspect’s photo may or

may not be present, gives the eyewitness no feedback during or after the identification procedure, and asks the eyewitness about his or her level of confidence in the identification. What psychologists have known about police interrogation tactics is that some of them lead to false confessions. For example, a police detective has a suspect of a crime and interrogates him or her for several hours. An interrogation is a stressful experience for the suspect. In a state of high stress, some suspects are highly suggestible and might come to believe that the accusations made by the detective are true. Other suspects may confess if the detective threatens punishment or makes promises during the interrogation— even if the suspect knows that he or she is innocent. In other cases, the desire for attention or fame, especially in a highly publicized crime, might motivate the suspect to confess despite having done nothing wrong. Police detection of the lies told by suspects during interrogation has received considerable research attention by psychologists. The police know that uncontrollable physiological arousal often accompanies a suspect’s lying. For example, a police detective has a suspect of a crime and uses the polygraph technique (or device) in interrogation. The polygraph examiner asks the suspect several non-crime-related questions that generate emotional responses (e.g., about past behaviors) and several crime-related questions. Both provoke physiological responses, but the crime-related questions provoke more physiological responses than the non-crime-related (or control) ones, which suggests that the suspect is guilty. Most courts do not accept polygraph results as evidence. Psychological research has suggested that the rate of accurately detecting deception is low and the rate of false positives is high. The police, however, continue to use the technique with others and try to convince suspects that they cannot beat the device and that they should admit the fact of having committed a crime. Hypnosis is another investigative technique available to the police. Usually psychologists, psychiatrists, or trained forensic hypnotists conduct interviews using hypnosis. They use the technique mostly to obtain information from eyewitnesses or victims and rarely to obtain information from suspects. There is little empirical evidence to support the belief that hypnosis elicits reliable memories. Criminal profiling is a set of investigative techniques used to identify the characteristics of suspects most likely to have committed a crime. For example,

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a police detective analyzes a crime scene, investigates the personal history of the victim, considers motivating factors, links the nature of the crime with similar behaviors of criminals, and finally generates a hypothesis about the suspect’s sex, age, race, education, marital status, personality, and other personal characteristics. Specialized training in criminal profiling is available at the FBI Academy. Police profilers use behavioral science techniques along with other techniques of criminal investigation. They use criminal profiles to focus investigations in part on particular types of suspects while continuing investigative efforts on all possible suspects. How effective is criminal profiling? Some research suggests that professional profilers do better at extracting information from crimes and making predictions about suspects than do nonprofessionals. Managing Job-Related Stress. Police stress is a reaction (or effect) caused by unfavorable physical, psychological, or social forces. Reactions may include physical, cognitive, behavioral, and affective changes in police behavior. Police stress may stem from law enforcement work, personal life, the criminal justice system, the police organization, or the public. Stress related to law enforcement work has received considerable research, training, and counseling attention, especially incidents involving force by and against the police, such as officer-involved shootings. Police agencies are educating and training their officers to manage job-related tasks that can be stressful. Training curricula include recognizing stress reactions and learning skills to manage their potential harmful effects. Police agencies routinely provide their officers and families with information about jobrelated stress and mental health support. They establish peer support teams composed of officers and psychologists or other mental health professionals. Postincident debriefings are common following critical police incidents. They serve as an early crisis intervention effort, facilitate discussion with officers, assist in restoring normalcy in officers’ lives, and help police administrators identify officers who need professional mental health support. Peer support teams are usually part of the postincident debriefing.

Evaluating Job Tasks and Duties Psychologists with training in industrial-organizational psychology have contributed mostly to the study of police officers at work. A job analysis determines

what responsibilities the police have, what tasks they perform, what knowledge and skills they possess, and what results they achieve. Analysis methods primarily involve reviewing the literature on policing, reviewing departmental literature (e.g., operational manuals, rules and procedures, policies, and general orders), observing the police at work (e.g., ride-alongs and training), conducting interviews with police personnel, and administering survey questionnaires. This battery of techniques produces an exhaustive list of job duties, such as crime prevention and law enforcement, and job tasks, such as making arrests and writing reports. Police agencies use information from the job analysis to make informed decisions about organizational operations such as police selection and promotional procedures. A job analysis is lengthy and expensive. It requires organizational cooperation and commitment at all levels; it validates pre-employment standards and selection procedures. The Americans with Disabilities Act puts police agencies on notice that they must link their pre-employment standards and selection procedures with job-related behaviors. Staying current and consistent with job analyses gives police agencies some protection against claims of discriminatory selection procedures.

Carrying Out Fitness-for-Duty Assessments Police agencies have a responsibility to monitor the psychological fitness of their officers. They have a right to order psychological evaluations of officers who develop patterns of problematic job-related behaviors. Misconduct might take the form of abusing authority, using excessive force, misusing drugs and alcohol, and engaging in criminal behavior. Police agencies must collect and document information on the problem behaviors they wish to correct. Documentation might include performance evaluations, pre-employment psychological screening reports, disciplinary actions, medical or counseling records, and other types of relevant reports that support a fitness-for-duty evaluation. Officers who go through a fitness-for-duty evaluation must give written consent. Only licensed or certified psychologists (or psychiatrists) who have clinical experience can carry out a fitness-for-duty evaluation. The police agency requesting the evaluation is the client and not the officer going through it. Large police departments that have inhouse psychologists usually have them perform the

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evaluation. However, a dual relationship occurs when in-house or outside psychologists counsel or have counseled an officer whom the police agency refers for a fitness-for-duty evaluation. Most police agencies contract with outside psychologists to avoid the conflicts that such dual relationships produce. Police departments must make every effort to avoid dual relationships. The Psychological Services section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police recommends that psychologists have training and experience in psychological testing and police assessment techniques and that they have knowledge of police job-related functions and the legal issues surrounding employment practices. An assessment of job-related mental fitness usually involves reviewing background information, administering a battery of psychological tests, conducting a clinical interview, generating a report, and making recommendations. The scope of the assessment is breadth and depth of psychological fitness, with the aim of identifying the absence or presence of personal characteristics essential for performing job-related behaviors that the officer falls short of doing. Outcome recommendations first specify “fit” or “not fit.” Police chiefs or other police stakeholders (the client) may request additional recommendations, such as mental health counseling, remedial training, or other remedies. Frank J. Gallo See also Police Psychologists; Police Selection; Police Training and Evaluation

Further Readings

Bartol, C. R. (1996). Police psychology: Then, now, and beyond. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 23(1), 70–89. Craig, R. J. (2005). Personality-guided forensic psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Cutler, B. L., & Penrod, S. D. (1995). Mistaken identification: Eyewitnesses, psychology and the law. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kurke, I. M., & Scrivner, E. M. (1995). Police psychology into the 21st century. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. McNally, V. J., & Solomon, R. M. (1999). The FBI’s critical incident stress management program. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, February, 20–25. Police Executive Research Forum. (1997). The police response to people with mental illness. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum.

POLICE SELECTION Police selection is a process by which police agencies decide on which applicants are suitable for law enforcement training. The application of psychology to the selection of police officers has long been a part of the process, usually in the form of a psychological evaluation performed by a licensed clinical psychologist. The evaluation typically involves considering a selection strategy, administering a battery of psychological tests, carrying out a personal interview, giving situational tests, and making a selection recommendation.

Selection Strategy “Selecting-in” police applicants who demonstrate the qualities necessary to be successful on the job is one strategy some psychologists use to evaluate applicants’ suitability for law enforcement training. A job-task analysis, usually performed by industrial-organizational psychologists, is one way psychologists obtain selectin information about necessary job skills and traits to perform them. The evolving nature of policing, however, can lead to selecting in applicants who have “nolonger-needed skills” and traits to perform the job well. Though some psychologists use select-in criteria to accept police applicants, there is a lack of consensus among police and community stakeholders on the qualities needed to be successful in the police profession. There is more agreement on the unwanted qualities of police applicants. In practice, the selection of suitable police applicants often involves screening out those applicants who demonstrate undesirable police characteristics. Psychologists are concerned with mental stability because an unstable officer, not surprisingly, is more likely to perform poorly on the job than a stable one. Empirical evidence suggesting that a screening-out focus best predicts which candidates are more likely to experience on-the-job difficulties falls short of being consistent. Today, many psychologists use an evaluation strategy that screens out psychopathology and selects in ideal police characteristics. Their select-in and screenout procedures must (a) adhere to ethical principles and standards of practice, (b) focus on applicants’ ability to perform necessary job functions, (c) avoid clinical diagnoses, and (d) use objective and validated tests that specify what police functions they intend to

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measure. Psychologists must carry out select-in and screen-out procedures that include evaluations of mental health in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and only after a conditional offer of employment to the police applicant. Prior to conditional offers, psychologists can use personality tests and other methods that do not include evaluations of mental health. Both conditional- and preconditionaloffer psychological evaluations, however, focus on screening for suitable applicants.

Psychological Tests The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), and the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) are the psychological tests commonly used for screening police applicants. The MMPI and the CPI are general self-report, paper-and-pencil, personality inventories used to assess the relatively stable characteristics of applicants. They tap a number of dimensions thought to make up a police applicant’s personality, which can affect his or her on-the-job performance. The MMPI is a clinical instrument designed to measure dimensions of deviant personality and maladaptive behavior. It is composed of 550 true-or-false items. Above-average scale scores suggest a greater probability of having job performance problems. Some empirical support has linked MMPI scores with police performance ratings and disciplinary actions such as termination and suspension from duty. Authors have updated and restandardized the original MMPI; its current version is the MMPI–2. The CPI is a nonclinical instrument designed to measure normal personality traits important for social living and interaction. Test takers complete 480 truefalse questions. Empirical studies have found that below-average scale scores increase the chances of police applicants having job-related problems such as using illegal drugs, using excessive force, and violating other department rules and procedures. The authors of the MMPI and the author of the CPI did not design the instruments to screen police applicants. There are, however, police and public safety reports available for both the MMPI and the CPI. In contrast to the MMPI and CPI, the IPI, designed to screen police applicants, predicts normal and deviant police job performance patterns of test takers. It is a self-report, paper-and-pencil questionnaire, which consists of 310 true-or-false items developed

from more than 2,000 pre-employment interviews with law enforcement candidates. Test scales measure behaviors such as absenteeism, lateness, trouble with the law, depression, suspiciousness, and anxiety. Research has shown an association between aboveaverage IPI scale scores and negative behaviors by police recruits, such as lateness, absenteeism, and dereliction of duty during academy training. Besides the MMPI, CPI, and IPI, psychologists have used other psychological tests, such as the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, Five Factor Personality Test, and Hilson Safety/Security Risk Inventory. Psychologists usually couple personality tests with cognitive ability tests such as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, which have some empirical support for predicting on-the-job and police academy performance. Some psychologists also use projective tests that ask applicants to respond to unstructured stimuli or situations, such as completing a series of unfinished sentences or describing a set of inkblots; however, the use of projective tests in the selection of police officers has declined. Psychological tests capture a sample of the police applicant’s behaviors. Psychologists generally administer multiple tests, sometimes three or four. The diagnostic value of these tests is to forecast what the applicant might say or do under police work conditions. Research has linked personality test data from the MMPI, CPI, and IPI with police job-related problems and success. However, not all psychologically suitable police applicants are free from job-related problems. Poor work performance might be an artifact of attitudes and belief systems that develop after selection. Police experience and effects of the occupational culture might lead to job-related problems not predicted by applicants’ psychological profiles. Situational factors might interact with personal factors to determine some inappropriate job behaviors. In short, psychological test responses, in part, help select in and screen out police applicants, but applicants might lean toward making favorable impressions in an effort to appear well suited for police work. Psychological tests together with personal interviews and situational tests round out the selection of suitable police applicants for law enforcement training and work.

Personal Interview Personal interviews are a common selection component of psychological evaluations. Psychologists use

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police applicants’ interview performance to supplement their psychological test scores. They usually gather background information obtained from a personal history questionnaire, which includes questions about work, family, health, and criminal behavior. Sometimes, police agencies supply psychologists with applicants’ background investigation reports. Such reports help psychologists check applicants’ psychological test data. Interviews can involve asking standardized questions, while allowing psychologists to probe the responses of police applicants. Standardized interviews let psychologists compare applicants and check cross-interviewer reliability. The interview process can expose personal characteristics not revealed by self-report questionnaires; for example, the applicant’s body language during the interview may show anxiety or tension. Sometimes, psychologists ask questions requested by their police clients who have uncovered personal characteristics of applicants that are suspect. Personal interviews, when used with psychological tests, help interpret test data and help answer the complex question, Who is a suitable applicant?

Situational Tests Psychologists have used situational tests or role-playing exercises designed to measure a sample of behaviors the police applicant might use on the job. Situational tests are usually representative of jobrelated work conditions. Some preliminary empirical evidence supports the use of situational tests in the selection of police officers. For example, police applicants who performed well on a “Clues Test,” which asked them to investigate clues about the disappearance of a hypothetical employee, also performed well during their recruit training. Situational tests have a practical appeal. Advanced computer technology allows police trainers to administer situational training and tests to incumbent officers. For example, an interactive computer simulation asks police officers how they would respond to different suspect behaviors directed toward them during an arrest. Officers make decisions, and trainers evaluate them. Police psychologists appear to be slow at developing situational tests and using computer technology to administer them as part of the selection process. Law enforcement assessment centers, however, are typically private agencies that have a history of using situational tests to evaluate incumbent officers and

sometimes police applicants. Situational tests make possible the observation of hidden values that only appear under conditions that require quick decisions. With situational tests, psychologists can measure behaviors deliberately concealed from pencil-andpaper tests and personal interviews. Situational tests have a lifelike quality, are time-consuming and expensive, but are becoming attractive to psychologists.

Selection Recommendation Police agencies that psychologically screen their police applicants consider the importance of the evaluation differently. Some consider it modestly, with other selection procedures frequently used, such as the civil service exam, physical fitness assessment, background investigation, and personal interview with police personnel. Most consider it a pass-or-fail component of the selection process. They no longer consider employing applicants whom psychologists fail. Psychologists’ selection recommendations are not always simple dichotomies: pass or fail, or suitable or unsuitable for law enforcement training. There are psychologists who use Likert-type scales to make their recommendations—3, 4, or 5 points ranging from not suitable to suitable. A favorable recommendation or endorsement of an applicant by a psychologist does not guarantee that the applicant will be successful on the job. Selection recommendations are probabilistic events. They might be wrong because psychologists make their decisions under probable or uncertain conditions and with limited information that is sometimes imperfect. Psychologists will be incorrect (or False Accept) if their decision is “suitable” when the applicant’s actual status is “not suitable.” Psychologists will also be incorrect (or False Reject) if their decision is “not suitable” when the applicant’s actual status is “suitable.” Best evaluation practices to maximize “True Accept” and minimize the total number of “False Accept” and “False Reject” errors involve psychologists using personal interviews and multiple tests and validating them.

Current Trends The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies and the International Association of Chiefs of Police have recommended the psychological evaluation of police applicants.

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Most police agencies recognize and use the psychological evaluation as one component of the police selection process, but not all states legislatively mandate it or require applicants to pass it. Those police agencies that do not use police selection procedures that include a psychological evaluation are mostly small departments. Some courts have looked at the failure to screen police applicants’ mental fitness as negligence. Despite the limitations associated with preemployment psychological evaluations, psychologists predict a greater number of unsuitable police applicants than one would expect to find by chance alone. Psychologically evaluating police applicants continues to be an integral and evolving component of the selection of police officers. Frank J. Gallo See also Forensic Assessment; Police Decision Making; Police Psychologists; Police Psychology

Further Readings

Cocharane, R. E., Tett, R. P., & Vandecreek, L. (2003). Psychological testing and the selection of police officers: A national survey. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 30(5), 511–537. Gough, H. G. (1975). Manual for the California Psychological Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychological Press. Hathaway, S. R., & McKinley, J. C. (1983). The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory: Manual. New York: Psychological Corporation. Inwald, R. E., Knatz, H., & Shusman, L. (1983). Inwald Personality Inventory manual. New York: Hilson Research. Varela, J. G., Boccaccini, M. T., Scogin, F., Stump, J., & Caputo, A. (2004). Personality testing in law enforcement employment settings. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 3(6), 649–675. Wrightsman, L. S., & Fulero, S. M. (2005). Forensic psychology (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

POLICE STRESS This entry defines police officer stress and describes its consequences, origins, and the individual and organizational methods to control it. Controlling stress can enhance the delivery of police services and guide

officers toward healthy lifestyles. One definition of stress is the wear and tear our bodies and minds experience as we react to physiological, psychological, and environmental changes throughout our lives. It is a nonspecific response of the body to a demand for change. Its centerpiece is the relationship between an external event and an internal response: For every action, there’s a reaction. Stress is fundamental to life, but its consequences are experienced differently. When, for example, Hurricane Katrina set down in August 2005, each of us reacted differently to it. Such reactions depend on many factors, according to Hans Selye, the individual who coined the term stress. Different reactions to similar events are expected because we are different: physically (age and health), psychologically (intelligence and experiences), and environmentally (family, community, and personal relationships). Also, our body contains its own unique pharmacy, which produces a chemical reaction of sorts, triggering a physiological and psychological response. Some responses are involuntary; for example, when we are extremely nervous, our palms moisten. Good stress (eustress) and bad stress (distress) are everywhere. Without stress, there could be no life. Just as distress fosters sickness and failure, eustress promotes wellness and success. Every aspect of policing is stressful because experiences can instantly change: When an officer provides emergency care, that officer can become a victim, too. The FBI reports that each year, approximately 12 of every 100 (or 60,000) officers are assaulted. Police experiences can change from patrolling silent avenues to challenging dangerous suspects. The consequences of uncontrolled or untreated stress among officers show that they are 30% more likely to experience health problems than other personnel, 3 times more likely to abuse spouses, 5 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 6 times more likely to experience anxiety, 10 times more likely to become depressed, and, oddly, the least likely of all occupational groups to seek help. Stress is accumulative and, left untreated, can lead to a compromised immune system, illness, and death. Burnout or traumatic stress response is a coping device characterized by physical or psychological avoidance or distancing. Traumatic stress disorders include acute stress disorder (posttraumatic stress, consistent with overwhelming fear and revulsion), conversion reaction (hysteria, development of physical symptoms including

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blindness or paralysis), counter disaster syndrome (excessive excitement and overinvolvement), peacekeepers’ acute syndrome (rage, delusion, and frustration responding to atrocities), and Stockholm syndrome (identification with aggressors). No one experiences all these disorders, but without treatment or individual resolution, officers are more likely to manifest some of these characteristics.

Sources of Stress in Police Work Sources of police stress include stressors derived from critical incidents, general work, family, gender, and the organization. Critical incidents are events beyond the realm of usual experiences, igniting the emergence of a crisis reaction in those adversely affected. Characteristically, a critical incident is an unexpected occurrence disrupting an officer’s control, beliefs, and values. It represents a life threat, triggering emotional or physical vulnerability, and might include events such as a fellow officer being killed or assaulted, barricaded subjects, apprehending emotionally disturbed offenders, or harming or killing an innocent person. Events represent stressors, and reactions represent critical responses, which can be seen as an attempt at psychological homeostasis or a mental balance as a result of the experience of a stressor. The degree an officer is affected depends on the intensity, duration, and unexpectedness of the event. But it also depends on the officer’s primary (participant) or secondary (observer) involvement, previous experiences, and mental health. (Clearly, an officer who was policing in Chicago when Hurricane Katrina arrived would have experienced a different degree of stress than a New Orleans officer.) Also, diagnostic criteria include actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to an officer’s integrity producing reactions of intense fear, helplessness, or horror. Professional crisis intervention with officers experiencing critical events enhances self-esteem and discourages abusive behavior and substance abuse. Effective crisis intervention requires an immediate mandatory debriefing: a short-term psychological method of stabilizing and guiding an officer toward independent functioning. Debriefing includes ventilation and abreaction, social support, and adaptive coping. Debriefing provides a standard of care, which may include making tactical plans to adapt to the incident, communication of coordinated actions, and avoidance of independent action or separation of partners during

felony pursuits. However, officer resilience suggests that the same factors contributing to an officer’s vulnerability to stress are the factors that contribute to resilience or intuitive policing: Experienced officers observe behaviors exhibited by criminals sending danger signals, moving an officer toward a reaction of public safety. Intuitive policing represents a decisionmaking process learned through critical-incident experiences. Critics of debriefing contend that while it would aid in immediate stress responses to some extent, it would not help resolve long-term psychological disturbances, it would accentuate stress responses, and it would exacerbate traumatic stress responses. General Work Stressors. These are stressors arising during officer routines, such as conflict with regulations, paperwork, public disrespect, domestic violence stops, losing control on service calls, child abuse calls, another officer reported injured, lack of recognition, poor supervisor support, disrespect by the courts, shift work, death notification, poor fringe benefits, and accidents in patrol vehicles. General work stressors can change depending on experience. Family Stressors. These stressors arise from personal relationships, but officers view family life as less of a stressor than expected. However, family members view the job of an officer as stressful for them. Officers’ spouses report that shift work, concern over their spouse’s cynicism, the need to feel in control at home, and an inability or unwillingness to express feelings frustrate them. Then, too, because officers seek adventure and work in distant neighborhoods at odd hours, infidelity is an option adding to family member stress and divorce. Gender Stressors. Female and male officers share similar police stressors, but significant differences emerge for females because of differential treatment from male officers, supervisors, courts, and the public. Stress in association with gender comes from a lack of acceptance by a predominantly male force and subsequent denial of needed information, alliances, protection, and sponsorship from supervisors and colleagues; a lack of role models and mentors; the pressure to prove oneself to colleagues; exclusion from informal channels of support; and a lack of decision-making influence. A turning point leading to female officers’ resignation can result from perceptions of stagnated

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careers, an intense experience that brings accumulated frustrations to the foreground, lack of career fulfillment, family considerations, coworker conduct, policy, and new employment opportunities. Women tend to respond more directly to stress than men because they tend to talk about their feelings and take days off for professional and personal help to aid them. Organizational Stressors. Police organizations differ in size, resources, and initiatives; however, organizational structures are consistent with a hierarchical bureaucracy. Therefore, the internal stressors affecting officers may include a political climate whereby commanders control policy less often than anticipated by police personnel; supervision is consistent with a hierarchical bureaucratic structure that stifles quality police services; paramilitary police models mandate strict enforcement practice, which alienates officers; local federal intervention targeting terrorists becomes a stress beehive among officers and supervisors; and officer professionalism is inhibited by the chain-ofcommand tradition. Organizational stressors are a greater source of disruptive stress among officers and their supervisors than critical incidents, general work, family stressors, and gender stressors. This is consistent with officer resistance to new police initiatives and a lack of professionalism; consequently, officers band together in a police subculture for protection.

Resolving Stress Officers and professionals can apply public health medicine’s model of prevention in their development of a stress reduction model, which includes educating the healthy, educating those at risk, and treating those infected. Individual initiatives include pervasive actions taken by an officer to curb stress because it is individually acknowledged that stress left unattended leads to poor police services and fewer quality-of-life choices among officers. Many officers believe that stress is a private matter and, consequently, resolve its effects silently through positive participation at church and in their families; through hobbies, school and training activities, and workouts; and sometimes through inappropriate activities such as substance abuse and other forms of deviant behavior. Person-centered initiatives relate to professional or peer group intervention models. There are many

choices available depending on departmental resources, objectives, and policy. Stress reduction providers include in-house units, external units, and hybrid services. In-house units include formal employee assistance programs developed and administrated through a department to provide stress intervention services and pre-employment screening of police candidates. Informally, officers can develop volunteer peer groups to aid in stress control. Also, there are many peer groups initiated and developed among officers, and many patrol officers and supervisors admired by their peers are often sought out for guidance. In-house units are typified by stress units or volunteers employed by the organization. External programs use an independent psychologically trained agency to provide stress intervention, including debriefing sessions and pre-employment screening. Hybrid programs are typified by organizations that use both in-house and external programs. Departments can use personnel from other police agencies, as well; for example, the Massachusetts State Troopers stress unit also serves Boston police officers. Obstacles associated with individual- and personcentered stress strategies include the following: (a) stress intervention is performed through a multimodal process; (b) treatment is not encouraged by the public, supervisors, and police subculture; (c) seeking help or showing feelings is seen as a weakness or shedding the uniform; (d) officers may hold an unrealistic view of the job; and (e) administrative expectation and demands. Prescribed medication by some licensed stress practitioners includes antidepressants such as fluoxetine (Prozac) or sertraline (Zoloft), which may do little to achieve positive mood changes. However, some research suggests that such drugs may improve the way brain receptors (neurotransmitters) process crucial brain chemicals, most notably serotonin. Medication is intended to “readjust” brain functioning back to its optimal condition. Bupropion (Wellbutrin) works in a different way but may be equally effective. Most police psychologists discourage the use of medication, simply because it is too risky. In some situations, officers are drug tested, and in other situations, psychological dependence is possible. A good rule of thumb is that medication can be an alternative but only with recommendations from more than one physician. Pre-employment screening can identify at-risk candidates who inappropriately rationalize excessive use of force, have engaged in substance abuse and crime,

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hold racist attitudes, or experience severe family conflicts. Departments can develop systems of intervention targeted toward different groups of officers at different phases of their careers, resulting in the identification, treatment, and resolution of suspect officers. If potentially problematic officers go undetected, it is more likely that they will engage in the use of lethal force regardless of the situation because risk behaviors are intensified through other experiences. Desirable personality traits could be enhanced through preservice and in-service training, which would aid in the development of a personnel standard resulting in higher officer morale, fewer human rights violations, and enhanced quality of police services. Dennis J. Stevens See also Crisis and Hostage Negotiation; Critical Incidents; Fitness-for-Duty Evaluations; Police Decision Making; Police Occupational Socialization; Police Psychology; Police Selection; Police Training and Evaluation

Further Readings

Ellison, K. W. (2004). Stress and the police officer (2nd ed.). Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas. Selye, H. (1979). Stress, cancer, and the mind. In J. Tache, H. Selye, & S. B. Day (Eds.). Cancer, stress, and death (pp. 11–27). New York: Plenum Press. Stevens. D. J. (2007). Police officer stress: Sources and resolutions. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Toch, H. (2001). Stress in policing. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

POLICE TRAINING AND EVALUATION Police training is a process by which teachers communicate to police personnel job-related knowledge and skills and assist them in mastery of the material. Training occurs at recruit, field, and in-service levels. Sworn police personnel, nonsworn personnel, or police psychologists, who have special knowledge of police behavior, present the training topics. Psychological knowledge, in part from experimental, social, heath, clinical, industrial-organizational, educational, and sport psychology, has informed police recruits and incumbent officers in three general topical areas of training: wellness, information and skills, and supervision and management. Training sometimes crosses over

all three areas. Police trainers make informed decisions about the effectiveness of training when they evaluate police performance and training curricula. Psychological knowledge has provided trainers an understanding of the conceptual grounding and application of evaluation methods at the individual officer level and at the training program level.

Recruit, Field, and In-Service Training Agency-affiliated, regional, and college-sponsored police academies provide recruit (or basic) training. Large municipal and state police agencies usually establish agency-affiliated (or individual) academies. Regional (or statewide) academies typically provide basic training for local city and town police recruits. In some states such as California, some individuals interested in becoming police officers attend collegesponsored police-training academies, where they take part in basic police training and earn college credit. Among academies, the length of training time varies. Some recruits receive as little as 8 weeks of training, whereas others receive as much as 32 weeks. State Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) commissions set the minimum length of recruit training time. Police academies may add training time to the minimum required by state POST commissions. Generally, agency-affiliated training academies require more hours of training than do regional or college-sponsored ones. When police recruits graduate from basic training, most of them enter Field Training Officer (FTO) programs implemented by their agencies. FTO programs have recruits—now field trainees—ride along with incumbent officers who have formal training in teaching established program curricula and evaluating trainee performance in actual work conditions. Police trainees learn agency-specific policies and practices and work-area-relevant information. The duration of their field training and evaluation period may be as little as 10 weeks or as much as 24 weeks. Once police trainees complete their FTO programs, they receive periodic in-service (or refresher) training during which they relearn, practice, and correct acquired job-related knowledge and skills. In-service training aims to reduce forgetting and performance deterioration, which naturally result from the passage of time. It sometimes involves acquiring new knowledge or specialized skills. Some police agencies require officers from all organizational levels to participate in in-service training. Some agencies excuse

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their executive officers (e.g., chiefs) from having to participate in some types of in-service training, such as self-defense tactics, because executive officers rarely respond to calls for service that have a potential for violence. The length of in-service training varies among police agencies. It sometimes depends on the minimum standards set by state POST commissions. Often, training time is a function of departmental fiscal budgets, legislative mandates, and union contracts. The content of in-service training curricula also varies among police agencies: Some include only subject matter that is legislatively mandated (e.g., firearms training); some include a variety of topics, such as domestic violence, use of force, and diversity training; and others include curricula established by state POST commissions. At the recruit-training level, state POST commissions determine and approve the basic training curricula. Generally, they require training in the subject areas of administration of justice, fitness, law, police procedures, use of force, police professionalism, and community relations. Typical examples of training within these subject areas are examining the role of the police, making lifestyle changes, using discretionary power, making decisions to use force against citizens, becoming aware of personal cultural influences, and responding to perceptions of bias-based policing. These exemplars represent issues surrounding police behavior that have their roots in the field of psychology.

Critical Incident Survival. A majority of law enforcement officers leave their jobs within 5 years of taking part in critical incidents such as an officer-involved shooting. Police officers may experience negative thoughts and feelings and perceptual distortions during critical incidents, which affect their performance levels. Educating police officers about responses to critical incidents, and the physical and mental techniques that can be used to survive them, is a preventive effort that is a part of critical-incident survival training. Stress Management. Police officers find their work stressful because of unfavorable physical, psychological, or social stressors, such as working late shifts, making deadly-force decisions, or working with poor equipment. Health issues, alcoholism, family problems, and suicide are correlates of police stress. Helping police officers inoculate themselves against stress by making life- and work-style changes, giving them skills to offset negative stress effects, and providing information on peer support services and mental health programs are a part of stress management training. Other Wellness-Related Training Topics. Psychological knowledge is available on eating healthy, controlling weight, and stopping smoking, which are healthenhancing behaviors that police trainers may discuss as a part of wellness training.

Wellness Training There is concern about officers’ health having an impact on their job performance. Unhealthy behaviors, from poor diet to glumness, contribute to illness and poor job performance. Training that promotes wellness can assist officers in controlling unhealthy behaviors, making positive lifestyle changes, developing healthy attitudes, and performing job-related tasks at optimal levels. Some topics that are a part of wellness training for the police are alcohol abuse, critical incident survival, and stress management. Alcohol Abuse. Following a work shift, drinking with brother and sister officers—jocularly known as “choir practice”—is a tradition through which police officers socialize, develop camaraderie, and manage stress. Choir practice often involves excessive drinking. Teaching police officers to make positive and healthy decisions about alcohol use is a part of wellness training.

Information and Skills Training Police academies and agencies have a responsibility to provide police officers with information on, and skills training in, particular tasks they are likely to perform on the job. Police trainers use different pedagogical methods such as classroom lectures, experiential activities, role-plays, and simulated scenarios to present information and skills-training topics. Handson training involves individual skill work, which focuses on individual responsibilities. Sometimes, trainers couple individual skill work with collective skill work, which focuses on team or group training. The following are some topics that are a part of information and skills training. Managing Intercultural Differences. Police-citizen contacts sometimes involve the police confronting the values and practices of members of cultures different

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from their own, which leads to uncertainty and intercultural conflicts. When police officers make hitherto unknown cultures familiar, understand individuals and families from cultures different from their own, and understand the cultural meaning of their own behaviors, they broaden their cultural problem-solving strategies. All these behaviors are a part of training that helps the police develop cross-cultural competence to manage intercultural differences. Profiling. Profiling is a long-standing policing method by which officers measure criminal suspicion. Police officers make decisions of criminal suspicion under probable or uncertain conditions and with limited information that is sometimes imperfect, and thus, their decisions to act may be wrong. Informing police officers about how mental processes—heuristics, subjective reality, confirmation bias, intuition, common sense, forming impressions, overconfidence, and response bias—may wrongly influence their decisions of criminal suspicion is a part of training on police profiling. Conducting Criminal Investigations. Conducting eyewitness identification procedures, interrogating suspects, and using lie detection equipment are crucial activities in criminal investigations. Information and skills training, in which police trainers use pyschological knowledge of best investigative practices, includes teaching police officers that showing eyewitnesses photos sequentially rather than simultaneously reduces the chances of misidentification, that threatening punishment during custodial interrogations sometimes causes suspects to confess falsely, and that using the control question technique in concert with the polygraph device is preferable. Other Information and Skills Training Topics. Managing interactions with mentally ill individuals, making use-of-force decisions, and handling barricaded suspect/hostage situations are all job-related events for the police. Police trainers may present such topics as a part of information and skills training.

Supervisory and Management Training Supervisory and management training is an essential part of organizational health. It focuses on police managers (or supervisors) developing skills so that they can effectively and efficiently influence, lead, and supervise police personnel to meet agency needs and carry out agency objectives. Managers need

cognitive skills to diagnose personnel problems, behavioral skills to help personnel modify problem behaviors, and communication skills to communicate desired behaviors to accomplish organizational goals. Training associated with such skills has its roots in psychology, which has helped the police develop a rudimentary understanding of the workings of police behavior in the organizational setting. These skills are a part of advanced police-training programs that law enforcement, academic institutions, and private organizations offer. For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy offers a course to develop managers of police organizations. Particular training areas, which constitute the course curriculum and have psychological knowledge richly embedded in them, are leadership development and behavioral science. Diagnosing, managing, and changing behavioral problems in the police setting are a part of the leadership development component. A part of the behavioral science unit of training is the psychology of stress.

Evaluation Methods Evaluation of police performance and training curricula occurs at the individual officer and training program levels, respectively. At the individual officer level, police trainers use informal and formal evaluation methods. Informal evaluation of police performance occurs during teaching activities. Trainers consider officers’ learning and memory differences and monitor their performance in these terms: knowledge, capacity, strategic, retrieval, and gender. For example, police trainers recognize that officers have different learning styles: visual, auditory, reading, writing, and tactile-kinesthetic. They present course material in a visual and written format; they encourage officers to take notes, ask questions, and be active in classroom dialogues; they lecture; and they have officers participate in hands-on tasks. Formal evaluation methods take the form of written tests or practical examinations. Written tests rely on content validity. Police trainers achieve content validity by using only material that they present during training to construct written tests. To make sure that written tests are representative of the training material, trainers sometimes construct a complete list of the training material and select questions randomly from it. The purpose of using written tests to evaluate police personnel is to determine whether they have mastered the content of the training program.

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Practical examinations involve evaluation of performance on hands-on or scenario-based tasks. For example, a police trainer evaluates an officer’s performance on an interactive computer-simulated enforcement task that requires the officer to respond to a suspect who is actively resisting arrest. The trainer evaluates the extent to which the officer’s response and decision making reflect endorsed training practices, accepted legal principles, and approved police policies. At the training program level, evaluating the effectiveness of a program is a challenging and expensive task that requires cooperation at all levels of the police organization. Carrying out a program evaluation requires knowledge and skills in social science research and statistical methodology. Police psychologists (or other social scientists) who have knowledge of the police culture are the ones most likely to evaluate a police-training program. They may do a utilizationfocused evaluation, which is a comprehensive approach that focuses on the intended use of the training program by intended users. Major evaluation activities are describing the training program and evaluating its process, outcomes, and utilization. Not all police-training programs are subjected to evaluation or are worth evaluating, especially poorly designed ones. Police administrators and trainers make informed program decisions, however, when they use outcomes from what evaluators do measure.

the authority to use force for enforcing laws, preventing criminal activity, defending others, and defending themselves. They have the discretionary power to use different degrees of force against citizens who choose to violate the law. Forceful responses can range from officer presence to the use of weapons. One approach to understanding forceful responses against citizens is psychological. There is psychological knowledge bearing on (a) how officers formulate and carry out their decisions to use force by encoding situational information, making a decision to act, developing a plan of action, and initiating action; (b) how officers’ involvement in a force situation puts them at risk of experiencing stress that causes unfavorable changes in their perception and memory; (c) how police candidates with particular personality traits are at risk of on-the-job problems with using force; and (d) how officers whose job-related experiences involve traumatic force situations are vulnerable to developing behaviors that lead to the use of excessive force.

Frank J. Gallo

Encoding Situational Information. Encoding is a process in which the officer attends to situational conditions. It involves the sensory register, the first structure of the officer’s memory system. The sensory register is responsible for registering all features of the force situation through sensory functions—for example, seeing a citizen holding a gun, hearing a gunshot, and smelling gunfire. Sensory systems keep the officer informed about the force situation. They extract information and convert it to electrical impulses that travel to the thalamus, which is located in the diencephalon of the brain. The thalamus directs sensory input to associated cortex areas of the brain, where the officer becomes aware of sensation and interprets it.

See also Police Psychologists; Police Psychology; Police Selection Further Readings

Haberfeld, M. R. (2002). Critical issues in police training. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Patton, M. Q. (1997). Utilization-focused evaluation: The new century text (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. White, E. K., & Honig, A. L. (1995). The role of the police psychologist in training. In M. I. Kurke & E. M. Scrivner (Eds.), Police psychology into the 21st century (pp. 257–277). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

POLICE USE

OF

FORCE

Police use of force is the application in a law enforcement capacity of physical or psychological coercion against citizens. Under the law, police officers have

Decision Making An officer formulates and carries out a decision to use force against a citizen by encoding situational information, making a decision to act, developing a plan of action, and initiating action.

Making a Decision to Act. Making a decision to act takes place in the officer’s short-term memory. The officer consciously discriminates, selects, and attends to sensations that are most dangerous, while reducing attention to less dangerous information. The officer considers the magnitude of the force situation and the probability of harm occurring if he or she takes no protective or enforcement action. What researchers

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know with confidence is that officers consider citizen behavior most important when making decisions to use force. A need to use force triggers cognitive events that help the officer develop a best plan of action. If the officer fails to pay attention to important sensory input, his or her plan of action will be less than optimal. The limbic system is associated with making a decision to act in response to situational demands. It surrounds the upper brainstem and consists of interconnected neural structures, which include the amygdala and the hippocampus. The amygdala helps regulate emotion, and it contributes to the officer’s drive to act. The hippocampus is responsible for memory storage. It gives the officer access to experience when making a decision to act.

or social forces, such as in a force situation. The force situation acts as an alarm signal that triggers the stress response. The officer’s sympathetic nervous system becomes abnormally active. It starts autonomic and endocrine responses that prepare the officer’s body for a fight or flight. Hormonal discharges, such as the secretion of corticotrophin-releasing factor, adrenocorticotropic hormone, cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, energize the officer’s body. The stress response helps the officer perform at his or her best in the force situation. However, exposure to the force situation can lead to an increase in arousal that amounts to a peak stress condition. When in a state of peak stress, an officer experiences unfavorable changes in his or her memory and perception.

Developing a Plan of Action. Once the officer makes a decision to act, he or she begins developing a plan of action. The officer accesses long-term memory and matches the sensory input with a response that best fits the conditions of the force situation. The appropriateness of the response depends on the extent to which the officer selected important sensory stimuli, and the officer’s response reflects endorsed training practices, accepted legal principles, and approved police policies. In familiar force situations, responses are available. In novel situations, the officer might search his or her experience for possible responses or use a past strategy. Developing a plan of action begins in the brain’s association cortex areas, which integrate sensory input. They carry out the processes that take place between sensation and action, which include perceiving, learning, remembering, and planning. Neural structures of the projection system—basal ganglia, cerebellum, and motor cortex—relay details of the officer’s plan to the spinal system.

Memory. The adrenal gland secretes cortisol. Research shows that high cortisol levels impair memory functions. The effect, however, is temporary. Memory functions return as cortisol levels return to normal. The officer might find it difficult to access long-term memory and match sensory input with a response that best fits the demands of the force situation.

Initiating Action. The spinal system is responsible for initiating the plan of action. It sends motor neurons that carry details of the plan of action out to various muscle groups that will perform the action of force. It serves as the final pathway that links the central nervous system with the skeletal muscular system.

Stress Effects Stress is a state of psychological tension. It is a reaction or effect caused by unfavorable physical, psychological,

Perception. The officer’s pupils dilate to gather extra situational information, but his or her perceptual system narrows its field of focus. There is a loss of peripheral vision. The officer might retreat to widen his or her peripheral field. The officer might also overlook important visual cues and develop a less than optimal plan of action. Other possible perceptual distortions include auditory blunting, auditory exclusion, and tachypsychia. The dominant response to peak stress is hypervigilance. The hypervigilant officer panics and becomes hypersensitive to situational cues. The officer cannot discriminate threatening from nonthreatening cues. A lack of attention to important situational cues might lead the officer to choose an incorrect response to the force situation. Optimal stress in a force situation depends on factors that are unique to the officer. Some officers perform better with arousal than do others. A skillful officer who has good coping abilities can offset the negative stress effects. Under peak stress conditions, officers experience delays in encoding situational information, making a decision to act, developing a plan of action, and initiating action.

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Personality Traits Police psychologists use personality tests to predict police candidates’ behavioral predispositions to use force. Candidates must demonstrate a willingness to use force. Yet they must show self-restraint. Psychologists have linked job-related uses of force with test scores on personality tests such as the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Low CPI scale scores on socialization, self-control, and well-being have led to disciplinary actions against officers for unnecessary use of force. Elevated MMPI scale scores on infrequency, psychopathic deviation, and hypomania, combined with control in psychological adjustment, correctly classified aggressive officers who received disciplinary actions for aggressive misconduct against offenders, inmates, coworkers, or family members. Which police candidates are prone to the abuse of force? Personality tests contribute some knowledge about candidates’ tendency to use force. What police psychologists know is that most often, police candidates who are successful on the job do not demonstrate personality traits of impulsivity, hostility, undue aggression, and poor frustration tolerance, which put them at risk of having difficulty with on-the-job use of force. Being prone to the abuse of force, however, might be more than a matter of personality traits measured at the candidate or predisposition level. Researchers have found that some officers who had high rates of excessive force complaints had also received superior supervisory performance ratings. Psychologists had rated them as suitable for police training and work. Not all psychologically healthy officers are free from the abuse of force. Using excessive force or using force excessively might be an outcome of personality traits that police candidates develop on the job rather than something that they bring to the job. For example, police work involves the possibility of danger all the time. Danger shapes police-training practices. Officers learn to see citizens as potentially uncooperative, armed, and dangerous. They work in an environment of condition yellow: continually occupied with the present danger of the police-citizen contact. Some researchers have suggested that because officers focus on the interpersonal dangers of policecitizen contacts, they develop a suspicious and authoritarian work personality. To cope with danger and keep safe, they employ a heavy-handed or take-charge

work attitude. They are at risk of using force against citizens where none is usually necessary. Police use of force is not a simple extension of predispositional or changing personality patterns of officers. Situational factors such as instigation might determine some acts of excessive force not predicted by officers’ psychological profiles. Organizational factors such as endorsed training practices, accepted legal principles, and approved police policies might attenuate the effects of personality traits. Psychological paradigms offer some insight into police personality traits that might manifest themselves in the form of undue force against citizens.

Job-Related Experiences Officers routinely respond to calls for service that involve violence and danger. Exposure to traumatic job-related events, such as participating in officerinvolved shootings, puts officers at risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder, which can lead to difficulties with on-the-job use of force. For example, some officers lose control or use excessive force when they suppress postshooting trauma or other job-related trauma. Responses to postshooting trauma sometimes involve officers rushing possible force situations to experience the thrill again. Symptoms of postshooting trauma, such as trouble sleeping, emotional fatigue, anger, alcohol abuse, and anxiety, sometimes reveal themselves in the form of excessive use of force. Police burnout, shift work, role expectations, and organizational stress are other job-related experiences that can result in undue use of force. Steps in place to understand and control police use of force are preemployment psychological screening, use-of-force training, and psychological monitoring. Police psychologists use psychological tests to screen out police candidates who show particular personality traits that might lead to difficulties with on-the-job use of force. Use-of-force training occurs at the recruit and incumbent levels. Psychological perspectives on police decision making and performance in use-of-force situations are typical topics that police trainers discuss. Monitoring the psychological fitness of officers following their involvement in traumatic job-related force situations involves officers participating in critical-incident debriefings, peer support programs, or individual counseling. Frank J. Gallo

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See also Police Decision Making; Police Psychology; Police Selection; Police Training and Evaluation

Further Readings

Geller, W. A., & Toch, H. (Eds.). (1995). And justice for all: Understanding and controlling police abuse of force. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum. Scrivner, E. M. (1994). Controlling police use of excessive force: The role of the police psychologist. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Twersky-Glasner, A. (2005). Police personality: What is it and why are they like that? Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 20(1), 56–67. U.S. Department of Justice. (1999). Use of force by police: Overview of national and local data. Washington, DC: Author. Worden, R. E. (1995). Police officers’ belief systems: A framework for analysis. American Journal of Police, 14(1), 49–81.

POLYGRAPH AND POLYGRAPH TECHNIQUES Polygraph is a general term that refers to the use of autonomic physiological measures to make assessments about a person’s credibility. Polygraph techniques find wide application in the criminal justice and national security systems of many countries, and their use is growing worldwide. There are two major families of polygraph techniques. Knowledge approaches look for responses that indicate knowledge possessed by a person attempting deception. Deception approaches assess credibility by examining a person’s response to accusatory questions that directly address the issues under investigation. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses, and both are the subject of controversy in the scientific literature. This entry describes the approaches, their strengths and weaknesses, their application in practice, and the controversy concerning them.

History The desire to use physiological responses as indices of truth or deception is a very old one. The lore of many cultures contains stories of trials by ordeal that have some basis in autonomic physiology. For example, many Asian cultures have legends of placing dry rice

in the mouth of the accused. If the accused was able to spit out the rice it was assumed that he or she was not nervous and that he or she was truthful. If, however, the mouth was dry and the rice stuck, it was assumed that he or she was deceptive. Scientific research on the topic also has a long history, with reports of attempts to detect deception with physiological measures going back to the first psychologists and the end of the 19th century. However, this approach has one basic difficulty: To date, no specific physiological response, or pattern of physiological responses, has been identified that is uniquely identified with truth or deception. Therefore, efforts to use physiological measures have to rely on techniques of stimulus control and inference to assess credibility. During much of the 20th century, there was little interest in credibility assessment by scientific psychology, and the application of the polygraph for that purpose grew as a profession in law enforcement and national security agencies, primarily in the United States. A modern era of research began in the early 1970s in the laboratory of David Raskin at the University of Utah. In the past decade, applications of the polygraph and research on physiological deception detection have grown rapidly worldwide.

Standard Physiological Measures in Modern Polygraphs Several companies around the world manufacture polygraph instruments for use in the field as credibility assessment devices. A typical field polygraph instrument takes measures of respiration, blood pressure, and the electrodermal response. Respiration is measured from stretch sensors placed over the upper chest and abdomen. A continuous measure of relative blood pressure is monitored from an inflated cuff on the upper arm. Electrodermal activity (galvanic skin response) is recorded from the palmar surface of the hand. Some polygraph instruments in current field use also measure the peripheral vasomotor response (blood flow near the surface of the skin), usually from the thumb. Most of the instruments in current field use are digital computer-based systems. Currently, there is little controversy concerning the ability of field polygraph instruments to adequately measure the physiological values they claim to measure. During the past decade, the U.S. government has invested in a number of research projects in an effort to find new dependent physiological measures for credibility assessment. Electroencephalograms, neural imaging, thermal imaging, eye movement, and

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others have been examined, but as yet, none of these new measures have achieved sufficient scientific basis for use in application.

The Knowledge Approach Technique

In the knowledge approach, which is often referred to as the Guilty Knowledge Test or, more correctly, as the Concealed Knowledge Test (CKT), the subject is presented with a series of items in multiple-choice format. The items are designed to represent some bit of knowledge that the truthful person would not know. For example, John Doe is murdered with a pistol that the police have determined to be a .380 automatic. The media reports indicated that the victim was shot to death, but the police never publicized the exact type of weapon. A suspect might be asked, If you shot John Doe, you would know the type of weapon: Was the gun used to shoot John Doe a .38 special revolver? A .45-caliber automatic? A .357 Magnum? A .380 automatic? A 9mm automatic? A .22-caliber revolver? A window of approximately 20 seconds would follow each alternative to allow for the suspect’s autonomic responses to take place and then recover. Because people tend to produce physiological responses to the first item in any series, the critical item is never placed in the first position, and the first item in the CKT series is never evaluated. It is assumed that on recognition of the correct alternative, the deceptive person will generate autonomic responses. It is also assumed that the truthful person will have no reason to produce a specific response to the critical item and will thus be producing nonspecific responses at random. Thus, the likelihood that an innocent person would produce his or her largest response to the critical item in a 1-item CKT is 0.20. With a 2-item CKT, the likelihood that an innocent person would give his or her largest response to the critical item on both CKT series is 0.20 × 0.20, or 0.04. As the number of items increases, the likelihood of making a false-positive error (a truthful person appearing deceptive) is thus definable and rapidly becomes quite small. Strengths of the CKT

The CKT has two principle strengths. First, it is possible to precisely define the likelihood of making a false-positive error and to control that error rate by the number of items used in the CKT. Research has consistently shown that the statistical prediction holds

well in application. It is also possible to pretest the transparency of the items in a CKT by presenting the series of items and alternatives to persons known to be truthful regarding knowledge of the crime. Transparency refers to the ability of innocent persons to guess the critical item from a series. While testing for transparency of items is common in research settings, it is not known whether or not it is a common practice in the field. The second great strength of the CKT is that it is a very simple test to administer. With a few hours of training with the equipment, an undergraduate research assistant can administer the CKT as well as an experienced polygraph examiner. There are examples in the literature of the CKT being completely automated for machine administration. Weaknesses of the CKT

The CKT has three primary weaknesses. The first, known as memorability, concerns the fact that for the CKT to work, the deceptive person must remember the details of the crime. In that regard, the extensive research on eyewitness memory indicates that eyewitnesses, particularly those under stress, are prone to make mistakes in recounting the details of a crime. The perpetrator of a crime is an eyewitness to that crime, and it is likely that the perpetrator will be a highly stressed eyewitness of the crime. Moreover, many perpetrators are also intoxicated. To date, there is no theory to predict what specific details from a crime scene are likely to be remembered. The memorability problem is avoided in most laboratory research on the CKT by screening a number of details of the crime scene with pilot subjects and then using only the highly memorable items in the subsequent testing or by using overlearned items of personal history. Such a screening of items is not possible in real cases. Laboratory research on the CKT has revealed a slight tendency toward false-negative errors—that is, toward deceptive individuals appearing truthful on the test. However, the few existing field studies of the CKT suggest that the false-negative rate in the field may be as high as 50%. The second major weakness of the CKT is one of applicability. Research conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States found that fewer than 10% of their cases were amenable to the use of the CKT, if they had wanted to use it. In nearly 90% of the FBI case files examined, the nature of the case was such that there were not enough items of concealed knowledge to conduct a CKT.

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The third weakness of the CKT concerns countermeasures—that is, things that a deceptive person might do in an effort to defeat or distort the test. Research shows the CKT to be susceptible to mental and physical countermeasures if subjects are knowledgeable about the technique and have received training in the use of countermeasures. Application of the CKT

Although a great deal is written about the CKT in the scientific literature, it presently has very little application in either law enforcement or national security. There is essentially no application of the CKT in the United States. The only country that reports a general use of the CKT in law enforcement is Japan. In Japan, persons with special training in psychology and eyewitness memory are part of the crime scene investigation team, and they actively search for and document possible bits of information for use in CKT when the crime scene is first investigated. It may be that this careful crime scene documentation results in a higher rate of applicability for the technique. However, a clear explanation of how Japanese examiners overcome the memorability problem is not presently in evidence.

The Deception Approach The Techniques

The Relevant-Irrelevant Test. The deception approach asks direct accusatory questions (referred to as Relevant questions) under the assumption that persons attempting deception will produce physiological responses when they lie. The earliest version of the deception approach was the Relevant-Irrelevant Test (RIT). Along with direct accusatory questions (e.g., Did you shoot John Doe?), the RIT also asks irrelevant (neutral) questions, to which the person is assumed to be responding truthfully (e.g., Are the lights on in this room?). The working assumption of the RIT is that persons attempting deception will produce a large and consistent physiological response to the relevant questions, whereas the truthful will not distinguish between the irrelevant and the relevant questions. Virtually all the scientists who work in this area dismiss the working assumptions of the RIT as naive. Clearly the truthful will recognize the relevant questions as the more important class of stimuli and are

thus likely to produce physiological responses to them, and in fact, research does show a very large number of false-positive outcomes to the RIT. As a result, the RIT has very little application in forensic polygraph testing. However, the RIT is still in use for periodic screening of sex offenders and in screening job applicants. At this time, any use of the RIT is highly controversial, and the scientists active in this area do not support its use. Comparison Question Tests. John Reid developed the notion of an active comparison question in the context of law enforcement examinations during the late 1940s in response to the obvious problems with the RIT. The idea of the active comparison question was to provide a stimulus in the test that would evoke physiological responses from the innocent but not from the guilty. The comparison question took the form of a question that the subject was probably going to respond to with a lie. For example, after discussing the death of John Doe and after the subject of the examination has denied being involved in John Doe’s death, the polygraph examiner would tell the subject that he or she is going to be asked some questions about his or her basic character in an effort to show that he or she is not the type of person who would have shot John Doe. The subject would then be asked a question such as “Before the year 2006, did you ever hurt someone?” The comparison question is deliberately vague and covers a long period of time. In the context of the examination, the subject is led to believe that an affirmative response is damaging because it shows that he or she is the kind of person who would have committed the crime. However, for virtually all subjects, it can be assumed that a definitive “No” response is probably a lie in view of the deliberately vague presentation of the comparison question. The working assumption of the Comparison Question Test (CQT) is that guilty participants will produce consistent physiological responses to the relevant questions, while they will respond only minimally to the comparison questions. Although the guilty are assumed to be lying in their answers to the comparison questions, it is assumed that the comparisons are likely to be viewed as unimportant compared with the relevant questions, which directly address the issues under investigation. The innocent are expected to respond more to the comparison questions because they know that they are lying or are at least uncertain about the veracity of their answers to the comparison questions, whereas they know they are responding

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with the truth to the relevant questions. Thus, differential reactivity is expected from the innocent and the guilty. Guilty subjects should produce consistently greater physiological responses to the relevant questions than to the comparison questions, and innocent subjects should produce consistently greater physiological responses to the comparison questions than to the relevant questions. If differential reactivity is not observed—that is, no response to either question type or equal response to both question types, the test is considered to be inconclusive. In application, a CQT will contain between two and four relevant questions and a similar number of comparison questions. The question series will also contain some neutral and other questions that are not used directly for credibility assessment. The questions will be repeated a minimum of three times, but more presentations may be obtained. The resultant data are evaluated by making systematic comparisons between the responses to relevant questions and contiguous comparison questions. The standard in application is a human-based system that is semi-objective in that it is rule based, and in some physiological response systems, actual objective measures of physiological response are made (e.g., the electrodermal response), but in other response systems, human judgment is involved in making evaluations (e.g., the respiratory responses). Currently, there are three human-based scoring systems in use in the field, and persons trained in those systems show high levels of reliability in their total scores. Reliability coefficients for total scores are usually .9 or better. Validity studies of the CQT have produced a range of estimates. However, current meta-analyses seem to be converging on a validity estimate for the CQT of near 90% accuracy for decisions (i.e., excluding approximately 8% of the tests that are inconclusive.) That said, there is controversy in the literature concerning the appropriate methodology for both laboratory and field studies in this area and about the generalizability of currently obtained results. By manipulating those studies that one views as having adequate methodology, the estimate of the validity of the CQT can be increased or decreased in reference to the figure mentioned above. Strengths of the CQT

The great strength of the CQT is its wide applicability. The CQT is a highly versatile technique that can be applied to most credibility assessment situations. If

unambiguous relevant questions can be formulated, then the applicability of the CQT would seem to be limited only by the subject’s mental competence. In the laboratory and in many field studies, the CQT has been shown to be capable of a high level of accuracy. Weakness of the CQT

The CQT is criticized at a number of levels. At one level, the CQT is criticized because it lacks a welldeveloped theory of underlying processes to explain why it works. Certainly, the lack of theory has hampered basic research in this area. An articulated theory would be useful in guiding research and in predicting conditions of generalizability of research results. However, the CQT polygraph is not unique in being a technology in successful widespread application without complete understanding of the underlying processes. Aspirin was in widespread use as a fever reducer and pain reliever for over 100 years before a complete explanation of its mechanisms was forthcoming. A more telling criticism of the application of the CQT, particularly in the United States, concerns a lack of professional standards and regulation. Polygraph testing in the United States is controlled by a patchwork of standards and state licensing regulations. In many states, there is no regulation at all. As a result, the quality of practice in the polygraph profession in the United States is highly variable. Worldwide, this may not be the case. In Israel and Japan, psychologists are heavily involved in polygraph programs. In the People’s Republic of China, the government polygraph program is organized within the Chinese National Academy of Sciences. One positive development concerning standards is that the American Association of Testing and Materials International (ASTM) has recently formed committees and is promulgating consensus standards for the administration of polygraph tests and for the training of polygraph examiners. It has been suggested that some police agencies in the United States use the polygraph primarily as an interrogation prop to aid in obtaining confessions. Anecdotally, there are several well-known exoneration cases that have involved polygraph examinations as part of the process leading to false confessions. This is a topic clearly in need of additional research. Finally, the CQT shares with the CKT a similar weakness regarding countermeasures. Some knowledgeable subjects can use mental and physical countermeasures to produce false-negative outcomes in

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laboratory settings. As with the CKT, we do not know how successful countermeasure attempts are against the CQT in the field. Application of the CQT

The CQT is in widespread application around the world as an investigative tool, as a screening tool for national security, and in the monitoring and treatment of sexual offenders on their release from incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the results of polygraph examinations are used as evidence in courts of law. The use of the polygraph in postconviction mitigation and sentencing seems to be growing. Although the controversy in the scientific literature remains, the use of the CQT worldwide seems to be accelerating. Charles Robert Honts See also Detection of Deception: Use of Evidence in; Detection of Deception in Adults; False Confessions; Public Opinion About the Polygraph; Sex Offender Treatment Further Readings

Edelman, J. (2005). Admissibility of polygraph (lie detector) examinations. Criminal Law Journal, 29, 21–36. Faigman, D. L., Kaye, D., Saks, M. J., & Sanders, J. (Eds.). (2005). Polygraph tests. In Modern scientific evidence: The law and science of expert testimony (Vol. 4. Forensics 2005–2006 ed., chap. 40, pp. 547–655). Eagan, MN: Thompson West. Grubin, D. (2006). Accuracy and utility of post-conviction polygraph testing of sex offenders. British Journal of Psychiatry, 188, 479–483. Honts, C. R. (2004). The psychophysiological detection of deception. In P. Granhag & L. Strömwall (Eds.), Detection of deception in forensic contexts (pp. 103–123). London: Cambridge University Press. Kleiner, M. (2002). Handbook of polygraph testing. New York: Academic Press. National Research Council. (2003). The polygraph and lie detection. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

POPOUT EFFECT IN EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION The “popout” effect refers to the subjective experience of witnesses who report virtually immediate or

apparently automatic recognition of the perpetrator of a crime from a photo array or lineup. Researchers have detected this experience among witnesses by asking them to endorse one of several statements about the decision strategy they used when making their decision about a simultaneous lineup. In some (though not all) studies, witnesses who were accurate more frequently endorsed statements such as “I just recognized him, I cannot say why” and “His face just popped out at me” (automatic processing) than did inaccurate witnesses. The latter more often endorsed items such as “I compared the faces with one other to narrow the choices” and “I first eliminated the ones that were definitely not him, then chose among the rest” (deliberative processing). The popout effect has been of interest to eyewitness researchers and is relevant to the criminal justice system because such subjective reports could potentially be used as an indication of whether or not an identification decision is likely to have been accurate. Evidence for the popout effect comes almost exclusively from examination of the relationship between identification accuracy and the characteristics of the subjective reports described above. While eyewitness researchers might well consider popout to be intuitively plausible, the reliance on retrospective reports to validate the effect is problematic. Indeed, it has been suggested that the demands associated with providing such retrospective reports might lead witnesses who have a very strong memorial image of the offender (and hence find it relatively easy to detect a match or an absence of a match in a lineup) to endorse items suggesting the occurrence of popout regardless of the actual characteristics of their search or decision processes. Moreover, the view that reports of popout most likely imply an accurate identification is challenged by the finding that witnesses who misidentified a very similar looking but innocent foil from a simultaneous lineup were as likely to report popout as witnesses who accurately identified the perpetrator. This again points to the unreliability of subjective reports of the decision process as indicators of identification accuracy. Moreover, researchers have also shown that witnesses may be more likely to endorse the statement that the perpetrators’ face “popped out” at them and that they “just recognized him, I don’t know why” if they had been told that they picked the suspect from the lineup (when the perpetrator was in fact not present in the lineup), even though such feedback following the identification cannot have affected the actual

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decision process. There may be other factors that influence the extent to which popout is reported retrospectively, such as the typicality (in comparison with the broader population) of the face, the size of the array, and the location of the target in the array. Despite these problems with validating the popout phenomenon, it is at least not inconsistent with data from studies in which the time taken to make the identification decision, identification response latency, has been examined. These studies show that accurate identification responses are, on average, significantly faster than inaccurate responses. Furthermore, there is at least some evidence that participants who endorsed more items suggestive of automatic processing tended to be those who made faster identifications, whereas those who endorsed more deliberative processing items tended to be slower. The popout effect has been distinguished from another type of decision process, an absolute decision strategy, on the ground that an absolute decision strategy does not predict shorter decision latencies whereas popout does. The reason for shorter decision latencies when popout occurs is that the examination of the lineup may cease after the face has popped out of the array. In contrast, an absolute decision strategy is characterized by witnesses comparing the members of the lineup with their memory of the perpetrator, with this occurring for each member of a simultaneous lineup array. Other behavioral data, such as eye movement recordings, have not, as yet, been investigated to provide converging evidence for the popout effect, but they could help validate the effect. If popout occurs, it would be expected that witnesses would engage in very little scanning of the members of the lineup, fixating quickly on the lineup member that pops out. This eye movement pattern should differ from both an absolute judgment strategy, where each lineup member should be fixated but overt comparisons between lineup members should not be detected, and a relative judgment strategy, where eye movements should indicate comparisons between the various lineup members. It is worth noting that basic research in the area of visual search points to a phenomenon that appears to parallel the popout experience attributed to some witnesses when viewing a photo array. The popout effect in the visual search paradigm appears to derive from an early, “preattentive” registration of the key features of a stimulus during parallel processing of the full stimulus array, with this leading to rapid termination of the search of the stimulus array.

In sum, the popout effect has been argued to occur on the basis of witnesses’ subjective reports of the decision strategy used to make an identification decision and the time taken to make the decision. It is important because it could potentially be helpful in distinguishing accurate from inaccurate identification decisions. However, the reliance on retrospective reports to demonstrate the phenomenon is problematic, with future research needing to be directed at identifying behavioral measures of popout. Carolyn Semmler and Neil Brewer See also Response Latency in Eyewitness Identification

Further Readings

Brewer, N., Gordon, M., & Bond, N. (2000). Effect of photoarray exposure duration on eyewitness identification accuracy and processing strategy. Psychology, Crime & Law, 6, 21–32. Dunning, D., & Stern, L. B. (1994). Distinguishing accurate from inaccurate eyewitness identifications via inquiries about decision processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 818–835. Ross, D. F., Rapus Benton, T., McDonnell, S., Metzger, R., & Silver, C. (2007). When accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses look the same: A limitation of the “pop-out” effect and the 10- to 12-second rule. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21(5), 677–690. Weber, N., Brewer, N., Wells, G. L., Semmler, C., & Keast, A. (2004). Eyewitness identification accuracy and response latency: The unruly 10–12 second rule. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 10, 139–147. Wells, G. L., Olson, E. A., & Charman, S. D. (2003). Distorted retrospective eyewitness reports as functions of feedback and delay. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 9, 42–52.

PORNOGRAPHY, EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO For as long as people have been able to draw and write, they have created pornography. Greek vases and Roman brothels contain ancient, sexually explicit images. Modern technologies for delivering sexually explicit images, such as the Internet, have made pornography ubiquitous. The affordability, accessibility, and anonymity of Internet pornography have also

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proved a boon to the industry. The total market for adult material in the United States is now estimated to be $13 billion a year. The subjective experience of viewing sexually explicit materials and societal reactions to their availability are characterized by shifting definitions and mores. Over the past 150 years, concern about the psychological effects of exposure to pornography on the viewer’s character, morality, and, lately, tendency to engage in sexually violent behavior has driven social/legal policy as well as social science research on the problem of pornography. Psychological investigations have focused on how the thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by exposure to sexually explicit messages. To understand pornography research, it is useful to consider it in the context of the debate about pornography’s effects in society. The terms of this debate have often framed the research agenda. One way of organizing the theory and research on the effects of sexually explicit material is by the normative concepts pornography, erotica, and obscenity. The term obscene is derived from the Latin ob, meaning “to,” and caenum, meaning “filth.” Obscenity has traditionally been associated with filth and offensiveness, disgust, shame, and the idea of insulting or breaching an accepted community moral standard. Pornography is derived from the Greek porne, meaning “whore,” and graphein, meaning “to write.” Pornography then literally means the “writing of harlots” or the depiction of women as prostitutes. Erotica, derived from the Greek god Eros, refers to sexual love. It is often used to refer to literary or artistic works that have a sexual quality or theme.

The Obscenity Theoretical Perspective Currently, the law in the United States is organized around a test formulated for obscenity fashioned by the Supreme Court in 1973, which emphasizes the filth and offensiveness, disgust and shame associated with viewing sexually explicit materials. The test states that the basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be (a) whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards” would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest (defined as a “shameful, morbid, unhealthy interest in sex”); (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law; and

(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. This test with its focus on community standards has meant that magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse may be banned in towns with conservative values. Theoretically, the decision makes every local community the arbiter of what is acceptable. Both the prosecution and the defense are entitled to introduce evidence during an obscenity prosecution regarding the types of depictions a given community will accept given the current social climate, social mores, and so on. The evidence of community standards may include expert testimony, surveys, and comparable materials. The social-psychological research on perceptions of community standards for sexually explicit depictions has involved several communities across the United States and has found considerable slippage between community sentiment and legal actors’ presumptions. In a few studies, community residents were randomly assigned to view sexually explicit films charged in obscenity cases. The results showed that residents believed, contrary to prosecutors, that sexually explicit films charged in the case do not appeal to a morbid unhealthy interest in sex and are not patently offensive. The community members indicate that they would be substantially less accepting of sexually explicit materials, however, if they contained rape and bondage, and they show no acceptance of child actors. Other research has confirmed that the majority of residents randomly selected from the community do not judge materials before the court to appeal to a prurient interest in sex and have tolerance for such materials. A lower percentage of people believe that others in the community tolerated the materials they personally found acceptable. Psychological research has been conducted on the idea that exposure to sexually explicit materials insults or breaches an accepted moral standard and that these materials induce greater promiscuity and a loss of respect for marriage and fidelity and other traditional moral values. This research has attempted to test the hypothesis derived from the “obscenity” theoretical perspective that exposure to sexually explicit material has a corrosive effect on men’s relationships with women and a negative impact on male intimacy and sexual performance and satisfaction within marriage. The survey research suggests that people who report being happily married are less likely to report using Internet pornography. This research supports the idea that married women may be distressed by their

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husbands’ use of sexually explicit material and that this may threaten the stability of their marriage. The survey data by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers in Chicago, Illinois, regarding the impact of Internet usage on marriages indicate that the Internet had been a significant factor in divorces they had handled during the past year and that a majority of divorce cases involved one party having an obsessive interest in pornographic Web sites. Decreased sexual satisfaction with traditional sexual relationships has also been observed after exposure to sexually explicit materials. One study looked at the impact of consuming nonviolent pornographic material on male and female participants drawn from college and nonstudent populations from a midwestern city. As part of the study, participants were exposed to either pornographic or innocuous, nonpornographic content in hourly sessions for six consecutive weeks. In the seventh week, participants were asked to rate their personal happiness regarding various domains of experience and the relative importance of gratifying experiences. The results showed that exposure to pornography negatively affected self-assessment of sexual experience. The male and female participants reported less satisfaction with their intimate partner generally and with their partner’s affection, physical appearance, sexual curiosity, and sexual performance. Additionally, the participants who were repeatedly exposed to pornographic material assigned increased importance to sexual relations without emotional involvement. The proponents of the obscenity/traditional moral values theoretical perspective have also attempted research into whether the compulsive behavior associated with repeated exposure to sexually explicit materials is psychologically damaging. This research is inconclusive, and there is skepticism among psychiatrists and other mental health professionals regarding the case for including pornography addiction as a mental disorder.

Theoretical Perspectives on Pornography Some feminists have argued that pornography both discriminates against women and provokes violence against women. Catherine Mackinnon and Andrea Dworkin proposed not a criminal obscenity law but an antidiscrimination civil law designed to confront pornography. As an alternative to obscenity law, several communities revised their discrimination laws to reflect

this concern. Such a law was adopted in Indianapolis in 1984. The law declared that works that portrayed the graphic, sexually explicit subordination of women, whether in pictures or in words, were pornographic if they also included scenes or pictures in which women are presented as sexual objects who enjoy pain or humiliation; experience sexual pleasure in being raped; or are tied up, cut up, or mutilated or in which women are presented as being dominated, violated, exploited, or possessed through postures or positions of servility or submission. Women could sue on behalf of all women or a group or themselves for damages. The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law was unconstitutionally vague and that the kind of expression it sought to bar was protected by the First Amendment. The court noted that under the Indianapolis law, sexually explicit speech or expression is pornography or not depending on the perspective of the author; this is viewpoint discrimination. According to the court, speech that subordinates women is pornography no matter how great the literary or political value of the work. On the other hand, according to the law, speech that portrays women in positions of equality is lawful no matter how graphic the sexual conduct. Research testing feminist sociolegal theory has examined pornography’s effect on attitudes that justify violence against women, such as rape myth acceptance, and undermine viewer sensitivity to victims of rape and violence. The research literature examining the association between acceptance of rape myths and exposure to pornography has been examined in a meta-analysis. This analysis shows that nonexperimental studies show almost no effect—exposure to pornography does not increase rape myth acceptance. The laboratory experimental studies have found that exposure to pornography does increase rape myth acceptance; however, this effect occurs primarily for violent pornography rather than nonviolent pornography. The generalization of the finding causes some concern because of the difference demonstrated between experimental and nonexperimental research. Neil Malamuth and his colleagues have conducted research testing feminist sociolegal theory that has also examined sexual arousal to depictions of rape. A series of studies examining the effects of exposure to sexual violence in the media on perceptions of rape victims have been conducted. Specifically, these studies have been concerned with the impact of positive- versus negative-outcome rape in pornographic

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portrayals. These studies have generally taken the following form: Male subjects were either exposed to depictions of mutually consenting sex, a rape in which the female victim eventually becomes aroused (positive outcome), or rape that is abhorred (negative outcome) by the victim. Afterward, the subjects were shown a rape depiction and asked about their perceptions of the act and the victim. The males exposed to the positive rape portrayal perceive the second rape as less negative and more normal than those first exposed to other depictions. The researchers have also conducted studies that have asked male subjects how they think women in general would react to being victimized by sexual violence. Those first exposed to a positive rape portrayal believed that a higher percentage of women would derive pleasure from being sexually assaulted. The effect of the portrayal was particularly apparent in men with self-reported inclinations to aggress against women. Edward Donnerstein and his colleagues have conducted research on the effects of exposure to pornography on aggressive behavior. Meta-analytic reviews have been undertaken of the effect of exposure to pornography on aggressive behavior under laboratory conditions, considering a variety of possible moderating variables, such as level of sexual arousal, level of prior anger, type of pornography, gender of subject, gender of target of aggression, and medium used to convey the sexually explicit message. The results demonstrated that nudity actually reduces subsequent aggressive behavior, that consumption of pornography depicting nonviolent sexual activity increases aggressive behavior slightly, but that media depictions of violent sexual activity generate more aggression than depictions of nonviolent sexual activity. No other moderator variable produced homogeneous findings in the meta-analysis. The data collected from women participating in a battered women’s program have also been examined to determine whether pornography use increases the probability that battered women will be sexually abused by their partners. This research shows that certain disinhibitory factors, such as alcohol use, mediate or exacerbate the effects of pornography on sexual violence. Compared with batterers who do not use pornography and alcohol, the combination of alcohol and pornography does increase the odds of sexual abuse. This theoretical perspective has also fueled research on discriminatory and sexually aggressive behavior. The research shows that short-term exposure to nonviolent sexual media stimuli can produce cognitive changes in

men that, in turn, can affect attitudes toward women. Daniel Linz and colleagues tested whether viewing these materials affects their judgment of women in subsequent face-to-face interactions. Sex-typed men and non-sex-typed men viewed one of three equally stimulating films: sexually explicit and degrading, sexually explicit and nondegrading, and nonsex. After the viewing, the men interacted with women and then evaluated their partners’ intellectual competence and sexual interest. The results indicated that men’s sex role orientation moderated the film effects for men’s evaluations of their female partners’ intellectual competence and sexual interest. High pornography use is not necessarily indicative of high risk of sexual aggression unless other variables come into play. The combination of sexually explicit media with personality variables has also been examined within this theoretical perspective. Research by Neil Malamuth and his colleagues suggests that pornography is most likely to affect behavior when two streams of dispositional variables, one labeled “sexual promiscuity” (measured by the number of times an individual has had sexual intercourse and age at the time of the first intercourse) and the other “hostile masculinity” (a general sense of hostility as well as more specific hostility toward women), coalesce. Among men classified as being relatively low risk for sexual aggression on the basis of their levels of hostile masculinity and sexual promiscuity, there is only a minor difference between those who report sexual aggression and differing levels of pornography use. For men who were previously determined to be at high risk for sexual aggression based on hostile masculinity and sexual promiscuity, research has shown that those who are additionally very frequent users of pornography were much more likely to have engaged in sexual aggression than their counterparts who consume pornography less frequently. This perspective has also generated research on the more general culture of violence against women cultivated by the media. Daniel Linz and his colleagues have conducted research on the effects of “slasher” films, films that often juxtapose sex and violence for male and female victims and that pair sexiness with the torture and death of female victims. Men who repeatedly viewed movies depicting violence against women came to have fewer negative emotional reactions to the films, to consider them as significantly less violent, and to consider them less degrading to women. It has also been found that there is a tendency for the desensitization to filmed violence against women to spill

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over into subjects’ judgments of female victims in other contexts. Men who were exposed to large doses of filmed violence against women judged the victim of violent assault and rape to be significantly less injured than did the control groups.

The Liberal Normative Theory This perspective emphasizes that the free flow of ideas is so valuable to the discovery of sexual truths and erotic art and literature that it should be interrupted only when a grave harm to another person occurs as a result of exposure to sex-related materials. The threshold for censorship should be set high to guard against frivolous attempts to censor ideas that are taboo now but may be acceptable later. This position emphasizes that as long as the recipient of sexually explicit messages restricts his or her behavior to private actions, such as sexual fantasy, or only acts on these ideas with a consenting partner, society has no right to interfere. For example, only if it can be shown that consumption of sex depictions is causally related to rape or other violent crimes can the government regulate such depictions. No effect short of these direct threats of violence is sufficient justification for society to interfere with the individual’s right to view sex-related materials and with the right of others to produce it. This position embraces findings such as the meta-analyses focusing on the use of pornography by convicted sex offenders, as compared with men from the noncriminal general population. Studies have examined several types of dependent measures, including frequency of pornography use, age at first exposure, the degree to which pornography was a prelude to some sexual act, and degree of sexual arousal. The findings showed a slight difference but not one that was judged to be reliable. This theory of freedom of expression has led to concerns with methodological problems in laboratory studies on the effects of sexually explicit materials. For example, in the laboratory, only attitudes toward rape or, at best, physiological arousal can be measured, not, of course, actual rapes. However, these critics point out, when privately consumed, pornography is often associated with masturbation or consenting sex, and thus, laboratory settings may be dissimilar to the typical experience with pornography. By attempting to simply arouse subjects in the laboratory, such studies ignore completely the potential that pornography consumption and masturbation may serve as a substitute for rape that results from the use of pornography to release sexual tension.

These critics note that the incidence of rape in the United States has actually declined in the past 25 years, while pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults through the Internet. Studies have shown, for example, that while the nationwide incidence of rape was showing a drastic decline, the incidence of rape in the four states having the least access to the Internet showed an increase over the same time period. The four states having the most access to the Internet have shown declines in rape. More sophisticated analyses controlling for offender age have found that the effect of the Internet on rape is concentrated among those for whom access to the Internet is greatest—males aged 15 to 19 years. They have also found that the advent of the Internet was associated with a reduction in rape incidence. However, the growth in Internet usage has had no apparent effect on other crimes. Daniel Linz See also Media Violence and Behavior; Obscenity

Further Readings

Allen, M., D’Alessio, D., & Emmers-Sommer, T. M. (2000). Reactions of criminal sexual offenders to pornography: A meta-analytic summary. In Roloff (Ed.), Communication yearbook 22 (pp. 139–169). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Allen, M. D., Emmers, T. M., Gebhardt, L., & Giery, M. (1995). Pornography and rape myth acceptance. Journal of Communication, 45, 5–26. Linz, D., & Malamuth, N. (1993). Pornography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Linz, D. G., Donnerstein, E., & Penrod, S. (1988). Effects of long-term exposure to violent and sexually degrading depictions of women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 758–768. Malamuth, N. M., Addison, T., & Koss, M. (2000). Pornography and sexual aggression: Are there reliable effects and can we understand them? Annual Review of Sex Research, 11, 26–91.

POSTDOCTORAL RESIDENCIES IN FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY Forensic psychology was formally recognized as a specialty by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2001 (through the Committee for Recognition

606———Postdoctoral Residencies in Forensic Psychology

of Specialties and Proficiencies in Professional Psychology). The basic elements of specialty training in professional psychology are graduate education (doctoral program), internship, and postdoctoral training. This model of training is pyramidal in structure: Students receive a broad and general education at the graduate level, more specific applied experience at the internship level, and advanced specialized knowledge and skills at the postdoctoral level. An organized, systemic postdoctoral program is called a residency or a postdoctoral fellowship (these terms are interchangeable). Although the APA does not yet accredit forensic residency programs, the American Board of Forensic Psychology has developed some interim recommendations that can be used by students who are interested in applying to residencies. The first formal concerted effort to develop training models in forensic psychology was convened in 1997 (the “Villanova Conference”). The participants in that conference discussed the entire range of training and specifically noted that there were inadequate numbers of postdoctoral fellowships (or residencies) to meet the training needs of all those seeking forensic specialization. In 2001, when forensic psychology was recognized as a specialty by APA, 11 residency programs in forensic psychology were identified. A recent search of ads in the American Psychological Association Monitor, the Web site of the American PsychologyLaw Society, and an Internet search resulted in identification of 17 residency programs as of March 2007. Although there may be a few more programs that were not identified, it is clear that there are still too few programs to meet the demands of students interested in becoming forensic psychologists. Many psychologists will obtain alternative means of training (e.g., through continuing education activities and individually arranged supervision of forensic work), but residency programs remain the “gold standard” for preparation for forensic specialization.

Accreditation Issues The APA’s Committee on Accreditation accredits postdoctoral residencies, based on general principles for such programs, buttressed by specific Specialty Education and Training Guidelines. The Forensic Specialty Council is the entity responsible for developing such guidelines for forensic psychology, and it is anticipated that these will be available in 2008. In the interim, there is no mechanism for formal accreditation

of forensic residency programs. However, the American Board of Forensic Psychology (ABFP), which is a Specialty Board of the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), which awards diplomate status to qualified practitioners, has developed its own guidelines. The ABFP has recognized the value of residency training in forensic psychology and has determined that successful completion of such a residency is considered equivalent to 4 years of postdoctoral experience and, thus, would meet the experiential requirements to apply for diplomate status. The ABFP had identified the following criteria to recognize residency programs for this purpose (with a caveat that these will be superseded by the criteria to be developed by the Forensic Specialty Council as noted above): 1. The residents must have completed all requirements for their doctoral degree, including an internship, prior to beginning residency training. 2. There must be an identifiable director of training who either has a diploma in forensic psychology from ABPP, has at least 5 years’ experience practicing forensic psychology, or is certified by their jurisdiction (through statute or regulations) to perform forensic evaluations. 3. The residents must be formally identified as trainees, paid a stipend, and be given a diploma or certificate of completion. 4. The residency must have a structured written curriculum, including didactic training or a regular series of seminars. Although the ABFP does not identify a required curriculum, it does require that the didactic training include a course on case law, ethics, and sociocultural factors/ethnic factors that affect individuals who are provided forensic evaluations or treatment. 5. The residency must include clinical experiences in forensic practice. 6. The residency program must include at least 2,000 hours of training, over a minimum 9-month period and a maximum of 24 months. At least 25% of the resident’s time must be spent providing professional forensic psychological services. 7. A minimum of 2 hours a week of supervision by a licensed psychologist is required. 8. The residency program must have a formal evaluation process that includes a written assessment of the resident’s progress and skill attainment.

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Standard Elements of Forensic Residency Programs Gary Melton and colleagues, in one of the classic books on forensic psychology, identified, in addition to basic clinical training, the following elements of specialized knowledge and experience required by forensic psychologists:

(publication of the APA) or through the American Psychology-Law Society Newsletter. Ira K. Packer See also Diplomates in Forensic Psychology; Forensic Assessment

Further Readings

1. Understanding of how the legal system works 2. Forensic evaluation methodologies, including specialized forensic instruments 3. Legal doctrines relevant to forensic evaluations 4. Research about areas that are relevant to forensic psychology but that are not part of the standard “clinical” preparation 5. Rules, procedures, and techniques related to providing expert witness testimony

An additional, important element relates to special ethical dilemmas and practice issues that are unique to forensic practice. All forensic psychologists must be familiar with the Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists (which were developed in 1991 jointly by the American Psychology-Law Society and the American Academy of Forensic Psychology and are currently being revised). Residency training programs in forensic psychology should prepare residents for forensic practice by providing education and training within all these areas, at a minimum.

Accessing Information About Programs The majority of the current forensic residency programs emphasize forensic work within the criminal justice system (as opposed to areas of civil practice). Most programs focus on work with adults (in areas such as competency to stand trial, criminal responsibility, aid in sentencing, violence risk assessments, sex offender evaluations), although some focus on juveniles. At least one program focuses on civil work with children and families, including child custody issues and termination of parental rights. As there is no current directory of forensic residency programs, specific information about the available programs can be obtained either through their advertisements in the APA Monitor

Bersoff, D., Goodman-Delahunty, J., Grisso, T., Hans, V., Poythress, N. G., & Roesch, R. (1997). Training in law and psychology: Models from the Villanova Conference. American Psychologist, 52, 1301–1310. Melton, G. B., Petrila, J., Poythress, N. G., & Slobogin, C. (1997). Psychological evaluations for the courts. New York: Guilford Press. Otto, R. K., & Heilbrun, K. (2002). The practice of forensic psychology: A look to the future in light of the past. American Psychologist, 57, 5–18. Packer, I. K., & Borum, R. (2003). Forensic training and practice. In A. M.Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology (pp. 21–32). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

POSTEVENT INFORMATION AND EYEWITNESS MEMORY Human memory, however accurate generally, is not a perfect processing system. Over time, our memory becomes less accurate, primarily for two reasons. First, our memory is not permanent, and information fades from memory over time. Most people are familiar from experience with this unfortunate feature of memory but are less familiar with the second factor that influences the accuracy of memory—memory can be distorted by the influence of postevent information. Although memory can be influenced by subsequent experiences, there are constraints on the conditions under which this is likely to occur. Nonetheless, when memory accuracy is a premium, such as in forensic situations involving eyewitness memory, it is important to recognize that eyewitness memory can be suggestively influenced. In these situations, the impact of postevent information should be minimized by avoiding misleading questions, and when it is relevant to do so, jurors should be informed about the potential fallacies in eyewitness memory that can result from a suggestive interview.

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How can postevent information influence memory? Take the example of eyewitnesses who observe a convenience store robbery. From their observations, they construct a memory for what transpired during the robbery. Most of the time, it is this memory that police officers want to examine. However, virtually all eyewitnesses to crimes who eventually testify in court are interviewed by police officers at least once and typically multiple times. In police interviews, the eyewitness is questioned about what happened, and if the investigating officer has specific suspicions about what occurred, the interview may include some leading questions (e.g., “Was it a white four-door sedan?” “Was he or she wearing athletic clothing?” “Was he or she carrying anything?” “May he or she have had a gun in his or her hand that was in his or her jacket pocket?”). Questioning such as this presents one source of postevent information. Another source of postevent information is self-generation; that is, the eyewitness may introduce new information by just thinking about or talking about the robbery. Either way, the postevent information affects one’s memory of the original observed event, and over time, individuals become less able to differentiate between the information that is in their memory because it was actually observed and the information that was introduced after the event by postevent information. Most of the time, the influence of postevent information is minimal and inconsequential. However, in the case of an eyewitness to a crime, when it is important to know exactly what transpired, postevent information may be an important source of memory error. For this reason, the distortion in memory that results from postevent information is often referred to as the misinformation effect.

Research on the Effect of Postevent Information There is a great deal of research on the effect of postevent information, much of it spawned from the early work of Elizabeth Loftus. In a typical experiment on this topic, participants first view a sequence of slides, a videotape, or a film of an event. After viewing this event, they read a narrative or are asked some questions that intentionally mislead them about the identity of a small set of target items viewed in the original event (the misled condition), or they do not receive the misleading information (the control condition). The principal result is that the participants are more accurate recognizing the original target item in

the control condition than in the misled condition; that is, they are misled by the postevent information presented in the narrative or questions. In a related paradigm for studying the effect of postevent information, Elizabeth Loftus had individuals view a video of a traffic accident. They were subsequently asked questions regarding how fast the cars were traveling prior to the accident. Whereas individuals who were asked, “About how fast were the two cars going when they hit each other?” provided a mean response of 34 mph, individuals asked, “About how fast were the two cars going when they smashed each other?” responded with a mean speed of 40.8 mph. Surprisingly, the wording of this question—the postevent information—also affected their memory of the car accident more generally. One week later these individuals were questioned again. When asked whether they had seen broken glass in the film, whereas 34% of the individuals who had received the question, including the word smashed, indicated having seen broken glass in the film, only 14% of those who received the hit question reported remembering broken glass. The impact of postevent information is thus not limited to immediate questioning but can have long-term consequences as well.

Cognitive Interpretations of the Effect of Postevent Information There are several explanations for how postevent information influences memory, and there is evidence that the cognitive mechanisms underlying each of these explanations play some role in the misinformation effect. Take for an example Elizabeth Loftus’s now classic study in which participants viewed a car approaching an intersection with a stop sign. In the misled condition, the sign was later suggested to be a yield sign (“Did another car pass the red Datsun while it was stopped at the yield sign?”). In a subsequent test, individuals were less likely to recognize the stop sign if they had been in the misled condition. One interpretation of this result is that the postevent information impairs memory of the observed event. That is, being presented the yield sign literally degrades and replaces memory of the observed stop sign. A second interpretation of the misinformation effect is that the original information (stop sign) and the suggested information (yield sign) are both present in memory, but individuals make what Marcia Johnson calls a sourcemonitoring error and confuse what was seen with what was subsequently suggested. A third interpretation of

Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory———609

the effect of postevent information is that the misleading postevent information simply substitutes information in memory when there is no accessible memory for the relevant details of the original event. In fact, even when we pay attention, we do not remember everything about an event that we observe. According to this interpretation, only if individuals cannot remember seeing a stop sign are they likely to incorporate the suggested yield sign. This latter interpretation, referred to as the trace strength theory of suggestibility, has important implications for some of the constraints on the effect of postevent information. Although memory is a constructive process, and we can incorporate postevent information into our memory for what we observe, in fact our memory is generally quite accurate. What is the vehicle by which the veracity of memory is preserved? It is now clear from a number of research studies that stronger memories are more likely to resist suggestion than weaker memories; we are less likely to be misled about details of events if we saw them very clearly to begin with and remember them well than if we did not remember them well. Kathy Pezdek conducted a research study in which children were presented a sequence of slides depicting an event. The target slides that were presented once or twice each were included in the sequence. A postevent narrative was then read that described the same event; in the narrative were several misleading sentences that suggested a change in what had been observed in the slides. The children were significantly less likely to be misled by the postevent narrative if they had observed the target slides twice rather than once; the stronger memory was more resistant to suggestibility. This conclusion is also supported by the results of other studies in which it has been reported that children are less suggestible in domains in which they have greater knowledge (i.e., greater memory strength).

Can Postevent Information Plant False Events in Memory? Research on the influence of postevent information is often used to imply that it is relatively easy to suggestively mislead a person to believe that an entirely new event had occurred when it had not. This assumption is at the heart of the false-memory debate. This debate concerns the veracity of delayed memory for incidents of childhood sexual abuse. Analyses by Jennifer Freyd and her colleagues have established the pervasiveness of childhood sexual abuse. Nonetheless, some claims

of childhood sexual abuse might be based on “false memories”; that is, the abuse never occurred, but memory of the abuse was planted by postevent information, such as suggestive questioning by overzealous police officers, social workers, or therapists who interviewed the child. According to the trace strength theory of suggestibility, if a child is recalling an event that was experienced several times, he or she would be expected to have a more accurate memory of the event and be less vulnerable to suggestive influences such as biased interviewing procedures than if the event had occurred only once. This is especially important in child abuse cases because it is common for a perpetrator to frequently abuse the same child. A child’s memory for an incident that occurred frequently would be expected to be relatively reliable, even in the face of possibly suggestive interviewing. Another important constraint on the effect of postevent suggestion is that implausible events are less likely to be suggestively planted in memory than plausible events. In one study on this point, Kathy Pezdek and her colleagues had 20 confederates read descriptions of one true event and two false events to a younger sibling or close relative. The more plausible false event described the relative being lost in a mall while shopping; the less plausible false event described the relative receiving an enema. Three events were falsely remembered: all were the more plausible events. Thus, all memories are not equally likely to be suggestively planted in memory, and individuals with differing prior experience and prior knowledge are not equally vulnerable to suggestion. The relative ease of suggestively planting false childhood memories of sexual abuse versus being lost in a mall while shopping should be related to the relative plausibility of these two events to a particular individual. This research demonstrates that although memory can be influenced by postevent information, there are constraints on the conditions under which this is likely to occur. Kathy Pezdek See also Delusions; Eyewitness Memory; False Confessions; False Memories

Further Readings

Freyd, J. J., Putnam, F. W., Lyon, T. D., Becher-Blease, K. A., Cheit, R. E., Siegel, N. B., et al. (2005). The science of child sexual abuse. Science, 308, 501.

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Loftus, E. F., Miller, D. G., & Burns, H. J. (1978). Semantic integration of verbal information into a visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4, 19–31. Pezdek, K., & Banks, W. P. (Eds.). (1996). The recovered memory/false memory debate. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Pezdek, K., Finger, K., & Hodge, D. (1997). Planting false childhood memories: The role of event plausibility. Psychological Science, 8, 437–441.

POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD) This entry briefly examines the history of the diagnosis of PTSD, the current symptoms that characterize this syndrome, risk factors for PTSD, and evidence about the prevalence of this disorder in relation to specific traumas. It also summarizes the debate about the expression of PTSD in children and other special populations and discusses the ongoing controversies surrounding this diagnosis. A special effort is made to include mention of forensic issues relevant to the diagnosis of PTSD.

History of the PTSD Diagnosis PTSD was officially introduced into the mental health nomenclature in 1980 with the publication of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, third edition (DSM-III). The concept of a cluster of symptoms that occur in response to a particular stressor, however, has existed for centuries and has been referred to by terms such as nervetrauma hypothesis, shell shock, and stress response syndrome. In DSM-I, veterans of World War II and the Korean War who continued to experience traumatic symptoms were diagnosed as having gross stress reactions. By DSM-II, in 1968, this term was replaced with transient adjustment disorder of adult life. The actual addition of the diagnosis of PTSD to the DSM-III has been attributed to the political and social pressure applied by advocates and psychiatrists after the Vietnam War; although these individuals more specifically lobbied for the inclusion of a DSM diagnosis of post-Vietnam syndrome. However, the DSM-III Task Force argued against including a diagnosis that was

tied to a specific political event, while they were simultaneously persuaded by data showing that similar stress reactions occurred in victims exposed to other traumatic stressors, including natural disasters, rape, and/or confinement in a concentration camp. The DSM-III Task Force thus decided that an individual suffering from PTSD must have been exposed to a traumatic event, including but not necessarily restricted to combat, that was outside the realm of ordinary experience to meet the criteria for PTSD. Consequently, PTSD and the recently included diagnosis of acute stress disorder are distinctive in the DSM system because, unlike the majority of DSM diagnoses, the causal origin of these disorders is explicitly delineated in the diagnostic criteria.

Current PTSD Diagnostic Criteria The research related to the disorder was greatly intensified after the inclusion of PTSD in the official nomenclature of DSM-III, was instrumental in the development of a variety of assessment tools geared toward measuring trauma symptoms, and led to the development of scholarly journals devoted to the topic of trauma. These events, in turn, provided much of the information to be considered by the task forces dedicated to creating the DSM-III-R, which was published in 1987; the DSM-IV, which was published in 1994; and the DSM-IV-TR, which was published in 2000. Considerable changes to the diagnostic criteria for PTSD were introduced in these revisions. One striking difference was in the nature of the trauma that had to be experienced to receive this diagnosis. The trauma criteria in DSM-IV-TR now specify that the affected person had to experience, witness, or be confronted with an event(s) that involved actual or threatened death, serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others. The person also had to experience intense fear, helplessness, and/or horror in response to the traumatic event or events. These changes have considerably broadened the types of events that can be considered as precipitants to PTSD since the traumatic event did not have to be directly experienced by the individual with PTSD symptoms or be highly unusual or statistically infrequent. Consequently, PTSD has now been claimed to result after a variety of events, including a difficult labor (even with a healthy baby), a miscarriage, watching a traumatic event on TV, the shock of receiving

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)———611

even inaccurate bad news from a doctor, learning that one’s child has a chronic disease such as diabetes, and completing work duties as a policeman or fireman. Of particular relevance to forensic psychologists is the determination that PTSD can also occur as a result of automobile accidents or workplace injuries and even in response to hearing sexual jokes or experiencing verbal harassment. Compensation for traumatic symptoms resulting from these types of events is now routinely being sought through legal channels. The symptom criteria for PTSD in DSM-IV-TR were also changed. To receive the diagnosis, the traumatized person is now required to report at least one reexperiencing symptom, three or more avoidant/ numbing symptoms, and two or more symptoms of hyperarousal as a response to the traumatizing event. Moreover, according to the DSM-IV-TR, the traumatized individual has to experience these symptoms for at least 1 month, which is considerably less than the 6 months required for the PTSD diagnosis as specified in the DSM-III. Another noteworthy addition is that PTSD is one of the few DSM-IV-TR diagnoses in which malingering is specifically identified as a necessary component of the differential diagnosis. Malingering has been defined as the intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated symptoms, as a result of external incentives. Therefore, clinicians assessing PTSD need to be able to rule out malingering as a diagnosis when financial remuneration and/or benefit eligibility are a part of their patient’s clinical picture. For example, more than 90% of veterans experiencing PTSD symptoms seek financial compensation for their emotional distress. Determining which, if any, of these patients are malingering is difficult because most PTSD symptoms are obtained by self-report measures and easily feigned clinical interviews. Therefore, one of the major problems with the diagnosis is that many PTSD symptoms are nonspecific and subjective. It is now recommended that symptom validity tests be routinely included in PTSD assessment procedures. Clinicians also need to be able to detect when a patient has been coached to report particular symptoms (i.e., by his or her attorney or by a family member), as malingering has been considered a threat to the therapeutic alliance and has been shown to have a significant negative economic impact. Detecting malingering may require clinicians to collect accurate historical records related to the trauma and to interview

other family members about the patient and his or her symptoms. Clinicians may also need to ask for specific examples of reported symptoms, look for inconsistencies in the self-report, and obtain physiological measures of responses to trauma-related versus neutral stimuli, if possible. Efforts should also be made to determine how to best manage and/or treat patients who have, or are thought to have, exaggerated or feigned their PTSD symptoms, as this may be a relatively common event in some settings.

Prevalence of PTSD The DSM-IV-TR indicates that the lifetime prevalence for PTSD is approximately 8% in the population of U.S. adults. Women are at significantly greater risk of developing PTSD than are men. However, estimates of the rates of the disorder in at-risk or high-risk populations have varied substantially. For example, among the survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing, only about 35% developed PTSD. There is also evidence that the prevalence of PTSD has been increasing across cultures, perhaps as a consequence of the broadened criteria for what constitutes a significant trauma. Since only a small number of individuals who experience trauma go on to develop PTSD, researchers have concentrated on delineating risk factors for developing the disorder. These include lower intelligence, experiences of childhood trauma and interpersonal violence, having a psychiatric diagnosis prior to experiencing the trauma, dissociation in the weeks following the event, use of avoidance rather than problem-focused coping strategies, a poor social support network, and perhaps having a genetic vulnerability to strong physiological reactions to stress. The national comorbidity study also identified a number of consequences associated with a diagnosis of PTSD. These included increased risk of developing other psychiatric disorders, committing suicide, failing school, experiencing a teenage pregnancy or marital difficulties, and having an unstable work history.

Issues Related to Diagnosing PTSD in Children and Other Special Populations Diagnosing PTSD is especially difficult in children because they may not have experienced significant distress at the time of the event (i.e., in some cases of childhood sexual abuse). They may also have limited

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verbal abilities, especially when they are very young, and may have little insight about their thoughts and feelings to offer the clinician. Children may also have a different symptom pattern that is not well represented by the adult criteria for PTSD. For example, it has been suggested that children may have longer durations of avoidance and fewer symptoms of reexperiencing (e.g., visual flashbacks) than adults have. Children may also be more likely than adults to mask their feelings of fear, helplessness, or horror with rage, hostility, refusal to go to school, and behavioral outbursts that may be more suggestive of conduct disorder than PTSD. Children may also report more concentration difficulties and cognitive changes posttrauma than adults do. Finally, some studies have shown that there are large numbers of children who have been exposed to a severe discrete trauma who fail to meet the full criteria for PTSD as specified for adults; yet these reactions were of sufficient severity to create a functional impairment for the child. Taken as a whole, these findings have led researchers, such as Michael Scheeringa and colleagues, to delineate an alternative set of criteria for PTSD that can be used with infants and very young children. The efficacy of these criteria is currently being considered. Diagnosing PTSD in individuals who have suffered a traumatic brain injury is also controversial. Specifically, it has been questioned whether a person who has posttrauma amnesia for the traumatic event can receive a diagnosis of PTSD since these individuals also have no recollection of feeling helpless, fearful, or horrified in response to the trauma. The symptom pattern of PTSD may also be different and more complex in individuals who have experienced a chronic stressor (such as childhood physical or sexual abuse or kidnapping and torture) as opposed to those who have experienced a discrete stressor. Some have argued that complex PTSD is better described by the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision (ICD–10) diagnosis of enduring personality change after catastrophic experience than by the symptom pattern detailed for PTSD.

PTSD: Current Controversies Many controversies currently surround the diagnosis of PTSD. As stated previously, there are differences of opinion about which types of trauma should be considered as significant enough to generate symptoms of PTSD. There is also debate about the number of symptoms needed for the diagnosis, with some experts

arguing that significant impairment can still occur in individuals who fail to qualify fully for the diagnosis. Moreover, PTSD has been shown to have high rates of comorbidity with other diagnoses such as major depressive disorder, alcohol dependence, and other anxiety disorders. These may be due to the high degree of symptom overlap between PTSD and other disorders. For example, PTSD and depression share symptoms of insomnia, impaired concentration, social withdrawal, and diminished interest in or satisfaction from previously pleasurable activities. Similarly, PTSD and generalized anxiety disorder share symptoms of irritability, hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response, impaired concentration, insomnia, and autonomic hyperarousal. Thus, the degree to which there is an identifiable stress reaction has been questioned, and debate continues about how to differentiate a normal reaction to a horrific event from an abnormal reaction to a horrific event, such that it would constitute a psychological disorder. Additionally, PTSD is theorized to have a dose-response relationship with experienced trauma, such that more severe stressors are thought to be associated with worse symptoms and a greater likelihood of receiving the diagnosis of PTSD. While some researchers have found evidence in support of this relationship, data from other studies have failed to establish a linear relationship between the severity of the trauma experienced and the likelihood of experiencing PTSD symptoms. The development of a theoretical model for what causes PTSD to occur in some but not all individuals has also engendered debate, as the prevalence of PTSD is rather rare (between 1% and 8% of the general population) relative to the number of Americans known to have been exposed to a sufficiently severe and potentially traumatizing stressor (estimates suggest 66% or more of the general population). These findings have led researchers to conclude that trauma is necessary but not sufficient to cause PTSD and that the person’s subjective experience of and attributions about the trauma may be as important as the event itself. Another controversy that surrounds the diagnosis of PTSD has focused on the validity of recovered memories of trauma. For example, if recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse are not accurate, then can they cause PTSD? Additionally, studies have shown that trauma memories change across time, are dynamic rather than static, and are related to a person’s current clinical state. Last, further concern has been generated with regard to the efficacy of using early psychological

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interventions to promote recovery from posttraumatic stress. Data have accumulated that suggest that routine, one-shot psychological debriefing after trauma may not augment the recovery process and, in some cases, may actually impede it. Therefore, controversy about what constitutes a best-practice prevention effort for PTSD is ongoing. Jennifer Langhinrichsen-Rohling and Martin Langhinrichsen-Rohling See also Coping Strategies of Adult Sexual Assault Victims; False Memories; Forensic Assessment; Malingering

Further Readings

McNally, R. J. (2003). Progress and controversy in the study of posttraumatic stress disorder. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 229–252. Mizey, G., & Robbins, I. (2001). Usefulness and validity of post-traumatic stress disorder as a psychiatric category. British Medical Journal, 323, 561–563. Perrin, S., Smith, P., & Yule, W. (2000). Practitioner review: The assessment and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 41(3), 277–289. Rosen, G. M. (2004). Posttraumatic stress disorder: Issues and controversies. Chichester, UK: Wiley. Rosenbaum, L. (2004). Post-traumatic stress disorder: The chameleon of psychiatry. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 58, 343–348. Tierney, J. A. (2000). Post-traumatic stress disorder in children: Controversies and unresolved issues. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, 13(4), 147–158.

PRESENCE OF COUNSEL SAFEGUARD AND EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION The presence-of-counsel safeguard, provided by the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, guarantees every defendant the right to an attorney both at trial and during pretrial proceedings, including live, postindictment lineups. The presence of an attorney at live, postindictment lineups serves to protect defendants from erroneous convictions resulting from mistaken eyewitness identifications by allowing attorneys to attend pretrial identifications, advise their client of their legal rights and obligations, oppose the use of suggestive lineup procedures, and observe and record

any suggestive procedures used during the identification test. Research has examined attorney behavior to determine the effectiveness of this safeguard. The effectiveness of the presence-of-counsel safeguard rests on several psychological assumptions about attorney behavior. Specifically, for the presence-ofcounsel safeguard to be effective, attorneys must be knowledgeable about factors that influence lineup suggestiveness and be able to recognize these factors when present in an identification test. Furthermore, this safeguard is effective only if attorneys attend their clients’ lineups and document any suggestive factors to support a motion to suppress the identification evidence or challenge the identification through crossexamination at trial. How effective is the presence-of-counsel safeguard? Although a number of studies have examined attorney knowledge and opinions of the factors influencing eyewitness memory and identification accuracy, to date, only one study has examined attorney sensitivity to factors present in lineups and known to influence eyewitness identification accuracy. Veronica Stinson and colleagues assessed attorney sensitivity to lineup suggestiveness by creating a videotaped lineup wherein aspects of the lineup known to produce higher rates of false identifications were manipulated. These lineup features included the individuals presented along with the suspect, called foils (biased vs. unbiased); the instructions given to the eyewitness (biased vs. unbiased); and the presentation of the lineup members (simultaneous vs. sequential). Prior to viewing one version of the videotaped lineup, attorneys were instructed to assume that the suspect in the videotaped lineup was their client, and they were provided with a photograph of the person suspected of the crime along with a written description of the eyewitness’s memory of the event and of the perpetrator. After viewing the lineup, attorneys evaluated the suggestiveness and fairness of the overall lineup procedure and of the foils, instructions, and presentation of the lineup. Attorneys were also asked to indicate the likelihood that they would file a motion to have the identification suppressed at trial. The results indicated that attorneys are effective in safeguarding their clients from foil-biased lineup procedures. Attorneys, however, may not fully safeguard their clients from instruction-biased lineup procedures. Although attorneys appeared to be sensitive to the harmful effects of instruction bias and to recognize biased instructions in a lineup procedure, they did not believe that biased instructions reduced the fairness of

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the lineup. Furthermore, attorneys reported that they would be unlikely to file a motion with the court to suppress the identification when the lineup instructions are biased. Research, however, has shown that judges are more likely to grant a motion to suppress an identification when the lineup instructions are biased than when they are unbiased. Finally, attorneys lacked knowledge regarding the beneficial effects of sequentially presented lineups, suggesting that they are unable to effectively safeguard their clients from presentation-biased lineup procedures. Although this study would suggest that attorneys are somewhat sensitive to factors influencing lineup suggestiveness, the presence-of-counsel safeguard is effective only if attorneys are actually present at their client’s postindictment lineups. Surveys of attorneys and police officers, however, suggest that defense attorneys are rarely present at the construction or presentation of their clients’ identification tests. Thus, the effectiveness of the presence-of-counsel safeguard may be limited not only by attorney knowledge of and sensitivity to factors influencing lineup suggestiveness but also by the absence of attorneys at their clients’ lineups. Jennifer L. Devenport See also Eyewitness Memory; Identification Tests, Best Practices in; Instructions to the Witness; Lineup Filler Selection; Lineup Size and Bias; Motions to Suppress Eyewitness Identification; Simultaneous and Sequential Lineup Presentation; Wrongful Conviction

Further Readings

Brigham, J. D., & Wolskeil, M. P. (1983). Opinions of attorneys and law enforcement personnel on the accuracy of eyewitness identification. Law and Human Behavior, 7, 337–349. Potter, R., & Brewer, N. (1999). Perceptions of witness behaviour-accuracy relationships held by police, lawyers and mock-jurors. Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law, 6, 97–103. Stinson, V., Devenport, J. L., Cutler, B. L., & Kravitz, D. A. (1996). How effective is the presence-of-counsel safeguard? Attorney perceptions of suggestiveness, fairness, and correctability of biased lineup procedures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, 64–75. Wogalter, M. S., Malpass, R. S., & McQuiston, D. E. (2004). A national survey of U.S. police preparation and conduct of identification lineups. Psychology, Crime, & Law, 10, 69–82.

PRESENTENCE EVALUATIONS Presentence evaluations are those assessments conducted prior to the sentencing stage of proceedings to assist the court in making an appropriate disposition. Individual differences in crimes, criminals, and circumstances justify the need for personalized sentences in each case. Mental health professionals, probation officers, and social workers are among those in the forensic field called on to conduct these assessments. This entry explores the importance of presentence assessments, the content of such assessments, and standards of practice in completing highquality assessments. Historically, the goals of punishment were retribution, incapacitation, and general deterrence. These objectives do not require in-depth knowledge of the offender. However, with the aims of reform and rehabilitation came a need for further information regarding the offender prior to imposing a sentence. Indeed, some scholars have suggested that the sentencing decision may be the most important decision made about a defendant in the entire court process. It is now common practice for the court to order the completion of a presentence report to assist the court in making an appropriate disposition. Probation officers are frequently involved in the preparation of these reports; however, if mental health issues arise, the mental health professional may be called on to complete an assessment at this stage. The ordering of such evaluations varies in different jurisdictions, and consistent criteria do not exist. Some information suggests that judicial decisions to order assessments at this stage may be influenced by the judge’s commitment to rehabilitation or retribution. Specific requests made by the court will dictate the focus of these evaluations, and the content of reports will vary depending on the needs of the court as well as of practitioner called on to conduct the evaluation. The specific role of the mental health professional will be in providing information relating to culpability, which would include aggravating and mitigating factors in offending; risk assessment, such as risk management strategies; and mental status and treatability assessments, including identifying specific and appropriate treatment needs of the offender and an evaluation of the treatability of the offender. Indeed, judges have requested that the examiner inform the court why a particular recommendation is needed,

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what form it should take, and what impact it is likely to have on the offender. When mental health professionals are called on to conduct an assessment of the accused at this stage of proceedings, the report is likely to follow a fairly standard format that typically includes a review of the following: (a) personal and family data, including information regarding the offender’s childhood, school, employment, relationships, substance use, and mental and physical health; (b) offense information, which moves beyond a simple recounting of events to include motivation for the offense and the defendant’s attitude toward the offense; (c) a review of criminal history, including juvenile adjudications, past response to corrections, and criminal behaviors not resulting in arrest; (d) an evaluation of the accused, which may include the results of testing as well as a current mental status assessment; (e) a risk assessment; and (f) conclusions including recommendations and risk management strategies. There has been relatively little research on judge’s views of presentence reports. That research that has been conducted appears to have asked the question generally instead of focusing on specific reports. Although responses have been favorable in many cases, those criticisms that do exist focus on the unrealistic recommendations made and the jargon used in reports. Indeed, research suggests the need to tie the content of the report to its purpose—that is, to concentrate on issues relevant to understanding the offending behavior and considering constructive responses to it. In doing so, the examiner should also consider the seriousness of the offense, as this has been a criticism of past reports. Furthermore, reports should make use of appropriate language free from jargon, prejudicial or stereotypical language, and spelling and grammatical errors. In addition, standards of practice would require providing thorough but concise information in a logical format and presenting information from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, a file review of police records, court transcripts, and criminal record; an interview with the offender, including testing information; and interviews with collateral sources, such as family members, spouses, employers, and other relevant community contacts. Additionally, the offender may be asked to sign release forms so that records may be obtained from various community agencies with which the accused has had prior contact, including hospital and community mental health centers, substance abuse treatment programs, and community corrections.

Despite some criticism, presentence evaluations or the recommendations such assessments provide appear to play a prominent role in sentencing decisions. As such, providing reports of consistent quality is of paramount importance because failure to do so may contribute to inequality in outcomes. There is a need for further research to examine the quality of these assessments and the impact they have in sentencing offenders. Such information will assist the examiner in providing evaluations of the highest quality and help ensure that these evaluations meet the needs of the court. Karen E. Whittemore See also Forensic Assessment; Probation Decisions; Risk Assessment Approaches; Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

Andrews, D. A., Bonta, J. Y., & Hoge, R. D. (1990). Classification for effective rehabilitation: Rediscovering psychology. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 17, 19–52. Heilbrun, A. B. (1999). Recommending probation and parole. In A. K. Hess & I. B. Weiner (Eds.), The handbook of forensic psychology (2nd ed., pp. 303–326). New York: Wiley. Melton, G. B., Petrila, J., Poythress, N. G., & Slobogin, C. (1997). Psychological evaluations for the courts: A handbook for mental health professionals and lawyers (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Rogers, R., & Mitchell, C. N. (1991). Mental health experts and the criminal courts. Toronto, ON, Canada: Carswell.

PRETRIAL PUBLICITY, IMPACT ON JURIES When a trial is deemed newsworthy by the press, it is likely that information about the nature of the allegations, the character of the defendant, or other caserelevant information is reported in the media. Although the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to free speech and a free press, there is concern among the courts and scholars that providing information about a case to potential jury members before a trial may bias the jury pool by creating negative perceptions of the defendant and

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entrenching jurors’ opinions about the defendant’s guilt before they hear the evidence that is introduced at trial. Empirical research suggests that exposure to pretrial publicity causes jurors to be more conviction prone, especially when the publicity is designed to elicit an emotional response rather than present facts. Results from trial simulation studies suggest that traditional remedies for the negative influence of pretrial publicity on juror decisions, including voir dire, judicial instruction, and continuances, may not be effective in eliminating bias.

Effects of Pretrial Publicity on Juror Decisions Some of the information provided to the general public, such as comments on the defendant’s character, discussion of a defendant’s prior criminal record, or presentation of evidence against the defendant (e.g., a confession made by the defendant), may create bias in a potential jury member and prevent him or her from hearing the case fairly. In fact, some of the evidence that the media report pretrial may be ruled inadmissible at trial. A community member exposed to inadmissible evidence via pretrial publicity (PTP) may be unable to put aside or ignore the prohibited information if he or she is chosen to serve as a juror for the case. These kinds of biases violate the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair and impartial jury. Researchers have typically examined the effects of PTP through field studies and experimental studies. In field studies, PTP is assessed by surveying community members from the venue in which a case will be tried regarding the extent of their exposure to media regarding the case, the information they know or remember about the case, and their perceptions of the defendant’s guilt. Similar information is obtained from community members in other venues to which the case may be moved, generally locations in which the media coverage of the case was less or nonexistent. Knowing this information, researchers can compare both the amount of PTP and the perceived guilt of the defendant between the different venues. The relationship between PTP exposure (as reported by the community members) and pretrial judgments of the defendant’s guilt can also be examined. In general, field studies have shown that community members who reside in the venue in which the trial is to be held and therefore have received the most PTP exposure possess significantly more biased attitudes against the

defendant than community members in remote venues. Field studies have the benefit of studying PTP in naturally occurring environments; however, this method also has its shortcomings. Field studies cannot estimate the effects of PTP after the presentation of evidence, its processing, and deliberation with other jurors. Experimental methods are needed to make such assessments. As opposed to field studies, experimental studies are typically conducted in a laboratory in which the nature and extent of PTP are manipulated while holding other variables constant. Typically, after exposure to PTP, participants watch a trial stimulus and are asked to judge the guilt of the defendant, either on their own or after deliberation with other mock jurors. The effects of varying levels of PTP on verdict choices are examined. The primary advantage of experimental methods is the ability to make causal conclusions about the effects observed. However, experimental studies have often used relatively artificial PTP exposure, as well as undergraduate college students as participants, and therefore have been criticized for their low ecological validity. In general, experimental research indicates that PTP negatively influences perceptions of the defendant; as more pieces of prejudicial information are presented pretrial, jurors’ pretrial perceptions of the defendant become more negative. The prejudicial impact of the PTP persists even after jurors hear trial evidence. Mock jurors who are presented with negative PTP are more likely to find the defendant guilty than jurors who are not presented information pretrial. The prejudicial effect of PTP has been found in both criminal and civil cases and is greater when the PTP is emotionally based (e.g., graphic details of a brutal rape) rather than factual (e.g., details of the defendant’s past criminal history). Furthermore, research indicates that even publicity that is topically, but not directly, related to a case (known as general PTP) can influence jurors’ evaluations of trial evidence as well as their verdict choices.

Potential Remedies for Prejudicial Effects of PTP The American Bar Association recognized the harm that prejudicial PTP can cause and has suggested a number of methods to counteract its effects, including voir dire, judicial instruction, continuance, and change of venue. Unfortunately, research has failed to

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show that most of these methods successfully decrease the effects of PTP on juror judgments. One of the most common methods used to combat PTP effects is voir dire. During voir dire, attorneys and/or judges question potential jurors about biases they may hold that would prevent them from hearing the case fairly. When PTP is a concern, the judge has the option to extend voir dire questioning to uncover any juror bias that may be the result of exposure to PTP. Empirical research, however, has identified several issues concerning voir dire that prevent its effectiveness. Research has shown that attorneys’ ability to uncover general juror bias is limited. It may be difficult to identify biased jurors in part because attorneys must rely on jurors to self-report their bias, and jurors may lack the ability to recognize the factors that influence their decision making, including exposure to PTP. Exacerbating the problem of self-report is jurors’ motivation to answer voir dire questions in socially desirable ways, feeling a responsibility to the court to remain unbiased. Although it is possible that voir dire may be a vehicle for encouraging jurors to set aside their biases, research thus far has failed to show its effectiveness in reducing the bias produced by PTP exposure. Another potential remedy for PTP effects is judicial instruction to jurors about their duty to avoid being influenced by PTP. The instructions emphasize the importance of disregarding previously heard information about the case and relying solely on the information presented during the trial. Although research has shown that jurors generally do not follow judicial instructions to disregard information, these instructions have been found to be more effective when paired with a rationale for why the information should be disregarded. Early research found support for judicial instructions as a remedy for PTP; however, the methodologies of these early studies have been criticized. Methodologically sound research is yet to provide support for the usefulness of these instructions. Continuance—delaying the start of a trial—has been used as a remedy to PTP, with the hope that the effects of PTP will decrease as time passes since the last exposure to the prejudicial media. Research on continuance is limited, but some studies have indicated that the passage of time can decrease the effects of factual PTP but not emotional PTP. A meta-analysis, however, suggests that longer delays between PTP and a trial can actually increase PTP effects. These findings may be due to a sleeper effect—the tendency of unreliable information to become more influential

over time because the information becomes detached from the unreliable source in memory. Similarly, information presented in PTP may be difficult to disregard even when jurors are instructed to do so, because the information becomes separated from its source over time, making it impossible for jurors to identify which information in memory came from the trial evidence and which information came from PTP. Finally, a trial may be moved from one venue to another that is less saturated by PTP in an attempt to minimize the effects of PTP on juror judgments. Empirical research shows that a change of venue is the most effective way to remedy PTP effects, as studies have found that jurors in areas more heavily saturated by PTP are more biased in support of the prosecution and against the defendant than jurors in areas less saturated by PTP. It has been argued that in extremely high-profile cases, finding a venue where potential jurors have not been tainted by PTP is impossible. However, content analyses of actual media coverage have shown that even in highly publicized cases such as the Oklahoma City bombing, alternative venues with little, or at least reduced, PTP can be found. Thus, even if a change of venue cannot eliminate PTP effects, it may be able to reduce them.

Psychological Consultation in PTP Cases When a defendant believes that community members have been exposed to a significant amount of PTP concerning the case, his or her counsel may file a motion to seek remedies to counteract the bias that may result from the prejudicial information. When such motions are filed, either side may call an expert who may provide testimony to the judge making determinations about whether to implement any remedies, such as expanded voir dire or a change of venue. The expert may testify about experimental psychological research on PTP, including the negative impact it has on jurors’ perceptions of the defendant and on verdict decisions. The expert may make comparisons between the types of PTP used in research and the types of publicity that have been released in the current case. The expert may also testify about experimental research testing the effectiveness of the suggested remedies. Although research indicates that most traditional remedies besides change of venue are ineffective, judges themselves report a strong belief in the effectiveness of remedies such as extended voir dire and judicial instruction.

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Additionally, when experts are testifying in a change-of-venue hearing, they may provide the court with data they have collected to assess the level of prejudice in that particular case by comparing the responses from community members in the current venue with community members’ reports of bias in alternative venues. The expert may present differences in the amount of PTP exposure reported by community members, their level of knowledge about case facts, and their perceptions of the defendant’s character and likelihood of guilt as a function of the community in which the respondents live. Additionally, the expert may present results from content analyses of the quantity and quality of PTP in the current venue as well as possible alternative venues. The expert may then testify about differences in media exposure between the communities, including the number of articles reporting on the case, the types of prejudicial information divulged, and the amount of emotional PTP in each of the venues. PTP continues to be a concern to defendants, the courts, and researchers. Research has consistently demonstrated that exposure to negative information about the defendant pretrial affects jurors’ perceptions of the defendant, that these negative perceptions persist even after trial evidence is presented, and that these perceptions have been shown to influence jurors’ verdict decisions. Additionally, many of the most commonly implemented remedies to counteract PTP have proved to be ineffective when empirically tested. Of the remedies, change of venue seems to be the best method for reducing the negative effects of PTP. Expert testimony addressing these research findings as well as results from surveys assessing the communities’ level of prejudice against the defendant may assist the courts in their quest to provide the defendant with a fair and impartial jury. Sarah Greathouse, Julia C. Busso, and Margaret Bull Kovera See also Inadmissible Evidence, Impact on Juries; Juries and Judges’ Instructions; Jury Selection; Public Opinion About Crime; Trial Consulting; Voir Dire

Further Readings

Bornstein, B. H., Wisenhunt, B. L., & Nemeth, R. J. (2002). Pretrial publicity and civil cases: A two-way street? Law and Human Behavior, 21, 3–17.

Dexter, H. R., Cutler, B. L., & Moran, G. (1992). A test of voir dire as a remedy for the prejudicial effects of pretrial publicity. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22, 819–832. Kovera, M. B. (2002). The effects of general pretrial publicity on juror decisions: An examination of moderators and mediating mechanisms. Law and Human Behavior, 26, 43–72. Lieberman, J. D., & Arndt, J. (2000). Understanding the limits of limiting instructions: Social psychological explanations for the failures of instructions to disregard pretrial publicity and other inadmissible evidence. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 3, 677–711. Steblay, N. M., Besirevic, J., Fulero, S. M., & JiminexLorente, V. (1999). The effects of pretrial publicity on juror verdicts: A meta-analytic review. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 219–235. Studebaker, C. A., & Penrod, S. D. (2005). Pretrial publicity and its influence on juror decision making. In N. Brewer & K. D. Williams (Eds.), Psychology and law: An empirical perspective (pp. 254–275). New York: Guilford Press. Studebaker, C. A., Robbennolt, J. L, Penrod, S. D., PathakSharms, M. K., Groscup, J. L., & Davenport, J. L. (2002). Studying pretrial publicity effects: New methods for improving ecological validity and testing external validity. Law and Human Behavior, 26, 19–41.

PRISON OVERCROWDING With well over 2 million individuals confined in jails and prisons in the United States, it is easy to understand why the federal prison system and 24 state prison systems were above their rated capacity at the end of 2004. The data supplied by the Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed that the federal prison system had the highest rate of overcrowding in 2004 (140%), but this was only because states such as Alabama, California, Delaware, and Illinois housed a significant portion of their inmate populations in private and contract facilities. Local and county jails held 747,529 offenders in mid-2005, which represents approximately one third of the incarcerated population. These facilities were at 95% capacity, although this figure is deceptive because research indicates that smaller jails often operate well below their rated capacity, whereas larger metropolitan jails often operate well above their rated capacity. Prison overcrowding is of particular interest in the United States, in part because of the number of people

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who are confined in American jails and prisons and in part because of several well-known court cases in which states have been ordered to improve the conditions of confinement to include alleviating overcrowding. However, prison overcrowding is neither a particularly new nor an exclusively American problem. With the advent of the prisoners’ rights movement in the early 1970s, prison conditions have come under increased scrutiny. One such area of increased scrutiny is the degree to which the inmate population exceeds the rated capacity of the institution in which it is housed. Furthermore, concerns about prison overcrowding extend beyond the borders of the United States. Canada, Great Britain, and the Scandinavian countries have recently raised concerns about prison overcrowding, and many nations in Africa, Asia, and South America have prisons that are more crowded than those in the United States.

Measurement Prison overcrowding has traditionally been defined by density (i.e., the proportion of inmates to rated capacity of an institution; the ratio of single cells to multiple-person cells). A distinction can be drawn, however, between overcrowding and density. Whereas overcrowding is a psychological condition based on a perception of limited space by an incarcerated individual, density is a physical condition, such as the ratio of inmates to available space in an institution. There are two forms of density: spatial density and social density. Spatial density, the measure most often used in prison-overcrowding research, is normally calculated as the proportion of inmates in an institution or prison system to the available space as established by the rated capacity of the institution or system. Prison and jail officials often consider their institutions overcrowded when they exceed 80% of the rated capacity. Social density, on the other hand, is measured by the amount of double and triple bunking found in a correctional institution. Research indicates that inmate health problems and violence may rise as social density increases.

Causes The overriding cause of prison overcrowding is fairly obvious: The number of inmates exceeds the spatial and social capacity of correctional institutions and

prison systems to house these inmates. On the other hand, the underlying cause of this surplus of inmates is less apparent. Several sets of factors appear to have contributed to the growth of jail and prison populations in the United States and other parts of the world. One important factor, at least in the United States, is a punitive public. Many people in the United States want to see those who violate society’s rules punished for their actions. Politicians frequently comply with the public’s demand for greater punishment because they do not want to appear weak on crime. Accordingly, they introduce legislation that provides for mandatory, determinate, or longer sentences; reduces goodconduct time credit; and restricts or eliminates earlyrelease programs such as parole. In addition to the legislative response of politicians and policymakers to a punitive public, there are several other factors that may contribute to prison overcrowding. Drug use is instrumental in a quarter to a third of all new jail and prison admissions and is the leading cause of parole and conditional release violation. As such, drugs are both directly and indirectly (harsher sentences for drug offenses) linked to prison overcrowding. Demographic changes contribute to prison overcrowding, as exemplified by the crime explosion of the mid-1960s when the baby boomers were in the age range most conducive to crime (late teens to mid20s). Over time, prisons age and become less efficient; some may even be closed. This places an increased burden on existing facilities and adds to the growing overcrowding problem. With advances in technology, law enforcement may become more efficient, which could potentially increase the jail and prison populations and contribute to prison overcrowding.

Consequences The most frequently mentioned consequence of prison overcrowding is aggression. Early research on overcrowding in rodents indicated that mice and rats raised in a crowded environment were more violent, stressed, and diseased than mice and rats raised in an uncrowded environment. Studies conducted on prison overcrowding, however, have yielded mixed results. In some studies, prison overcrowding has been found to correspond to an increase in future disciplinary problems, particularly aggression. In other studies, prison overcrowding has failed to correlate with aggressive and nonaggressive disciplinary problems.

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In still other studies, prison overcrowding is associated with a noticeable decline in future aggressive and nonaggressive disciplinary problems. There are several possible explanations for these inconclusive and sometimes anomalous findings. First, because younger individuals often have trouble avoiding getting disciplinary reports in prison, it is possible that changes in the age structure of the prison or the practice of housing older and younger prisoners in separate facilities could influence the results of overcrowding research. Second, most of these studies overlook the positive or ameliorative effects that may reduce the negative impact of prison overcrowding. When researchers examine the effect of educational, occupational, and psychological programming on prison-based aggression, they frequently find that these positive pursuits can have a calming effect. Both these factors, age and positive influences, suggest that a systems approach should guide research on prison overcrowding. Aggression and disciplinary problems may be the principal outcome measures used in research on prison overcrowding, but they are not the only possible consequences of overcrowding. Additional consequences of prison overcrowding include reduced recreation time for prisoners, decreased access to health and mental health care, poor staff morale, increased facility maintenance costs, diminished institution security, and fewer opportunities for inmates to learn trades and attend school. These consequences, as well as the possibility of a rise in future aggression, illustrate the importance of finding a solution to the problem of overcrowding. A solution may not be immediately forthcoming, but by paying close attention to the systemic nature of prison overcrowding a solution, or combination of solutions, may well be found.

Solutions Potential solutions to the problem of prison overcrowding can be divided into three general categories: administrative responses, front-end strategies, and back-end strategies. The most common administrative response is to build more prisons, although this is an expensive proposition that may fail to produce its desired effect. Prison construction will have little impact on prison overcrowding if the problem resides with the jail and its inability to manage pretrial and short-sentence inmates. Other administrative responses that could potentially offer a solution to the overcrowding problem include

converting existing prison and nonprison facilities into inmate housing units, double and triple bunking, transferring inmates to private or contract facilities, and achieving greater multiagency communication and cooperation. Front-end strategies are designed to manage prison overcrowding by reducing the number of new inmates entering the prison system. One of the most obvious front-end strategies is to prevent crime before it occurs. Even when crime does occur, incarceration may not always be the best option. Diversion programs that call on the individual to perform community service and the use of special drug and mental health courts can relieve overcrowding by diverting individuals who commit nuisance and petty crimes away from the prison system and into programs tailored to their individual needs. House arrest, intensive probation supervision, and drug surveillance in lieu of incarceration are additional ways to manage first-time offenders convicted of nonviolent crimes without resorting to incarceration and adding to the already burgeoning correctional rolls. Back-end strategies help reduce prison overcrowding by releasing individuals from prison months or even years before their statutory release dates. Releasing inmates to halfway houses 6 to 12 months before their scheduled release can help ease prison overcrowding while maintaining some modicum of supervision over the inmate. If an individual does well in the halfway house, then the next logical step would be home confinement with monitoring provided by an electronic bracelet or similar surveillance device. Early release through parole is another back-end strategy capable of alleviating prison overcrowding. Allowing incarcerated offenders to earn good-time credit every month for good behavior, which would then move the offender’s release date up, is another example of how prison overcrowding can be reduced with a back-end strategy.

Future Research Prison overcrowding research, practice, and policy could benefit from a number of alterations in how the field is conceptualized and studied. First, several researchers have recommended a systems approach to research on prison overcrowding. A systems approach would show that new prison construction may not always be the solution to prison overcrowding. Not only is new prison construction expensive, but it also

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fails to address issues such as pertinent overcrowded jails, excessive sentences, and distinguishing between those who require incarceration and those who can be managed in a less restrictive environment. The systems approach also suggests that resolving prison overcrowding will require cooperation and to some extent integration of the three primary approaches to reducing prison overcrowding: namely, administrative responses, front-end strategies, and back-end strategies. Much of the research on prison overcrowding has taken a molar approach to the problem of overcrowding by using aggregate data from prisons or entire prison systems. Although this has shed light on the causes and consequences of prison overcrowding and pointed out possible solutions, it also has limitations. In recent years, researchers have called for more research on individual-level factors that may moderate the consequences of overcrowding. The few studies that have been conducted on this issue have produced potentially important findings, such as the fact that some white inmates, particularly those who were raised in rural areas, are more likely to perceive prison conditions as overcrowded than black inmates, who are often raised in more crowded urban environments. Another interesting line of research suggests that individuals who interpret or misinterpret behavior as aggressive are more likely to perceive the prison environment as overcrowded. Adopting a systems approach to research on prison overcrowding and including individual-level moderator variables in the analysis may enable us to better understand prison overcrowding and its effect on the inmates and staff who live and work in correctional institutions and attain a firmer grasp of how overcrowding can be effectively managed in the correctional environment. Glenn D. Walters See also Drug Courts; Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration

Further Readings

Davis, R. K., Applegate, B. K., Otto, C. W., Surette, R., & McCarthy, B. J. (2004). Roles and responsibilities: Analyzing local leaders’ views on jail crowding from a systems perspective. Crime and Delinquency, 50, 458–482. Gaes, G. G., & McGuire, W. J. (1985). Prison violence: The contribution of crowding versus other determinants of

prison assault rates. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 22, 41–65. Harrison, P. M., & Beck, A. J. (2005, October). Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin: Prisoners in 2004. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. Kinkade, P., Leone, M., & Semond, S. (1995). The consequences of jail crowding. Crime and Delinquency, 41, 150–161. Lawrence, C., & Andrews, K. (2004). The influence of perceived prison crowding on male inmates’ perception of aggressive events. Aggressive Behavior, 30, 273–283. Paulus, P. B. (1988). Prison crowding: A psychological perspective. New York: Springer-Verlag. Vaughn, M. S. (1993). Listening to the experts: A national study of correctional administrators’ responses to prison overcrowding. Criminal Justice Review, 18, 12–25.

PROBATION DECISIONS Probation officers’ decisions affect the legal experiences and case outcomes of a substantial number of defendants and offenders. Probation officers exercise discretion and use subjective judgments and standardized assessment tools in making decisions that influence the dispositions of criminal cases and offenders’ progress under community supervision. Probation officers serve the court by providing judges with information, protect the community by enforcing the conditions of probation, and assist offenders to reintegrate into the community by brokering services and other resources. Probation officers make decisions at the pretrial, presentence, and postsentence stages of the criminal justice process.

Pretrial Decisions At the pretrial level, probation officers evaluate defendants for release on bail or pretrial supervision, which allows them to remain free while their case is pending. The evaluation process focuses on defendants’ risk of flight and their likelihood of continuing their criminal activity. Probation officers collect information on a variety of factors that are related to offenders’ ties to the community and their propensity to continue their criminal activity. Officers use interviewing techniques and data collection forms as the basis for their judgments. They must decide whether to recommend pretrial release and, if so, whether to

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recommend a bail amount or conditions of pretrial supervision, including curfews, home confinement, and drug testing. They also must decide what constitutes an infraction or violation of those conditions and how to respond to the infraction—for example, asking the judge to issue a warrant for a person’s arrest and ordering that the person be detained in jail until the case is heard in court.

Presentence Decisions When the case proceeds to the trial or plea bargaining stage, probation officers help judges render sentences through presentence investigation (PSI) reports. Judges order presentence investigations, mostly in felony cases, to obtain background information that will guide them in imposing the most appropriate sanction. In particular, PSIs assist judges in ascertaining whether prison is an appropriate sentence in light of the crime and the offender’s criminal and social history. Information in a PSI places the offense in a larger context that informs the judge in determining whether probation is a sufficiently punitive and fitting alternative to incarceration. To obtain information for PSIs, probation officers interview offenders; review their criminal, educational, and military records; and contact family members and others who know important details about the offender’s life. The PSI report presents the judge with the offender’s comprehensive social, criminological, and psychological profile. The report covers the offender’s history of treatment for medical, psychiatric, and substance use disorders as well as the circumstances of the offense. In addition, it covers his or her social and family relationships, present living conditions, and financial and housing status. The PSI report also describes the resources available to help people who might be sentenced to probation and contains specific sentencing recommendations, if requested by the court or required by the statute. A probation officer can present his or her opinions regarding the offender’s motivation and readiness to change and the circumstances surrounding the offender’s criminal involvement. The PSI formulates an appropriate supervision or treatment plan, and if the person is sentenced to prison, it helps prison administrators decide whether the person should be placed in a minimum-, medium-, or maximum-security facility. Probation officers exercise discretion when conducting a PSI, deciding what questions to ask, how to ask the questions, what details to include in or exclude from the report, and whether

the offender will be better served by probation or imprisonment. Probation officers display their own particular styles in the PSI information-gathering process. For example, the officer whose style reflects a social work orientation might focus on psychological data, whereas the officer oriented toward rule enforcement might focus on the offender’s criminal record and current charges. Individual differences among officers and variations in department standards produce wide disparities in the manner in which presentence investigations are prepared by officers and used by judges.

Postconviction Decisions Probation requires offenders to be supervised in the community under conditions of release. All probationers are subject to statutorily mandated or standard conditions of release, such as reporting to their probation officer and getting permission from the sentencing judge to leave the jurisdiction. They also are prohibited from owning a gun. An arrest on probation constitutes a violation that could result in a prison sentence. The special conditions of probation can be punitive (paying restitution) or rehabilitative (attending drug treatment) and are designed to respond to the particular facts of the case or needs of the offender. Probation officers are responsible for enforcing the conditions of probation and reporting to the court violations of probation. Shortly after an offender is sentenced to probation, probation officers conduct an intake interview to assess an offender’s risk and needs. Risk assessment strategies evaluate the likelihood that an offender will be rearrested while on probation, whereas need assessment strategies evaluate offenders’ problems and needs for services in areas such as addiction, mental health, and employment. Probation officers use case classification tools that structure their decisions about case management strategies. These tools contain static (age, instant offense, and number of previous convictions) and dynamic (employment, educational level, and substance use disorders) factors. The most common tool, the Level of Service Inventory–Revised, examines both dynamic and static variables to classify cases for supervision and services. In the intake assessment process, probation officers must determine the degree to which offenders are likely to recidivate and identify which members of their caseloads pose a threat to public safety. Based on this determination, officers devise and implement a

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supervision strategy that monitors probationers at a level commensurate with their likelihood of future criminal activity. The officer’s duty as a control agent is to ensure that the conditions of probation are fully satisfied, investigate reports or indications of behavior that could jeopardize the safety of others, and initiate probation revocation proceedings to remove offenders from the community for failing to comply with the conditions of their probation sentence. The reintegration of offenders into the community requires an evaluation of probationers’ needs and an identification of their major problem areas and deficiencies. The purpose of the evaluation is to formulate a treatment plan that will encourage offenders to fulfill the probation contract. Officers act as counselors in their efforts to rehabilitate offenders. The probation officer’s basic function in this area is to support the probationer in making important transitions: from law-abiding free citizen to convicted offender under supervision, and finally a return to free citizen. Although probation officers are usually the principal change agent in offenders’ lives, they are often unable to deliver all the interventions necessary to accomplish the successful reintegration of offenders. Limited departmental programs and personnel and large caseloads demand the use of community resources. The probation officer as resource broker assesses the service needs of the probationer, locates the social service agencies that address those needs, refers the probationer to the appropriate program, and verifies that the probationer has actually received services. The officer is responsible for facilitating the delivery of services that are unavailable in the community. Probation officers perform a number of tasks throughout the probation process to protect the community and foster offender change. The supervisory decision, which is central to the surveillance or control aspect of probation, consists of two components. The first component pertains to the frequency with which a probationer reports to the officer. Although limited by legal statute and specified at the time of sentencing, the frequency of contacts is typically modified in accordance with the court’s or officer’s assessment of the offender’s risk of continued criminal behavior (potential threat to the community). Probationers can report on a monthly (the prescribed and most common frequency), bimonthly, or weekly basis. In general, offenders who are at greater risk report more often. The second component pertains to the type or mode of supervision. An officer can monitor a probationer

through office visits, telephone contacts, mail-in reports, or electronic contacts. An offender’s assessed level of risk determines the selection of a supervision mode. For example, felony probationers are required to visit the probation office regularly or observe a curfew; people who have committed less serious offenses are allowed mail-in reports. Related to the determination of a supervisory mode is the officer’s decision to assume a particular interactive posture with different members of their caseload. The changes in posture involve shifts in a probation officer’s attitudes, focus, and emotional tone during contacts with offenders. Officers’ supervisory styles are altered in response to probationers’ demeanor on report days; their genuine willingness to cooperate in the rehabilitation process; and their expressed resolve to lead a productive and lawabiding life (e.g., find a job, finish school, and refrain from gang activity). These factors are generically referred to as the probationer’s “attitude.” Offenders who are honest in their self-disclosures and willingly accept the conditions of their sentence are viewed as possessing a positive attitude. A negative attitude, in contrast, is expressed in a probationer’s belligerence, indifference, sarcasm, or blatant attempts to patronize or curry favor with an officer. Such behaviors are indicative of a poor adjustment to probation. At any point during the probation sentence, an officer can initiate collateral contacts or cultivate relationships with a probationer’s spouse, parent, teacher, friends, or employer or representatives of other agencies serving the offender. These contacts verify information such as residence, employment, and compliance with special conditions. They can also be initiated to enlist the aid of significant others in efforts to control, rehabilitate, and reintegrate the offender. If officers suspect that a probationer has resumed illegal activities, they can request reports that detail subsequent arrests or charges that the probationer might have incurred during the probation sentence. Another discretionary decision of probation officers involves the determination of whether the probationer can benefit from counseling or extradepartmental resources. This decision consists of a gross evaluation of major problem areas (emotional, physical, interpersonal, and financial). During initial meetings with a probationer, the officer searches for telltale signs and symptoms of drug or alcohol abuse, psychological disorders, intellectual deficits, or inadequate social or vocational skills. In the past, probation officers relied on their own sensitivity, common sense, and subjective judgments

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to alert them to probationer needs and direct them in formulating problem-solving strategies. For example, studies have shown that probation officers, especially veterans, have stereotypes of offenders (“burglar,” “white-collar criminal,” “gang member”) that affect their decisions about supervision. The type of counseling services delivered by officers typically follows a didactic, instructional model. Officers are reluctant to render treatment services because of their educational backgrounds, which have not prepared them to conduct actual psychotherapy sessions. However, officers are increasingly likely to use cognitive behavioral therapy, which is an evidence-based technique for changing offender behavior. Officers are faced with two limitations in selecting an appropriate treatment: The time they spend counseling or advising an offender is restricted because of large caseloads, and the choice of referrals is dictated by situations or factors outside the officer’s control (e.g., economic conditions that limit the number of job referrals; a lack of government funds, which limits openings in drug treatment programs). Therefore, officers must be highly selective in choosing probationers who need treatment most and are most likely to benefit from interventions. Offenders who take the initiative in requesting services or are younger, have shorter criminal records, and display a positive attitude are generally considered the best candidates for counseling and adjunctive resources. Probation officers can recommend an offender for early termination if the offender is no longer a significant risk to the community, has exhibited exemplary behaviors (taken the necessary steps toward becoming a functional member of society), and has shown that the continuation of the sentence might disrupt the offender’s pursuit of a noncriminal lifestyle (early termination can be recommended on the basis of an offender’s request to leave the state for gainful employment). In contrast, officers can ask the court to extend periods of supervision beyond the expiration of the original sentence. Final authority in this matter rests with the court. However, because judges are so dependent on the information furnished by probation officers, they generally concur with the officer’s request. The prospect of early termination is an incentive for good behavior and demonstrates to probationers that cooperation and compliance with rules are rewarded. A key factor in the decision to recommend early termination is the regularity of the offender’s reporting. If a probationer has been reporting regularly, it increases the likelihood that his or her case

will be reviewed for early termination. The best probationers are those who routinely report at their scheduled times. If a cancellation is unavoidable, they promptly call their officers to inform them about the extenuating circumstances that prevented their attendance. The probationers who are frequently tardy, periodically skip appointments, and call with untenable excuses for failing to report are evaluated negatively. In fact, when queried about the progress of a case, officers are likely to respond on the basis of a quick tally of the number of times the particular individual has missed a report day. The final discretionary task of a probation officer is the decision to initiate revocation proceedings. In most circumstances, if offenders have perpetrated a crime during the probation term, their sentence is automatically revoked. However, if the violation does not involve a new offense or the breaking of a serious rule, the officer can evaluate the offender’s criminal history, attitude, report behavior, and employment status before filing a violation of probation petition to the court. A probationer who is seen as having potential for healthy change is often “given a pass” for minor transgressions. The officer carefully screens and selects the violations that are eventually brought to the court’s attention. Following the filing of a revocation petition, the officer must decide whether or not to recommend revocation and a sentence to prison or a continuance or extension of the probation sentence. This determination is based on the same set of factors as the one used to decide whether to file a violation-of-probation petition. On occasion, officers will suggest a short stay in jail when the probationer seems to have promise but needs to be “jolted” by serving some “hard time.” The court does not always follow the probation officer’s recommendations. Nonetheless, as in the case of early termination, the court usually abides by the officer’s suggested course of action. Arthur J. Lurigio See also Bail-Setting Decisions; Parole Decisions; Presentence Evaluations; Risk Assessment Approaches; Sentencing Decisions; Sentencing Diversion Programs Further Readings

Abadinsky, H. (2005). Probation and parole: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Champion, D. J. (1998). Probation, parole, and community corrections (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Larivee, J. J. (2001). Returning inmates: Closing the public safety gap. Corrections Compendium, 26, 1–12. Lurigio, A. J., & Carroll, J. S. (1985). Probation officers’ schemata of offenders: Content, development, and impact on treatment decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1112–1126. Mackenzie, D. L, Browning, K., Skroban, S., & Smith, D. A. (1999). The impact of probation on the criminal activities of offenders. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 36, 423–434. Petersilia, J. (2001). Reforming probation and parole in the 21st century. Lanham, MD: American Correctional Association. Stevens, D. J. (2005). Community corrections: An applied approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

PROCEDURAL JUSTICE This entry focuses on the psychology of procedural justice (PJ) and the law. PJ is a judgment about the fairness of the procedures employed to resolve conflict. Psychological research shows that PJ enhances satisfaction with conflict procedures and outcomes independent of actual dispute outcomes or outcome fairness. Among the procedural criteria that enhance fairness are having one’s say, neutrality, benevolence, and respect—an effect that occurs in legal contexts across cultures. Research has shown that procedural fairness effects are diminished and outcome effects are enhanced when outcomes are favorable or when they pose threats to central moral values. The psychology of retributive justice concerns the fairness of responding to rule violations or legal infractions. PJ research can assist in the evaluation of alternative dispute resolution procedures, such as mediation and restorative conferences.

Procedural Justice and the Law The earliest research on the psychology of fairness focused on people’s beliefs as to whether the outcomes of their conflict were fair. This distributive justice research was the first to conduct empirical tests of the proposition that people’s satisfaction with the resolution of conflict is influenced by outcome fairness rather than exclusively by outcome favorability—a proposition that dates to Aristotle. Although the original demonstrations of distributive fairness effects on satisfaction were not conducted in legal settings,

subsequent research established the importance of outcome fairness for people’s satisfaction with the resolution of conflicts in legal settings as well. For example, a study of felony defendants found that their belief that their sentence was fair was a better predictor of their satisfaction with the outcome of their case than was the duration of their incarceration. The first systematic research concerning the psychology of procedural fairness was conducted by John Thibaut, a professor of psychology, and Laurens Walker, a professor of law. Their seminal work led them to theorize that disputants’ satisfaction with the resolution of their conflicts was influenced by the fairness of the conflict resolution procedures as well as the fairness of the outcomes produced by those procedures. Furthermore, they proposed that beliefs about procedural fairness were influenced by the manner in which control was distributed between disputants and potential third parties in litigation procedures (e.g., autocratic, adversarial, or negotiation procedures). Finally, they asserted that beliefs about procedural fairness were a critical determinant of litigants’ (and observers’) procedural preferences and their satisfaction with legal procedures and outcomes. Thibaut and Walker’s theory of PJ postulated that disputant process control and decision control were critical determinants of procedural fairness and satisfaction. The adversarial procedure was asserted to be superior because of its optimal distribution of control—allocating process control to the litigants or their lawyers (permitting each party to present evidence on their behalf) and decision control to the judge (thus ensuring that a decision would be imposed, even in high-conflict settings). One early study compared the procedural preferences of undergraduate students from four countries (France, West Germany, Britain, and the United States). This study found the adversarial procedure (common to U.S. courtrooms) to be perceived as fairer and preferred to alternative procedures by U.S. residents as well as by citizens in the European countries where the adversarial procedure is not legally institutionalized and where judges typically exert a greater degree of process control than in U.S. courtrooms. Most important, Thibaut and Walker’s laboratory research was the first to demonstrate what is referred to as the fair process effect: that the use of fair procedures enhanced disputants’ acceptance of contested outcomes. This was a profoundly important finding for the fields of psychology and law, and it has been replicated in numerous studies of people engaged in

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actual disputes in legal settings. While subsequent PJ research focused heavily on the procedural criteria of process control (or “voice”) and decision control, research has also established that numerous other procedural criteria, including correctability, consistency, decision accuracy, and ethicality, also enhance procedural fairness.

Challenges to Procedural Justice Theory The original PJ theory was developed out of research conducted in high-conflict settings (legal disputes). It assumed that disputants were motivated to obtain fair outcomes, and therefore preferred procedures that permitted them to express their views about appropriate outcomes and be influential in shaping those outcomes. Although the theory was well supported, some findings did not fit well with its predictions. For instance, the theory predicted that process control was important because it increased the likelihood of obtaining fair and beneficial outcomes. However, research showed that voice (i.e., process control) enhanced fairness even when disputants did not think that their voice was influential. This noninstrumental voice effect led two psychologists, Tom Tyler and Allan Lind, to propose a group value theory of PJ. This theory has profoundly influenced subsequent research and theory on PJ. Group Value and Interactional Justice Theories

Whereas PJ theory is an instrumental theory that emphasizes disputants’ concern with control, the group value theory emphasizes people’s concern with their social relationships with groups and institutions and the authorities representing those institutions; it asserts that when people encounter authorities who represent valued groups (such as legal institutions), they look for information concerning their group belonging and group standing. This theory also asserts that three procedural criteria are particularly influential for beliefs about group standing and, hence, fair treatment: neutrality; benevolent authorities; and respectful treatment. In this view, voice—the opportunity to express one’s views, even without any influence on one’s outcomes, enhances procedural fairness for symbolic rather than instrumental reasons because it communicates one’s favorable group standing.

A related theory, interactional justice theory, likewise asserted that interpersonal concerns such as polite treatment shape judgments of procedural fairness. An extensive body of research, including experiments conducted with undergraduate participants in psychology laboratories and surveys of citizens about their actual legal encounters (e.g., encounters with judges or the police), provides strong support for the central claims of the group value and interactional justice theories. This research shows that fair treatment enhances people’s satisfaction with legal authorities, legal institutions, and outcomes. Furthermore, this fair treatment effect remains after controlling for the absolute outcomes and the distributive fairness of these legal encounters; it occurs in civil and criminal cases and among misdemeanors and felons and participants and observers. Whereas the earliest research was strongly supportive of the claim that process control and decision control increased procedural fairness, more recent research has supported the group value theory’s claim that neutrality, benevolent authorities, and respectful treatment increase procedural fairness because of what this treatment communicates about people’s relationships with valued groups and authorities. Moderators of the Influence of Procedures and Procedural Fairness

Researchers have also examined the conditions under which procedural fairness exerts more or less influence on legal attitudes and behavior. Two lines of research concerning moderating influences have been particularly influential. One has shown that the impact of procedural fairness is diminished when outcome favorability is high (and is enhanced when outcome favorability is low). A second has investigated the moderating influence of moral beliefs on the importance of procedural fairness. While the research described above shows that fair procedures lead to increased acceptance of undesirable outcomes, or increased perceptions of distributive fairness (a “fair process” effect), additional research has demonstrated that the fair process effect is diminished when people view certain trial outcomes (such as convicting a guilty defendant or acquitting an innocent one) as morally mandated. This research suggests that among those who perceive a particular outcome as morally mandated, the fair process effect does not occur. For these people, due process affects outcome satisfaction

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less than their belief that the morally mandated outcome was obtained. Justice Approaches to Legitimacy and Compliance With the Law

Deterrence approaches to compliance with the law are guided by the instrumental perspective that people’s compliance is shaped by their estimates of the penalties that will result from noncompliance. According to a deterrence perspective, the likelihood of crime decreases as the certainty and severity of punishment for crime increase. PJ research and theory suggests an alternative, normative approach to compliance: People will voluntarily obey the law when they believe it is the right thing to do. Morality and beliefs about legitimacy (of the law or legal authorities) are normative perspectives on compliance. A legal authority is said to have legitimacy when people think it is appropriate to comply with their decisions because the authority deserves to be in power and is entitled to obedience. While research in legal settings has shown that compliance with the law is influenced by beliefs about the likelihood and severity of punishment, other research that compares expectations about punishment and beliefs about legitimacy as determinants of compliance shows that legitimacy is more influential. A considerable body of research in legal and other (e.g., organizational and political) settings indicates that authorities and institutions are perceived as more legitimate, and elicit greater levels of compliance with their decisions, when they enact procedures fairly. For example, one study asked civilians about their encounters with the police. This survey found that citizen’s reports that they were treated fairly were influenced by procedural criteria such as process control, neutrality, and respect and that as beliefs about fair treatment increased, so did citizens’ beliefs about the legitimacy of the legal authorities and their intent to comply with the law.

Cross-Cultural Views The question of the cross-cultural generalizability of PJ theories has been addressed in numerous studies, starting with the earliest work by Thibaut and Walker. Research described above showed that European residents showed the same preference for adversarial procedures over autocratic ones evidenced by the U.S.

residents, despite the fact that the adversarial procedures are not institutionalized and are less familiar to participants in these European countries. Similar findings have been replicated in other countries, including Hong Kong, Japan, and Spain. Similarly, cross-cultural research has supported the claims of the interactional justice and group value theories. Whereas the earliest tests of cross-cultural generalizability compared PJ effects in various countries, more recent research has shifted from a country focus to a focus on the cross-cultural variability of social values. This work has examined the way in which the cultural variability of social values moderates the influence of PJ criteria such as voice, benevolence, neutrality, and respect. Two dimensions of social values have received considerable attention: individualism-collectivism (the degree to which ties among individuals in society are weak, such as in individualist societies, where people are expected to look after themselves, or strong, as in collectivist societies, where people are integrated into stable, cohesive in-groups that place a high value on harmonious social relations) and power distance (the degree to which people expect or accept inequality in formal power among persons, with high-power-distance individuals being the most accepting of power differentials and low-power-distance individuals being more in favor of equality). Although the general pattern of findings is supportive of the role of voice, benevolence, neutrality, and respect across cultures, this work has also shown that the strength of the relationships between procedural criteria and procedural preferences and fairness judgments varies with individualism-collectivism and with power distance. For example, people in collectivist societies, such as China, express a greater preference for mediation (a procedure that places greater reliance on cooperation and interpersonal harmony than do adversarial procedures) than people in individualist societies, such as the United States. Similarly, research has shown that individuals in societies high in power distance (such as the Arab and Latin American countries) are more tolerant of disrespectful or unfair treatment from authorities and are less sensitive to variations in opportunities for voice than individuals from low-power-distance societies (such as the Scandinavian countries). Although this research points to cultural variability on power distance and individualism-collectivism, there is also considerable variability among individuals within cultures, and the effects shown to result from cultural variation on these

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constructs are expected to result from individual differences on these constructs as well.

Retributive Justice Although there is an abundance of research on procedural and distributive justice, less attention has been paid to the psychology of retributive justice, concerning reactions to rule violation. When an injustice is addressed in the legal system, options for sanction largely involve victim compensation and offender punishment. Research suggests that a primary determinant of the impulse to punish rule-breaking behavior is the perpetrator’s state of mind. If victims and third parties judge perpetrators to have committed harm unintentionally (negligence), psychological reasoning focuses on compensation for harm. However, when perpetrators are thought to have intentionally violated group norms and values, observers are motivated to punish the offender. Proportionality is a central characteristic of retributive sentencing. The severity of the punishment assigned by observers increases with the perceived seriousness of the offense and the harm caused. Additional factors, such as the offender’s age or previous criminal record, or the observer’s cultural background, can also affect the severity of sanctions. Mitigations and justifications may eliminate or suppress the relationship between the severity of an intentionally committed offense and the severity of the punishment (e.g., when an offender kills someone who threatens his or her own life or the life of another). Studies have found that apologies and expressions of remorse also decrease the severity of the sentences recommended. Sentencing in the criminal justice system has several underlying aims, including deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation, and retribution. Retribution is the only sentencing aim that is nonutilitarian and based on judgments of “just deserts”; as such, it is often considered a retrograde and vindictive motive for sanction. However, research on retributive justice suggests that retribution can be forward looking, in that it aims to ensure that problems of the past do not recur. Retributive justice performs an important role in maintaining the cohesion of social groups and is motivated by group members’ concern for the group’s welfare. Criminal violations of social norms constitute a salient threat to an individual’s well-being, and offenses against innocent victims threaten group members’ stable

worldviews, in which one’s environment is perceived as predictable and controllable. Punishment is seen as a stabilizing force, used to prevent future violations of group norms and restore the social order. Research supports the fundamental role of retribution in people’s reactions to norm violations, suggesting that people assign punishment for just deserts rather than utilitarian motives. In addition to the rational, group-stabilizing motivation behind the desire for retribution, recent research demonstrates the role of moral emotions in assigning sanctions for norm violation. The severity of observers’ assigned punishments for offenses increases when those offenses elicit, in particular, anger and moral outrage.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) In recent decades, various procedures have emerged as alternatives to the court in resolving legal disputes. They include small-claims mediation, divorce mediation, judicially mediated plea bargaining, judicial settlement conferences, court-annexed arbitration, and summary jury trials. The Dispute Resolution Act of 1998 requires every federal district court in the United States to implement a dispute resolution program where one does not already exist and to improve existing programs. The growing popularity of ADR programs has prompted extensive investigation into disputants’ responses to ADR. While ADR procedures can be distinguished according to legal and structural characteristics (e.g., whether the procedure is voluntary, whether it is binding, the identity of the third party, the degree of formality, and the nature of the outcome), they can also be distinguished according to the degree of control that disputants retain over the process and the decision. For example, in court-annexed arbitration, participants retain process control in the presentation of evidence but relinquish decision control to the arbiter. In mediation procedures, participants retain process control, presenting their version of events, but also retain decision control, aiming to reach a bilateral agreement. Consistent with psychological theory about PJ, research suggests that the increased levels of participation and voice, as well as the respectful treatment from benevolent authorities that can accompany these alternative procedures, enhance fairness and satisfaction. Correlational field studies have also found that mediation procedures are more likely to produce decisions that are obeyed than are adjudication procedures.

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Restorative Justice (RJ) Restorative justice (RJ) is an approach to criminal behavior that emphasizes healing victims, offenders, and communities. This variant of ADR is being increasingly adopted by justice systems worldwide. The basic premise of RJ is that crime is a violation of individuals and communities, not merely a violation of law. RJ prioritizes the goal of reparation of harm rather than the traditional punitive goal of just deserts. RJ is fundamentally different from other ADR and traditional courtroom procedures in its emphasis on the psychological importance of group belonging and its core goal of reintegrating offenders into important social groups. The group value model offers clues as to why people support restorative sanctions: Restorative sentencing emphasizes that an offender has lost his or her status as a respected member of the group and should perform reparative acts to regain that status. RJ consists of a variety of practices at various stages of the criminal legal process, including court diversion, actions taken in conjunction with police and court decisions, reparation boards, and meetings between victims and offenders. RJ procedures are more prevalent in juvenile than in adult justice systems but are becoming more common in dealing with adult offenders. In the United States, RJ programs tend to be privately run or community based, with a number of RJ programs also developed by individual probation departments. Other nations, however, tend to implement RJ programs more systematically, incorporating RJ procedures as one component in a hierarchy of legislated responses to juvenile crime. One common RJ practice is conferencing, in which the offender, the victim, and their supporters come together to discuss an offense. At the end of a conference, all participants, including the victim and offender, decide on a course of action for the offender to complete. The agreement is an undertaking by the offender to make reparation for the harm caused by the crime and might include, for example, community service or monetary compensation. Consistent with research showing that ADR procedures engender greater disputant satisfaction, RJ conference participants report fairer treatment than their counterparts who experience court procedures. The RISE project in Australia, one of the few experimental studies of conferencing, randomly assigned cases to either RJ conference or court. Across all offense types included in the study (youth violence, drunk driving, shoplifting, and property crime with personal

victims), participants’ fairness judgments were higher in the conference condition. Studies on RJ conferencing have also found that recidivism is lower following conferencing than after court procedures. Although early evaluations of RJ are promising, both the predominance of nonexperimental studies (with potential selection biases in participants, programs, and types and severity of offenses studied) and the need for systematic examinations of the psychological processes underlying participants’ responses to RJ preclude authoritative conclusions about its effectiveness. Larry Heuer and Diane Sivasubramaniam See also Alternative Dispute Resolution; Plea Bargaining; Public Opinion About the Courts; Therapeutic Jurisprudence; Victim-Offender Mediation With Juvenile Offenders; Victim Participation in the Criminal Justice System

Further Readings

Darley, J. M., & Pittman, T. S. (2003). The psychology of compensatory and retributive justice. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7(4), 324–336. Latimer, J., Dowden, C., & Muise, D. (2005). The effectiveness of restorative practices: A meta-analysis. The Prison Journal, 85(2), 127–144. MacCoun, R. J., Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1992). Alternative dispute resolution in trial and appellate courts. In D. K. Kagehiro & W. S. Laufer (Eds.), Handbook of psychology and law (pp. 95–118). New York: Springer-Verlag. Morris, M. W., & Leung, K. (2000). Justice for all? Progress in research on cultural variation in the psychology of distributive and procedural justice. Applied Psychology, 49(1), 100–132. Thibaut, J., & Walker, L. (1975). Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Tyler, T. R. (2006). Why people obey the law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

PROFILING Profiling is a relatively new investigative technique that, in the past 30 years, has developed from what used to be described as an art to a rigorous science based on advanced empirical research. Results from the first wave of research have shown that there is

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validity to the idea that aspects of an offender’s characteristics may be inferred from the way the offender acts at the crime scene. Ongoing research is focused on refining these efforts so that a systematic and reliable framework may be put in place, one that can provide a solid basis for constructing a useful psychological tool for police investigations.

Definition Profiling (also known as offender profiling, crime scene profiling, psychological profiling, and personality profiling) is the process of linking an offender’s actions at the crime scene to their most likely characteristics to help police investigators narrow down and prioritize a pool of most likely suspects. Investigators’ efforts are focused on matching an offender’s behavior in one situation to behaviors or characteristics in another situation. Psychologists are sometimes called on during a police investigation to analyze the behavioral indicators of the crime and, based on these, to draw up a profile of the most likely characteristics of an offender responsible for such actions. In addition, psychologists continue to be involved in researching the processes of profiling itself, so as to establish its validity and utility as a police investigation tool.

Development Although profiling was attempted as long ago as the mid-1880s, in the Jack the Ripper serial murder case in London, profiling as it is known today is a relatively new area in forensic psychology. Much of the early work in profiling dates back to the 1970s and 1980s, when there was an initiative to focus on analysis of the crime scene itself. Most of this work, typically done by practicing clinicians or police investigators, was based on understanding an individual’s behavior at the crime scene through interviews with actual offenders and primarily focusing on the offender’s internal motivations and drives, in addition to identifying specific behaviors. With its increasing popularity through the 1980s, and also with more recent efforts to bring profiling into court as evidence, the method came under increasingly close scrutiny by researchers within the field. Consequently, the 1990s saw the creation of a new area of forensic psychology, investigative psychology, spearheaded by David Canter and colleagues, that focuses on the contribution of psychology to police investigations. Researchers in this growing

field have stressed the importance of providing a solid methodological approach and framework for establishing an empirically based science testing the psychological principles on which profiling rests. Early evaluation studies of the emerging field of profiling showed that extant models of criminal behavior were mostly unsubstantiated and not founded on rigorous scientific study. Other work evaluating actual written profiles showed that these included much unsubstantiated information. Based on these results, researchers in profiling have emphasized the importance of empirically validated research to establish a link between the actions of offenders at the crime scene and their corresponding characteristics.

Components The main psychological premise behind profiling is that there will be consistency between the way offenders act at the crime scene and who they are. This is based on the broader findings from longitudinal studies and cross-situational consistency in general as well as from findings on the development of criminal behavior. By understanding consistencies in offenders’ development and change over time, the suggestion is that we can link the way they behave at the crime scene with how they have previously behaved in different contexts. Three general interlinked areas have been the focus of recent profiling research: individual differentiation, behavioral consistency, and inferences about offender characteristics. Individual differentiation aims to establish differences between the behavioral actions of offenders and uses this to identify subgroups of crime scene types. The focus here is on analyzing the observable, rather than motivational, aspects of the crime to increase the reliability and practical utility of these models in actual investigations. Although it is important to gain insight into the cognitions of offenders and add these to emerging models, research has shown that motivations are inherently more subjective and difficult to measure. As such, behaviors provide a more reliable unit of analysis, at least at the first stages of building models of criminal differentiation that are valid, reliable, and ultimately useful and applicable to actual investigations. Behavioral studies of differentiation usually focus on differences among crimes scenes in various observable factors, including victim characteristics, interaction with the victim, nature of the violence, and other activities engaged in by the offender at the crime

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scene. Much of this work has aimed to understand how an offender engages in patterns of actions that all demonstrate a similar underlying psychological dimension or subset. Any crime can be profiled using the appropriate frameworks, and work to date has included theft, burglary, robbery, arson, fraud, rape, pedophilia, crimes committed by youths, homicide, serial homicide, and others. The relevant psychological dimensions depend on the crimes analyzed. Some examples used in homicide work include behaviors indicative of expressive and instrumental types of aggression—such as treating a victim as an object or as a person, acting in a controlled or an impulsive manner—all of which are already well-established thematic classifications of human behavior in the general psychological literature. Behavioral consistency is a key issue in profiling, specifically for understanding both the development of an offender’s criminal career and an individual’s consistency across a series of crimes—that is, whether the same subsets of actions are displayed at each crime scene over a series (linking serial crime). Much of this work has focused on whether consistency in criminal behavior can be established over time, as well as how individuals change and develop through learning and experience and whether offenders specialize or are generalists. The search for consistencies has been approached in various ways in the theoretical literature, notably by establishing whether the offender acts according to the same psychological subtype or theme from one crime to the next (e.g., expressive or instrumental), whether the offender engages in the same specific behaviors from one crime to the next (modus operandi), or whether the offender engages in highly specialized behaviors unique to him or her and that are related more to his or her personal agenda, or fantasies (signature). The first few published studies on empirically validating these theoretical concepts indicate that although some consistency is evident, our understanding of the intricacies of the actual patterns over time requires closer empirical study, specifically in terms of how offenders develop, mature, experiment, and change in a consistent manner across time, as well as how situational factors influence an offender’s behavioral consistency. Inferences about offender characteristics is at the core of profiling and also uses consistency analysis as its main focus. At this stage, however, the main aim is to establish the link between subgroups of crime scene actions and subgroups of offender background

characteristics in order to make predictions about an offender based on his or her criminal actions at the crime scene. This can then ultimately be used as a primary tool for the police to narrow their suspect pool down to statistically the most likely offender. Offender characteristics focused on typically include demographics, such as gender, age, and education, previous interpersonal and criminal history, home location and travel patterns (also known as geographical profiling), and the offender’s relationship with the victim. C. Gabrielle Salfati See also Criminal Behavior, Theories of; Police Decision Making; Serial Killers

Further Readings

Alison, L., Smith, M. D., Eastman, O., & Rainbow, L. (2003). Toulmin’s philosophy of argument and its relevance to offender profiling. Psychology, Crime & Law, 9(2), 173–183. Canter, D. (2000). Offender profiling and criminal differentiation. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 5, 23–46. Canter, D. V., Alison, L. J., Alison, E., & Wentink, N. (2004). The organized/disorganized typology of serial murder: Myth or model? Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10(3), 293–320. Salfati, C. G. (2000). Profiling homicide: A multidimensional approach. Homicide Studies, 4(3), 265–293. Salfati, C. G., & Bateman, A. (2005). Serial homicide: An investigation of behavioral consistency [Electronic version]. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 2(2), 121–144. Retrieved from http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~gsalfati/salfati%20and%20 bateman%20abstract.htm Salfati, C. G., & Canter, D. V. (1999). Differentiating stranger murders: Profiling offender characteristics from behavioral styles. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 17, 391–406.

PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT Prosecutorial misconduct is any courtroom behavior on the part of the prosecutor that violates trial rules and denies defendants their right to due process. Examples of misconduct may include making unfair or improper comments about the defendant, defense counsel, or a defense witness; suppressing, tampering

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with, or fabricating evidence; or making material misstatements regarding law or fact. The legal and psychological importance of examining prosecutorial misconduct is its potential to induce a jury to consider improper factors during the decision-making process. Legal scholars contend that prosecutorial misconduct often occurs because of the prosecutor’s quest to secure a conviction. In doing so, prosecutors compromise impartiality by using improper methods to establish guilt—for example, inappropriately inferring guilt from a defendant’s silence. Although higher courts consistently express disapproval of improper prosecutor conduct, they frequently affirm the conviction, concluding that some prosecutorial errors are harmless. For an error to be considered harmless, reviewing courts need to establish that the outcome of the trial was not significantly affected by the error.

Forms of Prosecutorial Misconduct The most common form of prosecutorial misconduct occurs in argument to the jury; however, it can also take place in evidence hearings, opening statements, and cross-examination. For example, it is misconduct to comment on a defendant’s failure to testify. Similarly, it is improper for the prosecutor to address the credibility of the testimony of codefendants or co-conspirators. Commenting on a defendant’s silence, or inferring questionable relationships among defendants, improperly suggests guilt and encourages a jury to find the defendant guilty. It is also considered misconduct for the prosecutor to question the integrity of the defense counsel. This includes unconfirmed claims that defense counsel fabricated evidence, courtroom displays of dissatisfaction with defense witnesses, or interruptions of defense objections. In general, any unsupported, damaging comments on the part of the prosecutor that challenge a defendant’s constitutional rights can be considered misconduct. A review of appellate decisions also finds prosecutors cited for misconduct regarding issues related to evidence. Prosecutors must not introduce or attempt to introduce inadmissible evidence and, in the same vein, must disclose evidence favorable to the defendant. It is misconduct for prosecutors to use false or misleading evidence, misrepresent evidence to the jury, or destroy or tamper with evidence. In addition, it is improper for the prosecutor to make material misstatements of law or fact. Opening statements must be limited to offering admissible evidence, and closing arguments must be limited to evidence presented.

Repeated instances of uncorrected misstatements could result in ordering a new trial.

Prosecutorial Misconduct in Capital Trials Prosecutorial misconduct has been identified as a leading cause of unfairness during the sentencing phase of capital trials. Courts have expressly condemned this type of misconduct, which occurs in closing arguments. Defense attorneys contend that improper prosecutor remarks during the closing argument have the potential to inflame the sentencing jury if the argument introduces arbitrary factors to the jury’s recommendation of the death penalty. Empirical evidence indicates that individuals exposed to improper statements made by the prosecutor in the closing argument recommended the death penalty significantly more often than those not exposed to the statements. These results support the need to address regulating the penalty phase to minimize the likelihood that the jury will sentence the defendant to death for improper reasons. Although the Supreme Court has not yet established specific guidelines determining the parameters of permissible prosecutorial argument, lower courts have provided general principles for defining improper penalty-phase arguments. In general, prosecutors are prohibited from stating their personal belief in the death penalty or from referring to their discretionary decision to seek the death penalty. It is misconduct to mislead the jury about its responsibility by implying that imposing the death penalty would deter others or protect the community. It is also considered improper to argue support for the death penalty in a religious context. Some state courts have ruled it improper for prosecutors to discuss the impact of the crime on the victim’s family or to argue that a victim’s family deserves a particular verdict. Overall, rulings on improper prosecutor arguments appear to be based on distinguishing between those that merely communicate misinformation and those that introduce extralegal factors that are likely to influence a jury’s sentencing recommendation.

Remedies for Prosecutorial Misconduct There is a considerable body of legal literature addressing remedies, or cures, for prosecutorial misconduct. Legal professionals concur that prosecutorial

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misconduct is unlikely to affect the jury if countered by the defense attorney’s objections or corrected by the judge’s instructions. The Supreme Court has indicated that arguments with the potential to unduly influence the jury should be clarified by a specific judicial instruction. This instruction rebuts the inferences or implications made by the prosecutor in the closing argument. Similarly, defense attorneys stress the need to form prompt, articulate objections to improper statements to avoid any problems on appeal. The underlying assumption of each of these legal safeguards is their potential to minimize the effects of the prosecutor’s improper argument on the jury. In assessing the effect of prosecutorial misconduct, the pertinent question is whether the misconduct caused the trial proceedings to be fundamentally unfair. The standard for reviewing a prosecutor’s improper penalty-phase argument is whether the argument affected the defendant’s due process right or whether the argument unduly influenced the jury’s recommendation of death. Judith Platania See also Death Penalty; Jury Deliberation; Sentencing Decisions; Sentencing Diversion Programs; Victim Impact Statements

Further Readings

Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78 (1934). Brooks v. Kemp, 762 F.2d. 1383 (11th Cir. 1985). Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168 (1986). Gaskill, J. B. (1991). Prosecution misconduct in trial: The improper attempt to influence the jury. California Attorneys for Criminal Justice Forum, 18(5), 12–25. Platania, J., & Moran, G. (1999). Due process and the death penalty: The role of prosecutorial misconduct in closing argument in capital trials. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 471–486.

PROXY DECISION MAKING Proxy decision making (also known as substituted judgment) refers to the use of the legal system to replace one person’s judgment with that of another. This process exists to protect individuals from exploitation while allowing them to retain as much decision-making latitude as possible. Society’s interests

are served by preventing persons with mental disabilities from engaging in physically, financially, or otherwise harmful conduct. Different categories of proxy decision making include substitutions for prior judgment (as previously expressed in wills and other advance directives); present judgment (involving current capacity to provide informed consent to treatment or to refuse treatment); and future judgment (concerning projected ability to conduct personal and financial affairs). In 1540, the Statute of Wills enabled English citizens for the first time to bequeath “real property” such as buildings and land. Within 2 years, this law was amended to invalidate wills by persons who were not “sane.” Modern legal challenges still seek to determine whether the testator (a) understood what it means to make a will, (b) was aware of the nature and extent of his or her property, (c) could describe a rational plan for distributing that property, and (d) could identify the “natural objects of one’s bounty”—meaning the persons one would normally expect to inherit the possessions in question. If such challenges succeed or if it can be proven that the will was substantially affected by another person’s “undue influence,” then a probate court will substitute its judgment for that of the deceased. Psychologists testifying in such proceedings may conduct a psychological autopsy, reflecting all currently available information about the decedent’s cognitive status, medical condition, and interpersonal relationships during the period in question. In recent years, the law has provided for a range of advance directives that allows persons to preordain specific aspects of their future care. These include living wills (conveying the desire to forgo artificial means of life-sustaining treatment) and health care surrogacy (empowering another person to make general health care decisions in the event of future incapacity). If an advance directive is successfully challenged on the grounds that it was not the product of a rational decision, then the individual’s prior judgment may be set aside. Substitutions for present judgment may occur when persons are unable or unwilling to provide informed consent to health care services. Typically, medical treatment cannot be delivered unless patients assent to it without coercion, after being provided with an explanation of potential risks and benefits, as well as any available alternatives, in language that the patient is capable of understanding. The Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument and the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment are

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among the instruments psychologists may use to determine a patient’s capacity to provide informed consent. Persons may be hospitalized for a brief period without their informed consent if a qualified health professional determines that an emergency exists. A petition for lengthier periods of civil commitment may be upheld if the court concludes that, based on a qualifying mental condition, the patient presents a danger of harm to self or others, no less restrictive alternative to hospitalization exists, and the patient may reasonably benefit from the treatment provided in that setting. If patients refuse to provide informed consent to psychiatric medication once they have been civilly committed, the facility may attempt to obtain a separate court order to compel this form of treatment if failure to take such medication will constitute a further danger of harm to self or others. Criminal defendants may not be medicated for the purpose of achieving trial competency without their informed consent, unless the medication in question is medically appropriate, will significantly enhance the likelihood of a fair trial, and represents the least restrictive alternative available to further this purpose. Substitutions for future judgment may occur as a result of guardianship proceedings, in which a person is alleged to be incapable of making decisions at a later date about a specified range of personal and financial affairs. The court may ultimately appoint a guardian to oversee or prevent the respondent’s participation in activities such as voting, marrying, consenting to medical treatment, driving an automobile, or choosing a place to live. Guardians may also control the respondent’s ability to spend money, sell property, and otherwise make contracts, or this may become the separate responsibility of a court-appointed conservator charged with monitoring solely financial matters. Psychologists participate in such proceedings based on their skill in assessing strengths and weaknesses in each area in question. In the past, courts typically rendered “all-or-none” decisions regarding guardianship, such that respondents found lacking capacity in one or more areas would find all their activities subject to supervision; now, however, most jurisdictions provide for “limited” or “partial” guardianship plans that are tailored to the unique needs of the individual. Eric York Drogin See also Capacity to Consent to Treatment; Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument (CCRI); End-of-Life

Issues; Forcible Medication; Guardianship; MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT–T); Psychiatric Advance Directives; Psychological Autopsies; Testamentary Capacity

Further Readings

Drogin, E. Y., & Barrett, C. L. (2003). Substituted judgment: Roles for the forensic psychologist. In I. B. Weiner (Series Ed.) & A. M. Goldstein (Vol. Ed.), Comprehensive handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology (pp. 301–312). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Marson, D. C., Huthwaite, J. S., & Hebert, K. (2004). Testamentary capacity and undue influence in the elderly: A jurisprudent therapy perspective. Law and Psychology Review, 28, 71–96. Mazur, D. J. (2006). How successful are we at protecting preferences? Consent, informed consent, advance directives, and substituted judgment. Medical Decision Making, 26, 106–109. Parry, J. W., & Drogin, E. Y. (2001). Civil law handbook on psychiatric and psychological evidence and testimony. Washington, DC: American Bar Association. Volicer, L., Cantor, M. D., Derse, A. R., Edwards, D. M., Prudhomme, A. M. et al. (2002). Advance care planning by proxy for residents of long-term care facilities who lack decision-making capacity. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 50, 761–767.

PSYCHIATRIC ADVANCE DIRECTIVES Psychiatric advance directives (PADs) allow competent persons to document advance instructions for their future mental health treatment or designate a health care agent to make decisions for them in the event of an incapacitating psychiatric crisis. PADs may enhance patient self-determination, improve therapeutic alliance, and prevent psychiatric crises; however, there are a number of legal, ethical, and logistical barriers preventing the effective implementation of PAD laws. Research shows that most people with mental illness would want a PAD if they received help and that a manualized facilitation increased completion and understanding of PADs as well as improved working alliance and perceived met treatment need. Studies also show that people with mental illness incorporate clinically useful information in PADs but that much more work is needed to bolster the use of PADs in actual clinical practice.

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PADs are relatively new legal instruments. Prior to the 1990s, most laws involving people with mental illness, such as involuntary civil commitment, on balance have placed limits on patient autonomy in the interest of public safety or the patient’s “best medical interests.” In the past 15 years, however, PADs have been promulgated with the goal of promoting greater self-determination among people with mental illness. If followed by treatment providers, PADs may help patients gain better access to the types of treatment that work best for them—especially during times when they are most in need of care but least able to speak for themselves. Furthermore, the very exercise of preparing a PAD, and discussing it with a mental health professional, may enhance therapeutic alliance and improve treatment engagement. In theory, PADs provide a transportable document— increasingly accessible through electronic directories— to convey information about a patient’s treatment history, including medical disorders, emergency contact information, and medication side effects. Clinicians often have limited background clinical information about psychiatric patients who present in crisis centers or hospital emergency departments. Nonetheless, these are the typical settings in which clinicians are called on to make critical patient management and treatment decisions, using whatever limited data may be available. With PADs, clinicians could gain immediate access to relevant information about individual cases and thus improve the quality of clinical decision making—appropriately managing risk to patients’ and others’ safety while also enhancing patients’ longterm autonomy. The use of legal coercion in mental health services remains highly controversial, as it exposes a fault line between two important societal values: respecting the rights of individuals to choose their own health care and accepting social responsibility to care for those who are unable to care for themselves. Although involuntary treatment may well be effective in improving treatment adherence in the short run, it comes at the price of reducing personal liberty. Insofar as PADs may provide a means to promote both autonomy and beneficial treatment for persons with severe mental illness, some scholars believe that PADs may help resolve this fundamental dilemma in mental health law and policy by reducing the need for involuntary treatment. As of 2006, 25 states had passed specific PAD statutory provisions. However, all states provide some type of legal instrument—typically a health care

power of attorney—that patients can use to plan for their psychiatric as well as medical treatment during future periods of decisional incapacity. States’ advance directive laws were given added force by the federal Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA) of 1991. The PSDA requires that all hospitals receiving federal funds inform patients of their rights, including the right to prepare advance directives as authorized under state law and to institute policies for implementing advance directives. In short, federal law helps ensure that people with mental illness, in whatever state they live, can use medical advance directives to specify mental health treatment preferences or assign proxy decision makers for mental health decisions.

Ethical and Legal Questions PADs pose certain ethical and legal dilemmas. For example, how should a clinician react if a severely mentally ill patient presents a PAD refusing treatment? Although doctors typically cannot override end-of-life advance directives, most of the new PAD statutes allow doctors to trump mental health treatment preferences that are inconsistent with appropriate psychiatric care as defined by community standards of practice. However, in Hargrave v. Vermont (2003), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit recently upheld a lower court’s decision striking down a state law that allowed mental health professionals to override a hospitalized person’s advance refusal of psychotropic medications through a general health care proxy. The court ruled that the Vermont override law—which applied only to persons with psychiatric disorders in the state hospital—was discriminatory on the basis of disability and thus violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title 3. Some commentators worry that the Hargrave decision could have perverse consequences. Assuming that some severely mentally ill individuals prefer to remain unmedicated and assuming that they are able to document such preferences in advance while fully competent, the question arises, What are the ethical and fiscal implications of a state policy that, in effect, sanctions indefinite involuntary confinement of such persons when they become incapacitated but without providing them effective treatment? Should taxpayers be expected to shoulder the burden of paying for substantially longer hospital stays for psychiatric patients with PADs refusing medications? Another unintended consequence of Hargrave is that psychiatrists, in reaction to the specter of treatment-refusal PADs and

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potential legal liability in such cases, may be reluctant to support PADs or to encourage patients to complete them. Although understandable, this reaction would beg the question of whether any substantial number of patients actually use PADs to document advance refusals of all medication; new research suggests that this may be a moot concern. The presumption of competence to execute PADs is another controversial legal feature of these statutes. On the one hand, some mental health professionals would argue that a clinical assessment of competence should be required for patients who want to complete PADs, in view of the fluctuating decisional capacity that often characterizes severe mental illness. On the other hand, some scholars have noted that mandatory screening for competence—placing the burden on people with mental illness to prove that they are competent before completing a legal document—would amount to discrimination against adults with disabilities. Currently, only two jurisdictions, Indiana and Louisiana, require that persons with mental illness be deemed competent before they write a valid PAD. However, in states where this is not required, there could still be practical reasons for patients to voluntarily request a clinical assessment of their competence prior to completing a PAD. Even people who do not have mental illnesses may elect to have a competence assessment at the time they prepare a legal document such as a will—precisely to avoid the problem of later challenges to testamentary capacity and thus ensure that their wishes are followed. With respect to implementing PADs, the practical question is, How can people with severe mental illness best ensure that future clinicians will abide by their preferences as documented in advance, without unduly questioning their competence to make those advance decisions and thus calling into doubt the PAD’s legal validity?

Current Research and Trends While a number of legal and ethical questions about PADs remain unanswered, a body of empirical research on PADs has begun to emerge. Studies indicate that although approximately 70% of patients with mental illness would want a PAD if offered assistance in completing one, less than 10% have actually completed a PAD. Why is there a gap between interest in and completion of PADs? First, people with mental illness report difficulty in understanding advance directives, skepticism about their

benefit, and lack of contact with a trusted individual who could serve as proxy decision maker. The sheer complexity of filling out these legal forms, obtaining witnesses, having the documents notarized, and filing the documents in a medical record or registry may pose a formidable barrier. Recent surveys of mental health professionals’ attitudes about PADs suggest that they are generally supportive of these legal instruments but have significant concerns about some features of PADs and the feasibility of implementing them in usual care settings. Clinicians are concerned, for example, about following PADs that may contain treatment refusals or medically inappropriate instructions. They also worry about lack of access to PAD documents in a crisis, lack of staff training on PADs, lack of communication between staff across different components of mental health systems, and lack of time to review the advance directive documents. For these reasons, among others, PADs have yet to gain widespread use in systems of care for people with severe mental illness. The research indicates, however, that as more people learn about these laws, PADs will be used more frequently. For instance, whereas most of the psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists surveyed believed that PADs would help people with severe mental illnesses, clinicians with more legal knowledge about PADs were more likely to endorse PADs as a beneficial part of patients’ treatment planning. Additionally, research indicates that PADs typically contain clinically useful information and almost never include medically inappropriate information. Swanson and colleagues analyzed the content of more than 100 PAD documents and found that psychiatrists rated the advance directives to be highly consistent with standards of community practice. Most participants used the advance directive to refuse some medications but provided clear reasons for their choices; none used an advance directive to refuse all treatment. Instead, most people who completed PADs used these documents to request that inpatient staff treat them with respect and talk with them about their treatment. More than one third listed specific medical conditions and/or medication side effects that would directly lead to more informed clinical decision making by doctors in emergency departments and inpatient settings. Finally, new evidence is emerging from a largescale randomized clinical trial of N = 469 individuals with mental illness, suggesting that a manualized

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PAD facilitation helps overcome patient barriers to completing PADs and may improve working alliance and treatment engagement among people with severe mental illness. The authors found that 61% of participants in the facilitated session completed an advance directive or authorized a proxy decision maker, compared with only 3% of control group participants. At 1-month follow-up, participants in the facilitated session had a greater working alliance with their clinicians and were more likely than those in the control group to report receiving the mental health services they believed they needed. In another analysis from this clinical trial, the authors systematically examined competence to complete PADs, using a newly developed instrument that evaluates patients’ understanding, appreciation, and reasoning ability applied to PADs and the specific treatment decisions contained in PADs. The authors found that the majority of participants at baseline scored above 50% of the highest possible point total on this instrument. That people with mental illness are generally able to understand, appreciate, and reason adequately with respect to PADs is consistent with prior research reaching the same conclusion. The study also showed that the manualized PAD facilitation significantly improved patients’ competence to complete PADs, as well as their capacity to make reasonable treatment decisions within the framework of a PAD. The facilitation intervention increased PAD competence most dramatically for patients with low cognitive functioning and limited initial understanding of PADs.

Concluding Remarks In sum, PADs were designed as legal instruments for persons with mental illness to retain some control over their treatment during periods of decisional incapacity. In practice, PADs could yield other indirect benefits, such as improving communication between providers, patients, and family caregivers; enhancing therapeutic alliance and treatment engagement; and mobilizing clinical resources. Jointly, these influences could work together to help avert psychiatric crises, as well as to improve the management of such crises when they do occur, without resorting to involuntary commitment. However, it may be necessary to provide resources to assist persons with mental disorders in completing PADs, configure information systems to make PADs

accessible, and educate clinicians about the potential benefits and drawbacks of PADs and their legal obligations regarding PAD compliance. The National Resource Center on Psychiatric Advanced Directives disseminates state-by-state information on PADs and educational material to patients, family members, policymakers, and clinicians through its Web site. Such steps could be critical to ensuring that these legal instruments are implemented effectively in clinical practice and that people with mental disorders are afforded the opportunity to plan and participate in their own mental health treatment. Eric B. Elbogen, Jeffrey W. Swanson, and Marvin S. Swartz See also Capacity to Consent to Treatment; Civil Commitment; Competency, Foundational and Decisional; Mandated Community Treatment; Mental Health Law; Proxy Decision Making

Further Readings

Appelbaum, P. S. (2004). Psychiatric advance directives and the treatment of committed patients. Psychiatric Services, 55(7), 751–752. Elbogen, E. B., Swanson, J. W., Appelbaum, P., Swartz, M. S., Ferron, J., & Van Dorn, R. A. (2007). Competence to complete psychiatric advance directives: Effects of facilitated decision making. Law and Human Behavior, 31, 275–289. Hargrave v. Vermont, 340 F.3d 27 (2nd Cir. 2003). Srebnik, D., & La Fond, J. Q. (1999). Advance directives for mental health treatment. Psychiatric Services, 50(7), 919–925. Swanson, J. W., McCrary, S. V., Swartz, M. S., Elbogen, E. B., & Van Dorn, R. (2006). Trumping psychiatric advance directives: Ethical and legal considerations. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 34(3), 385–394. Swanson, J. W., Swartz, M. S., Elbogen, E. B., Van Dorn, R. A., Ferron, J., Wagner, H., et al. (2006). Facilitated psychiatric advance directives: A randomized trial of an intervention to foster advance treatment planning among persons with severe mental illness. American Journal of Psychiatry, 163(11), 1943–1951.

Web Sites

National Resource Center on Psychiatric Advanced Directives: http://www.nrc-pad.org

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PSYCHOLOGICAL AUTOPSIES A psychological autopsy (or psychiatric autopsy—the terms are used interchangeably) is a reconstructive mental state evaluation (RMSE) focused on understanding a deceased individual’s mental state at and around the time of death, typically for the purpose of identifying the cause of death (accident vs. suicide or another explanation). Norman Faberow, Robert Litman, and Edwin Shneidman are credited with developing the concept and pioneering the technique of the psychological autopsy in connection with their consultation with the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, which requested that they assist in determining the cause of death (i.e., suicide or accident) in a subset of “equivocal” cases. The psychological autopsy is one form of RMSE that can be defined as an expert inquiry focused on discerning some aspect of the mental state of a deceased person at an earlier point in time. Expert opinions formed by mental health professionals and based on RMSEs are typically—but not always—conducted in connection with some type of legal proceeding. As such, RMSEs can be considered as a forensic evaluation or forensic inquiry the goal of which is to provide the legal decision maker (i.e., judge or jury) with information that it would not otherwise have (based on the expert’s inquiry and opinions), so that it can make a more informed and accurate decision in the legal issue at hand. For example, expert testimony regarding a deceased person’s mental state has been introduced in testamentary capacity proceedings (when a deceased individual’s capacity to execute a valid will at some prior time is at issue), life insurance and workers’ compensation litigation (when the cause of an individual’s death, including the existence of potential psychological contributors, is at issue), and criminal litigation (when the psychological state of a decedent is relevant to some aspect of a criminal proceeding). In addition, mental health professionals and mental health agencies sometimes employ psychological autopsies as a quality assurance mechanism in cases where clients commit suicide. Such inquires serve to aid in understanding what caused the suicide and identifying good or bad professional practice surrounding the person’s care, both of which are seen as having the potential to improve future care and practice. Because the person of interest (i.e., the decedent) is not available, the mental health professional conducting

a psychological autopsy must rely solely on collateral, or “third-party” sources of information, including interviews with persons familiar with the individual of interest; interviews with persons who had contact with the individual at and around the time in question (e.g., around the time the will was executed or the decedent died); and a review of various documents including the individual’s health care records, writings, or correspondence. Depending on the type of case and the issues at hand, areas of inquiry that may be relevant include (a) alcohol and drug use; (b) medical status and history; (c) mental health status and history; (d) economic and psychosocial stressors; (e) the nature and quality of interpersonal, family, and marital relationships; (f) behavior and verbal and written communications; and (g) legal history and records. There are a number of limitations inherent to RMSEs, some of which also affect more commonly practiced psychological evaluations, including both therapeutic and forensic evaluations. First, as noted above, the lack of a standard assessment technique or procedure increases the likelihood of unreliable assessments and invalid opinions. Second, an obvious limitation is the psychologist’s inability to assess the individual whose mental state at some prior time is of relevance (via either interview or administration of psychological testing, if indicated). Third, because the time of interest is in the (often distant) past, the available records may be limited and the recollections of third parties who may be interviewed by the examiner may suffer and be less accurate as a result. Fourth, third-party informants who are interviewed by the psychologist may distort representations of the decedent’s mental state and behavior, either knowingly (e.g., because of their desire to bring about a particular outcome in a legal case, such as when a potential beneficiary intentionally denies the deceased testator’s severely impaired mental state at the time the will is executed so that the will is declared and the beneficiary receives the inheritance) or unknowingly (e.g., when a spouse fails to recognize and report the deceased spouse’s suicidal behaviors because of guilt over the death). Little research has been conducted examining the reliability and validity of opinions formed using RMSEs. Of course, assessing the validity of this technique is challenging because of problems with criterion validation. That is, to examine the accuracy of opinions that are formed using an RMSE, one must be able to compare the formed opinions with the actual

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facts or outcome (which is never knowable or known). As a result of the limited data regarding the reliability and validity of opinions formed when using RMSE techniques, commentators have recommended that professionals who are asked to conduct such examinations proceed cautiously and make clear the limitations inherent in such inquiries. Randy K. Otto See also Criminal Responsibility, Assessment of; Expert Psychological Testimony; Forensic Assessment; Testamentary Capacity

Further Readings

Ogloff, J. R. P., & Otto, R. K. (2003). Psychological autopsy and other retrospective mental state evaluations: Clinical and legal issues. In I. Z. Schultz & D. O. Brady (Eds.), Handbook of psychological injuries (pp. 1186–1230). Chicago: American Bar Association Press. Poythress, N., Otto, R. K., Darkes, J., & Starr, L. (1993). APA’s expert panel in the congressional review of the U.S.S. Iowa incident. American Psychologist, 48, 8–15. Scott, C. L., & Resnick, P. J. (2006). Patient suicide and litigation. In R. I. Simon & R. E. Hales (Eds.), Textbook of suicide assessment and management (pp. 527–544). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.

PSYCHOLOGICAL INVENTORY CRIMINAL THINKING STYLES

OF

The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) is an 80-item self-report inventory designed to measure eight thinking styles presumed to reinforce, support, and maintain a criminal lifestyle. The eight thinking styles assessed by the PICTS are Mollification, Cutoff, Entitlement, Power Orientation, Superoptimism, Sentimentality, Cognitive Indolence, and Discontinuity. The PICTS also contains two validity scales—Confusion and Defensiveness; four factor scales—Problem Avoidance, Interpersonal Hostility, Self-Assertion/Deception, and Denial of Harm; two content scales—Current and Historical; two composite scales—Proactive Criminal Thinking (P) and Reactive Criminal Thinking (R); and a general score covering all 64 criminal thinking items— General Criminal Thinking (GCT).

Description and Development There were 32 items on the PICTS when it first appeared in 1989, 4 for each thinking style. In 1990, the PICTS was expanded to 40 items with the addition of two validity scales, and the ratings went from 3 points (agree, uncertain, disagree) to 4 points (strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree). In 1992, the number of items per scale was raised to 8 to produce an inventory of 80 items. Norms were established by administering this third version of the PICTS to 150 minimum-security male federal inmates, 150 medium-security male federal inmates, 150 maximum-security male federal inmates, and 227 state and federal female inmates. The PICTS validity scales were successfully revised in 2001, leading to the fourth and current version of the PICTS, in which the content (phrasing) and position (item number) of the 64 thinking-style items and 8 retained validity scale items remained constant across Versions 3.0 and 4.0. Consequently, research studies and norms from Version 3.0 should be applicable to Version 4.0.

Hierarchical Organization Factor analytic research has revealed one-, two-, four-, and eight-factor solutions for the PICTS. Like the criminal thinking it is designed to measure, the PICTS is factorially complex and hierarchically organized. The eight PICTS scales are at the bottom of the hierarchy. The P and R scales are in the middle of the hierarchy, with the Mollification, Entitlement, and Superoptimism thinking-style scales loading heaviest on P and the Cutoff, Cognitive Indolence, and Discontinuity thinking-style scales loading heaviest on R. At the top of the hierarchy, P and R merge to form general criminal thinking, as measured by the GCT.

Reliability Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient) is .54 to .79 for the PICTS scales, .80 to .91 for the P and R scales, and .93 for the GCT. Test-retest reliability (Pearson r) after 2 weeks is .73 to .93 on the thinkingstyle scales, .88 to .96 on the P and R scales, and .85 to .93 on the GCT. Test-retest reliability (Pearson r) after 12 weeks is .47 to .86 on the thinking-style scales, .70 to .88 on the P and R scales, and .84 to .85 on the GCT.

640———Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI)

Validity The content validity of the PICTS is supported by the fact that inmates familiar with the lifestyle concept participated in the measure’s development and furnished the content for several PICTS items. Furthermore, the eight thinking styles believed to support a criminal lifestyle are assessed on the PICTS. In early studies evaluating the predictive validity of the PICTS, it was determined that several of the PICTS thinking-style scales, Cutoff and Entitlement in particular, predicted future disciplinary problems in prison and subsequent arrests in the community. More recent research has shown that higher-level PICTS scales— such as the P and R, and GCT—are incrementally valid predictors of future disciplinary problems and recidivism when age, prior arrests, and popular nonself-report rating scales such as the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version are controlled. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses have been used to support the construct validity of the PICTS as a factorially complex and hierarchically organized construct with both general (GCT) and specific (eight thinking-style scales) features. Furthermore, the pattern of convergent and discriminant correlations between the PICTS thinking-style scales and various measures of personality indicate that the PICTS correlates better with similar constructs (antisocial personality) than with dissimilar constructs (depression, anxiety, schizophrenia).

Future Research One direction for future research is testing the crossnational validity of the PICTS. Promising results have been reported in studies from Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia. Although the PICTS has been translated into a number of different languages and dialects, there have been no studies to date examining its utility in non-English-speaking populations. A second direction for future PICTS research is using it to measure change in offenders enrolled in psychological programming. Although studies indicate that several PICTS scales appear to change over the course of intervention, longitudinal studies are required to ascertain whether a change on the PICTS reflects a meaningful change in thinking and behavior and whether or not this has a direct bearing on future recidivism. Recent studies have shown that the latent structure of criminal thinking, like the latent structure of

psychopathy and antisocial personality, is dimensional rather than categorical in nature. What needs to be determined is whether the dimensionality observed on the PICTS is the same or different from the dimensional structure of psychopathy and antisocial personality. Glenn D. Walters See also Forensic Assessment; Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version

Further Readings

Blud, L., Travers, R., Nugent, F., & Thornton, D. (2003). Accreditation of offending behaviour programmes in HM Prison Service: “What Works” in practice. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 8, 69–81. Palmer, E., & Hollin, C. (2003). Using the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles with English prisoners. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 8, 175–187. Walters, G. D. (1995). The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles: Part I. Reliability and preliminary validity. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 22, 307–325. Walters, G. D. (2002). The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS): A review and metaanalysis. Assessment, 9, 283–296. Walters, G. D., & Mandell, W. (2007). Assessing the incremental validity of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) and Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL: SV) with disciplinary report count data. Law and Human Behavior, 31, 141–157.

PSYCHOPATHIC PERSONALITY INVENTORY (PPI) The PPI is a widely used self-report measure designed to detect the principal personality traits of psychopathy. Revised in 2005 as the Psychopathic Personality Inventory–Revised (PPI–R), it consists of 154 items arrayed in a 4-point Likert-type format. The PPI–R, like the original PPI, yields a Total score reflecting global psychopathy as well as eight-factor analytically derived content scales reflecting specific facets of psychopathy: Machiavellian Egocentricity, Rebellious Nonconformity (formerly Impulsive Noncomformity), Blame Externalization (formerly Alienation), Carefree Nonplanfulness, Social Influence (formerly Social Potency),

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Fearlessness, Stress Immunity, and Coldheartedness. The PPI–R also contains three validity scales designed to detect aberrant response styles that are potentially problematic among psychopathic individuals: Virtuous Responding (formerly Unlikely Virtues), Deviant Responding, and Inconsistent Responding (formerly Variable Response Inconsistency).

Construction of the PPI and PPI–R The PPI, consisting of 187 items, was developed over the span of several years in the late 1980s. It was constructed largely in response to a perceived need for an easily administered questionnaire measure of psychopathy that would facilitate research on, and the clinical assessment of, psychopathy. In contrast to most previous measures of psychopathy, it was developed to be applicable to nonclinical (e.g., student, community) as well as clinical (e.g., offender, substance abuse) samples. Prior to the construction of self-report measures of psychopathy, most of the research on this condition was limited to offenders, primarily because extant measures of psychopathy required access to detailed file information. The development of the PPI and other self-report measures of psychopathy has facilitated research concerning the manifestations of this condition in community and student settings, permitting investigators to examine the characteristics of “successful” or “adaptive” individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits. The PPI was designed to detect the key personality traits of psychopathy, such as superficial charm, dishonesty, manipulativeness, guiltlessness, callousness, fearlessness, self-centeredness, externalization of blame, and poor impulse control. The initial constructs targeted for inclusion in the PPI were derived from a comprehensive review of the clinical and research literatures on psychopathy, including the seminal writings of Hervey Cleckley, Benjamin Karpman, David Lykken, Robert Hare, and Herbert Quay. In an effort to distinguish psychopathy from cognate but separable constructs (e.g., antisocial personality disorder, crime proneness), items explicitly assessing antisocial and criminal behaviors were not included in the prospective item pool. To enhance the likelihood that the psychopathic respondents would be willing to endorse trait-relevant items, most PPI items were phrased to be socially normative. The PPI items and constructs were progressively refined by means of factor analyses on three successive

undergraduate samples, with a total sample size of 1,156 participants. The eight lower-order factors that make up the PPI emerged across all three rounds of test development and appeared to assess the core affective and interpersonal traits of psychopathy. The three validity scales of the PPI assist with detection of socially desirable responding and malingering, which may be particular causes for concern in forensic settings. The PPI was revised in 2005 to reduce its length, decrease its reading level, eliminate psychometrically suboptimal and culturally specific items, and develop norms for general population and offender samples. Based on factor analyses of large student, community, and offender samples, a number of inadequately functioning PPI items were eliminated or rewritten. The revised version of the test, the PPI–R, consists of 154 items divided into the same eight content scales and three validity scales as the PPI.

Higher-Order Factor Structure Higher-order-factor analyses of the PPI–R content scales have generally yielded a two-factor structure. One factor, called “Fearless Dominance,” consists of the Social Influence, Fearlessness, and Stress Immunity content scales. The other factor, called “SelfCentered Impulsivity,” consists of the Machiavellian Egocentricity, Rebellious Nonconformity, Blame Externalization, and Carefree Nonplanfulness content scales. The eighth PPI–R content scale, Coldheartedness, does not load substantially on either higherorder factor. The analyses indicate that the two PPI–R higher-order factors display markedly divergent correlates. For example, Fearless Dominance correlates negatively with indices of depression, anxiety, and suicidality, whereas Self-Centered Impulsivity correlates positively with these indices.

Reliability The test-retest reliability of the PPI–R Total score (average 20-day retest interval) in a general population sample is .93, with the test-retest reliabilities of the PPI–R content scales ranging from .82 to .95. The internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) of the PPI–R Total score in a general population sample is .92, with internal consistencies of the PPI–R content scales ranging from .78 to .87. These test-retest and internal consistency figures are comparable with, and slightly higher than, those generally reported for the PPI. The

642———Psychopathy

internal consistency of the PPI–R Total score in an offender sample is somewhat lower (.84), with the internal consistencies of the PPI–R content scales ranging from .71 to .83.

Validity Numerous studies in college and offender samples provide support for the construct validity of the PPI and PPI–R. The Total scores on these measures correlate moderately to highly with other self-report, interviewbased, and observer measures of psychopathy. The PPI Total score correlates moderately with measures of personality disorders known to overlap with psychopathy, such as narcissistic, histrionic, and borderline personality disorders, but weakly with measures of most other (e.g., schizoid) personality disorders. Moreover, the PPI and PPI–R Total scores display adequate discriminant validity from measures of constructs that are theoretically distinct from psychopathy (e.g., depression, schizotypy, psychosis proneness, social desirability). In addition, the PPI and PPI–R Total scores correlate negatively with several traits of the well-known “five-factor model” of personality, especially Conscientiousness and Agreeableness, and positively with measures of sensation seeking and Machiavellianism. Finally, the PPI Total score demonstrates positive correlations with measures of delinquent behaviors and substance abuse, laboratory measures of poor impulse control and planning, and offender disciplinary infractions. Future research should help determine whether (a) the PPI–R exhibits incremental validity above and beyond other well-validated measures of psychopathy (e.g., the largely interview-based Psychopathy Checklist–Revised), (b) observer reports of psychopathy can supplement the PPI–R by filling in some of the “blind spots” generated by psychopathic individuals’ lack of insight regarding the nature of their symptoms, and (c) the PPI–R can help identify potentially adaptive expressions of psychopathy, such as charismatic leadership and heroic forms of altruism. Scott O. Lilienfeld and Michelle R. Widows See also Forensic Assessment; Psychopathy Checklist– Revised Further Readings

Cleckley, H. (1988). The mask of sanity: An attempt to clarify some issues about the so-called psychopathic personality (5th ed.). Augusta, GA: Emily S. Cleckley.

Lilienfeld, S. O., & Andrews, B. P. (1996). Development and preliminary validation of a self-report measure of psychopathic personality traits in noncriminal populations. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 488–524. Lilienfeld, S. O., & Widows, M. R. (2005). Psychopathic Personality Inventory–Revised (PPI–R) professional manual. Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

PSYCHOPATHY Although psychopathy may be viewed as an evolutionary adaptation that serves the individual well, it typically is construed as a personality disorder, or a chronic, inflexible, and maladaptive pattern of relating to the world. Most conceptualizations of psychopathy emphasize traits of emotional detachment, including callousness, failure to form close emotional bonds, low anxiety proneness, remorselessness, and deceitfulness. However, the most widely used measure of psychopathy goes beyond these traits to assess repeated involvement in antisocial behavior. The Revised Psychopathy Checklist (PCL–R) was developed with criminal offenders and weighs past antisocial behavior as strongly as traits of emotional detachment in diagnosing psychopathy. Predominant use of the PCL–R and offender samples has established a large research literature on unsuccessful psychopathy. Relatively little is known about individuals with traits of emotional detachment who escape contact with the legal system; express their psychopathic tendencies in a manner that does not conflict with the law; or even attain success in business, political, and other settings. Indeed, most contemporary research and virtually all practical interest in psychopathy revolve around the utility of the PCL–R in forecasting offenders’ violent and antisocial behavior and, to a lesser extent, offenders’ treatment amenability. Recent research challenges the prevailing assumptions that (a) traits of emotional detachment per se predict violence and (b) individuals with psychopathic traits cannot be effectively treated. In this entry, research on these practical issues is reviewed before turning to more fundamental questions about the basic nature and manifestations of psychopathy. Theoretically driven research on the potential mechanisms that underpin the disorder reveal the importance of emotional detachment as a likely manifestation of classic or “primary” psychopathy. Such research also suggests that there

Psychopathy———643

may be a “secondary” variant of psychopathy, marked by psychological disturbance and violence potential.

Practical Interest in Psychopathy A variety of psycholegal issues that arise in the criminal and juvenile justice system call for the identification of individuals who are inalterably dangerous. Increasingly, measures of psychopathy are being applied to inform decisions about the length of offenders’ sentences, their level of institutional supervision, whether they should be released from prison on parole, whether they should receive any treatment, and whether they should be sentenced to death. Psychopathy measures predominantly are used as prosecution tools. As shown in this section, there are reasons to question the assumption that these measures identify individuals who are inalterably dangerous. Violence Prediction

The most widely used measure of psychopathy is also the number one tool used to assess risk of future violence. In fact, forensic psychologists use the PCL–R to assess risk twice as often as they use tools that were specifically designed as risk assessment tools. This is not the case for other well-validated measures of psychopathy such as the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI). Instead, the diagnostic measure for personality disorders has become the most widely used tool for assessing violence risk, owing to a series of studies indicating that the PCL measures robustly predict violence and recidivism for offenders, forensic patients, and even psychiatric patients. Although the absolute size of this relationship is weak (r ≈ .25), the PCL–R is among the strongest single predictors of violence and other criminal behavior, on a level that competes with leading risk assessment tools. Although this relationship suggests that emotionally detached psychopaths callously use violence to achieve control over and exploit others, recent research suggests otherwise. The lion’s share of the PCL–R’s utility in predicting violence is attributable to its saturation with indices of past violence and criminality. Although there is debate about its factor structure, the original PCL–R model has two moderately correlated scales: The first assesses core interpersonal and affective features of emotional detachment that are central to most conceptualizations of psychopathy; the second assesses impulsivity, irresponsibility, poor anger controls, and antisocial behavior, which some view as

peripheral to psychopathy. A meta-analysis of 42 studies indicated that the PCL–R’s antisocial behavior scale is significantly more predictive of violent and general recidivism than its emotional detachment scale. Moreover, three original studies indicate that the emotional detachment scale does not significantly predict future violence, independent of its association with the antisocial behavior scale. Psychopathy explains the predictive utility of the PCL–R less than do two other factors. First, indices of past violent and criminal behavior naturally are linked with future, like behavior. Information about criminal behavior determines one’s ratings of some PCL–R items and heavily affects one’s ratings of many others. Second, ratings of past violent and criminal behavior appear to capture something traitlike that is clinically useful but not specific to psychopathy. The PCL–R (antisocial or total scores) manifests some incremental utility in predicting future violence and crime, beyond indices of past, like behavior. Recent research suggests that the PCL–R may tap constructs of antagonism or “externalizing” that place individuals at high risk of involvement in violent situations. Antagonism involves suspiciousness, hostility, combativeness, and irritability. Externalizing weaves together traits of aggression and behavioral disinhibition, antisocial behavior, and substance use. Neither construct is specific to psychopathic personality disorder. Both are related to violent and antisocial behavior. Treatment Amenability

Practical interest in psychopathy revolves around its implications for assessing both violence risk and treatment amenability. The prevailing assumption is that psychopathy cannot be effectively treated. In fact, the results of one early study led many to opine that treatment only “made psychopaths worse”—that is, more likely to re-offend than if they had not been treated. This study was a retrospective matched trial that compared the recidivism rates of mentally disordered offenders released from either a prison or a radical therapeutic community program. The treatment program was active in the 1960s and involved unconventional interventions such as extended nude encounter groups and administration of psychedelics, alcohol, and other drugs to psychopaths to disrupt their defenses, increase their anxiety, and generally make them more accessible to treatment. Therapeutic pessimism about psychopathy is so deeply entrenched in clinical and forensic circles that it rarely has been subjected to empirical evaluation.

644———Psychopathy

To date, no randomized controlled trial has compared the outcomes of psychopathic individuals who do, or do not, receive treatment. Moreover, no published study has examined treatment programs developed particularly for those with psychopathy; instead, treatment for other conditions (mental disorder, substance abuse, or recidivism risk) has been administered “as usual” to those with psychopathy. Nevertheless, a mounting body of recent quasiexperimental evidence challenges the assumption that individuals with psychopathy do not respond to conventional treatment. This research suggests that psychopathy, like many other personality disorders, complicates the first-line treatment of mental and substance abuse disorders. Simply put, individuals with psychopathy tend to have low treatment motivation, to misbehave in treatment, and to respond more slowly to treatment. However, when provided sufficient “doses” of treatment, those with psychopathy are as likely as anyone else to manifest reduced risk of violence and recidivism. Three nonexhaustive examples will be provided here. First, a meta-analysis of 44 studies indicated that (a) therapeutic communities were the most common and least effective form of treatment for those with psychopathy and (b) across treatment modalities and definitions of psychopathy, treatment was moderately successful in reducing recidivism for psychopathic individuals (a 62% success rate). Second, a prospective study of approximately 900 civil psychiatric patients indicated that psychopathy did not moderate the effect of outpatient treatment on future violence. Of those who received relatively intensive treatment during one 10-week period, those with psychopathic traits were as likely as those without such traits to show significantly reduced violence potential in the next 10-week period. Third, a prospective study of 381 offenders mandated to substance abuse treatment indicated that treatment involvement significantly reduced risk of recidivism during the year after release, regardless of the effect of psychopathic traits. In the latter two studies, propensity scores were applied to control for the nonrandom assignment of individuals to less versus more intensive treatment. The effects remained moderate and significant. Together, this research suggests that individuals with psychopathy should be recast as high-risk (not hopeless) cases in need of intensive treatment. Correctional research indicates that focusing intensive resources on the highest-risk cases maximizes reduction in recidivism.

Basic Nature and Manifestations of Psychopathy The relatively recent surge of interest in applying measures of psychopathy has affected our conceptualization of the construct itself. To be certain, use of the PCL–R has advanced the field’s understanding of the nature and manifestations of psychopathy. The ever-increasing momentum of research on psychopathy is largely attributable to the PCL–R’s ability to assess reliably traits such as callousness, facilitate comparison of results across studies, and clarify communication among practitioners and researchers. However, referring to the PCL–R as the “gold standard of psychopathy” signals that the field has mistakenly conflated a measure with a construct. A PCL–R score is no more psychopathy than a Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS–R) score is intelligence. As research on the PCL–R’s utility in predicting violence has accumulated, the dominant view of psychopathy itself has shifted. Most modern views of psychopathy may be traced to Hervey Cleckley’s influential book The Mask of Sanity (1941). Based on a series of case studies, Cleckley articulated 16 criteria for psychopathy that emphasized traits of emotional detachment. Although the PCL–R is based on Cleckley’s conceptualization, it omits some features that Cleckley viewed as central to psychopathy (e.g., low anxiety) and emphasizes tendencies toward violent and antisocial behavior. Cleckley viewed these tendencies as largely “independent” of the more fundamental manifestations of psychopathy. As the field has come to equate psychopathy with the PCL–R, there has been slippage toward the notion that psychopathy is a violent variant of antisocial personality disorder. Now, psychopaths are called “intraspecies predators,” and criminal behavior has been held up as the “ultimate criterion” for measures of psychopathy. Notably, this entry focuses on the nature and manifestations of psychopathy among those for whom measures of psychopathy are best validated: adult, Caucasian, male offenders. Questions have been raised about the applicability of the psychopathy construct to juveniles, African Americans (who do not manifest some deficits on laboratory tasks thought prototypic of psychopathy), and women (who do not yield a clear factor structure for measures of psychopathy).

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Validation Hierarchy

Predictive utility (which seeks clinical utility) cannot be mistaken for construct validity (which seeks construct identification). To increase the PCL–R’s predictive utility, one could go beyond criminal behavior to include items that assess young age and male gender. This would not, however, necessarily enhance the measure’s validity in assessing psychopathic personality disorder. To advance understanding of the construct, psychopathy must be evaluated against a validation hierarchy dictated by a theory of the disorder. There are two major groups of theories about psychopathy. The first group begins with Cleckley, who posited that psychopathy is a largely inherited affective deficit that results in self-defeating behavior. Similarly, Robert Hare hypothesizes that this affective deficit involves impaired processing of emotional meanings related to language and may be based on reduced lateralization of verbal processes. The second theoretical group begins with the Fowles-Gray model of psychopathy, which references two constitutionally based motivational systems that influence behavior. The behavioral inhibition system (BIS) regulates responsiveness to aversive stimuli and is associated with anxiety, whereas the behavioral activation system (BAS) regulates appetitive motivation and is associated with impulsivity. According to the Fowles-Gray theory, primary psychopaths possess an intact BAS and a weak BIS, so they do not experience anticipatory anxiety that causes most people to inhibit activity that leads to punishment or nonreward. In a related sense, David T. Lykken’s primary psychopath is fearless. Without the experience of fear to facilitate learning to avoid conditions associated with pain, the primary psychopath has difficulty with avoidance learning. Rather than fearlessness, Joseph P. Newman’s conceptualization emphasizes a lack of anxiety. Specifically, Newman postulates that a cognitive processing or “response modulation” deficit lies at the core of Cleckleyan psychopathy. These individuals are unable to suspend a dominant response set to accommodate feedback from the environment. Despite the differences among them, most of these theories describe psychopathy as a largely inherited affective or cognitive processing deficit. These theories dictate a validation hierarchy that places pathophysiologic and etiological mechanisms at the top, as they offer the greatest potential for explaining the disorder and potentially altering its course. Although unmodulated, unrestrained, or self-defeating behavior is symptomatic of the disorder, and may be found at lower

levels of the validation hierarchy, there is nothing specific to criminal or violent behavior. Indeed, several theories explicitly omit criminal behavior. The question is whether the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy identify a homogeneous group of individuals with clearly delineated deficits and largely genetic pathophysiology. Deficits and Etiology

The PCL–R has been most thoroughly evaluated in laboratory experiments as comprising the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy. Although these criteria do appear to identify a group of individuals with theoretically relevant deficits, they could be refined to do this better. On the one hand, PCL–R scores are associated with diminished startle response to negative or aversive emotional cues, less autonomic arousal during fear and distress imagery, and greater recall for the peripheral details of aversive images. On the other hand, the PCL–R omits key features of psychopathy, such as low anxiety. Among offenders with high PCL–R scores, only those who also manifest low anxiety show response modulation deficits on a passive avoidance learning task or reduced sensitivity to cues of punishment when a reward-oriented response set is primed. Moreover, the PCL–R overemphasizes antisocial behavior. When PCL–R scale scores are examined, performance on many of these laboratory measures is more strongly linked with the emotional detachment scale than the antisocial behavior scale. Integrating across studies, the core of psychopathy seems to involve emotional detachment, including low anxiety, not antisocial behavior. Although one might interpret the results of these experiments as evidence that psychopathy is genetically influenced, caution should be exercised in drawing premature inferences because the heritability of these laboratory variables is unclear. To date, no behavior genetic studies of PCL–R psychopathy have been conducted. Nevertheless, several survey studies indicate that childhood maltreatment is more strongly associated with the PCL–R’s antisocial behavior scale than its emotional detachment scale. In keeping with the experimental data, this suggests that emotional detachment is a more theoretically valid indicator of psychopathy than antisocial behavior. To date, only one behavior genetic study of psychopathy has been conducted with adults or adolescents. In this twin study of more than 600 17-year-olds drawn from the community, a measure of normal personality was used to estimate scores on a promising self-report measure of psychopathy, the PPI. Although

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the PPI has “Fearless Dominance” and “Impulsive Antisociality” scales that appear somewhat like the two scales of the PCL–R, the PPI is not saturated with indices of violent and antisocial behavior. The study yielded moderate heritability estimates for both scales (h = .45 to .49). The extent to which these results will generalize to the context in which psychopathy is typically studied (i.e., direct assessment of PCL–R psychopathy with offenders) is unclear. In summary, the criteria for diagnosing psychopathy can identify individuals with clearly delineated deficits, particularly if they are modified to include low anxiety and de-emphasize antisocial behavior. At present, it is unclear whether these deficits are largely genetically determined. However, as shown next, the present criteria clearly do not identify a homogeneous group of individuals as psychopathic. Homogeneity

Although psychopathy usually is treated as a unitary construct, Ben Karpman’s seminal theory posits that there are two variants: primary psychopathy is underpinned by an inherited affective deficit, whereas secondary psychopathy reflects an acquired affective disturbance. Primary psychopathy is consistent with classic conceptualizations of psychopathy as a deficit, whereas secondary psychopathy represents a more psychopathological, hostile, and violent variant. Although the etiological distinctions between them have not been rigorously investigated, there is evidence that primary and secondary variants of psychopathy can be identified. Despite differences in their methodology, three studies have identified— among offenders with PCL–R scores in the range deemed psychopathic—primary and secondary variants. In the first study, model-based cluster analysis was applied to 96 inmates’ scores on a measure of general personality to identify two groups of psychopaths: one emotionally stable (primary) and the other aggressive (secondary). Although the two groups were difficult to distinguish in their psychopathic traits, secondary psychopaths reported more fights, greater alcohol abuse, lower socialization, and higher trait anxiety than primary psychopaths. In the second study, model-based cluster analysis was applied to 124 inmates’ scores on the PCL–R and a measure of trait anxiety to reveal two groups. Relative to primary psychopaths, secondary psychopaths had greater trait anxiety, fewer psychopathic traits, and comparable levels of antisocial behavior. Across

validation variables, secondary psychopaths manifested more borderline personality features, poorer interpersonal functioning (e.g., withdrawal, lack of assertiveness), more symptoms of major mental disorder, and greater treatment responsivity than primary psychopaths. A similar approach was used in the third study of 116 juvenile offenders, which also yielded primary and secondary variants. Secondary variants were more likely than primary variants to endorse early childhood abuse. These recent findings raise fundamental questions about the nature of psychopathy. Are secondary psychopaths still “psychopaths” if the mechanisms that underpin their traits differ from psychopathy as classically construed? The findings may also have substantial practical implications for risk assessment and risk management. Relative to primary psychopaths, secondary psychopaths theoretically are both more prone to violence and more amenable to treatment. The next generation of research holds promise for addressing these key questions, ideally while distinguishing between the practical enterprise of clinical prediction and the pursuit of understanding the psychopathy construct. Jennifer L. Skeem and Patrick J. Kennealy See also Antisocial Personality Disorder; Forensic Assessment; Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R); Juvenile Psychopathy; Personality Disorders; Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI); Psychopathy, Treatment of; Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version; Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version; Risk Assessment Approaches Further Readings

Cleckley, H. (1976). The mask of sanity (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby. Lilienfeld, S. O. (2005). Psychopathic Personality Inventory–Revised (PPI–R). Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Lykken, D. T. (1995). The antisocial personalities. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Patrick, C. J. (2006). Handbook of psychopathy. New York: Guilford Press. Skeem, J. L., & Cooke, D. J. (in press). Is criminal behavior a central component of psychopathy? Conceptual directions for resolving the debate. Psychological Assessment. Skeem, J., Poythress, N., Edens, J., Lilienfeld, S., & Cale, E. (2003). Psychopathic personality or personalities? Exploring potential variants of psychopathy and their implications for risk assessment. Aggression & Violent Behavior, 8, 513–546.

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PSYCHOPATHY, TREATMENT

OF

The treatment of psychopathy is a controversial and underinvestigated area of study. Many researchers and clinicians have suggested that the pervasive and manipulative nature of the disorder makes it unlikely that psychopathic individuals can benefit from treatment. It is of concern that the primary characteristics of psychopathy (e.g., manipulation, deceit, and shallow affect) result in low treatment compliance and efficacy. To elaborate on this point, Ivan Zinger and Adelle Forth (1998) contend that the pessimistic views of treating the psychopath derive from three primary sources. First, Hervey Cleckley’s description of the psychopath’s inability to form affective relationships considered necessary for effective treatment was influential. Second, psychopaths who cause substantial harm to society tend to decrease the compassion of clinicians, thereby reducing therapist motivation. Third, serious personality disorders have often been considered intractable by many clinicians. Zinger and Forth also argued that these views are entrenched in the minds of both mental health and legal professionals, resulting in few objective efforts to examine treatment amenability in psychopaths. Despite these early concerns, recently there has been renewed interest in examining the treatment of psychopathy, as some researchers believe that treatment gains are possible if the modality and dosage of treatment are suited to the disorder. Recent advances in the treatment of other personality disorders also spurred a renewed interest in the treatment of psychopathy. Although contemporary research suggests that the field has been overly pessimistic about the prognosis for treating psychopathy, there are few well-controlled studies on the topic. It is therefore difficult to draw firm conclusions either way with respect to treatment outcomes. Randy Salekin first shed light on the psychopathytreatment relation by conducting a meta-analysis on 42 studies. The results of that study indicated that psychopathic individuals could show some benefit from psychotherapy; however, the treatment had to be intensive and typically involved both the psychopath and family members. Although the quality of the studies in the meta-analysis was somewhat limited, the review underscored two important points: (1) there was no evidence for psychopathy being considered an untreatable disorder and (2) there was a need for a second generation of research on the topic. Salekin’s review and meta-analysis also highlighted several problematic

areas that would need resolution before the field could move forward with a more informative generation of research. These problems included definitional concerns, an unclear etiology of psychopathy, and few controlled treatment-outcome studies. Each of these concerns is reviewed in further detail below.

Defining Features Most problematic has been disagreement about the conceptualization and defining features of psychopathy. Hervey Cleckley offered a well-accepted early version of psychopathy. However, this version was replaced in the Diagnostic and Statistical Model (DSM) with a behavioral model for antisocial personality disorder. Lee Robins and Robert Cloninger suggested that antisocial personality disorder (i.e., psychopathy) might be best measured by examining behavior rather than personality because the assessment of personality was less reliable. Robert Hare offered a two-factor model for psychopathy that incorporated both Cleckley’s personality model of psychopathy and behavioral aspects similar to those outlined in Robins and Cloninger’s work. While these theorists purport to be assessing the same construct, the items of each model differ significantly, complicating the psychopathy (antisocial personality) treatment-outcome question. That is, depending on the model used, psychopathy might be more or less treatable. However, there is little in the way of systematic research to shed light on the treatment potential for each of the different models. Whatever the chosen model, current diagnostic systems (e.g., DSM-IV-TR [fourth edition, text revision], International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision [ICD-10]) use cutoff points for diagnosing disorders, resulting in various permutations for a given disorder. This is pertinent to psychopathy research and practice because certain characteristics might be more resistant to treatment. For instance, “absence of nervousness,” “manipulation,” “deceitfulness,” or other factors might be of most concern for treatment. To elaborate on this point, absence of nervousness, a cardinal feature of early definitions, may generate the hypothesis that psychopathy is difficult to treat; however, because the cutoff scores are set low on some measures (DSM-APD [antisocial personality disorder]) and moderate to high on others (PCL–R), it might mean that some individuals classified as having the disorder do not exhibit the trait that would make them less amenable (absence of nervousness). Of

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equal concern, because few contemporary measures of psychopathy incorporate this feature, it is possible that newer indices may identify individuals who are amenable to treatment, even though they might be labeled as psychopathic. Thus, the mix of psychopathic characteristics could be very important in making determinations of amenability (unamenability). Even if all symptoms were to be accorded equal weight in the amenability question, it is difficult to know at what point individuals become unamenable to treatment. It is also not clear from other disorders (e.g., depression) that endorsing all possible symptoms results in a more untreatable condition. Even assuming that higher-scoring individuals are less amenable to treatment, there are no data to suggest that individuals scoring more than 30 on the PCL–R (the cutoff score most often used for adults) are the worst candidates for treatment. Assessment with such instruments rests on the assumption that all criteria carry equal weight (and this may not be the case as noted above) and that any combination of items that exceeds a predetermined cutoff score is sufficient to warrant diagnosis (and presumably a conclusion that the individual is unamenable to treatment). Thus, even the use of dimensional scores that may reflect degrees of treatment amenability (or unamenability) is not well tested. And, as mentioned, if items are not of equal weight in answering amenability queries, such a perspective would not alleviate the potential for particular symptoms to have more or less effect on treatment amenability.

Etiology The etiology for psychopathy is not well understood. Even for proposed theories, the specific linkage between etiology and treatment is not always well developed or articulated. What we do know is that the majority of prominent theories suggest a predisposition to the disorder. Specifically, temperamental style, low fearfulness, deficiency in psychopathy constraint, or a similar deficit, are frequently mentioned. Psychopathy researchers have also begun to show a genetic link to the disorder. Other theories suggest that psychopathy develops through a specific set of environmental conditions (e.g., poor attachment due to maltreatment). There is little in the theories themselves, however, even those emphasizing genetic factors, that could rule out the potential for treatment.

In sum, theories regarding the etiology of psychopathy suggest that psychopathy may develop through predisposition, harsh environmental conditions, or the interaction of temperament and environment. Even individuals with a particular temperamental style interact with others in ways that can foster either detachment and aggression or attachment and prosocial behavior. Moreover, the acceptance of linear deterministic theories that ignore the potential multiple factors that affect the development of psychopathy and are unable to account for the complexity of psychopathy symptoms will not be helpful in designing treatment programs. Specifically, theories that focus on only one component, or aspect, of psychopathy (e.g., frontal lobe dysfunction, deficiency in serotonin, response modulation) without explicating other manifestations (e.g., superficial charm, good intelligence, manipulation) are overly simplistic. Theories will have to be more encompassing when accounting for the symptoms of psychopathy because theory hints at methods and targets for intervention. For example, many of the current theories point toward parental practices and contextual factors as targets for potentially successful intervention. Or some theories suggest notifying psychopaths of their deficits in therapy so that they can begin to try to alter them.

Treatment-Outcome Studies Another area of concern with respect to the treatment of psychopathy is that there are not many well-controlled treatment-outcome studies. The meta-analysis mentioned earlier showed that there may be some treatment effect for psychopathic individuals. Specifically, treatment may be beneficial if it is intensive and of long duration. This meta-analysis also found that youths evidenced the most gain from psychotherapy and that incorporating family and other support groups into treatment appeared to be helpful. This review and meta-analysis suggested that, like individuals with other disorders, psychopaths probably show moderate and incremental change over time rather than a complete transformation. Although this study suggested that a second generation of research was needed on this topic, few subsequent studies have been conducted. Specifically, very few studies have systematically examined the treatment response differences between psychopaths and nonpsychopaths. In those that have, psychopathic traits tend to be seen as

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predicting early termination or poor treatment performance rather than targets for intervention themselves. This is particularly evident in the substance abuse literature, where the primary intervention target is substance use rather than psychopathy or psychopathic traits, even after numerous studies have demonstrated that psychopaths show fewer treatment gains using traditional interventions for substance use. Despite the limitations, these studies have a few hopeful findings that deserve greater attention. First, several programs found some positive benefits from treatment, even for individuals with high levels of psychopathy. Second, longer, more intensive treatments generally showed better effects, consistent with the view of psychopathy as a pervasive and destructive personality disorder. The primary conclusion we can draw from past work in this area is that much more intensive and thoughtful research is needed if we are to further facilitate practice with psychopathic individuals. At present, there are few specific programs designed for treating psychopathy itself, and there are mixed findings regarding behavior and compliance while in treatment. It would be naive to conclude that treatment would not be difficult, particularly given what we know about the treatment of other severe forms of psychopathology; however, it is equally naive to conclude that psychopaths cannot benefit from treatment simply because of the complexity of the disorder. Working between these two extremes, the literature reviewed above indicates that more research is needed to study the risk, protective, and causal factors of psychopathy as well as to begin intervention development. Ultimately, the goal should be to test the efficacy and effectiveness of informed treatment programs.

Directions for Future Studies In many clinical settings, psychopaths are seen as untreatable despite a lack of scientific support for this claim. Three problem areas are clear from the research that exists on the topic. First, classification is a critical issue with regard to treatment. Further clarity regarding the features of the disorder is necessary to accurately assess treatment amenability. This clarity can be gained in part by specifying the conceptualization of psychopathy used in treatment-outcome studies as well as the specific symptomatology present that makes it difficult (or easy) to treat them. Also necessary for understanding treatment effectiveness is work on the temporal stability

of psychopathy. Few studies have examined the psychopathy-treatment relation from contemporary concepts of the disorder or compared treatment effects across broad models. In a meta-analysis by Salekin, the Cleckley psychopath was the most frequently investigated conceptualization of psychopathy in treatmentoutcome studies, yet most current research uses Hare’s conceptualization of psychopathy. Given that his definition differs from Cleckley’s, treatment-outcome studies that employ this definition are necessary, particularly if psychologists are to make statements about treatment amenability based on the PCL–R. Third, to better understand the psychopathy-treatment relation, several issues should be addressed in future studies. Treatment programs specifically aimed at reducing psychopathic characteristics should be developed and ought to be based on theory regarding the etiology and maintenance of psychopathy. These studies should be controlled and systematic to determine the effectiveness of different treatment modalities. For example, researchers should use psychopathy instruments pre- and posttreatment to examine the changes in symptom level, and raters should be blind to previous scores or intervention group membership. These studies should also investigate whether external criteria, such as recidivism and conduct problems, are reduced following treatment. This type of information would inform psychologists whether there is evidence that psychological change implies reduced risk of reoffending. In addition, in light of the characteristics of psychopathy, research needs to evaluate the possibility that clients are “faking good” rather than showing evidence of substantive changes in psychopathic traits. In sum, the literature on the treatment of psychopathy has changed from pessimistic to cautiously optimistic with the notion that carefully designed and focused interventions may be able to produce measurable change in psychopathic individuals. Through careful design and evaluation of treatment intervention programs, it is hoped that the second generation of research on treatment outcomes will allow for earlier, more effective intervention with psychopathic individuals to reduce the high societal cost of persistent offending. The eventual goal should be to use theories of etiology to initiate prevention and intervention efforts before the development of the disorder causes the individual, and society, substantive harm. Randall T. Salekin and Ross D. Grimes

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See also Conduct Disorder; Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R); Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV); Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV); Psychopathy; Risk-SophisticationTreatment Inventory (RSTI)

Further Readings

Cleckley, H. (1941). The mask of sanity. St Louis, MO: Mosby. Cloninger, C. R. (1978). The antisocial personality. Hospital Practice, 13, 97–106. Hare, R. D. (2003). The Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd ed.). Toronto, ON, Canada: Multi Health Systems. Robins, L. N. (1966). Deviant children grown up: A sociological and psychiatric study of sociopathic personality. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins. Salekin, R. T. (2002). Psychopathy and therapeutic pessimism: Clinical lore or clinical reality? Clinical Psychology Review, 22, 79–112. Salekin, R. T., Rogers, R., & Machin, D. (2001). Psychopathy in youth: Pursuing diagnostic clarity. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 30, 173–195. Zinger, I., & Forth, A. E. (1998). Psychopathy and Canadian criminal proceedings: The potential for human rights abuses. Canadian Journal of Criminology, 40, 237–276.

PSYCHOPATHY CHECKLIST–REVISED See HARE PSYCHOPATHY CHECKLIST–REVISED (2ND EDITION) (PCL–R)

PSYCHOPATHY CHECKLIST: SCREENING VERSION See HARE PSYCHOPATHY CHECKLIST: SCREENING VERSION (PCL:SV)

PSYCHOPATHY CHECKLIST: YOUTH VERSION See HARE PSYCHOPATHY CHECKLIST: YOUTH VERSION (PCL:YV)

PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS The term psychosis was first used in the medical literature by Ernest von Feuchtersleben in his textbook Principles of Medical Psychology (1847). Originally, the concept was defined broadly to include any impairment of the higher mental functions. Starting in the late 1800s, psychopathologists such as Emil Kraepelin, Eugen Bleuler, and Kurt Schneider began to differentiate specific psychotic disorders on the basis of their symptomatology and course. According to contemporary views, psychotic disorders are psychopathological conditions characterized primarily by profound disturbances in cognition, perception, emotion, and volition that result in severe psychosocial dysfunction, including inability to meet the demands of daily life, and impaired reality testing.

Symptomatology Psychotic disorders comprise literally scores of symptoms, many of which have a variety of distinct manifestations. The symptoms are not specific and occasionally can be observed in other disorders, including cognitive disorders and mood disorders. Psychotic symptoms can be categorized into four broad categories, according to functional domain. Disturbances of Cognition. These can be divided into disturbances of thought content (i.e., what a person thinks or talks about) versus disturbances of thought form (i.e., the way in which a person thinks or speaks). Symptoms related to thought content include delusions (beliefs held with certainty that are demonstrably false and culturally abnormal) and ideation (overvalued beliefs). Specific symptoms that occur with some frequency include thought insertion (others are placing thoughts in the person’s head), thought withdrawal (thoughts are being taken out of the person’s head), thought broadcasting (others can hear the person’s thoughts), misidentification (others are impersonating the person’s loved ones), and thoughts of reference (ordinary occurrences have a special meaning or were arranged just for the person). Disturbances of thought content are often characterized according to thematic content (e.g., persecutory, grandiose, erotomanic, jealous, somatic, or nihilistic) or according to whether they are bizarre (strange and impossible, totally implausible), fixed (stable over time), and systematized (complex and internally coherent).

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Symptoms related to thought form include loose associations (jumping quickly from topic to topic), tangentiality (keeps wandering off the topic), circumstantiality (speech is only indirectly relevant to the topic being discussed), derailment (loses track of the topic completely), perseveration (keeps returning to the same topic), thought blocking (abruptly stops talking), neologisms (makes up new words), clanging (speech is full of rhymes), pressured speech (talks quickly and loudly), incoherence (speech is unintelligible), and echolalia (repeating words spoken by others). Disturbances of Perception. These also can be divided into two major types. First, hallucinations are sensations in the absence of an external stimulus. They may occur in any sensory modality. The most common are auditory (e.g., hearing voices that other people can’t hear, often several people conversing in negative terms with or about the person or telling the person what to do) and visual (e.g., seeing things that other people can’t see, such as lurking strangers, ghosts, or visions). Second, depersonalization and derealization are abnormalities in perception of self and the environment, respectively. Depersonalization often involves “out-of-body” experiences (e.g., people perceive that their minds have left their bodies and are floating around the room or that they no longer have control over the movement of their own bodies). Derealization, in contrast, often involves the perception that the outside world is unreal or a sham (e.g., other people are automatons). Disturbances of Emotion. These involve either the absence of normal affect or the presence of abnormal affect. Symptoms of the first type include blunted affect or poverty of affect (a restricted range and depth of emotional displays), anhedonia (loss of feelings of pleasure), and flat affect (near-complete absence of emotion). Symptoms of the second type include perplexity (confusion or uncertainty about what is going on), stormy affect (intense and labile emotions), incongruity (emotional displays that are apparently opposite to the tone of the topic being discussed), and silly affect (emotional displays that are unrelated to the topic being discussed and are often perceived as immature or juvenile). Disturbances of Volition. These involve difficulties with voluntary, purposive behavior. Symptoms related to problems making plans and carrying out goal-directed

activity include abulia or avolition (inactivity), apathy (ambivalence or loss of interest), anergia (loss of energy), autism or social withdrawal (failure to interact with other people), self-neglect (neglect of one’s own health and hygiene), negativism (ignoring the directions of others, resisting attempts to be moved by maintaining a rigid posture), and alogia or mutism (not speaking at all). Symptoms related to disturbance of behavioral tone, also known as catatonic symptoms, include hypertonia (overactivity, such as moving a lot or moving quickly) and hypotonia or catalepsy (underactivity, such as moving rarely, moving slowly, and waxy flexibility). Disturbances of purposeful activity include mannerisms (strange gestures or movements, such as walking on tiptoe or wiggling the fingers), stereotypies (repetitive, tic-like movements or vocalizations, such as constantly rubbing one’s head or barking like a dog), grimaces, posturing (assuming strange poses, such as standing with one leg in the air or sitting with arms extended), echopraxia (repeating the movements of others), and bizarre behavior (e.g., masturbating in public, eating inedible substances, playing with feces). Symptom Clusters. Clinical observation and research have found that certain psychotic symptoms frequently co-occur. There are at least three distinct syndromes (i.e., symptom clusters). Positive symptoms are pathological by their presence—things such as delusions, hallucinations, stormy affect, and mannerisms. Negative symptoms are pathological by their absence; examples are poverty of speech, poverty of affect, and social withdrawal. Disorganization symptoms reflect impairment in the regulation or coordination of basic psychological functions— for example, incoherence, silly affect, and bizarre behavior.

Contemporary Classification The classification of psychotic disorders is based on symptomatology, course, and etiology. In the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-IV, psychotic disorders are grouped under the heading “Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders” and comprise a number of specific conditions. Schizophrenia is characterized by a progressive or insidious onset (the prodromal phase), during which

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negative symptoms predominate presentation. This is followed after a period of months or even years by a period of acute exacerbation (the active phase) lasting a month or longer, during which positive and disorganization symptoms predominate. In the majority (about 80%) of cases the course is chronic, characterized by at least some persistent negative symptoms (the residual phase) as well as the occasional recurrence of positive or disorganization symptoms. The total duration of symptoms (prodromal plus active plus residual phases) should be at least 6 months. The symptoms should occur in the absence of prominent symptoms of depression or mania and should not be the result of substance intoxication or withdrawal or of general medical conditions. A number of commonly occurring subtypes of schizophrenia have been identified based on their primary symptomatology, including Paranoid Type (prominent delusions or hallucinations), Catatonic Type (prominent disturbances of volition), Disorganized Type (prominent disorganization symptoms), Residual Type (prominent negative symptoms), and Undifferentiated Type (doesn’t fit one of the other types). Age of onset is typically between 15 and 45 years; onset is about 5 years earlier in males than in females. Schizophrenia can have a debilitating affect on social adjustment, including impaired occupational functioning; failure to establish intimate relationships and reduced fertility; increased mortality owing to suicide, accident, and illness; and elevated risk of serious violence. In about 50% of cases, there is little or no improvement in social adjustment over time; in about 30%, there is substantial improvement; and in about 20%, there is good recovery or remission. Good prognosis is associated with having achieved adequate social functioning prior to onset of the disorder (e.g., absence of premorbid personality disorder), acute onset (e.g., short prodromal phase, onset following experience of a major life stressor), the presence of abnormal affect (e.g., stormy affect, perplexity, confusion), the absence of blunted or flat affect, and the absence of a family history of schizophrenia. Early detection and treatment may also be associated with good prognosis. Schizophreniform Disorder. This differs from schizophrenia only with respect to its course. Whereas the total duration of symptoms in schizophrenia is at least 6 months, in schizophreniform disorder it is at least 1 month but less than 6 months. Two subtypes are recognized, With or Without Good Prognostic Features; the former may be associated with a full return to

premorbid social functioning, whereas the latter may develop into full-blown schizophrenia (if psychotic symptoms persist or recur). Brief Psychotic Disorder. This differs from schizophrenia and schizophreniform disorder in that the total duration of symptoms for all phases is less than 1 month, followed by a full return to premorbid social and occupational functioning. Three subtypes are recognized: Two subtypes, With and Without Marked Stressors, are diagnosed according to whether symptom onset occurs shortly after and apparently in response to stressful life events; the third, With Postpartum Onset, is diagnosed in women when symptom onset occurs within 4 weeks of giving birth. Schizoaffective Disorder. This differs from schizophrenia only in that at some point during the active phase of the illness, the person also suffers from prominent symptoms of depression or mania (i.e., meets criteria for a major depressive, manic, or mixed episode) but has had a period of at least 2 weeks in which delusions or hallucinations were present in the absence of mood symptoms. Two subtypes are recognized, based on the nature of the mood symptoms: Bipolar Type, if the mood disturbance includes at least some symptoms of mania, and Depressive Type, if the mood disturbance is limited to symptoms of depression. Schizoaffective disorder is associated with a better long-term prognosis than schizophrenia, although with a worse prognosis than mood disorders such as major depressive disorder or bipolar I disorder. Delusional Disorder. This is characterized by prominent nonbizarre delusions that persist for at least 1 month. The person may also exhibit prominent olfactory or tactile hallucinations related to the content of the delusions. The delusions should occur in the absence of prominent auditory or visual hallucinations and the absence of prominent mood symptoms, and they should not be the result of substance intoxication or withdrawal or of general medical conditions. Seven subtypes are recognized, based on the predominant theme of the delusions: Erotomanic, Grandiose, Jealous, Persecutory, Somatic, Mixed, and Unspecified Type. Delusional disorder may cause only limited or restricted disturbance of psychosocial functioning. Shared Psychotic Disorder. This is diagnosed when the person develops delusions similar to those exhibited by a close acquaintance who suffers from a psychotic

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disorder. The delusions should occur in the absence of prominent mood symptoms and should not be the result of substance intoxication or withdrawal or of general medical conditions. Psychotic Disorder Due to a General Medical Condition. This is characterized by prominent delusions or hallucinations that arose during or shortly after and apparently in response to the physiological result of a general medical illness, which has been confirmed by history, physical examination, or laboratory findings. The symptoms should not occur only during periods of clouded consciousness (i.e., delirium). Two subtypes are recognized, With Delusions and With Hallucinations, based on which psychotic symptoms are predominant. Substance-Induced Psychotic Disorder. This is identical to Psychotic Disorder Due to a General Medical Condition, except that history, physical examination, or laboratory findings indicate that the symptoms arose during or shortly after and apparently in response to substance intoxication or withdrawal. Two subtypes are recognized, With Onset During Intoxication and With Onset During Withdrawal.

Epidemiology The lifetime prevalence of psychotic disorders in the general population is about 3% to 4%; the most common psychotic disorder is schizophrenia, with a lifetime prevalence of about 1% to 2%. Psychotic symptoms occur with much greater frequency; the lifetime prevalence of isolated delusions of hallucinations may be as high as 4% to 8%, and the lifetime prevalence of any psychotic symptom may be as high as 10% to 20%. The prevalence of psychotic disorders apparently varies little across nations, although within various nations, they may be diagnosed more often among members of ethnocultural minority groups and among recent immigrants. There is evidence of a small gender difference, with slightly higher rates among men than among women.

Etiology Considerable research indicates the importance of neurobiological factors in the etiology of psychotic disorders, most likely as vulnerabilities or predisposing factors. Behavioral genetic studies indicate that psychotic disorders, and especially schizophrenia, are substantially heritable; however, molecular genetic studies have not been successful in isolating which genes, or

even which chromosomes, are involved. The strength of the genetic contribution seems to vary as a function of the type of schizophrenia, with the strongest genetic loading associated with negative and disorganization symptoms. Many behavior geneticists agree that a polygenetic model is most likely, although there is also some support for a multifactorial model in which specific genes produce major effects and polygenes potentiate or insulate against the effects of the specific genes. Other studies have found that psychotic disorders are associated with a history of pregnancy and birth complications, including increased rates of maternal influenza in the second trimester, smoking and nutritional deprivation, and mother-child Rh incompatibility during pregnancy; obstetrical complications during delivery; and congenital abnormalities evident following delivery. Neuroimaging and postmortem studies have found an increased rate of structural brain abnormalities in people with psychotic disorders, as well as in their first-degree biological relatives, including enlarged ventricular and sulcal spaces; decreased brain volume, especially in the frontal and temporal regions, thalamus, amygdale, and hippocampus; reduced interregion connectivity; cytohistological abnormalities in the prefrontal and temporal regions, thalamus, hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus; and changes in regional activity during performance of cognitive tasks. Pharmacological studies indicate that disturbances of the dopaminergic neurotransmitter system in the brain (e.g., elevated frequency and activity of dopamine receptors) may be related to positive psychotic symptoms, whereas the serotonergic and glutamate systems may be related to both positive and negative symptoms. Psychosocial factors may also be important in the etiology of psychotic disorders, most likely as triggers or precipitating factors. Life event studies indicate that active phases of psychotic disorders—both first episodes and recurrences—may occur shortly after, and apparently in reaction to, major life stressors. Also, a high level of negative expressed emotion in close personal relationships is associated with increased risk for development of psychotic disorders, as well as the recurrence of active phases. Both these factors, however, may be of limited importance in the absence of a neurobiological vulnerability or predisposition.

Treatment Pharmacological treatments have been used for more than 50 years during the active phase of psychotic disorders. In the 1950s through the 1970s, the mechanism

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of action of antipsychotic agents (e.g., phenothiazines, butyrophenones, thioxanthenes) was blockade of D2 dopamine receptors. These “typical” antipsychotics resulted in a substantial reduction of positive symptoms (and, to a lesser extent, disorganization symptoms) in about 60% of cases, limited reduction in about 30% of cases, and no response in about 10% of cases. Maintenance doses also helped reduce the recurrence of active phases. But typical antipsychotics had a minimal effect on negative symptoms and were associated with a high rate of serious side effects, including sedation and movement disorders. In the 1980s, “atypical” antipsychotics (e.g., clozapine, amisulpiride) were introduced. Their mechanism of action is more widespread than that of typical antipsychotics; they affect the serotonergic and adrenergic systems, in addition to the dopaminergic system. Atypical antipsychotics are at least as effective as typical antipsychotics in reducing positive symptoms (even in cases where typical antipsychotics are ineffective), and they may also reduce negative symptoms. They also have serious negative side effects, however, and are very expensive. The effectiveness of pharmacological treatment has greatly reduced the use of other, more invasive somatic treatment, such as electroconvulsive therapy and prefrontal lobotomy; it has also greatly reduced the frequency of long-term institutionalization. Psychosocial interventions are frequently used to manage active symptoms, reduce active symptoms that are refractory to pharmacological treatment, improve social functioning following an active phase, and reduce the risk of recurrence. Institutionalization or respite care is used when it is difficult to deliver appropriate services in the community and when risk of suicide or violence is acute. Psycho-educational programs for patients and their families are used to improve compliance with other treatments and to reduce the rate of relapse. Cognitive behavioral therapy is used to manage active psychotic symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, as well as to improve compliance with other treatment. “Dual disorder” or “co-occurring disorder” programs are used to treat symptoms of substance use disorders in people who also suffer from psychotic disorders. Rehabilitation and social skills programs are used to improve interpersonal and occupational functioning. Most often, treatment of psychotic disorders is longterm and multimodal: Pharmacological interventions are used in combination with one or more psychosocial interventions. Delivery of services may be most effective when coordinated using assertive case management techniques.

Forensic Relevance In the law, competency to make important decisions typically requires that the person can accurately perceive the environment, rationally manipulate information about the environment, and communicate desires and intentions to others. These specific decision-making capacities may be impaired by the presence of psychotic symptoms, especially positive and disorganization symptoms. For this reason, psychotic disorders are particularly important in psycholegal evaluations of adjudicative competencies (e.g., stand trial, waive the right to counsel, confess) and culpability in criminal settings and evaluations of other competencies (e.g., consent to treatment, testify, make wills, sign contracts) in civil settings. For example, research on adjudicative competencies and culpability indicates that as many as 80% to 90% of people who are found legally incompetent, or nonculpable, may suffer from psychotic disorders or from other disorders (e.g., cognitive or mood disorders) with prominent psychotic symptoms. With respect to the ability to control one’s behavior, the law typically requires that the person can freely form goals or intentions appropriate to the situation; develop plans to achieve those goals; and implement, evaluate, and modify those plans as necessary. These specific capacities also may be impaired by psychotic symptoms of all types. In criminal settings, psychotic disorders may be important in psycholegal evaluations of culpability and in civil matter evaluations of other competencies (e.g., consent to treatment, testify, make wills, sign contracts) in civil settings. In both criminal and civil settings, an issue of particular concern is serious violence associated with psychotic symptoms, particularly positive and disorganization symptoms. In some cases, the nature of the psychotic symptoms is directly related to the violence (e.g., a person with persecutory delusions assaults someone he believes is trying to poison him); in others, the psychotic symptoms interact with other factors (e.g., substance use) to generally destabilize social adjustment and increase interpersonal conflict that may result in violence. Research suggests that psychotic disorders cause a twofold increase in the odds that a person will engage in serious violence. Stephen D. Hart and Laura S. Guy See also Delusions; Hallucinations

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Further Readings

Jibson, M. D., Glick, I. D., & Tandon, R. (2004). Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Focus, 2, 17–30. Lieberman, J. A., Stroup, T. S., & Perkins, D. O. (Eds.). (2006). The American Psychiatric Publishing textbook of schizophrenia. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.

PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT CRIME Hundreds of research studies that have examined a wide range of topics on public perception about crime support the conclusion that citizens generally are not well-informed about this issue. For example, the public perceived that crime rates for several different types of crime were increasing during times when in fact those crime rates were decreasing or remaining stable. The public also overestimates the proportion of crime that is violent and makes incorrect generalizations about the types of crimes most commonly committed by specific ethnic groups. Furthermore, people hold many stereotypes about specific crimes that are inconsistent with the types of cases that come through the courts and with how those crimes are defined in statutes. Jurors with these misperceptions often acquit atypical cases or recommend less severe charges. There is consensus across different cultures and countries that violent crimes are more serious than property crimes, which in turn are perceived as more serious than drug or victimless crimes. Despite public consensus on relative seriousness, criminal laws in Canada and the United States provide higher maximum jail sentences for some property crimes, such as grand larceny, than for violent crimes, such as fondling a child or inflicting moderate injuries on a person with the intent to harm. All social groups also attributed greater importance to environmental factors than to individual dispositional or mental factors as general explanations for why crimes occur. Given the potential influence of public perceptions, this entry reviews research addressing the following questions: (a) To what extent are the public’s general beliefs about crime consistent with the nature and severity of reported crime? (b) How much agreement exists in the public’s views about the seriousness of specific criminal acts, and how well does the criminal law mirror public views about the seriousness of different crimes? (c) Based on the accumulated research, what are the nature of the public’s stereotypes and the

extent to which these stereotypes are consistent with the caseload of the criminal justice system and with how laws are defined?

Public Views of the Severity and Amount of Crime Systematic national survey research in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Spain, and the United States, has shown that the public is not well-informed about the nature of crime. In the 1990s, when reported violent crime showed a significant decrease, the majority of the public believed that violent crime was increasing. Studies that have compared citizens’ estimates of crime rates with police data have repeatedly found that the public overestimates the amount of theft, fraud, burglary, rapes, and violent crime. The majority also overestimates the proportion of crime that is violent; for example, violent crime comprises about 10% of the crime reported to the police, but the majority estimated that violent crime accounted for 30% or more. The majority also indicated that specific crimes, such as murder or burglary, were increasing during times when the system actually showed a decline. Most people also substantially overestimate the percentage of offenders released from prison who commit another serious crime. Whereas 30% to 40% of offenders released are arrested again for another serious crime, the majority of the public believes that about 60% to 75% commit additional serious crimes. The gap, of course, between public estimates and official police data is quite large, and the difference between reported crime and the actual commission of serious crimes may not entirely account for the difference. The news media’s reporting of serious crimes and released prisoners committing new serious crimes also may contribute to the public’s overestimates of the amount and severity of crime.

Public’s Ranking of the Seriousness of Offenses Researchers and professionals often assume that criminal laws and their associated punishment match public opinion concerning the relative moral wrongfulness and harmfulness of different crimes. This model, called the consensual model, assumes that societal members of different gender, social class, and ethnicities agree about what values should be protected and

656———Public Opinion About Crime

the wrongfulness of certain acts. This model assumes that the public should determine what is and is not a crime or a serious crime, and public support and compliance with the law will be ensured if the laws mirror public views. Research on crime seriousness has been conducted for more than 40 years. This research started with the belief that a scale of seriousness of different crimes could inform police, prosecutorial, and judicial responses to crime, and by matching public and professional responses to crime, the public’s confidence in the system would be warranted. To determine whether the consensual model could describe how crimes are defined and justice administered in society, researchers tested whether the public agreed about the seriousness of different acts. Much research has found that the public perceives violent crime as more serious than property crimes, which in turn were perceived as more serious than public-order and victimless crime. Moreover, comparisons across Great Britain, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Kuwait, Norway, and the United States indicated that people from different cultures generally agree about which crimes are more serious than other crimes. Americans and Kuwaitis, however, perceived rape to be more serious than robbery or aggravated battery, whereas respondents from the Scandinavian countries and Great Britain indicated that these offenses had the same level of seriousness. Overall, there is more agreement than disagreement across countries in the relative seriousness of different offenses. Men and women, individuals of different social classes and ethnicities, victims and nonvictims, and incarcerated offenders and nonoffenders also agree on the relative ranking of different crimes, with the exception of murder and rape. Women generally have rated rape as more serious than murder, whereas men rated murder as more serious than rape. Though the public demonstrates high consensus about the relative ranking of different categories of crime, there is considerably less consensus about which specific types of white-collar, victimless, and minor property crimes are more serious within each of these crime categories. For example, there is less consensus about, and changes across time in, the relative seriousness of different forms of white-collar crimes, such as tax fraud and price fixing. The public shows more agreement about the relative ranking of different acts of violence, which may partly be due to its greater familiarity with violent acts. In ranking the seriousness of different criminal acts, the public considers the seriousness of physical injuries, offenders’ intent, and

offenders’ prior criminal record; crimes that are intentional and committed by repeat offenders are perceived as more serious. Do members of the public, legislators, and criminal justice professionals hold similar views about the relative seriousness of different crimes? Research has found that even though the public ranks all forms of violence as more serious than property crimes; criminal laws in Canada and the United States provide higher maximum punishments for some property crimes, such as car theft and grand larceny, than for violent crimes such as fondling a child and punching an intimate partner. Legislators in enacting criminal laws thus have not mirrored the public’s views of crime seriousness and give greater priority to protecting property than to personal dignity and freedom from injury, whereas the public has the opposite priorities. Studies also have found that the public, compared with police officers, agreed on the relative seriousness of different crime categories but differed in the absolute seriousness of specific crimes. For example, the public, compared with police officers, provided a higher seriousness rating to white-collar crimes and statutory rape (i.e., an adult having sex with a consenting minor) and a lower seriousness rating to residential burglary. Both the police and the public regarded street crimes as very serious, but the public also was concerned with white-collar crimes and statutory rape.

Public’s Stereotypes of Crimes and Criminals People tend to believe that crime is committed by a small, easily identifiable group of criminals who are very likely to commit further crimes in the future. The majority of the public blame society, unemployment, neighborhood problems, and lack of parental supervision as the major causes of crime, whereas about one third perceive individuals as solely responsible for their criminal acts and explain crime in terms of lack of morals, drug use, and mental or personality problems. More highly educated and self-identified liberal individuals and younger individuals generally attribute more importance to societal inequities, such as unemployment and discrimination, in explaining the high crime rates than do conservatives and older respondents. Despite these differences across backgrounds, all social groups assigned greater importance to environmental factors than to individual dispositional or mental factors as explanations for why crimes generally occurred.

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Stereotypes of specific offenses are widespread and influence (a) public responses as to how to control crime, (b) jurors’ interpretation of evidence and verdicts, and (c) eyewitnesses’ accounts and recall of crimes. Stereotypes consist of visual images and detailed information about how the crime happens; the harm done; appropriate sanctions; and offenders’ motives, dangerousness, intent, and social background. Respondents are agreed on which pictures of men look like criminals and often describe criminals as young, unattractive males. Race also is often part of the public’s stereotypes. When the public thinks of violent criminals, it often imagines young African American adults who have quit high school, are associated with gangs, and are unemployed or work in unskilled jobs. The public imagines that African Americans generally commit violent street crimes and Caucasians commit white-collar crimes; swindlers are pictured as intelligent male professionals in their thirties. In accordance with probation data, the public and probation officers agreed that the typical burglar is single, unemployed, and a high school dropout. Respondents also agree on the facial features of rapists, murderers, battered women who kill their abusers, and robbers, suggesting that many people may have visual images associated with their stereotypes about specific crimes. These distorted stereotypic images of specific types of offenders may interfere with witnesses’ accurate recall of specific crimes. Jurors often rely on information in stereotypes to draw inferences from evidence that is presented at trials and to decide whether defendants should be acquitted or convicted. The public obtains information about crime from the media, personal experiences, and interpersonal conversation. For many citizens, the news and entertainment media are the primary source of information about different crimes, and cultural stereotypes of specific crimes provide exaggerated information about the severity of the typical crime. For example, research shows that the public’s stereotype of the typical burglar is a man who carries a weapon, steals valuables worth several thousand dollars, and ransacks the place, which is not consistent with the characteristics of burglary cases that come to the attention of the police. Research demonstrates that individuals holding exaggerated stereotypes often acquit offenders who commit atypical burglary, such as forced entry into a building with the intent to commit another felony but without taking any property. The public also incorrectly labels the forced entry into a home to take property when

victims are not present as a robbery rather than a burglary. Based on experimental studies using detailed cases and open-ended questions, the majority of the public also holds misconceptions about robbery, assault, rape, and kidnapping, which may affect verdicts. The public also holds several misconceptions about battered women and rape victims, which calls for introducing expert testimony to correct jurors’ misconceptions. For example, jurors were not wellinformed about battered women’s emotions, the batterer’s propensity to make promises to change and persuade the victim to stay, and the victim’s propensity to self-blame or to predict when she is about to be attacked. Individuals often hold many myths about rape. Consistent with media stories, the majority of the public agreed that the most credible rape involves a stranger accosting a woman on the street with a weapon and inflicting injuries, and the least credible were marital rape or instances in which the victim willingly left with the acquaintance and the rape involved no weapon. Individuals, however, may differ in their personal stereotypes about crime through acquiring information from interpersonal conversations and direct experience. Research shows that when individuals acquire information about burglaries and muggings from interpersonal conversations and direct experience, their stereotypes about these crimes are more consistent with the caseload handled by the criminal justice system. This research thus suggests that the public’s distorted stereotypes about specific crimes may be corrected through education and media campaigns that provide the public with a more representative sample of stories about crimes and criminals. Much research supports the influential role of public views about crime on verdict and punishment decisions; such influence is problematic given the misconceptions that the public holds. Loretta J. Stalans See also Jury Decisions Versus Judges’ Decisions; Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration; Story Model for Juror Decision Making

Further Readings

Finkel, N. (1996). Commonsense justice. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Roberts, J. V., & Stalans, L. J. (2000). Public opinion, crime and criminal justice. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

658———Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration

Smith, V. L. (1993). When prior knowledge and law collide: Helping jurors use the law. Law and Human Behavior, 17(5), 507–536. Stalans, L. J., & Lurigio, A. J. (1990). Lay and professional beliefs about crime and criminal sentencing: A need for theory, perhaps schema theory. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 17(3), 333–349.

PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT SENTENCING AND INCARCERATION Two contrasting images of the public have emerged from the literature on public attitudes toward sentencing: a punitive public that demands long prison terms and a merciful public that supports community-based sanctions after considering the seriousness of the offense and the perceived character and blameworthiness of the offender. Although politicians and the media insist that the public wants to impose tougher and longer prison sentences, research shows that public views about appropriate sentences are much more complex. For example, although the majority of the public claims courts are too lenient, research using detailed cases consistently finds that the public imposes less severe punishment than judges or sentencing statutes. This disjuncture in attitudes occurs because the public relies on easily recalled violent crimes to answer general questions about its satisfaction with the court’s sentencing. Moreover, the public wants more severe sentences for violent offenders but prefers community-based sanctions that can restore and rehabilitate nonviolent offenders. Thus, politicians and scholars must examine how the public arrives at sentencing attitudes to obtain a more accurate view of the public’s demands. This entry describes the findings from numerous studies that have examined whether public judgments about appropriate sentences are consistent with sentencing laws and practices. To fully understand the public’s conception of justice, this entry examines the inferences and beliefs that contribute to citizens’ views: their knowledge about sentencing options and prisons, their views of the primary goals of sentencing, and the effects of context and information on their decisions.

Public Knowledge About Sentencing, Parole, and Prisons Misperceptions of criminal justice statistics abound. The average member of the public tends to underestimate the severity of the sentencing process as well as the parole system. When asked to estimate the average sentence for a particular crime, many people provide a response that is lower than the actual level. This finding has emerged from research conducted in the United States, England, Canada, and Australia. The public also is unaware of which crimes require prison time and of the minimum or maximum prison time required by criminal statutes. These underestimates underlie public attitudes that there should be more congruency between the assigned sentence and the actual number of years served. In those countries that have parole, most people assume that almost all offenders get parole, when in fact only a small fraction are released from prison early. Although offenders sentenced to life often are released on parole after serving on average a decade or more in prison, the public overwhelming agrees that a life sentence should mean that the offender serves his or her natural life in prison. Since only a small percentage of the public has ever visited a prison, perceptions of prison life tend to be inaccurate, and the majority of the uninformed public indicated that prisons are too easy on offenders. Based on perceived public desires, several states have reduced many amenities for prisoners. However, when the public is informed about a variety of amenities and asked whether each specific amenity should be retained or eliminated, a different picture of public attitudes emerges. The majority of the public wants to retain educational, vocational, and psychological programs and also supports supervised visits with families, telephone calls, and air conditioning. The public is more selective in providing entertainment and recreational amenities. About 62% to 75% of the public would retain arts and crafts, basic television, basketball, conjugal visits with spouses, and college education programs. The majority of the public, however, supports eliminating boxing or martial arts, cable television, condoms, cigarettes, and pornography, including magazines such as Playboy. The public supports amenities that have rehabilitation potential or are useful for managing inmate behavior. The public, however, does not want prisoners to have amenities

Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration———659

for free that law-abiding, low-income citizens cannot afford. The public is not well-informed about communitybased sanctions. Research conducted in several countries, including England, Canada, Australia, the United States, and Germany, found that the majority of the public can provide a correct definition of community service but knows little about other community-based alternatives such as conditional sentences, probation, house arrest, and electronic monitoring. The public performed at chance level in identifying the correct definition of a conditional sentence. When asked about community-based sentences, over twothirds of adults mentioned restitution, while only onethird spontaneously mentioned probation as an alternative. Moreover, about one-quarter is completely unaware of probation as an alternative. Furthermore, research shows that the majority of respondents who were informed about the alternatives chose community-based sanctions, whereas uninformed respondents chose imprisonment. Thus, when the public is informed of the existence of alternatives to incarceration, support for imprisoning offenders declines considerably. These findings indicate that the public is unfamiliar with community-based sanctions but supports such sanctions, especially for nonviolent felonies. This lack of familiarity is not surprising given that community-based sanctions are not well publicized in the media and that prisons are much more salient, especially with the growth in the number of prisons and prisoners in recent decades.

Impact of Information on Crime and Justice Though the public lacks much knowledge about sentencing, research suggests that educating the public may change its top-of-the-head punitive responses. Based on deliberative polling after participants took part in a televised weekend event on the nature of crime and justice, the more punitive respondents, after receiving accurate information about crime and the justice system, became much less punitive and more supportive of community-based alternatives, and this attitude change lasted over a 10-month period. Researchers found that respondents who initially lacked knowledge about crime and justice were more likely to change their attitudes than those who were better informed.

General Versus Specific Questions About Sentencing How the question is asked also affects the public’s response. Opinion polls conducted in all Western nations over the past 25 years have routinely shown that approximately three quarters of the public says that sentences should be harsher. Research shows, however, that people recall atypical violent crimes when answering this abstract question. When asked about specific crimes, public views change. It is important, therefore, to pose specific rather than general questions to the public. This can be clearly illustrated with respect to the “three strikes” laws in the United States. Researchers have found strong general support for this law, which would mandate a lifetime prison sentence for an offender convicted of a serious felony for the third time. When specific cases are examined, the strong support for the “three strikes” statute remains only for offenders with three violent felony convictions. The public generally prefers a more flexible approach to sentencing that allows individualized judgments for each specific case and is uncomfortable with the mandatory lifetime prison sentence for repeat felony offenders. An examination of the public’s responses to detailed cases rather than general questions also is useful in understanding what goals the public wants to achieve in sentencing offenders. When asked to choose between punishment and rehabilitation, at least two thirds of Americans chose rehabilitation and prevention programs. At least two thirds of the public, when asked general questions that do not force a choice, assigned substantial importance to all five of the major goals of sentencing: retribution, rehabilitation, individual deterrence, general deterrence, and incapacitation (prevention of future crimes during the time in prison). Deterrence is achieved by providing offenders with severe enough punishment so that convicted offenders (individual) or potential offenders in society (general) refrain from committing future crimes. Thus, general questions do not provide sufficient information about what the public wants sentences to achieve. When specific, detailed cases are used, support for sentencing goals varies by offenders’ criminal history; offenders’ social, substance abuse, and employment history; and the type of crime. Much research suggests that the public supports proportional justice, in

660———Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration

which the severity of the sanction matches the severity of the harm done and the culpability of the offender. Research shows that retributive justice is the main goal that the public wants to achieve for serious violent crimes. However, felony murder laws and other laws that hold offenders who committed the crime (principals) and those who helped in less direct ways (accessories) to the same punishment also are incongruent with public views of justice. The public prefers that principals receive longer prison terms than accessories and thus negates the law’s equality principle in favor of proportional retributive justice. At the same time, for nonviolent offenders, the public supports restorative justice, which now is part of several countries’ sentencing schemes. Restorative justice emphasizes community-based sanctions that allow offenders to be reintegrated as productive, law-abiding citizens more easily but that require offenders to accept responsibility and make amends for the harm done, express sincere remorse, and provide restitution to the victims. Thus, community service and restitution that are directly related to the harm done are examples of restorative sanctions. Combinations of communitybased sanctions can be used to achieve restorative justice. Both restorative justice and retributive justice are based on fairness, though restorative justice considers fairness toward the victim, the offender, and society. Evidence for support of restorative justice is quite consistent throughout the world. For example, numerous studies have asked respondents to choose between community-based alternatives and prison in sentencing specific nonviolent criminal offenders; the majority of the public across European and North American countries chose community-based alternatives. Of the community-based sanctions, restitution and community service orders have the most support because these sanctions address the needs of the victim and allow close monitoring of the offender in the community, whereas standard probation is the least supported. For several years, from 1989 to 2000, the International Crime Victimization Survey asked respondents to sentence a repeat 21-year-old burglar. Almost three fourths of New Zealanders; about two thirds of residents of Australia, Britain, Canada, Finland, and the Netherlands; about half of U.S. citizens and Latin Americans; 40% of residents of Asian countries; and about 30% of residents of Africa recommended community-based alternatives (typically a community service order). In 15 Eastern European countries, endorsement of community service rather than imprisonment for the repeat burglar has increased across

time, with a divided public in 1992, but by 2000, about 72% of the public endorsed community service. These findings show widespread support for restorative justice for the serious property crime of burglary and suggest that Europeans have the strongest support, whereas less industrialized countries have the least support, for community-based alternatives.

Mandatory Minimum Prison Terms and Retributive Justice In recent decades, politicians have enacted statutes that provide longer mandatory minimum prison terms for many offenses or longer prison terms for repeat offenders. These statutes are based on the goal of retributive justice—providing punishment that is proportional to the seriousness and harmfulness of the offense. The public shows strong support for punishing adult offenders based on seriousness of the crime, particularly those convicted of serious crimes of violence. However, based on vignette and video studies, the public prefers more flexibility in meting out justice than retributive justice systems allow. The majority of the public attends to individual characteristics, such as the offender’s potential to be rehabilitated, employment status, criminal history, and so forth. For example, in response to realistic videotaped sentencing hearings, laypersons, compared with judges (and with statutorily required mandatory minimum prison terms), gave less severe sentences and were less likely to choose prison sentences for a repeat residential burglar, a cocaine dealer, and a mugger who caused an elderly woman to fall and break her hip when he stole her purse. Moreover, when offenders had a substance abuse problem and asked for treatment, laypersons overwhelmingly recommended court-mandated substance abuse treatment, whereas judges were more likely to recommend prison terms to achieve retributive justice or deterrence. Thus, researchers have characterized the public as supporting “individualized proportionality” in that the public assigns harsher punishment to more severe crimes but also considers the individual circumstances surrounding the crime in meting out justice. In the past three decades, the U.S. government has engaged in a “war on drugs”; national survey data indicate that the public is quite skeptical that this government effort will reduce crime rates and believes that the sentences are too severe. For example, the U.S. federal sentencing guidelines’ mandatory minimum prison time for drug possession is incongruent with the

Public Opinion About the Courts———661

public’s rehabilitation orientation and preference for probation for marijuana possession. Public leniency is shown in both hypothetical and real cases; many cases of defendants charged with possession of cocaine, crack, or marijuana have resulted in jury nullification. Interviews with jurors who acquitted defendants despite proof beyond a reasonable doubt indicate that these jury nullifications occurred because jurors believed that the federal sentencing guidelines imposed an unjust, too severe punishment. The majority also is willing to recommend treatment programs to small-time drug dealers but want prison terms for major drug dealers or small-time drug dealers who fail a second time. Americans also disagree with the provision in U.S. sentencing guidelines that adds a mandatory 9 years to drug-trafficking sentences when the drug is crack cocaine; they believe that drug traffickers should receive similar prison terms regardless of whether they are selling heroin, cocaine, or crack cocaine. The public supports punitive penal policies only when violence is associated with the drug trafficking and in these cases wants longer sentences than the U.S. sentencing guidelines allow. Although a strict retributive justice approach provides sanctions that are proportional to the amount of harm done and does not consider the offenders’ criminal history or background, the public supports harsher sentences (e.g., prison time) for recidivists than for first-time offenders. At the same time, the public is more forgiving than federal sentencing guidelines. When the guidelines’ recidivist premiums are compared with the public’s sentences assigned to detailed cases with a different number of prior convictions, the public appears to recommend shorter prison terms for recidivists than the guidelines allow. Moreover, the public overwhelmingly does not support life in prison without parole for an offender whose third strike is a felony property crime. The public clearly wants recidivists to receive more severe punishments, but its response is more tempered than recidivist-sentencing statutes. Loretta J. Stalans See also Death Penalty; Jury Decisions Versus Judges’ Decisions; Jury Nullification; Public Opinion About Crime Further Readings

Applegate, B. K. (2001). Penal austerity: Perceived utility, desert, and public attitudes toward prison amenities. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 25(2), 253–268.

Roberts, J. V., & Hough, M. (2004). Changing attitudes to punishment: Public opinion, crime and justice. Cullompton, UK: Willan. Roberts, J. V., & Stalans, L. J. (2004). Restorative sentencing: Exploring the views of the public. Social Justice Research, 17(3), 315–334. Roberts, J. V., Stalans, L. J., Indemaur, D., & Hough, M. (2003). Penal populism and public opinion: Lessons from five countries. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. Robinson, P. H., & Darley, J. M. (1995). Justice, liability & blame: Community views and the criminal law. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Rossi, P., & Berk, R. (1997). Just punishments. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT THE COURTS The study of public opinion about the courts is closely tied to concerns that date back to the Constitutional Convention. Then, and subsequently, it has been noted that while the executive branch has the power of the sword and the legislative branch the power of the purse, for compliance with its orders, the judiciary uniquely must rely on the public’s belief in its legitimacy. Public opinion today about the U.S. Supreme Court is different from public opinion about the other, “lower” courts; the U.S. Supreme Court enjoys consistently higher levels of confidence, support, and loyalty. This is often explained by reference to political and legal socialization, which inculcates loyalty to the Supreme Court. Other courts do not appear to benefit from such socialization. For the trial courts, with which the public can have direct contact, the public has modest levels of confidence, loyalty, and support. The lower courts need to continually demonstrate that they deserve the public’s compliance by making decisions through procedures that the public perceives as fair. African Americans are less likely than members of other groups to be persuaded that fair procedures are being used.

The Public’s Image of the Courts The level of public support for and confidence in the courts is best assessed in comparison with other public institutions. Both the U.S. Supreme Court and the lower courts tend to be ranked higher than the executive or legislative branches of government. The relative advantage is considerable for the U.S. Supreme

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Court and modest for other courts. Other courts tend to be rated lower than the police and similar to local schools and executive bodies but higher than legislative bodies and the mass media. The public is most critical of how courts handle juvenile and family cases and generally of the processing of cases in highvolume court venues such as traffic and small claims. The jury system is the most highly rated component of the courts. Former jurors, in turn, are the group most likely to hold positive views about the courts. The public, in general, knows very little about how the courts work and is not attentive to issues regarding the courts. Many public opinion surveys about the courts, virtually all concerning trial courts, have been carried out at the national and state levels over the past 30 years. What emerges from the accumulation of confidence survey findings is a national stereotype that does not vary greatly from state to state or from one decade to the next. A stereotype is the shorthand description of “courts” that comes up in people’s head—images that are commonly held, some positive and others negative. On the positive side, people tend to believe that judges are well qualified and honest, defend people’s rights, and treat people with dignity and respect. In recent years, it has become clear that people like alternative dispute-resolution methods, such as arbitration and mediation, and are highly positive about the features of problem-solving (drug and domestic violence) courts. On the negative side, the list is longer. People report that courts are slow, difficult, and costly to access; do not allow people to participate meaningfully in court proceedings; and are out of touch with community sentiment. The presumed leniency of judges in sentencing offenders is another negative characteristic but one that may now be declining in significance. The majority of the public believes that the courts produce less favorable outcomes if you are a member of a minority group, on a low income, or a non–English speaker. Finally, studies indicate that African Americans have less confidence in the courts, on average, than do other Americans. This does not extend to all minority groups; Asian Americans generally have a positive view of the courts, while the position of Latinos depends on the specific context and topic under consideration. In an important sense, the lower courts have two publics. One consists of the slightly more than half of all adults with one or more direct experiences of the

courts. The most common form of such experience is serving as a member of a jury, applicable to about one adult in four. That proportion has been rising in recent decades in response to jury source list reform and the reduction in occupational exemptions. The public with direct court experience tends to remember those encounters for decades, no matter how trivial objectively, and draw heavily on them when evaluating the courts. Among those with court experience, the extent of exposure to media representations of the courts, perceptions of judicial leniency in sentencing, and political ideology are poor predictors of confidence in or support of the courts. The opposite is true for people without direct experience, who appear to draw on a national rather than a locally formed image of the courts. The evidence points to a slightly negative general impact of court experience per se, but one that varies according to the role a person played in a case. Individuals serving on a jury (as opposed to the essentially neutral impact of being summoned but not seated as a juror) are the most positive, while civil litigants tend to be the most negative.

Explaining Opinions About the Court Those interested in explaining the sources of support for the U.S. Supreme Court rely primarily on legitimacy theory, which emphasizes institutional loyalty. Research on the U.S. Supreme Court sought to explain the sources of two types of support and their interrelationship. Diffuse support is a willingness to accept the decisions of the Court as legitimate, a belief that the Court has the right to decide questions of constitutional interpretation. Specific support, the other aspect, refers to responses to individual decisions issued by the Court. Specific support rises and falls as individuals react to well-publicized decisions. Diffuse support tends to vary little. Even the polarizing decision in Bush v. Gore (2000) did not diminish the reservoir of goodwill for the Court. In the immediate aftermath of the decision, support for the Court among the Democrats sharply declined and that of Republicans increased just as sharply. Over time, people return to the loyalty or diffuse support that they had for the U.S. Supreme Court prior to a controversial decision. Research suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court is more effective than other parts of government in leveraging its perceived legitimacy into compliance with unpopular

Public Opinion About the Courts———663

decisions and presumably more so than the lower courts. Early studies of public opinion about the lower courts focused on the influence of socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds on satisfaction with the outcomes of specific cases and with the courts generally. Opinions were predicted to vary according to a person’s educational level, gender, race and ethnicity, political ideology, and knowledge of the courts. Starting in the mid-1970s, social psychologists took a different direction by focusing on perceptions of the fairness of court procedures. A substantial body of research applying a variety of methodologies in a wide range of adjudicatory contexts, and in many countries, established that the perception of procedural fairness is the most important influence on a court user’s satisfaction with the courts. People who lose in the courtroom can nonetheless leave satisfied with their day in court, confident in the courts, and likely to comply with the court’s decisions. The work of Tom Tyler and his colleagues provides the theoretical basis for anticipating such a finding. They argued that the public’s concerns had more to do with “relational” issues than with “instrumental” factors such as the absolute or relative outcome. Group value theory explains this expectation: People value their membership in social groups and seek evidence that they are indeed valued by those groups. The behavior of the judge, or other decision maker, provides the confirmation. Procedural fairness consists of various “symbolic criteria” that people can look for as they assess how they are being treated: • Respect: Being treated with dignity and having one’s rights respected • Neutrality: Decision makers who are honest and impartial and who base decisions on facts • Voice: Having the opportunity to express one’s viewpoint to the decision maker • Trustworthiness: Benevolent and caring decision makers, who are motivated to treat you fairly, are sincerely concerned about your needs, and consider your side of the story

Voice is the element of procedural fairness on which the courts tend to score the lowest relative to the executive and legislative branches; neutrality is where they tend to score the highest. People with direct experience tend to focus on what they can use

to decide on the judge’s trustworthiness. In the absence of such experience, the focus is on clues about neutrality. The significance of procedural fairness is that when measured and placed in a predictive model of satisfaction with the courts, sociodemographic characteristics, including race, and political ideology tend to be statistically insignificant. In other words, if African Americans are less satisfied with the courts, it is because they perceive less procedural fairness in the courts than do other groups. Factors related to the practical side of court performance, as in cost and case delay, also tend to be far less consequential than perceptions of fairness. This is particularly true among people who had experience of a court case. People with no court experience give greater attention to the practical side of court operations, but their perception of procedural fairness still is the primary factor influencing their support for the courts. Researchers are more successful in predicting the opinions of people with court experience than of those without such experience. There is an important exception to this general pattern. Judges and lawyers generally tend to attach greater importance to the fairness of outcomes than to procedural fairness. There may be a practical dimension to this reverse of the pattern found in the public at large. Judges are able to evaluate the fairness of legal decisions and are less concerned about confirming their value to the group. The public, however, is poorly equipped to assess legal decisions and therefore focuses on whatever clues it can find on how it and others are being treated by the decision maker. Thus, perceptions of procedural fairness assume an overwhelming importance in shaping public responses to specific court decisions or broader opinions on the courts in general. Procedural fairness can be used to explain reactions to U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The majesty and mystery with which the Court surrounds its decision-making process appears to conform to the symbols people associate with a fair process. Consequently, some observers have questioned whether the public is being too generous in its esteem for the Supreme Court. David B. Rottman See also Drug Courts; Legal Socialization; Procedural Justice; Public Opinion About Crime; Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration; U.S. Supreme Court

664———Public Opinion About the Polygraph

Further Readings

Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000). Gibson, J., Calderia, G., & Spence, L. K. (2003). Measuring attitudes toward the United States Supreme Court. American Journal of Political Science, 47(2), 354–367. Heuer, L. (2005). What’s just about the criminal justice system? A psychological perspective. Journal of Law and Policy, 13(1), 209–228. Hibbing, J. R., & Theiss-Morse, E. (2001). Process preferences and American politics: What the people want government to be. American Political Science Review, 95(1), 145–153. MacCoun, R. (2005). Voice, control and belonging: The double-edged sword of procedural fairness. Annual Review of Law and Psychology, 1, 171–201. Tyler, T. (1990). Why people obey the law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Tyler, T. (2001). Public trust and confidence in legal authorities: What do majority and minority group members want for the law and legal institutions? Behavioral Science & Law, 19(2), 215–235.

PUBLIC OPINION ABOUT THE POLYGRAPH The public is routinely informed that suspects have been administered a polygraph test and have either failed or passed the test. In some cases, this information is provided during the trial. Consequently, how the public judges the polygraph test is of interest to those in the legal community. A number of studies have addressed how the public responds to polygraph tests, and these studies generally suggest that people react to polygraph test results much differently than the courts assume they do. As used in criminal investigations, the polygraph test consists of a series of questions administered to a suspect by a polygraph examiner, who measures the suspect’s physiological responses to each of the questions. In most instances, the pattern of questioning of suspects involves a variant of the Control Question Test (CQT), in which suspects are asked both relevant questions and control questions. A pattern of higher physiological responses to the relevant questions results in a failed test. The courts have been largely unwilling to admit polygraph test evidence into trials. Much of this reluctance

stems from the concern that the polygraph test cannot reliably determine when someone is truthful or deceptive. This concern was first articulated in 1923 in Frye v. United States, in which it was ruled that the lie detector had not gained general acceptance in the scientific community. Today, courts routinely cite the 1993 case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, which did not concern the polygraph specifically but rather any scientific evidence. More important to the present discussion, a second concern surrounding the polygraph test is that the public may see the test as infallible and place unwarranted trust in the results. Because the polygraph test gets directly to the heart of the matter—whether the suspect is truthful or deceptive in denying the crime, there is the fear that jurors will simply disregard all other evidence and place their trust entirely in the results of the polygraph test. This belief on the part of the court was articulated in the 1975 case of United States v. Alexander. Polygraph test results typically are entered into trial evidence either as a result of prior stipulation (i.e., prior agreement between the parties) or as a result of a separate hearing. Presently, approximately one third of the states allow polygraph tests into evidence under prior stipulation. Stipulated tests arise in instances where the prosecutor asks a defendant to submit to a polygraph test and agrees to drop the charges if the test is passed but will introduce the test results into evidence if the test is failed. In instances where the defense wants to admit the results of a passed test over the objection of the prosecution, a hearing typically called a Kelly-Frye or a Daubert hearing is conducted to determine the admissibility of the polygraph evidence. Several studies have investigated whether jurors are likely to place unwarranted trust in polygraph test results. Here, the findings have been consistent in showing that the public remains rather skeptical about the validity of polygraph tests. These findings have come about from jury simulation studies, in which the participants are given information about a criminal trial and asked to render judgments. The cases in these studies have varied the crime in question from burglary to rape to murder. The manner in which the trial information was presented to participants has varied from videotaped trial simulations, audiotaped information, and lengthy trial transcripts, to brief summaries of trial facts. Moreover, the characteristics of participants have also varied, from college undergraduates to samples of community members.

Public Opinion About the Polygraph———665

In these studies, when evidence that the defendant failed a polygraph test is introduced into the trial, it consistently has failed to affect verdicts or measures related to verdicts (e.g., confidence ratings, strength of evidence ratings). In comparison, in studies in which other forms of equally suspect evidence are also introduced—such as eyewitness testimony, participants have tended to rely heavily on this information when rendering judgments. Moreover, participants fail to draw a distinction among the different types of polygraph test evidence. For example, research has consistently shown that the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) is much less likely to result in false positives (i.e., truthful suspects misclassified as deceptive) than is the CQT. Yet when studies have varied the type of polygraph test admitted in instances where the defendant failed the test, again no differences were found. That is, participants are no more trusting of the GKT than they are of the CQT. When researchers have varied whether the polygraph test results indicated that the defendant had passed the test or failed the test, there were again no differences in verdicts when compared with a control group that did not receive polygraph test results in the trial. Finally, because it is possible that participants are less apt to rely on polygraph evidence when other, more reliable forms of evidence are present than when it is the sole evidence against the defendant, researchers have varied the presence of failed polygraph evidence both with and without other corroborating evidence. Again, no differences were found for guilty judgments, as participants were no more likely to rely on polygraph evidence when it was the chief evidence against a defendant than when it was one of many pieces of evidence against the defendant.

However, whereas jurors are rather reluctant to use polygraph evidence in their decisions, the general public appears to be less skeptical of the test than are experts. That is, surveys of experts in areas such as psychophysiology suggest that compared with the general public, they are more uniformly condemning of the value of polygraph tests. The general public tends to be more varied in its beliefs. Moreover, the general public is less inclined to perceive subtle differences in the techniques (e.g., CQT vs. GKT) but rather holds a generally skeptical attitude toward all polygraph tests. What is clear, then, is that despite the opinions of many within the legal community who fear that polygraph evidence may be overly probative in the minds of jurors, the research thus far is consistent in demonstrating that neither are polygraph test results highly valued by jurors nor do jurors place unwarranted trust in the test when rendering judgments concerning the defendant. Bryan Myers See also Detection of Deception: Use of Evidence in; Detection of Deception in Adults; Polygraph and Polygraph Techniques

Further Readings

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993). Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923). Lykken, D. T. (1998). A tremor in the blood: Uses and abuses of the lie detector (2nd ed.). New York: Plenum Press. Myers, B., Latter, R., & Abdollahi-Arena, M. K. (2006). The court of public opinion: Lay perceptions of polygraph tests. Law and Human Behavior, 30(4), 509–523. United States v. Alexander, 526 F.2d 161, 164 (8th Cir. 1975).

R RACE, IMPACT

played by race at trial or to compare the experiences of jurors of different races. Social scientists tend to use mock juror experiments and jury simulations in which judgments are compared across slightly different versions of the same case or between juries of different racial compositions. Each of these research strategies has unique strengths and limitations, emphasizing the importance of converging empirical findings from multiple study types.

ON JURIES

The relationship between race and the decision making of juries is complex and controversial. Media and public discussions of the topic often focus on anecdotal evidence in the form of recent high-profile cases in the United States. Researchers, on the other hand, have begun to generate a wide-ranging empirical literature regarding the influence of a defendant’s race on jurors, between-race differences in juror tendencies, and the effects of jury racial composition on verdicts and deliberations. The findings of these studies are not always consistent, and the psychological processes through which race influences decision making merit additional investigation. Nonetheless, this body of research clearly indicates that race has the potential to affect trial outcomes—a conclusion that is noteworthy from a practical standpoint and carries important implications for ongoing debates regarding jury representativeness, peremptory use during jury selection, and racial disparities in capital sentencing. Researchers who investigate these issues typically do not seek to provide definitive conclusions concerning whether race was influential in any particular case. Rather, this research attempts to identify—through a variety of methodologies—general tendencies and statistical trends regarding race. Some researchers conduct archival analyses, selecting a sample of actual cases from a particular jurisdiction over a particular time period and using regression analysis to determine whether a variable such as defendant race reliably predicts verdicts. Other researchers conduct interviews with former jurors to assess perceptions of the role

Race of Defendant From a historical perspective, the question of whether the race of defendants influences legal decision making can be answered with a straightforward “yes.” In the pre–Civil War United States, for example, statutes mandated that certain behaviors were illegal when practiced by Blacks but not by Whites; different punishments were also on the books for White versus Black perpetrators. Even well into the 20th century, “Jim Crow” laws not only facilitated racial segregation in the U.S. South, but also criminalized behaviors and established punishments that disproportionately targeted Blacks. A long litany of anecdotal examples indicates that such overtly disparate treatment was not confined to legislative bodies and law enforcement but was also apparent in jury verdicts and appellate court rulings. In the past half-decade, in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement and the end of statutory discrimination, it has become more difficult to provide unqualified answers to questions regarding defendant’s race. As fewer individuals become willing to endorse overtly prejudicial attitudes or to admit to racial discrimination, 667

668———Race, Impact on Juries

researchers have come to focus on behavioral measures in the effort to assess the influence of race. This development mirrors more general trends in social science research: Many theorists have described contemporary manifestations of racial bias as more subtle and ambiguous than in previous eras, and few empirical investigations today rely on self-report measures to identify the influence of race. Much current research on the issue of defendant’s race addresses the question of whether White jurors render different judgments in cases involving White versus Black defendants. Presumably, this focus reflects both the historical context reviewed above (in which Black defendants have often received disproportionately harsh treatment at the hands of a predominantly White legal system) as well as a more general tendency in social science research to consider racial bias in terms of the dichotomy of White perceivers and Black targets. Literature reviews and meta-analyses of experimental research report mixed findings regarding the influence of race on White mock jurors, but a general tendency emerges such that Whites, often, are more conviction-prone and recommend harsher sentences for Black versus White defendants. A smaller number of archival analyses provide converging evidence for this conclusion. A great deal remains unknown regarding the influence of a defendant’s race, however. The case-by-case variability of these effects suggests the importance of determining precisely when and why a defendant’s race colors legal judgments. Studies have identified a range of factors that render defendant race more likely to influence jurors, including when the evidence at trial is ambiguous, when the crime in question is violent, and in the face of incriminating inadmissible evidence or inflammatory pretrial publicity. Further exploration of these and other variables is needed, as are future examinations involving defendants of races other than White and Black. The race of the victim is another important consideration because archival research on capital sentencing indicates that the influence of a defendant’s race is often greater for interracial versus same-race murders; indeed, the “Baldus study,” an extensive archival investigation discussed in the U.S. Supreme Court’s McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) decision, indicates that victim race is an even stronger predictor of capital sentencing outcomes than defendant race. Efforts to combat disparate legal treatment by race would also be facilitated by a better understanding of the psychological processes through which a defendant’s race affects jurors. To the extent that hostile

attitudes toward defendants of particular groups, ingroup/out-group effects, or overt motivations for racebased jury nullification are responsible for such effects, accurate identification of biased jurors during jury selection becomes of paramount importance. But a defendant’s race may influence even those jurors who do not harbor explicit racial prejudices or motivations. Cognitive associations between race and crime likely impact legal judgments, either because jurors personally endorse the belief that individuals of particular racial groups are more likely to commit certain crimes or through mere awareness of the race-relevant crime stereotypes endemic to society and perpetuated by popular culture. The processes through which a defendant’s race influences decision making merit additional empirical attention.

Race of Juror As mentioned above, the majority of experimental research regarding defendant race has focused exclusively on the individual judgments of White jurors. A smaller subset of studies has examined the judgments of jurors of other races. The objective of such studies, typically, is not to identify general between-race differences in juror verdict tendencies (e.g., non-White jurors are more acquittal prone than Whites; Black jurors are particularly skeptical of police testimony), despite the fact that many legal practitioners and laypeople harbor such across-the-board assumptions. Rather, most studies examining juror race seek to determine whether particular factors—such as defendant race—have different effects on jurors of different backgrounds. On the question of the intersection between defendant and juror race, many experiments have converged on the conclusion that jurors are likely to be lenient toward same-race defendants. In other words, the finding that Black defendants tend to be judged more harshly than White defendants is likely specific to studies involving White jurors; the opposite pattern is often expected for Black jurors. In fact, more than one mock juror experiment has indicated that the influence of a defendant’s race is more pronounced or consistent among Black jurors than among White jurors. However, the interaction between juror and defendant race is complex, and a notable exception to this “samerace leniency” tendency can be found in what some researchers refer to as the “black sheep effect.” Studies have demonstrated that in some instances, jurors tend to be harsher in their judgments of a same-race defendant, such as when the evidence against the defendant is

Race, Impact on Juries———669

unambiguously strong, the crime in question is particularly heinous, or the victim is also of the same race as the juror. Studies using actual trials have examined juror race by comparing the subjective jury service experiences of individuals of different races. Interviews with jurors from capital cases, for example, have revealed that White jurors report greater satisfaction with their jury experiences than do non-White jurors, that Black jurors are more concerned that the jury may have made a mistake than their White counterparts, and that Black jurors are sometimes concerned that the Whites with whom they served failed to understand Black defendants’ personal circumstances. Again, though, most of these studies only examine White and Black participants, and much remains to be learned regarding the ways in which the experiences and decision making of jurors varies and converges across different racial groups.

Jury Racial Composition Although the title of this entry refers to “juries and race,” the research described to this point has focused not on the decision making of juries but rather on the private judgments of individual jurors. Most research examining race and legal decision making at the group level is archival in nature. One finding to emerge from this literature parallels the between-race juror effects reported above: The greater the proportion of Whites to non-Whites on a jury, the harsher a jury tends to be toward non-White defendants. This group-level variation on the same-race leniency phenomenon has been observed for Whites and Blacks on capital juries as well as for Whites and Latinos on nonfelony juries. A smaller number of experimental studies have produced comparable findings among investigations of White and Black jurors, White and Latino jurors, and jurors of African versus Indian descent. Whereas archival analyses demonstrate that a jury’s racial composition is associated with its verdict tendencies, only experimental data reveal the causal link between composition and decision. But even experiments rarely shed much light on the processes through which such influence occurs. There are multiple possible explanations for why a jury’s composition sometimes affects its decision making, and these possibilities are not mutually exclusive. First, the relationship between a jury’s composition and its verdict may simply be the group-level manifestation of the same-race leniency effect found among individual

jurors. That is, to the extent that generalized differences exist between, for example, the tendencies of White and Black jurors for a given case, the racial makeup of a jury is likely to shape the predeliberation jury vote split and, therefore, also likely to have an impact on verdict tendencies. In this manner, more Black jurors in a trial involving a Black defendant might render a guilty verdict less likely because Black jurors tend to be more lenient toward Black defendants than are White jurors. There are additional explanations for the effects of a jury’s racial composition beyond a simple demographic, vote-split account. Indeed, archival and experimental investigations have found that a jury’s racial composition can predict not only verdict tendencies but also the process and content of its deliberations. Many legal scholars and judges have argued that a diverse jury composition leads to a diversity of information exchanged during deliberations. The assumption underlying this proposition is typically that jurors from racial minority groups tend to bring to the jury room different perspectives and life experiences than would otherwise be heard during deliberations of homogeneously White juries. Though few empirical jury studies have tested this prediction, research from nonlegal domains has demonstrated a link between a demographic diversity and the breadth of perspectives with which a group approaches a decision. But the effects of jury composition need not be wholly attributed to the informational contributions of racial minority jurors. Recent research—set in both legal and nonlegal contexts— suggests that a diverse group composition also affects the judgments and cognitive performances of White individuals. Specifically, experimental research indicates that the racial composition of a jury can affect White mock jurors’ verdict preferences, evidence processing, and performance during deliberations; even the mere expectation of deliberating on a diverse jury has been found to influence the private judgments of White as well as Black mock jurors. In sum, research on jury racial composition—like research on race and legal decision making more generally—has provided compelling evidence that race can exert a causal effect on trial outcomes. The precise mechanisms that account for this influence of racial composition remain in need of additional empirical investigation, as do a variety of questions regarding the generalizability of these findings across different types of cases and racial groups. Moreover, published research on this topic does not allow for definitive assessment of whether a jury’s racial composition was

670———Racial Bias and the Death Penalty

influential in any particular case or whether a different verdict would have been reached by a jury with a different composition. Nonetheless, jury racial composition appears to be more than a constitutional consideration; it is a variable with the potential for performance effects related to intragroup dynamics, deliberation content, and final verdict. Samuel R. Sommers See also Chicago Jury Project; Death Penalty; Jury Deliberation; Jury Nullification; Racial Bias and the Death Penalty; Scientific Jury Selection; Voir Dire

Further Readings

Baldus, D. C., Woodworth, G., & Pulaski, C. A., Jr. (1990). Equal justice and the death penalty: A legal and empirical analysis. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Bowers, W. J., Steiner, B. D., & Sandys, M. (2001). Death sentencing in Black and White: An empirical analysis of jurors’ race and jury racial composition. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, 3, 171–275. McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987). Mitchell, T. L., Haw, R. M., Pfeifer, J. E., & Meissner, C. A. (2005). Racial bias in mock juror decision-making: A meta-analytic review of defendant treatment. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 621–637. Sommers, S. R. (2006). On racial diversity and group decision-making: Identifying multiple effects of racial composition on jury deliberations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 597–612. Sommers, S. R., & Ellsworth, P. C. (2003). How much do we really know about race and juries? A review of social science theory and research. Chicago-Kent Law Review, 78, 997–1031.

RACIAL BIAS AND THE DEATH PENALTY The issue of racial bias in death sentencing has long been a significant concern in the system of capital punishment. Many studies across the United States have found the race of the defendant (combined with the race of the victim) to be a salient predictor of juror decision making in capital cases, with Black defendants convicted of killing White victims to be most likely to receive the death sentence. Racial bias in capital trials appears to be correlated with the following:

(a) the ethnic background of the district attorney pursuing the death penalty; (b) the racial breakdown of the jurors in capital cases; (c) jurors’ failure to understand jury instructions in death penalty trials; and (d) jurors’ attitudes toward the death penalty and their death qualification status. Research also suggests that whether Blacks’ physical appearance resembles racial stereotypes may be a factor in jury decisions. In the United States, 38 states use capital punishment as the ultimate penalty for defendants convicted of crimes such as first-degree murder, capital sexual battery, and treason. The United States is the only country in the Western world to employ the death penalty and, along with China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, is responsible for 94% of the world’s executions. Clearly, capital punishment is an extraordinarily controversial issue. The debate about the death penalty appears to be several fold, involving issues such as its lack of financial feasibility, its questionable deterrent value, the execution of innocent persons, diminishing public support for capital punishment, increasing public support for the alternative penalty of life without the possibility of parole, and lethal injection constituting “cruel and unusual punishment.” One of the most salient controversies surrounding capital punishment is the fact that it appears to be arbitrarily and capriciously applied, with the majority of capital defendants and death row inmates being men of an ethnic minority charged with/convicted of killing a member of the ethnic majority.

Legal Background The issue of racial bias was addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court 20 years ago in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), in which the Court was forced to take a realistic look at the issue of social injustice in the application of the death penalty. In a brief submitted to the Court, social scientists concluded that prosecutors were 70% more likely to seek the death penalty against a Black person accused of killing a White person than in cases with any other racial composition. In addition, the study found that when Black defendants were convicted of killing a White victim, they were 22 times as likely to receive the death penalty as Blacks convicted of killing Blacks and 7 times more likely to receive the death penalty than Whites convicted of killing Blacks. In spite of the conclusions brought forth by the data, the Court said that the overall pattern of discrimination

Racial Bias and the Death Penalty———671

did not mean that racial issues actually entered into sentencing decisions in Georgia. The Court also argued that the study’s reliance on statistical probabilities was an inherent weakness in the data (as opposed to its greatest strength). The Court insisted that researchers must provide “exceptionally clear proof” that racism is a factor in jury decision making in capital cases. Because research has indicated that people with the most prejudices are often the least likely to admit them, this standard has proven to be difficult, if not impossible, to meet.

Statistical Analysis of Racial Bias Although recent findings have suggested that racial bias appears to permeate the system of capital punishment, the issue is more complex than previously imagined. For example, roughly half the death row inmates in the United States are Black, Hispanic, or Asian. Although only 34% of defendants who have been executed have been Black, 80% of murder victims in capital cases in which the defendant was subsequently executed were White (while only 50% of murder victims are White). As of January 2007, 213 Black deathrow inmates were executed for killing a White victim, whereas only 15 White defendants were executed for killing a Black victim. In addition, research has found that in 96% of the states that have conducted systematic reviews of the correlation between race and the death penalty, there was a pattern of race-of-defendant or race-of-victim discrimination, or both. A recent study in North Carolina suggested that people who killed White victims were 3.5 times more likely to receive the death penalty. Another study found that capital defendants in California were 3 times more likely to receive the death penalty if their victims were White than if they were Black and 4 times more likely to receive the death penalty than if their victims were Hispanic. Another report released in New Jersey by the state Supreme Court found that the state is more likely to pursue capital charges against defendants who kill White victims. Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia have conducted similar studies and concluded that the race of both the defendant and the victim is a controlling factor in most capital cases.

Causes of Racial Bias One possible cause of the aforementioned bias is the race of the person who decides to pursue capital

charges at the outset. For example, in most states, the vast majority (by some counts, 98%) of chief district attorneys are White, whereas only 1% are Black. Another probable explanation of the bias is that jurors make decisions based on their race and that of the defendant rather than on the evidence in the case. For example, a recent study found that White jurors were more likely to sentence Black defendants to death. Failure to understand jury instructions may also lead to death penalty decisions in which race appears to be a factor. For example, research conducted by Mona Lynch and Craig Haney suggested that when instructional comprehension was poor, Black defendants were even more likely to receive the death penalty. Certain juror characteristics also appear to affect racial bias in the system of capital punishment. For example, a study by Brooke Butler found that both attitudes toward the death penalty and death qualification status (i.e., jurors’ eligibility to hear a capital case based on their attitudes toward the death penalty and whether they would be able to disregard personal convictions that the capital punishment is wrong and consider the death penalty as an option) correlate with various forms of prejudice. Specifically, as support for the death penalty increased, venirepersons (i.e., jurors who are eligible to hear a capital case) were more likely to believe that discrimination against Blacks is no longer a problem in the United States; that Blacks have more influence in school desegregation plans than they ought to have; that Blacks are getting too demanding in their push for equal rights; that Blacks have gotten more economically than they deserve; and that, over the past few years, the government and news media have shown more respect toward Blacks than they deserve. The same study also revealed that death qualification status was significantly related to jurors’ beliefs that racism remains a problem in the United States today. Specifically, death-qualified venirepersons were more likely to believe that discrimination against Blacks is no longer a problem in the United States. It also appears that simply looking “more Black” affects the way jurors make sentencing decisions in capital cases. For example, recent findings suggest that in cases involving White victims, the more stereotypically “Black” a defendant is perceived to be, the more likely that person is to be sentenced to death. Brooke Butler See also Death Penalty; Death Qualification of Juries; Race, Impact on Juries; U.S. Supreme Court

672———Rape Trauma Syndrome

Further Readings

Amnesty International. (2003, April 24). Death by discrimination: The continuing role of race in capital cases. Retrieved July 2, 2007, from http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engamr510462003 Baldus, D., Woodworth, G., & Pulaski, C. (1990). Equal justice and the death penalty: A legal empirical analysis. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Bedau, H. (1997). The death penalty in America: Current controversies. New York: Oxford University Press. Butler, B. (in press). Death qualification and prejudice: The effect of implicit racism, sexism, and homophobia on capital defendants’ right to due process. Behavioral Sciences and the Law. Eberhardt, J. L., Davies, P. G., Purdie-Vaughns, V. J., & Johnson, S. L. Looking deathworthy: Perceived stereotypicality of Black defendants predicts capital sentencing outcomes. Psychological Science, 17, 383–386. Haney, C. (2005). Death by design: Capital punishment as a social psychological system. New York: Oxford University Press. Lynch, M., & Haney, C. (2000). Discrimination and instructional comprehension: Guided discretion, racial bias, and the death penalty. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 337–358. McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).

RAPE TRAUMA SYNDROME Rape trauma syndrome (RTS) is a topic about which experts testify in legal cases. It is most often used by prosecutors in sexual assault cases to counter a defendant’s claim that the sexual contact in question was consensual. The specific nature of the testimony varies from case to case but often includes a description of the common effects of rape and an opinion that a particular complainant’s behavior is consistent with—or not inconsistent with—having been raped. Judicial decisions regarding the admissibility of RTS testimony have varied because of differences in the specific nature of the testimony given as well as changes over time and across jurisdictions in rules regarding the admissibility of expert testimony. Nonetheless, expert testimony on RTS generally is admissible, particularly when it is offered to educate the jury (versus to prove that a rape occurred).

Definition of Rape Trauma Syndrome The term rape trauma syndrome was first coined by Burgess and Holmstrom in 1974 to describe a twostage model of reactions to rape among adult rape victims. Their model was a description of symptoms observed in a sample of 92 adult female rape victims seen in a hospital emergency room. Based on interviews with these women, Burgess and Holmstrom described an acute phase of the recovery process, which was characterized by a great deal of disorganization in the victim’s lifestyle. Physical (e.g., muscle tension) and emotional (e.g., fear, self-blame) symptoms were common during this phase. The second (reorganization) phase began 2 to 3 weeks after the rape. Victims often moved during this phase, and trauma symptoms (e.g., nightmares, fears) were still common. Although the term RTS continues to be used in legal decisions and commentary, subsequent research has conceptualized rape trauma in terms of specific diagnoses and symptoms rather than stages of recovery. RTS is sometimes referred to as a specific type of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in expert testimony, case law, and legal commentary. Indeed, rape is an example of a traumatic event that can lead to PTSD as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association. The DSM outlines very specific criteria that must be met for individuals to be diagnosed with PTSD: (a) They must have experienced a traumatic event that involved actual or threatened death, serious injury, or threat to physical integrity and react to that event with intense fear, helplessness, or horror; (b) they must report a specified number of symptoms involving reexperiencing the event, avoidance, and heightened arousal; and (c) the symptoms must last for at least 1 month and cause clinically significant distress or impairment in functioning. Studies suggest that the vast majority of rape victims meet the criteria for PTSD immediately postrape and that approximately 50% continue to meet the criteria at 1 year postrape. Current PTSD prevalence rates among victims raped several years previously range from 12% to 17%. Several studies have found that rape victims report more symptoms of PTSD than nonvictims and victims of other types of traumas. Although case law tends to focus on PTSD, several other symptoms are also common following a sexual assault, including fear, anxiety, depression, health

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problems, and substance abuse. These symptoms are both common in rape victims and more common in victims than in nonvictims. Some argue that only evidence that symptoms are more common in victims than nonvictims is relevant to whether a rape occurred. Evidence that symptoms are common among rape victims is not relevant if the symptoms are equally common among nonvictims. However, evidence that a symptom is not common following rape, but is consistent with having been raped (i.e., is a possible consequence), is relevant if the defense claims that the symptom is inconsistent with having been raped. In summary, RTS has been used to refer to the description of the effects of rape in Burgess and Holmstrom’s 1974 study, research on rape-related PTSD, and research on other effects of rape. This can be very misleading because the RTS symptoms described by Burgess and Holmstrom are not the same as those described in the DSM criteria for PTSD. In addition, unlike PTSD, RTS is a description rather than a diagnosis with specific criteria. Some of the symptoms described by Burgess and Holmstrom have been found to be more common in victims than in nonvictims in subsequent research, but this research has not replicated Burgess and Holmstrom’s stage model. The term RTS will be used here to refer to the entire body of research on the effects of rape.

Expert Testimony on RTS Most often, the purpose of expert testimony on RTS is to counter a defendant’s claim that the sexual contact in question was consensual. It can be difficult to prove nonconsent because there are often no witnesses or other physical evidence, and the complainant often knows the defendant. Expert testimony regarding psychological trauma experienced by a complainant is considered to be the strongest evidence available in consent defense cases. Expert testimony on RTS was first introduced in U.S. courts in the early 1980s. Most states that have ruled on its admissibility have found it to be admissible although decisions vary depending on the specific nature and purpose of the testimony in a particular case. For example, the testimony offered can differ in terms of whether the expert provides only a general description of the common aftereffects of rape or whether the expert also provides an opinion regarding whether a particular complainant is suffering from RTS.

Testimony also differs in terms of whether the expert refers to RTS or to PTSD. Several criteria determine whether expert testimony is deemed admissible. First, the expert has to be qualified. Various kinds of professionals (e.g., psychologists, psychiatrists, crisis workers) have provided testimony, but their qualifications have rarely been an issue in determining the admissibility of RTS evidence. The second criterion is that the evidence should be scientifically reliable and valid. RTS evidence generally is seen as reliable if it focuses on whether RTS is a generally accepted response to sexual assault and is not seen as reliable in determining whether a rape occurred. The third criterion is that the evidence should be helpful to the jury. In general, the testimony is seen as helpful in educating jurors about the common effects of rape and particularly common misconceptions about rape and rape victim behavior. The final criterion is that the testimony should not be unfairly prejudicial to the defendant. This has been the most controversial aspect of the testimony, but the degree of prejudice depends on the nature of the testimony. The testimony is generally viewed as less prejudicial if the expert uses the term PTSD versus RTS, if the testimony is used to rebut a defendant’s claim that a complainant’s behavior was inconsistent with having been raped, and if the testimony concerns victims as a class versus the specific complainant. The testimony is viewed as unfairly prejudicial and as invading the province of the jury if it is used to prove that a rape occurred (e.g., if the expert states that he or she believes that the victim was raped or definitely has RTS). Although RTS evidence was initially introduced in sexual assault cases to corroborate the complainant’s claim that sexual contact was nonconsensual, defendants have also sought to use the testimony to support their version of the facts. For example, a defendant may try to offer expert testimony that, because a complainant does not have RTS, she must not have been raped. Compelling complainants to be examined by defense experts undermines protections introduced by rape shield laws and could deter reporting. Nonetheless, concerns about complainants must be balanced against the rights of the accused. The admissibility of RTS evidence by the defense depends on several factors. For example, expert testimony offered by the defense is more likely to be admissible if the prosecution first offered the testimony. Some argue that it should only be admissible in these circumstances. In addition, some

674———Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR)

argue that the defense should be allowed to compel an examination of a complainant if the prosecution expert did an examination but not if the prosecution expert only provided general testimony about the effects of sexual assault. Patricia A. Frazier See also Coping Strategies of Adult Sexual Assault Victims; Expert Psychological Testimony; Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Victimization

Further Readings

Davis, K. (1998). Rape, resurrection, and the quest for truth: The law and science of rape trauma syndrome in constitutional balance with the rights of the accused. Hastings Law Journal, 49, 1511–1570. Frazier, P. (2005). Rape trauma syndrome: Scientific status. In D. Faigman, D. Kaye, M. Saks, & J. Sanders (Eds.), Modern scientific evidence: The law and science of expert testimony (Vol. 2, pp. 317–343). Eagan, MN: Thomson West. Frazier, P., & Borgida, E. (1992). Rape trauma syndrome: A review of case law and psychological research. Law and Human Behavior, 16, 293–311. Garrison, A. (2000). Rape trauma syndrome: A review of a behavioral science theory and its admissibility in criminal trials. American Journal of Trial Advocacy, 23, 591–657.

RAPID RISK ASSESSMENT FOR SEXUAL OFFENSE RECIDIVISM (RRASOR) The Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism, abbreviated as the RRASOR (pronounced like the cutting tool), is an actuarial scale designed to assess different levels of sexual recidivism risk for convicted sexual offenders. This scale was the first empirically validated actuarial instrument specifically designed for the assessment of sexual offense recidivism. As such, it served both to change the manner by which people conducted risk assessments and as the stepping stone for the development of second-generation actuarial instrumentation, though it is still being used because of its unique contribution to risk assessment technology. This overview describes the instrument’s development, summaries of tests of reliability and validity, how it has been used in furthering risk

assessment knowledge, and the reason why it is still used despite the availability of newer instruments.

Development of the RRASOR R. Karl Hanson was the sole developer of the RRASOR. He started (in 1997) with a set of seven empirically derived correlates to sexual recidivism selected from the findings of a then recently completed meta-analytic study. These seven risk factors were selected based both on their correlation with sexual recidivism and the presumed ease in finding the relevant information in prison records. A regression analysis using measures of these seven variables across six aggregated samples found that a subset of four of the seven variables accounted for nearly all the relevant variance of sexual recidivism. These four risk factors (prior sex offenses, offender age being younger than 25 years, ever having a male victim, and ever having an extrafamilial victim) were then combined to form an instrument called the RRASOR. A cross-validation test of the new scale with an independent seventh sample documented supportive evidence of the scale’s utility. Scoring for 3 of the items is dichotomous, while scoring for the “prior sex offense” item involves four levels, with higher item scores always representing high recidivism risk. Each additional sign of risk is scored 1 point. The total scale score for the instrument is computed through simple addition across the 4 item scores. The final form of the instrument offers recidivism rates for each of six rank-ordered score levels (i.e., scale total scores of 0 through 5) for 5- and 10-year follow-up periods. Although scores of 6 were possible, no one with that score was found among the nearly 2,600 subjects used to develop the instrument. Offenders with RRASOR scores of 6 have been found since by other researchers and risk evaluators, though that score is so rare that its associated degree of recidivism risk is still unknown. The developmental study found the RRASOR to have an ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) ranging from .62 to .77 (relative to sexual recidivism) across the seven samples used to develop it. This range of ROCs is very much similar to the ROCs found from cross-validation tests of the instrument.

Reliability and Validity Findings There have been between two and three dozen empirical tests involving the RRASOR to date. These have occurred using samples across at least eight countries

Reconstructive Memory———675

(Belgium, Canada, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the United States, and Wales). Interrater reliability tests have typically found the instrument’s reliability to fall in the .90 to .94 range— very high, though not surprising given the small number of items on the scale. The RRASOR’s predictive accuracy (as measured by the ROC) is regularly found to be equal to that of other actuarial instruments when tested with individual samples. When viewed across a host of samples in a meta-analytic test by R. Karl Hanson and Kelly Morton-Bourgon, the RRASOR showed a lesser degree of relationship with sexual recidivism than did a second-generation actuarial scale called the STATIC–99 (described briefly below). The RRASOR’s predictive validity relative to sexual offenders’ nonsexual violent recidivism, however, has regularly been found to be poor, indicating the instrument’s effectiveness is specific to sexual recidivism.

Use of RRASOR in Furthering Risk Assessment Technology As a first-generation instrument, the RRASOR served to demonstrate that actuarial procedures could be effective in assessing sexual re-offending risk. The development of a second-generation risk assessment instrument, the STATIC–99, was completely based on combining the 4 items from the RRASOR with the items from one other scale, for a total 10-item scale. Given that the STATIC–99 has become the most widely used actuarial instrument for assessing sexual recidivism risk, the RRASOR served well toward its own improvement. The RRASOR has also served as a covariate in analyses to scale out the possible effect of different a priori recidivism risk levels (such as relative to the effect on sexual recidivism rates of aging, of the inability to suppress deviant responding on the penile plethysmograph, and of sex offender treatment). These occasions represented the first time researchers could statistically control for different risk levels in an empirically validated way.

Why the RRASOR Is Still Used Research involving dimensions of risk (i.e., risk driven independently by offenders’ sexual deviance, their general antisociality, and other dimensions) has documented the utility of the RRASOR and fueled its continued use. The 3 nonage items from the RRASOR

appear regularly as correlates to measures of sexual deviance and as not correlating strongly with measures of general criminality. Advocates of multidimensional risk assessment procedures often still use the RRASOR when assessing sexual recidivism risk to address risk driven by subjects’ sexual deviance, while assessing general antisociality-driven risk with other instruments. Dennis M. Doren See also Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R); Risk Assessment Approaches; Sex Offender Civil Commitment; Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG); Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20); STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments; Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)

Further Readings

Doren, D. M. (2002). Evaluating sex offenders: A manual for civil commitments and beyond. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Doren, D. M. (2004). Stability of the interpretative risk percentages for the RRASOR and STATIC–99. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 16(1), 25–36. Doren, D. M. (2004). Toward a multidimensional model for sexual recidivism risk. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 19(8), 835–856. Hanson, R. K. (1997). The development of a brief actuarial risk scale for sexual offense recidivism. Retrieved February 2, 2007, from www.psepcsppcc.gc.ca/ publications/corrections/199704_e.pdf Hanson, R. K., & Thornton, D. (2000). Improving risk assessments for sex offenders: A comparison of three actuarial scales. Law and Human Behavior, 24(1), 119–136.

RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY Reconstructive memory refers to a class of memory theories that claim that the experience of remembering an event involves processes that make use of partial fragmentary information as well as a set of rules for combining that information into a coherent view of the past event. These theories provide a powerful way of understanding how witnesses remember crimes, how reliable recovered memories of abuse are, and how jurors remember testimony. According to reconstructive theories of memory, ordinary memory is prone to error. Errors in remembering can be broken down into errors of omission, in which information is

676———Reconstructive Memory

left out of a memory report, and errors of commission, in which inaccurate information is added to a memory report. Errors of commission are more typically referred to as false memories or memory illusions. Reconstructive theories of memory generally hold that errors of omission and errors of commission are related to one another. In fact, according to reconstructive theories of memory, errors of commission occur because reconstructive processes are used to fill in gaps in our memory reports.

History of the Concept of Reconstructive Memory Pioneering work on the development of reconstructive theories of memory was conducted by Bartlett and described in his classic volume entitled Remembering. According to Bartlett, remembering involves an active attempt to make sense out of the historical past—what Bartlett referred to as an “effort after meaning.” Bartlett studied the memories of English participants by asking them to repeatedly attempt to recall an unfamiliar folktale called The War of the Ghosts. Bartlett found that as participants attempted to recall the event, their recall was systematically distorted by their world knowledge. In particular, with repeated recall attempts, the unfamiliar folktale was recalled in an increasingly conventional manner. Details that were difficult to integrate with the participants’ world knowledge tended to drop out. Details consistent with world knowledge tended to be added. Unfamiliar words were replaced with more familiar words. Bartlett concluded that memory does not simply passively record or retrieve facts. Instead, memory combines fact and interpretation in a reconstructive way such that the two become indistinguishable. In his pioneering text Cognitive Psychology, Neisser offered the analogy of a paleontologist reconstructing what a dinosaur must have looked like. According to Neisser’s analogy, paleontologists begin their reconstruction based on fragments of bone found in the fossil record. Based on this partial fragmentary information, the paleontologist makes use of his or her knowledge of finds at other sites, anatomy and physiology of current animals, and so on, to make a best guess of what the animal must have looked like, how it must have lived, what it likely ate, and so on. This best guess can be seen as a reconstruction of the past. Similarly, reconstructive theories of memory argue that people make use of partial fragmentary information,

world knowledge, inferential processes, and so on, to reconstruct a memory of the past event.

The Process of Memory Reconstruction Event Details

According to most reconstructive theories of memory, the process of reconstructing a memory is based on a variety of different types of information. First, reconstruction relies on fragmentary pieces of information from the event itself. If one were to witness a bank robbery, details from that event would be stored in episodic memory. Over time, these details would become increasingly less accessible following the exponential forgetting curve first described by Hermann Ebbinghaus. Some time later, the witness would be interviewed about the bank robbery. Although many of the details would be inaccessible, the witness would probably be able to retrieve some key pieces of information that made a special impression on him or her. Schemas and Scripts

The stored details of the event provide partial evidence on which witnesses can base their memory reconstruction. However, this record of details from the event is likely to be incomplete. To help reconstruct the memory, witnesses would also likely rely on their prior knowledge about bank robberies in general. Memory psychologists have proposed that this type of prior knowledge is stored in long-term memory in the form of schemas and scripts. A schema is a general term we have for knowledge structures that represent typical instances of categories. Scripts are knowledge structures that represent the typical sequence in which a stereotypical event unfolds. For instance, a witness to a bank robbery likely has a schema representing the layout of a typical bank. They know that banks usually have offices or cubicles where loan officers, new account managers, and the like work. They know that banks typically have guards. They know that banks typically have tellers who work behind a counter. They know that banks typically have safes. This organized body of knowledge is thought to be stored in a “bank schema” that resides in memory. A witness to a bank robbery also likely has a bank robbery script, which includes information about the typical

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sequence of actions in a bank robbery. For example, a bank robbery script may include information like the robbers take out weapons, they disarm the guards, they demand money, the tellers provide them with money, the robbers make their escape, and so forth. Schemas and scripts are thought to guide our understanding of events as they unfold and guide our recall of events as they are being remembered. Reconstructive theories of remembering suggest that schemas and scripts have two effects on our ability to remember events. They make actions that are inconsistent with the schema especially easy to remember because these actions require extra processing at the time of study to reconcile them with the schema. Schemas can also lead to false memories because they are used to fill in gaps in our memory for the event. If you cannot remember what happened in an event, the schema provides the default value you should expect. In one classic study of the role of scripts on memory, participants were presented with a story about a young woman. Some of the participants were told that the story was about Helen Keller. Other participants were told that the story was about someone else. Participants who heard that the story was about Helen Keller falsely remembered facts from the story that were consistent with their world knowledge about Helen Keller (e.g., a book was written about her life). Other research has shown that participants are especially likely to correctly recall information that violates their expectations. For instance, when reading a story about a restaurant, one may remember unexpected events—such as the waiter spilling water—especially well. Recently, researchers have shown that similar effects occur in forensically relevant settings. In one recent study, participants were shown a videotape of a bank robbery. The video included consistent and inconsistent schema, and irrelevant actions. Consistent with prior research on reconstructive memory, participants falsely recalled many details that were consistent with the robbery schema. In addition, the researchers found that participants used their bank robbery schema to interpret ambiguous information in the video.

Postevent Information Reconstructive theories of memory also claim that people rely on information obtained after the event to reconstruct their past. Information obtained after an event is known as postevent information. For instance, if one were to witness a bank robbery and then later

saw a news report about the robbery, details from the news report may become incorporated into one’s memory for the event. Classic work on the role of postevent information was conducted by Loftus in the 1970s. In one study, participants watched a videotape of an auto accident. Some participants were asked to estimate how fast the cars were going when they “collided.” Other participants were asked to estimate how fast the cars were going when they “smashed” into each other. When tested 1 week later, participants who had been asked the “smashed” version of the question were more likely to remember seeing broken glass, when in fact no broken glass had been shown in the film. The mechanisms by which postevent information influence memory became a subject of debate in the 1980s. Loftus proposed a theory whereby postevent information overwrites memory for the original information in storage. Other researchers argued that postevent information does not overwrite memory for the original event but rather interferes with the retrieval of the original event. Still other researchers argued that postevent information only influences memory reports in those participants who would not have remembered the detail in the first place. Later attempts to understand the influence of postevent information conceptualized it as an error in source memory. In other words, participants remember the information but have difficulty determining whether that information is from the original event or the postevent information (e.g., was it from the bank robbery or from the newspaper account?). Work on postevent information has been extended in a wide variety of forensically important settings. Some research has examined the role of the interviewer in moderating the effects of postevent information. Social psychologists have shown that witnesses tend to discount postevent information when it is presented by a noncredible witness and to accept postevent information when it is presented by a credible witness. Also, in the 1980s, considerable research began to examine the role of postevent information in children. After some initial controversy, researchers reached a consensus that preschool-age children are more likely to be influenced by postevent information than are older children or adults. During this same time period, researchers came up with a number of clever research designs to examine children’s false memories in contexts with considerable ecological validity. For instance, researchers conducted a number of studies of children’s memories for stressful events by embedding postevent information experiments into children’s visits to their pediatrician.

678———Reid Technique for Interrogations

The postevent information paradigm was further extended to examine adult memories for childhood events implanted by suggestion. The first of these studies involved implanting a childhood memory of being lost in a shopping mall in college students. Later researchers extended these findings using what has been termed the familial informant false narrative procedure. In this procedure, family members first complete a questionnaire about events from the participant’s childhood. Later, participants are interviewed about actual childhood events obtained from the cooperating family members and one invented childhood event (e.g., spilling punch on the parents of the bride at a family wedding). Participants are asked to repeatedly think about or imagine these invented events. Research has shown that false memories for childhood events can be created in 20% to 40% of participants using this technique.

Self-Serving Memories In addition to fragmentary information from the event itself, prior knowledge in the form of scripts and schemas, and postevent information, some theories of reconstructive memory also assume that self-concept can influence how events are reconstructed. According to these theories, one’s self-concept can distort how events are remembered. One intriguing case study compared John Dean’s testimony at the House Watergate Hearings with taped transcripts of White House meetings involving Dean, Richard Nixon, H. R. Haldeman, and other White House officials. The study revealed that Dean’s memory appeared to show systematic distortions that tended to exaggerate his own role in those meetings. Thus, Dean’s memory showed a kind of self-serving bias. Later research on autobiographical memory showed that people’s memories could be distorted by their current self-concept.

Current Trends and Forensic Implications Reconstructive theories of long-term memory provide a powerful way of understanding important forensic issues such as how witnesses remember crimes and accidents, how adults remember childhood experiences, how children remember events, and even how jurors remember evidence. These theories stand in sharp contrast to reproductive theories of memory,

which view memory as more like a videotape recorder. Research on reconstructive memories currently emphasizes the subjective experience of memories produced by reconstructive processes, whether true and false memories can be distinguished, how errors of commission can be avoided, and the individual differences that influence the use of reconstructive processes. James Michael Lampinen and Jeffrey S. Neuschatz See also Children’s Testimony; Eyewitness Memory; False Memories; Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory; Source Monitoring and Eyewitness Memory

Further Readings

Bartlett, F. (1932). Remembering. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Graesser, A. C., Woll, S. B., Kowalski, D. J., & Smith, D. A. (1980). Memory for typical and atypical actions in scripted activities. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 503–515. Hyman, I. E., Husband, T. F., & Billings, J. F. (1995). False memories of childhood experiences. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 9, 181–197. Loftus, E. F. (1979). The malleability of human memory: Information introduced after we view an incident can transform memory. American Scientist, 67, 312–320. Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

REID TECHNIQUE FOR INTERROGATIONS Law enforcement personnel use a variety of procedures to elicit confessions from suspects. The Reid Technique uses psychological methods to elicit confessions from those who are believed to be guilty, without the need to resort to physical force to extract a confession. The technique, initially developed in the 1940s and 1950s, was first published in 1942 by Fred Inbau and was called “Lie Detection and Criminal Interrogation.” The technique has evolved over the years into what is now known as the Reid Technique. The nine-step process for effective interrogation has been used in police-training programs nationally. The Reid Technique or similar methods are routinely used

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by law enforcement in structuring interrogation. Unfortunately, the Reid Technique is sometimes misapplied by law enforcement. Another problem is that the underlying theories behind the Reid Technique have not been empirically validated. The Reid Technique also has the potential to produce false or inaccurate confessions.

Assumptions Underlying the Reid Technique The Reid Technique makes a distinction between an interview and an interrogation. These two terms are often used interchangeably as if they refer to the same process. An interview is ostensibly conducted when an officer does not have a lot of evidence to implicate the suspect. It is used to get evidence that may or may not establish guilt. An interview is not accusatory and may be conducted relatively early during a police investigation. An interview can also be conducted in a variety of environments (e.g., home, office, back of a police car), not necessarily at a police station. The interview can be free-flowing and relatively unstructured. The investigator should take written notes throughout the entire interview process. According to the Reid Technique, an interrogation should be used only for suspects whom the police are reasonably certain committed the offense. The tone of the interrogation is accusatory because it is presumed that guilty individuals are not likely to make incriminating statements unless law enforcement is certain of their guilt. The interrogation involves actively persuading the suspect to admit his or her guilt. The interrogation takes place in a controlled environment. The officer does not take notes until the suspect has told the truth about his or her involvement with the crime, and the defendant is fully committed to that position. The assumption behind interrogation procedures, according to the Reid Technique, is that most criminal suspects are reluctant to confess because they are ashamed of what they have done. Also, they fear the legal consequences associated with a confession. With most interrogation practices, according to the Reid Technique, it is believed that a certain amount of pressure, deception, persuasion, and manipulation is needed for the truth to be revealed. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that all custodial interrogations are, to a certain extent, inherently coercive because of the power and control inherent in law enforcement.

The Reid Technique assumes that guilty individuals experience greater nervousness than innocent individuals when questioned by law enforcement. It also assumes that the anxiety of innocent people diminishes as the interrogation progresses, while the opposite holds true for the guilty party. Both the innocent individual and the guilty individual may display anger directed toward law enforcement during the interrogation. Guilty feigned anger and real innocent anger look almost the same. Yet unlike the anger from the innocent party, it is presumed that the guilty party has difficulty maintaining that anger over time. There is no research to support any of those suppositions. The Reid Technique proposes three distinctly different channels through which people communicate: the verbal channel (word choice and arrangement of words to send a message), the paralinguistic channel (characteristics of speech falling outside the spoken word), and the nonverbal channel (posture, arm and leg movements, eye contact, and facial expressions). A behavioral analysis approach is recommended by the Reid Technique to help assess behaviors associated with telling the truth and telling lies. Although mental health professionals routinely observe many aspects of both verbal and nonverbal behavior in assessing psychological functioning, these specially trained professionals are not human lie detectors and are unable to tell by a subject’s verbal or nonverbal behavior (such as a defensive-type posture while sitting) whether a particular statement is the truth or a lie. Nevertheless, investigators using the Reid Technique claim to be able to analyze verbal, paralinguistic, and nonverbal behavior to determine whether a suspect is telling the truth. Critics argue that the technique is based on unfounded assumptions. These assumptions have not been subject to scientific scrutiny and may result in law enforcement personnel making erroneous assumptions regarding a suspect’s guilt, based on how that suspect sits in his or her seat, the tone of voice the suspect uses, and how denials are worded.

The Nine-Step Process The Reid Technique involves a nine-step process. The first step, direct positive confrontation, involves directly confronting the suspect with a statement that it is known that he or she committed the crime. Often, the police lie and describe nonexistent evidence that points to the suspect as the offender.

680———Reid Technique for Interrogations

The second step, theme development, is the step in which the police present a hypothesis about the reason for which the suspect committed the crime. This theme minimizes the moral implications of the alleged offense or allows a suspect to save face by having a morally acceptable excuse for committing the crime. While the Reid Technique states that in no situation is an officer to state that punishment will be lessened by admitting to guilt, in fact, quite often, the officer states just that. If the suspect becomes emotional, the interrogator displays an understanding and sympathetic demeanor toward the suspect. If the suspect does not become emotional and the interrogator does not detect remorse about the offense, various other techniques are used, such as attempting to catch the suspect in a lie, playing one co-offender against another, or behaving more confrontationally such as by stating that there is no point in denying involvement in the crime because all the evidence points toward guilt. The third step, handling denials, involves interrupting a suspect’s denials of guilt. The fourth step, overcoming objections, involves rejecting a suspect’s excuses or explanations. Once the guilty suspect feels that objections are not getting him or her anywhere, he or she becomes quiet and shows signs of withdrawal from active participation. When the suspect becomes withdrawn, the interrogator acts quickly so as to not lose the psychological advantage. In the fifth step, procurement and retention of the suspect’s attention, the interrogator reduces physical and psychological space between himself and the suspect to get the suspect’s full attention. This prevents the suspect from emotionally withdrawing or tuning out from the remainder of the interrogation. The sixth step, handling the suspect’s passive mood, is a continuation of the fifth step. The police continue to get into the theme of the crime, expressing both sympathy and understanding of the suspect and emphasizing the need for the suspect to tell the truth. When encouraging the suspect to tell the truth, the interrogator might emphasize “the sake of everyone concerned,” “the stress on the victim’s family,” or “decency and honor.” The seventh step, presenting an alternative question, takes place when the interrogator gives two possible alternatives for why the crime was committed. Both alternatives are incriminating but one is presented as face-saving, more acceptable, or more morally blameless than the other. Although proponents of the Reid

Technique adamantly state that at no time should an officer state that the morally acceptable option will be less severely punished, many suspects believe that the more morally justified explanation will indeed meet with more lenient treatment. The eighth step, having the suspect orally relate various details of the offense, involves a one-on-one interrogation with no other officers in the room. It is for the purpose of getting the suspect to give a detailed account of the crime that would establish legal guilt. The ninth and final step, converting the oral statement to a written statement, is done as quickly as possible after the eighth step. Sometimes, the confession will be videotaped, audiotaped, or recorded by a stenographer rather than written by the suspect or interrogator.

Use of the Reid Technique With Innocent Suspects Although Fred Inbau and his coauthors stress that the Reid Technique should not be used unless law enforcement is certain the confession is being extracted from a guilty subject, often, this technique or others like it are used on innocent suspects. The police may erroneously believe that a suspect is guilty because of faulty police work or bad evidence, or because a suspect engages in suspicious behavior during the initial interview. For example, there are many reasons why a suspect may lie about details to the police even if he or she is innocent. The suspect may have information that he would like to remain hidden (e.g., drug use or an extramarital affair). An innocent suspect may appear overly nervous because of past experiences with law enforcement or because of the intrinsically anxietyprovoking situation of being accused of a crime. Police interrogation tactics and techniques, particularly with highly suggestible and/or compliant suspects, may produce false confessions. Also, the interrogation tactics may produce statements from the suspect that, although incriminating him or her in some aspect of the crime, may also exaggerate the actual involvement or criminality of the offense. Unfortunately, very few jurisdictions require law enforcement to record all interactions with the suspect—from the first encounter following an offense to the completion of a memorialized confession. Often, there are discrepancies in the accounting of what transpired. The defendant has one version, but the police have a different version.

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Expert Testimony About Interrogation Techniques and Confessions Even if the confession has previously been determined to be admissible, there is case law to support expert testimony about interrogation techniques that heighten the risk of false, retracted, or distorted confessions. This expert testimony can focus on individual characteristics of a defendant such as psychological vulnerabilities (e.g., low intelligence), interrogative suggestibility, and compliance. The expert testimony can also describe the methods used by law enforcement to extract confessions and how such methods may increase or decrease the reliability of the statements obtained. It can also focus on the interaction between defendant characteristics and the interrogation methods employed by law enforcement. The Reid Technique and similar methods have been deemed legally permissible interrogation procedures. Although law enforcement and proponents of this methodology attest to its effectiveness in producing confessions in guilty suspects, many mental health professionals specializing in this field believe that these methods increase the likelihood of false confessions with certain types of suspects. A confession, or selfincriminating statement to law enforcement, carries great weight with the jury. There is disagreement in the field as to what percentage of defendants actually produces false confessions. In fact, most people realize that no scientific estimates can be presently made. It is currently impossible to accurately assess the number of false confessions or the percentage of confessions that are false. Nevertheless, false confessions do occur and there are individuals who are at a higher risk for producing false confessions when encountering the Reid Technique. I. Bruce Frumkin See also Behavior Analysis Interview; Competency to Confess; False Confessions; Wrongful Conviction

Further Readings

Gudjonsson, G. (2003). The psychology of interrogations and confessions: A handbook. West Sussex, UK: Wiley. Inbau, F., Reid, J., Buckley, J., & Jayne, B. (2001). Criminal interrogations and confessions (4th ed.). Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen. Kassin, S., & Gudjonsson, G. (2004). The psychology of confessions: A review of the literature and issues. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 31–67.

Leo, R. A. (1996). Inside the interrogation room. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 86, 266–303.

RELIGION AND THE DEATH PENALTY Religion has the ability to affect death penalty trials in numerous ways. The most studied include the effects of jurors’ religiosity and religious appeals used by lawyers during trial. Religion also affects judges’ decisions. Although the study of how religion affects legal decision making is still in its infancy, religion has the potential to affect voir dire, trial presentation, and trial outcomes.

Use of Religion in Voir Dire Before a trial begins, lawyers have the opportunity to exclude a set number of potential jurors who they believe will not favor their client. Lawyers often exclude potential jurors on the basis of personal characteristics such as religious beliefs or affiliation. For example, lawyers have excluded potential jurors because they were Jewish, Islamic, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholic, or Pentecostal. Other potential jurors have been excluded because they had strong religious beliefs, had acted as a missionary, or had served as a pastor. State courts are divided on whether the exclusion of potential jurors based on religion is legally permissible. Some state courts have held that lawyers can exclude potential jurors based on any religious variable, while others have determined that lawyers cannot exclude a potential juror for any factor related to religion. Still other courts have created rules that govern the exclusion of jurors. For instance, the court in United States v. DeJesus (2003) stated that it was permissible to exclude a juror because of his or her degree of religiosity (e.g., how often the juror prayed) but not because of his or her religious affiliation. The Indiana Supreme Court in Highler v. State (2006) held that lawyers cannot exclude a juror because of religious affiliation but that it is permissible to exclude a juror because his or her occupation is religious in nature. The U.S. Supreme Court had the chance to settle the controversy but declined to do so (Davis v. Minnesota, 1994). Thus, state courts can generally develop their own rules.

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Because few states prohibit using religious factors to exclude potential jurors, most lawyers are able to do so. Psychologists can provide information about how religious variables may affect jurors’ decisions, although the research has been sparse and sometimes contradictory. Conflicting findings likely represent the strong relative influence of individual case facts, the type of trial (e.g., capital or noncapital trial), and different measurements of religious variables. Studies have investigated the relationships between religion and guilt verdicts, sentencing verdicts, and punishment in nontrial settings. Early research shows that jurors who believe in a divine plan and life after death tend to be more likely to find a defendant guilty. Other research has found that individuals who believe in a punitive God or could be categorized as religiously moderate or fundamental/conservative were more punitive. Religious affiliation may influence attitudes toward punishment, as a few studies have found that Protestants are more supportive of the death penalty than Catholics; other studies have found Catholics to be more punitive than Jews. Several studies have found a positive relationship between punitiveness and a belief in a literal interpretation of the Bible. Religious fundamentalism has sometimes been linked to punitiveness and support for the death penalty. Evangelist individuals (i.e., those who actively encourage others to accept Jesus) in one study were less likely to support the death penalty, though other studies have failed to replicate the finding. Devotionalism (i.e., the amount of time one spends in religious activities) has also produced mixed findings. A more current study found that individuals who support the death penalty were more likely to be Protestant, have fundamentalist beliefs, believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, believe that God supports the death penalty, believe that God requires the death penalty for murderers, and believe that their own religious groups support the death penalty. All these relationships except literal interpretism also existed among jurors who were death qualified. A mock jury simulation revealed that various religious factors influenced sentencing verdicts. Specifically, a death penalty verdict was related to high scores on the fundamentalism scale, belief in a literal biblical interpretation, belief that God requires the death penalty for murderers, and a belief that one’s religious group supports the death penalty. Although research has sometimes produced conflicting results, many individuals do rely on their religious beliefs when making decisions, including death-penalty-sentencing decisions.

Use of Religion by Lawyers During Trial Both prosecutors and defense attorneys have presented religious appeals and testimony about a defendant’s religiosity to influence capital jurors’ sentencing decisions. Appeals typically are presented in the closing arguments of the sentencing phase; testimony and evidence can come from a variety of sources, including pastors and relatives. Some courts have objected to these uses of religion (especially appeals), determining that religion improperly influences jurors’ decisions. Prosecutors have used several types of appeals during trial. First, attorneys have quoted biblical passages that support retribution, such as the “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” passage and the “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” passage. Prosecutors in child murder cases have quoted the passage, “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.” Such appeals communicate that a person who murders should also be put to death. Second, prosecutors have told jurors that God has given them the authority to make the life-and-death decisions. Other attorneys have claimed that the state legislature, the prosecutor, or the court is acting under God’s authority. Such an instruction implies that God supports, or at least does not object to, the jury giving the defendant the death penalty. Third, prosecutors have made comparisons between the defendant and biblical characters such as Judas Iscariot and the devil. Attorneys also tell biblical stories of Cain and Abel, David and Goliath, and the Apostle Peter. These stories provide recognizable metaphors for jurors to use in their decisions. Defense attorneys have also used a variety of religious appeals to persuade jurors. For example, they have quoted biblical passages such as “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” or argued generally that life-and-death decisions belong to God, not to man. Defense attorneys have countered the prosecution’s use of the “eye for an eye” argument by presenting quotes from Jesus that advocate “turning the other cheek.” Such appeals promote forgiveness rather than retribution. They have also argued for the importance of forgiveness by telling biblical stories such as the one in the book of John about the woman who is caught

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committing adultery and is about to be stoned to death. Jesus tells her would-be executioners that only a man who is without sin should throw a stone. After freeing the woman, Jesus forgives her. The purpose of telling the story is to illustrate that no one is without sin, and thus, no one should condemn another person to death. Because Jesus stopped an execution in favor of mercy and forgiveness, jurors should do the same. Another biblical story involves the crucifixion of Jesus. The attorney tells the jury that Jesus asked God to “forgive them for they know not what they do.” Thus, jurors are told that they should forgive the defendant, just as Jesus forgave the people who were killing him. Finally, defense attorneys have presented evidence of the defendant’s religiosity in an attempt to evoke jurors’ mercy. For example, a lawyer may tell the jury that the defendant deserves mercy because he is a Christian or has converted to Christianity while in prison. The defendant may present evidence or testimony that establishes that he has formed a prison Bible study, has written Christian books, or spends much time in prayer. Courts have issued a variety of opinions concerning whether it is permissible for attorneys to use religion during trial. Generally, defendant can present evidence of their character that would convince a jury that they do not deserve the death penalty. Thus, evidence of a religious conversion would typically be allowed. There has been much more controversy over religious appeals by prosecutors and defense attorneys. Some courts have forbidden all religious appeals, while others have provided guidelines for determining what kinds of appeals are allowable—for instance, excluding religious appeals that are excessive, are not related to the character of the defendant, prejudice jurors, or prevent a trial. Still other courts have allowed all appeals. Such courts have determined that appeals are appropriate because they are merely part of lawyers’ theatrics. Courts have forbidden religious appeals for a variety of reasons. Some courts have determined that such appeals violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In a death-penaltysentencing trial, a defendant is allowed to provide evidence of mitigating factors (i.e., evidence that the defendant does not deserve the death penalty). Biblical appeals allegedly do not allow jurors to consider mitigating factors; for instance, the “eye for an eye” command instructs jurors to give murderers the death penalty and does not provide jurors with any reasons to deviate from this biblical principle. Courts have rejected defense appeals as

well. Some courts have found defense appeals to be improper because they suggest that jurors deviate from the state law. For instance, a lawyer tells jurors that God forbids them from giving a death sentence, while state law allows a jury to sentence a man to death. Only a few studies have investigated the effects of religious appeals and testimony. In general, research indicates that appeals used by the prosecution are ineffective. That is, biblical quotes do not encourage jurors to give death sentences. Defense appeals used in one study were influential; however, they actually had the opposite effect from what was intended. Specifically, a defense attorney’s biblical appeal led jurors to be more likely to give a death sentence. On the other hand, the study found that evidence of a religious conversion led jurors to be less punitive. Evidence that the defendant has always been a Christian has either backfired or had no effect.

Use of Religion in Deliberation In several recent capital trials, jurors have used a Bible during deliberation. Jurors in at least one trial admitted looking up passages such as the “eye for an eye” passage before sentencing the defendant to death. While judges have generally declared the practice impermissible, it is difficult to completely remove religion from the deliberation room. Even without a Bible, jurors can cite scripture from memory or privately rely on their religious convictions during deliberations. The effects of religion in deliberation have not been studied.

Use of Religion by Judges Judges can also rely on religion in their decisions. They may be persuaded by their religious beliefs when deciding whether to uphold or reverse a death sentence. They may also allow religious factors to determine whether a lawyer has misused religion in a specific trial. Very little research has been conducted on this issue, although one study found that evangelical judges were more likely to uphold a death sentence than their counterparts. This finding opposes another study that found that evangelical individuals were less punitive. In sum, religion can affect a death penalty trial in various ways, though these effects remain largely unstudied. Monica K. Miller

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See also American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty; Death Penalty; Juveniles and the Death Penalty; Mental Illness and the Death Penalty; Mental Retardation and the Death Penalty; Racial Bias and the Death Penalty

Further Readings

Davis v. Minnesota, 511 U.S. 1115 (1994). Highler v. State, 854 N.E.2d 823 (Ind. 2006). Miller, M. K., & Bornstein, B. H. (2005). Religious appeals in closing arguments: Impermissible input or benign banter? Law and Psychology Review, 29, 29–61. Miller, M. K., & Bornstein, B. H. (2006). The use of religion in death penalty sentencing trials. Law and Human Behavior, 30, 675–684. Miller, M. K., & Hayward, R. D. (2007, June). Religious characteristics and the death penalty [Electronic version]. Law and Human Behavior. Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/content/x130348n56755747/ ?p=4c4a7ef7ab624386926e76a8a17cd1d5&pi=13 Simson, G. J., & Garvey, S. P. (2001). Knockin’ on heaven’s door: Rethinking the role of religion in death penalty cases. Cornell Law Review, 86, 1090–1130. United States v. DeJesus, 347 F.3d 500 (3rd Cir. 2003). Young, R. L. (1992). Religious orientation, race and support for the death penalty. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 31, 76–88.

REPEATED RECALL Eyewitnesses to a crime or other incident often recall that event dozens of times while waiting for a trial that may take place months or even years later. These recall episodes are often in response to questioning by arresting officers, police detectives, district attorneys, friends, other witnesses, private investigators, and defense attorneys, among others. Even in the absence of direct questioning, witnesses often recall what they have seen on their own, sometimes to prepare themselves for testimony at trial and other times simply because the event was frightening, disturbing, or otherwise vivid. The effects of such repeated recall on eyewitness accuracy and confidence are complex. Although repeated recall can occasionally yield new information, it may also cause memory distortions due to postevent misinformation effects, imagination inflation, increases in witness confidence, and retrieval-induced forgetting.

Generally speaking, repeated recall helps strengthen memory associations and can make the practiced information easier to retrieve in the future. In some circumstances, repeated recall can even lead to hypermnesia, which is the recall of additional information that was not recalled initially. Hypermnesia is most likely to occur when the repeated recall involves multiple retrieval cues. One prominent method of interviewing witnesses—the cognitive interview—is designed to elicit as much information as possible by encouraging witnesses to recall an event from multiple perspectives. If administered properly, the cognitive interview can yield increases in the total amount of information as compared with straightforward questioning. Given that repeated recall can help strengthen memory associations and may even lead to the production of additional information, one would think that an eyewitness should recall the target event as often as possible. However, recalling information repeatedly is not without potential costs; repeated recall can actually alter a witness’s memory of the target event. One well-known side effect of repeated recall is the postevent misinformation effect. When a witness is exposed to inconsistent or misleading information that is embedded in questions posed to that witness, the misleading postevent information can impair later memory reports of the original target event. For example, if a witness is asked how fast the car was going when it went through the stop sign (when in fact the car went through a yield sign), that witness is more likely to report later on that there was a stop sign than is a witness who was not exposed to the misleading information. The effects of postevent misinformation are especially strong when the witness is exposed to the misinformation multiple times. A related phenomenon is imagination inflation. When someone repeatedly recalls an imagined event that did not actually occur, eventually she or he will come to believe that the event really did occur, often with great confidence. As is the case with postevent misinformation, the magnitude of the imagination inflation effect generally increases with multiple imaginings (i.e., with repeated recall). There are other equally troublesome side effects of repeated recall that can occur even in the absence of misleading information or imagined events. For example, repeated questioning of eyewitnesses can lead to increases in witness confidence without corresponding changes in witness accuracy. This effect

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occurs independent of the content of the questions; in fact, just asking a witness to think repeatedly about an event can lead to later increases in witness confidence. Such increases in confidence are problematic because trial jurors place a great deal of weight on witness confidence when judging the accuracy of a witness’s testimony. Repeated recall of portions of an event can lead to retrieval-induced forgetting. Many studies in the cognitive literature, some using eyewitness memory paradigms, have demonstrated that the act of recalling certain information about an event can actually impair a person’s performance on a future memory task for other previously unretrieved items. That is, repeated questioning about some details of an event (e.g., the male robber in a bank heist) may make it more difficult for the witness to recall other details about the robbery later on (e.g., the female robber who was waiting outside). Because interviews of eyewitnesses conducted by the police, investigators, and attorneys often constitute incomplete retrieval tasks, repeated questioning of witnesses can lead to retrieval-induced forgetting that may impair recall later at trial. Finally, it should be noted that young witnesses, particularly children, are generally more suggestible than adult witnesses, and they are especially susceptible to all the effects of repeated recall discussed here. In addition, some studies have shown that children will change their answers to questions that are asked multiple times, simply because they assume that their original answers must have been wrong. John S. Shaw III See also Cognitive Interview; Eyewitness Memory; Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory

Further Readings

MacLeod, M. (2002). Retrieval-induced forgetting in eyewitness memory: Forgetting as a consequence of remembering. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16, 135–149. Shaw, J. S., III, & McClure, K. A. (1996). Repeated postevent questioning can lead to elevated levels of eyewitness confidence. Law and Human Behavior, 20, 629–653. Zaragoza, M. S., & Mitchell, K. J. (1996). Repeated exposure to suggestion and the creation of false memories. Psychological Science, 7, 294–300.

REPORTING CRIMES AND VICTIMIZATION Almost all crimes become known to the police because citizens, usually victims, report them. In this role as gatekeeper, victims weigh their concerns about injustice, their own security, and the security of the community against the costs of reporting the crime, which may include a belief that the police are unlikely to arrest the offender or return stolen property and the notion that involvement in the criminal justice process is time-consuming and possibly humiliating. Typically, victims are more likely to report more serious crimes. The information and advice that victims solicit and receive from others are, often, also important. Just as in the case of victims, bystanders’ decisions to report criminal events are frequently subject to the social influence of others. In the United States, there are more than 23 million crimes annually—more than 18 million property crimes and more than 5 million violent crimes. Since 1993, rates of crime have generally been declining, in part due to changing demographics (i.e., fewer people in the most crime-prone ages) but also due to the decline in the use of some drugs and to improved law enforcement practices. Although victims are stereotyped as being disproportionately female, White, and older, in fact, there is an overlap between offenders and victims, such that both offenders and victims are disproportionately male, Black, and young. Males are more likely to be victimized by a stranger, whereas females are more likely to be victimized by someone they know.

Absolute Reporting Rates Reporting is generally considered by psychologists to be a type of help-seeking behavior. Most victims of crime seek help from others, although, depending on the crime, most do not call the police. Typically, victims seek help from family and friends, and some may also seek help from mental health professionals. Less than half of all crime is reported to the police— about 47% of violent crimes and about 40% of property crimes. The biggest single predictor of whether a crime will be reported is the severity of the offense. About 60% of aggravated assaults, about 40% of simple assaults, about 55% of burglaries, about 80% of motor vehicle thefts, and about 30% of thefts are reported to the police. More generally, reporting is more likely for

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violent rather than property crimes, for completed than attempted crimes, for crimes in which the victim suffered more serious injury, for crimes that involved greater loss of property, and for crimes that involved a weapon. Attitudes toward the police and the criminal justice system are generally not strong predictors of the decision to report or not to report a crime, although there is some evidence that satisfaction with how the police acted in prior cases is related to the reporting of subsequent victimizations. Moreover, although demographic characteristics are not strong predictors of reporting, there are small but consistent findings that females are more likely than males to report, especially violent crimes, and that older individuals are more likely than younger individuals to report them. In general, crimes against strangers are more likely to be reported to the police than crimes against nonstrangers. Several reasons might account for this difference, including fear of retaliation from the known offender, greater difficulty in determining whether the event really was a crime, a belief that the victim might be seen as partially responsible for the crime, and a belief that events occurring between nonstrangers, particularly intimates, are private matters. Since the early 1990s, the rates of reported crime have generally been increasing, most markedly with regard to the reporting of sexual assault. This increase in the reporting of sexual assault is the result, in part, of statutory changes that make it easier for victims to report (e.g., victim shield laws that protect victims’ identity in the media) and for district attorneys to prosecute these cases (e.g., the elimination of the need for corroborating evidence beyond the victim’s statement). More generally, victims might be more likely to report because of the increasing concern for victims since the establishment of the President’s Task Force on Victims of Crime in 1982. This report resulted in statutes or constitutional amendments in all 50 states that give victims the right to testify at criminal sentencing and to be notified about other stages of the criminal justice process (e.g., plea bargaining, parole hearings). Other victim-related legislation includes making restitution mandatory, making offenders pay fines that go to a fund that provides compensation to victims, establishing victim-witness-services offices (generally within the district attorney’s office) that give aid to victims, and providing funding for agencies that specifically support victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

Reasons for Reporting or Not Reporting According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, a continuing survey of about 75,000 nationally representative individuals who are interviewed biannually, the most common reasons for reporting crimes are to stop or prevent the specific reported crime, to recover property, to prevent further crimes by the offender against the victim, to prevent crime by the offender against anyone, and because the event was a crime. The most common reasons for not reporting a crime are because it was reported to someone else, because it was a private or personal matter, and because the offender was unsuccessful. These reasons suggest that victims use a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether to report the crime.

Process of Reporting If a crime is to be reported to the police, then, based on a model by Martin Greenberg and Barry Ruback, the victim must label the event a crime, determine that it is serious enough to report, and then decide that reporting the crime to the police is the appropriate action to take. In terms of the first stage—labeling the event a crime—in most cases, the process is relatively straightforward. That is, the person determines whether the event matches his or her definition of what constitutes a crime (although the victim’s definition may or may not be the same as the legal definition of the crime). In some cases, the labeling process is more complex. For example, with property crime, individuals might decide that they had lost or misplaced an item rather than that the item had been stolen. For violent crimes, the issue is generally not whether the act occurred but whether the violent act is considered to be a crime. For example, a wife who suffers a physical beating from her husband may not define the event as a crime if she is part of a culture that thinks it is appropriate for men to beat their wives. After the victim determines that an event is a crime, he or she must determine the seriousness of the crime. This determination of seriousness, which is important because it is related to the amount of distress and arousal the victim experiences, is based on how unfairly treated and on how vulnerable to future crime the victim feels. These two judgments are related to the magnitude of the physical, material, and psychological harms the victim experienced, the magnitude of the harms that the victim could have experienced, and the

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degree to which the crime was unexpected. Greater harm, greater potential harm, and greater unexpectedness lead to higher ratings of seriousness and to more arousal and distress. After determining the seriousness of the crime, the victim must then decide what to do. Victims have four options. First, they can seek a private solution, such as seeking compensation from or retaliating against the offender if he or she is known or, in some cases, from third parties who may have been negligent in failing to take actions that would have prevented the crime from occurring. Second, victims can cognitively reevaluate the situation, by either reconsidering whether the event really was a crime or by reevaluating its seriousness. The most common form of cognitive reevaluation is for victims to blame themselves for the crime, at least in part. Third, victims may report the crime to the police based on their judgment after their weighing of the costs and benefits that reporting is likely to reduce their distress from being unfairly treated and being vulnerable to future victimizations. Finally, some victims might choose to do nothing, in the belief that nothing can reduce the injustice and make them feel safe.

Their influence comes from providing victims with information about the crime and the criminal justice system, from applying normative pressure concerning what they (and the group that they belong to) believe to be appropriate, and from providing support (or sometimes nonsupport) in the form of sympathy, emotional support, and tangible help. Furthermore, experimental research by Martin Greenberg and Barry Ruback indicates that victims are likely to follow that advice, even if it comes from a stranger. Their experimental research found that victims would be especially likely to call the police if the bystander gave specific advice to call the police (rather than diffuse advice to do something), was physically present when the call to the police was made, and offered to be of help in the future. Investigations of norms among several ethnic groups in the United States suggests that victims are more likely to be advised to call the police if they are female, if they are older, and if they have not been drinking. Females are more likely than males to advise calling the police. In addition, research across countries suggests that the closer the relationship between the offender and the victim, the less likely people are to advise reporting.

Importance of Social Influence Studies in the 1970s designed to determine why there was such a long delay before the police arrived at a crime scene came to the conclusion that the delay was due not to the police taking a long time but to victims talking to relatives, friends, and strangers before calling the police. These discussions with others make sense in that, for most people, being the victim of a crime is an unusual event and victims are likely to turn to others for help in understanding and coping with the crime. According to social comparison theory, individuals are likely to rely on others for information and advice concerning perceptions and judgments that have no objective standard. That reliance on others is particularly likely when the individuals are aroused (as in an emergency situation) and are unsure of what to do. Consistent with this theory, crime victims often talk with others, generally friends and relatives, before deciding whether or not to call the police. And interview studies with rape, burglary, robbery, and theft victims indicate that these others are likely to give victims advice. These other individuals can influence victims’ judgments about whether an event is a crime, how serious the crime is, and whether the crime should be reported.

Bystander Reporting In most cases, it is the victim who reports the crime to the police. However, bystanders sometimes report, and work by Bibb Latane and John Darley indicated that the more the number of bystanders present the less likely any one of them is to report the crime. According to their research, the presence of others can affect whether an individual bystander notices the incident, interprets it as an emergency, assumes personal responsibility, and then reports the event to the police. The presence of others can lead to pluralistic ignorance, if for example, everyone believes that someone else has already reported the crime, and to diffusion of responsibility, if people realize that they have some blame for not reporting but that this blame is shared by everyone else who also did not report. Bystanders are often reluctant to report because of a fear of looking foolish. Also, bystanders may be reluctant to report crimes involving domestic situations because of their belief that personal relationships should be kept private. For most crimes, bystanders who do not report are not subject to legal sanction. The one exception is for crimes of child abuse. All states mandate that when, in the course of their employment or professional practice,

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certain individuals (e.g., physicians, nurses, school teachers, mental health professionals) come across what they believe to be child abuse, they must report the abuse to the proper authorities. Despite the fact that failing to report can lead to criminal penalties, many individuals who are required to report, including therapists, do not do so. Their decision not to report is often based on the fact that most cases do not involve serious abuse, and such cases, if reported, are unlikely to result in prosecution. Thus, reporting the abuse is likely to lead to a lengthy and expensive legal process that will probably result in some action to encourage the family to seek treatment. If the family were already in therapy, mental health professionals may judge that reporting produces no positive outcomes. Moreover, because reporting violates confidentiality, undermines the therapeutic relationship, and is intrusive and likely damaging to the family, mental health professionals are likely to believe that reporting is, on balance, not worthwhile. Thus, many clinicians have, at some time, chosen not to report suspected child abuse. R. Barry Ruback See also Child Sexual Abuse; Intimate Partner Violence; Public Opinion About Crime; Victim Impact Statements; Victim Participation in the Criminal Justice System

Further Readings

Greenberg, M. S., & Ruback, R. B. (1992). After the crime: Victim decision making. New York: Plenum. Latane, B., & Darley, J. (1970). The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn’t he help? New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Ruback, R. B., & Thompson, M. A. (2001). Social and psychological consequences of violent victimization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

REPRESSED AND RECOVERED MEMORIES While one cannot deny that repressed and recovered memories have had an effect on individuals, their families, and our legal system, little credible evidence exists for massive repression. Moreover, most claims of repression and recovered memories have alternative explanations such as ordinary forgetting or exposure to suggestive situations. This entry examines

issues relating to claims of repressed and recovered memories, the role of these claims in the legal system, research that bears on these claims, and alternative explanations for what might appear to be repressed and recovered memories. At the end of the 19th century, Sigmund Freud popularized the term repression to describe a mechanism by which horrifically traumatic events are pushed into some inaccessible corner of the unconscious. Later, they may return to consciousness. The process is thought to involve something other than ordinary forgetting and remembering, and is sometimes called massive repression or robust repression. Since Freud’s day, the term “repression” has had a nebulous meaning for many in the field of psychology, often being used interchangeably with dissociation and traumatic amnesia and subject to great controversy. Some have suggested that repression has never been proven to exist. Because of the controversy, some writers now refer to an umbrella term recovered memories—memory experiences that someone is conscious of after not thinking about them for a long time. This experience happens commonly and need not be controversial unless one assumes it involves more than ordinary forgetting and remembering. The topic of repressed and recovered memories has been a hotly debated issue within the mental health profession for almost two decades. Although there is no credible scientific support for massive repression, many individuals who claim to have recovered repressed memories of childhood abuse have subsequently pressed those claims in civil and criminal courtrooms. Most of the repressed and recovered memory reports involve claims of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Some have involved claims of recovered memories of murders and satanic ritual abuse. Many claims of recovered CSA memories have been made by individuals accusing family members, former neighbors, or other family friends. Often, but not always, these memories are recovered in individual or group psychotherapy.

Surge in Recovered Memories and Their Effects Media Contribution

During the late 1980s and early 1990s numerous individuals claimed to have recovered memories of CSA. During this period, accusations of CSA and satanic ritual abuse escalated and peaked in the 2-year

Repressed and Recovered Memories———689

period of 1991 to 1992; since that peak, the number of accusations has steadily declined. Many recovered memory cases appeared in the media, which may have contributed to the surge in repressed memories that were recovered in therapists’ offices throughout North America. As a result of media coverage of an unusual murder case, repressed memories were brought into the public eye. In a landmark case that went to trial in 1990, George Franklin was accused of a murder that occurred more than 20 years earlier. The victim, 8year-old Susan Nason, was a friend of Franklin’s daughter, Eileen. Eileen was 8 at the time of the murder; however, it was she who provided the only evidence against her father. Eileen claimed that she had repressed the memory of witnessing her father murder Susan, a repression that lasted for 20 years. When her “memory” returned in the late 1980s, she brought these allegations to the police. George Franklin was found guilty of murder based solely on Eileen’s testimony of her recovered memory. It was the first time that a U.S. citizen had been tried and convicted of a murder on the basis of a recovered memory. Around this time, The Courage to Heal, a self-help book by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, was written to assist victims of CSA. Even in the absence of memory, the purported victim was encouraged to recover memories of abuse and to confront alleged molesters. Critics of The Courage to Heal contended that it caused widespread harm to many innocent people— both the alleged perpetrators and the accusers whose lives may have been negatively affected by false revelations. Bass and Davis have no formal training in psychiatry or psychology, and some critics have argued that their book encourages the recovery of memories that may not be true. Given that their book has sold more than 800,000 copies, The Courage to Heal, some felt, contributed greatly to the surge in the number of recovered memory cases by encouraging people to embrace their recovered memories. Statute of Limitations

Concurrently, the legal implications of recovered CSA memories were propelled into the limelight particularly in the United States. In 1989, Washington State became the first state to toll the statute of limitations for repressed memory cases. People with newly recovered memories of abuse had 3 years from the time of remembering to sue their parents, other

relatives, or any alleged molesters. Many states followed, and thousands of lawsuits were filed. Most provisions applicable to victims of CSA fall into the categories of minority tolling and delayed discovery doctrine. A tolling doctrine is a rule that postpones the date from which a statutory period begins. In the case of minority tolling, it is a statute that might run 3 years from when the child turns 18, the legal age of majority. This is in recognition of the problem that some children may not feel secure enough to confront abusers while still in childhood. The delayed discovery doctrine has historically been used in different types of cases, for example, in cases of medical malpractice. To give a medical example, the statute of discovery would be extended for a patient who undergoes surgery and only much later realizes that subsequent abdominal pain is due to the doctor failing to remove a sponge during surgery. Such a patient’s statute of limitations to sue for medical malpractice begins to accrue at the time the sponge is determined to be the cause of the abdominal pain. Those in support of applying the delayed discovery doctrine in recovered memory cases purport that such a medical malpractice claim is analogous to an individual who alleges recovery of CSA memories, in that the source of their pain would be realized when the memories are recovered. Such an individual would have some number of years (say, 3) from the date on which they assert that the memory was recovered in which to pursue legal action. As a result of the tolling of the statute of limitations in repressed memory cases, a large number of victims began to sue their alleged abusers for compensation. But these were not the only ways in which repressed memories entered the courtroom. In an ironic twist, a few of those accused of CSA began to sue their accusers’ therapists for planting false memories of childhood abuse. A somewhat larger group who also sued call themselves “Retractors.” False Memory Syndrome and Retractors

There have been a number of adverse effects of recovered memory therapy, especially when there has been no history of sexual abuse. Devastating effects can occur, for example, when a daughter accuses her father of child abuse. Many such accusations have resulted in litigation that often forces other family members to choose sides, causing great strain and often separation within the family.

690———Repressed and Recovered Memories

Another adverse effect is the development of new symptoms unrelated to the primary concern for which the patient went to the therapist in the first place. These symptoms include false beliefs and memories of having been abused—a syndrome now referred to as false memory syndrome. These symptoms may take the form of flashbacks, which include detailed memories and even hallucinations and delusions of the abuse. Thus, the patient believes that she has specific recollections of abuse that may not have occurred. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation was formed in 1992 by a group of families and professionals who saw the need for an organization to determine and prevent the spread of false memory syndrome and support and attempt to reconcile families who were torn apart by claims of repressed CSA. In recent years, there have been a number of CSA accusers who have reestablished family relationships and acknowledged that their accusations were false. These “retractors” typically blame their therapists for suggesting to them that they were victims of CSA and for encouraging memory recovery that led to the false memories of abuse. In 1997, a remarkable legal case was settled in which a retractor sued her therapist. Ms. Burgus, a patient of Dr. Braun’s, originally sought treatment for postpartum depression but was diagnosed as having multiple personalities. Dr. Braun believed that her symptoms resulted from sexual and ritual abuse including cannibalism and torture; in other words, the purported sexual and ritual abuse was what led her to be diagnosed with having multiple personalities. Although Ms. Burgus had no recollection of the sexual and ritual abuse, Dr. Braun encouraged her to try and remember these instances of abuse through hypnosis. Ms. Burgus eventually realized that these allegations were not true and subsequently retracted her previous abuse accusation. She sued her former therapists, including Dr. Braun and the hospital, for negligence, breach of the standard of care for uncritical acceptance of a clinical diagnosis, and the use of hypnotic techniques without first advising her of the risks involved. The lawsuit was settled for $10.6 million.

Research in the Field of Repressed and Recovered Memories Research on repressed and recovered memories has primarily involved women victims of CSA. There are three primary resources of information in the extant field: retrospective studies, prospective studies, and

case histories. Retrospective studies rely on individuals whose initial disclosure of abuse happens years after the supposed abuse took place. Prospective studies use cases documented by social workers or the police to establish abuse, while case histories consist of data collected from an individual. In one of the first retrospective studies, more than half of the participants (mostly women who were referred to the study by their therapists) stated that they did not remember their first incident of sexual abuse at some point in the past. Compared with those who remembered the abuse continuously, individuals who reported a lapse in memory also reported that they were abused at a very young age. Regrettably, it is difficult to construe this research as evidence of massive repression in CSA victims, because the main question posed to participants was complex and the answers uninterpretable. In another retrospective study, researchers tried to probe what people meant when they claimed to have forgotten abuse at some point in the past. In a large sample of people who were questioned about their sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, more than a quarter reported some form of abuse. Of the participants who claimed to have forgotten their memories of abuse, just less than half also claimed that they had avoided thinking about the instances of abuse. The researcher noted that lack of continuous memory for an event does not necessarily constitute repression and suggested that therapists should proceed with caution when dealing with patients who claim to have recovered memories of abuse. Retrospective studies rely on an individual’s selfreport of sexual abuse at a much later date. Such studies are not ideally designed because the initial disclosure and subsequent recovered memories of abuse cannot be verified and, therefore, may be inaccurate or altogether false. Prospective studies, on the other hand, rely on documentation of CSA at the time of the incident (e.g., by police report). Individuals are later contacted to see what they can remember. In one often-cited prospective study conducted by the sociologist Linda Meyer Williams, 38% of participants failed to report documented abuse when interviewed 17 years after the reported abuse occurred. Williams found that the younger a participant was at the time of the documentation, the less likely she was to report the specific incident. Some of these cases may be accounted for by a phenomenon known as childhood amnesia, which is discussed in the following section. Critics of the study also point out that just because a woman didn’t report the abuse did not mean she did not

Repressed and Recovered Memories———691

remember it; perhaps she simply did not want to tell the interviewers about it. Also complicating the picture, a more recent prospective study showed that only 8% of people with documented abuse failed to report it to interviewers much later. Case Histories

Perhaps the least reliable research from which to draw generalizable results is the single case history. An example of a case history in the field of repressed and recovered memories is the case of Jane Doe. When Jane Doe was 6 years old, she was the subject of an intense custody battle and, therefore, underwent psychological evaluation to determine who should retain custody of her. A psychiatrist videotaped a particularly emotional session in which Jane accused her mother of sexually abusing her. After the psychiatrist concluded that Jane was abused by her mother, the mother was forced to relinquish custody of Jane and all visitations. Years later, the psychiatrist-evaluator captured on video Jane first not remembering and then remembering abuse by her mother. This case was put forth as proof of repression; however, it is questionable as to whether it was truly evidence of repression. Subsequent investigation of Jane’s case history revealed new important information that had been left out of the original account. The later investigation revealed that Jane had discussed the alleged abuse many times between the time of the first videotaped session and when she claimed to have recovered the memories of abuse, casting doubt on the case history’s support for the concept of total repression. Additionally, documentation and interviews raised significant doubt that the sexual abuse of Jane by her mother had ever occurred in the first place. Thus, it is necessary to be skeptical of case histories when attempting to use their findings to make generalizations about repressed memories.

Alternative Explanations for Repression Many scholars believe that virtually no good evidence for repression exists. There are several other possibilities where these richly detailed memory reports may have come from. The reports could reflect true memories that have simply been forgotten by normal memory processes and are triggered by a retrieval cue. They could, of course, reflect out-and-out lies. Another explanation is that these memories are the result of

therapists’ suggestions and other activities that planted false beliefs. True Memories

In any given case in which a person reports recovering a memory, the statement could be an accurate reflection of the individual’s experience; however, it may be an instance of ordinary forgetting. For example, an adult who was abused as a child may not think about the abuse for a given period of time. In this case, ordinary forgetting would occur, and the person may forget the abuse altogether until a trigger reminds him or her of the abuse. This is not a case of repression; rather, it is a case of ordinary forgetting. False Memories

In most cases, it is not possible to tell a true memory from a false one without independent corroboration. There are a few situations, however, where we can say with some confidence that the memory report is probably false. Some individuals have claimed to remember abuse that allegedly occurred to them before the age of 2 years—even as early as 6 months in some case reports. But as adults, we do not have concrete and reliable episodic memories for events that occurred in the first couple of years of our lives— a phenomenon known as childhood amnesia. Some adults’ earliest childhood memories are even later. Thus, these very early “memories” are almost certainly false. One must still consider the instances where individuals claim to recover memories for events that occurred after the offset of childhood amnesia. Research on human suggestibility and the malleability of memory has revealed that individuals are susceptible to forming false memories and believing them to be true. In research where rich false memories have been planted, a significant minority of subjects have been led through a suggestion to believe they had experiences like being lost in a shopping mall or being attacked by a vicious animal. These studies have shown that people are highly susceptible to embracing false memories as their own. Once planted, the individual can report the false event with a great deal of detail, confidence, and even emotion. Nicci Bowman Fowler, Kally J. Nelson, and Elizabeth F. Loftus

692———Response Latency in Eyewitness Identification

See also False Memories; Forced Confabulation; Hypnosis and Eyewitness Memory; Reconstructive Memory; Repeated Recall; Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM)

Further Readings

Briere, J., & Conte, J. R. (1993). Self-reported amnesia for abuse in adults molested as children. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 6, 21–31. Goodman, G. S., Ghetti, S., Quas, J. A., Edelstein, R. S., Alexander, K. W., Redlich, A. D., et al. (2003). A prospective study of memory for child sexual abuse: New findings relevant to the repressed-memory controversy. Psychological Science, 14, 113–118. Holmes, D. S. (1994). Is there evidence for repression? Doubtful. Harvard Mental Health Letter, 10(12), 4–6. Loftus, E. F., & Guyer, M. J. (2002). Who abused Jane Doe? The hazards of the single case history (Part 1). Skeptical Inquirer, 26(3), 24–32. Loftus, E. F., & Guyer, M. J. (2002). Who abused Jane Doe? The hazards of the single case history (Part 2). Skeptical Inquirer, 26(4), 37–40, 44. Loftus, E. F., & Ketcham, K. (1994). The myth of repressed memory. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Melchert, T. P. (1996). Childhood memory and a history of different forms of abuse. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 27, 438–446. Pope, H. G., Jr., & Hudson, J. I. (1995). Can individuals “repress” memories of childhood sexual abuse? An examination of the evidence. Psychiatric Annals, 25, 715–719. Williams, L. M. (1994). Recall of childhood trauma: A prospective study of women’s memories of child sexual abuse. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62, 1167–1176.

RESPONSE LATENCY IN EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION An important issue for the police and courts is the extent to which an eyewitness’s decision about a lineup can be trusted as accurate. Consequently, psychologists have searched for variables associated with the witness’s decision that help distinguish correct from incorrect decisions. One such variable is response latency (or response speed). Response latency is measured as the time elapsed from the witness’s first view of a lineup or photo array to their indication of a decision. A consistent relationship has been identified between the response latency and accuracy of positive identifications, but not

of lineup rejections. Thus, fast identifications are more likely than slow identifications to be correct, while rapid and ponderous lineup rejections are equally likely to be accurate. The rationale behind the investigation of response latency as a marker of accuracy is that witnesses who have a good memory of the offender should be able to determine whether any of the lineup members match their memory more rapidly than witnesses with a poor memory. Furthermore, response latency is compelling as a potential marker of accuracy for two reasons. First, unlike other potential markers of identification accuracy (e.g., confidence or self-reported decision strategy), response latency is a direct product of the identification task. Consequently, it is objectively measurable and not subject to the same influences as self-report measures. Second, response latency is correlated with other markers of accuracy (e.g., faster responses tend to be made with more confidence) without being identical to them. Thus, the combination of response latency and confidence may discriminate correct from incorrect decisions more effectively than either marker alone. Although it has not been the focus of an overwhelming amount of research attention, investigations of response latency in eyewitness identification and face recognition have produced very consistent results. Specifically, a relationship is consistently observed between the response latency of positive identifications and the accuracy of those identifications, with the likely accuracy of an identification declining as the response latency increases. In contrast, studies equally consistently find no evidence for a relationship between the response latency of lineup rejections (i.e., responses that the offender is not present in the lineup) and the accuracy of those rejections. Interestingly, this pattern of a significant relationship with accuracy for choosers (i.e., positive identifications), but not nonchoosers (i.e., lineup rejections), parallels the findings regarding the confidence-accuracy relationship in face recognition and eyewitness identification. Despite the consistency of the relationship between the speed and accuracy of positive identifications, this knowledge does not necessarily translate into a practically useful discrimination tool. For example, is a witness who takes 30 seconds to identify the suspect from a six-person photo array fast, and therefore likely to be correct, or slow, and likely to be incorrect? Researchers have attempted to address this challenge in two major ways. One involved the direct manipulation of response latency. However, attempts to produce high

Retention Interval and Eyewitness Memory———693

accuracy rates by forcing participants to make a fast identification were unsuccessful. Thus, it appears that the relatively short latency of accurate witnesses is the result, not the cause, of the decisions processes that produce accurate decisions. The other involved the suggested use of a specific time (i.e., 10–12 seconds) as the cutoff for distinguishing fast (i.e., reported in less than 10–12 seconds), and consequently accurate identifications, from slow (i.e., reported after more than 10–12 seconds) identifications, which were less likely to be correct. Despite the apparent early success of this rigid rule, subsequent studies demonstrated that the boundary between fast and slow decisions is not constant but varies from situation to situation as a result of changes in variables such as the target and lineup, the nominal size of (i.e., the number of members in) the photo array, and the retention interval between viewing the offender and attempting to make an identification from the lineup. The demonstrated instability of the border that separates fast from other identifications rules out the practical use of a universal response latency boundary to discriminate identifications with a high probability of being correct. However, subsequent analyses using this type of static response latency boundary (i.e., 10 seconds) in combination with a confidence criterion (e.g., identifications made with 90% or 100% confidence) have shown some promise. Although few decisions met both the response latency and confidence criteria, those decisions observed a very high accuracy rate across a number of stimuli and viewing conditions. Consequently, the most encouraging use for response latency appears to be in combination with other markers of identification accuracy—most notably confidence. Response latency is often inappropriately referred to as decision latency (or decision speed). Although this may seem a pedantic, semantic distinction it underscores an important point about the measurement and use of response latency in the eyewitness identification domain. Specifically, an eyewitness, particularly a conscientious eyewitness, may not make a response immediately on arriving at a decision. For example, the attention of one witness with an excellent memory for the offender may be drawn to a specific lineup member as soon as he or she sets eyes on a photo array, and the witness could feel certain that the perpetrator has been found. However, to ensure that they have not made a mistake, these conscientious witnesses may continue to carefully examine each of the other lineup members before identifying the lineup member to whom their attention was initially drawn as the offender. In

contrast, the attention of another witness with a relatively impoverished memory may not be drawn to any specific member of the lineup. Consequently, that witness may conduct a careful and deliberate examination of the lineup before making and indicating their identification decision. In other words, the observed response latency may be affected by factors other than the amount of time it took the witness to arrive at a decision (e.g., their conscientiousness or their confidence in their ability to make the correct decision). At present, despite the consistent relationship between latency and identification accuracy, these findings do not lead to any practically useful methods for reliably discriminating correct from incorrect decisions, but the combined use of response latency with confidence judgments appears to be a potentially fruitful area of investigation. Nathan Weber and Neil Brewer See also Confidence in Identifications; Popout Effect in Eyewitness Identification

Further Readings

Brewer, N., Caon, A., Todd, C., & Weber, N. (2006). Eyewitness identification accuracy and response latency. Law and Human Behavior, 30, 31–50. Dunning, D., & Perretta, S. (2002). Automaticity and eyewitness accuracy: A 10- to 12-s rule for distinguishing accurate from inaccurate positive identifications. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 951–962. Sporer, S. L. (1993). Eyewitness identification accuracy, confidence, and decision times in simultaneous and sequential lineups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 22–33. Weber, N., Brewer, N., Wells, G. L., Semmler, C., & Keast, A. (2004). Eyewitness identification and response latency: The unruly 10–12 s rule. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 10, 139–147.

RETENTION INTERVAL AND EYEWITNESS MEMORY Retention interval refers to the amount of time that elapses between the end of a witness’s encounter with a perpetrator and any subsequent testing of the witness’s memory for that encounter. Testing of a witness’s memory for a perpetrator’s identity is obviously important whenever the prosecution seeks to prove that the

694———Retention Interval and Eyewitness Memory

perpetrator and the defendant are indeed the same person. When eyewitness testimony is provided, the trier of fact must decide whether the testimony is accurate. Unless the trier of fact believes that human memory operates with the fidelity of a video camera, he or she will need to estimate the strength of the witness’s memory at the time of his or her memory being tested. To increase the precision of the estimate, the trier of fact needs three pieces of information: An estimate of the original strength of the witness’s memory representation of the perpetrator’s face, the length of the retention interval, and the nature of the forgetting function. The forgetting function is the curve that describes the strength of the memory trace over the course of the retention interval. Inasmuch as the trier of fact ordinarily has access to a relatively precise measure of the length of the retention interval, with both the time of the incident in question and the time of the memory test being well established, the problematic pieces of information are an estimate of the original strength of the witness’s representation of the perpetrator and knowledge of the course of the forgetting function during the retention interval. Let us first consider what is known about the nature of the forgetting function. Researchers interested in how memory for the human face is affected by the retention interval have conducted several dozen published studies wherein they have assessed memory accuracy after two or more different retention intervals. Assessments of the average effect size for the retention interval (measured in standard score units) taken across all these published studies have revealed that, statistically speaking, one can safely conclude that memory traces of human faces encountered but once previously will be weaker at longer retention intervals than at briefer ones. However, simply knowing that memory for unfamiliar faces is less accurate at longer retention intervals does not specify the time course of the forgetting function. The trier of fact would like to know just how rapidly memory strength declines for an unfamiliar face. Published surveys of the opinions of psychologists who qualify as experts in the science underlying the psychology of testimony have shown that more than 80% of them believe that the nature of the forgetting function for the human face follows the same form as that of the forgetting function first described by the early experimental psychologist, Hermann Ebbinghaus, and reproduced in introductory psychology texts. That is, the experts believe that the forgetting curve declines rapidly right after viewing of a perpetrator’s face and

then levels off over time. It turns out that when theoretical forgetting functions are fit to retention interval data from studies wherein three or more retention intervals were tested, theoretical functions that fit the data very well describe a forgetting function that is mathematically quite similar to that of Ebbinghaus. Given that there are theoretical forgetting functions that make relatively accurate predictions regarding the memory accuracy of the typical witness in a laboratory or field experiment, memory accuracy at any particular retention interval, it should not be surprising that one can “work backward” from the earliest tested retention interval to make a prediction as to what the original strength of the witness’s memory representation was. When this estimate is translated into a proportion correct measure of accuracy, one then has a reasonable estimate as to the maximum level of accuracy expected for the typical witness under the conditions prevailing in the experiment—or in more realistic situations, to the extent that conditions are the same as in the experiment in question. The expectation is that memory accuracy will only decline from this level at forensically typical retention intervals. Interestingly, the retention interval most frequently encountered by the British police has been reported as 1 month. One theoretical forgetting function that fits empirical data well makes the prediction that the strength of the memory trace for an unfamiliar face at a 1-month retention interval, depending on a number of factors, would likely be in the range of 40% to 60% of its original memory strength. Researchers have identified a number of factors that affect initial memory strength and, therefore, the amount of strength remaining after any retention interval. Longer exposures to an unfamiliar face, better lighting, and greater facial distinctiveness (as compared with the typical face) have all been shown to increase initial memory strength. Estimates of witness memory accuracy when tested with a lineup or photo spread have also been shown to be a function of how distinctive (or similar) the unfamiliar target face is relative to the other faces presented. A high degree of similarity will produce a lower estimate. Events occurring during the retention interval can also seriously affect witness memory accuracy. For instance, exposure to mug shots before the ultimate memory test, followed by a memory test that includes one of the faces from the mug shots, increases the probability of erroneously selecting the face seen in the mug shots rather than at the crime scene. Kenneth Allan Deffenbacher

Return-to-Work Evaluations———695

See also Expert Psychological Testimony on Eyewitness Identification; Exposure Time and Eyewitness Memory; Eyewitness Memory; Mug Shots

Further Readings

Deffenbacher, K. A. (1986). On the memorability of the human face. In H. D. Ellis, M. A. Jeeves, F. Newcombe, & A. Young (Eds.), Aspects of face processing (pp. 61–70). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff. Deffenbacher, K. A. (1996). Updating the scientific validity of three key estimator variables in eyewitness testimony. In D. Herrmann, C. McEvoy, C. Herzog, P. Hertel, & M. K. Johnson (Eds.), Basic and applied memory research: Vol. 1. Theory in context (pp. 421–438). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Wixted, J. T., & Ebbesen, E. B. (1991). On the form of forgetting. Psychological Science, 2, 409–415.

RETURN-TO-WORK EVALUATIONS A worker may be required to leave the workplace because of the experience of an extreme stressor on the job, disability, discipline, or concern about threat. That same worker may wish to return to the job, raising questions about whether the worker may effectively resume functioning. This entry deals with several kinds of evaluations conducted by forensic psychologists to determine if a worker is fit to return to the job. The first, the fitness-for-duty evaluation (FFDE), is a specialized evaluation that occurs in safety-related or “high-risk” jobs such as fire fighting, police work, or security. The second, the return-to-work evaluation (RTE), occurs in more general situations in which the worker has been removed from the job because of disability.

Fitness for Duty in High-Risk Occupations High-risk occupations, such as police or security work, have much less tolerance for emotional or behavioral dysfunction than other positions. In situations in which the worker’s very life, the lives of others, or the security of the nation depend on the worker being fully functional, the anxiety disorder or impulse control problem that would cause some problems in an office job or trade, effectively disables the worker. This heightened standard requires that the employer take greater care when making decisions about returning the worker to the job.

In high-risk occupations, two kinds of concerns would prompt an FFDE. The first is when there is a reason to believe that the worker may pose a significant danger to himself or others. Concerns about the worker’s ability to function safely may arise from a number of sources, which must usually be directly observed or derive from credible third-party information. For example, a police officer may have demonstrated poor judgment or impulse control on the job and used excessive force in detaining or arresting a suspect. Or a security guard may have failed to intervene when an unidentified individual entered the secure area of an airport. These behaviors may result in disciplinary action such as suspension or consideration of permanently removing the officer from duty. The second concern focuses on whether the worker may have symptoms of a mental or substance abuse disorder that would significantly interfere with the worker’s ability to perform essential job functions. Of course, this focus is not mutually exclusive from the first, in that a mental illness or substance abuse problem may very well underlie a safety-related issue. For example, a police officer who is dependent on alcohol may arrive on the job in a hung-over condition, which would result in impaired alertness and reduced effectiveness in a dangerous situation. IACP Guidelines

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Police Psychological Services Section ratified the Psychological Fitness-for-Duty Evaluation Guidelines in 2004. These constitute widely accepted considerations and procedures for these evaluations. These guidelines lay out the qualifications for examiners and remind the examiner that the client in an FFDE is the employer, not the employee. In addition, the guidelines indicate that the evaluator should be properly qualified and should obtain sufficient background information concerning the employee’s relevant work history and the issues that raised the question of fitness for duty. The examiner must obtain proper informed consent and written authorization to release the findings from the evaluation to the referring agency. The guidelines also include recommendations for the elements of the evaluation and the structure and content of the evaluation report. For professionals conducting FFDEs with police officers, the IACP guidelines are usually the best guidance, and adherence to them may be required by the referring agency.

696———Return-to-Work Evaluations

FFDE Procedures

Prior to the evaluation, the psychologist should request information concerning the evaluee from the referral source. Particularly, the referral should include the officer’s work history, including details concerning prior incidents of concern. These may not be exactly like those prompting the evaluation and should be put into context by balance of the officer’s personnel file, which may reveal positive aspects of the worker’s past performance. If the officer has been in treatment, these records are invaluable and may be a basis for the psychologist’s later discussions with the therapist. Medical records are essential as they may reveal treatment by the officer’s primary care physician. The incident reports surrounding the incident or incidents of concern are critical reading. If it is an officer-involved shooting, the evaluating psychologist should attend to details concerning the observations of other officers or of the department’s internal investigation. The psychologist should also have a clear idea of the duties of the officer and the skills necessary to perform those duties. Consultation with the agency’s human relations department or commanding officer should help in putting together this listing. If possible, the duties should be prioritized so that the psychologist would have an idea of which of the skills to be assessed are most critical to the performance of the officer’s job. Although informed consent is necessary for any forensic evaluation, in the case of an FFDE, thorough informed consent is essential. In this case, the officer must understand that the agency is the psychologist’s client. Although it is commonly the case that forensic psychologists evaluate individuals who are not their clients, in this case, the interests of the officer and the interests of the agency may diverge sharply. The evaluation may have one of four outcomes for the officer: fit for duty; fit for duty with mandatory treatment; temporarily unfit for duty with mandatory treatment; or permanently unfit for duty. The officer should be presented with these four options at the onset of the evaluation so that he or she fully understands the gravity of the assessment. The officer should be informed of the parameters of confidentiality. In most cases, the evaluation report is closely held within the referring agency. However, depending on the agency’s policies, it is often the case that the officer himself or herself may never see the evaluation report. The informed consent procedure

should include the officer signing a release to allow the evaluator to release the results of the evaluation to the referring agency. In some cases in which the officer’s union is involved, it may be appropriate to forward the written consent and releases of information to the officer prior to the date of the evaluation so that the officer may confer with the union representative or counsel before signing them. Psychological testing is required for these evaluations. The use of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality–2 (MMPI–2) test with workers in highrisk occupations is well documented in the literature and provides a basis for comparing the examinee with other individuals. Some testing services offer specific scoring and reports for this population. The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) test also has personnel-oriented report formats. If the issue raised in the referral has to do with failures of attention and concentration, a full cognitive battery, including the Weschsler Adult Intelligence Scale–III test, may be appropriate. Specialized testing that has been standardized on populations of police officers, such as the Hilson or Inwald Scales, may also be appropriate. A face-to-face interview is essential. This interview should cover the officer’s family history, school history, and work history. A legal history, including driving violations and domestic violence, should be obtained. A medical history, including any hospitalizations or broken bones is part of this interview. Mental health issues, such as prior counseling or psychiatric hospitalizations, should be covered. Another critical issue is substance abuse history, focusing most often on alcohol (as officers are prohibited from using illegal drugs). Prescription drug use may be an issue, especially if the FFDE is prompted by a physical injury, perhaps from an on-duty auto accident or shooting. Collateral interviews are critical for most forensic evaluations, but in FFDEs, they are essential. The officer’s current immediate supervisor should be among those interviewed. Past supervisors are also important to determine if the behavioral problems prompting the evaluation antedated the incident that necessitated the FFDE. Discussions with the officer’s spouse or a critical other are also important as this person may provide additional information about the problems that led up to the incident. The officer’s past or current therapists are also important collateral sources and may provide information concerning the officer’s participation in therapy and the degree to which therapeutic efforts proved fruitful.

Return-to-Work Evaluations———697

The evaluation report should include a listing of the data relied on for the evaluation. The officer’s history should include information critical to the agency’s understanding of the officer’s path to the current state of affairs, including no more of the officer’s personal history than necessary to achieve this goal. The report should include a clear statement of the officer’s current status, complete with ongoing symptoms and problems. The officer’s status should be discussed in light of the critical aspects of the officer’s current position. For example, if the officer has become paranoid, it may no longer be appropriate for him or her to evaluate the performance of subordinates. If the officer has developed a generalized anxiety disorder, it may be inappropriate for the officer to serve “on the street,” where critical minute-to-minute decisions must be made. A clear statement of the officer’s fitness for duty status in light of the four alternatives listed above is essential. This should be followed with recommendations for the next step in the process. If the recommendations include modified duty, the nature and extent of the job modifications should be outlined. If the recommendations include counseling, the kind and duration of that treatment should be specified. If the recommendation is that the officer is unfit for duty, the report should include a discussion of how the departure from duty should be accomplished. In particular circumstances in which the officer is a danger to himself or others, the report should include procedures to minimize the probability of harm to either the officer or others. This may include a recommendation for an extended period of medical leave while the officer receives both treatment and a paycheck. Such periods allow for the “cooling down” of the officer’s condition to reduce the probability of a dangerous outcome. As has been noted in one of the recommended readings, particular attention should be paid to situations of officer-involved shootings. Both shooting another person or witnessing the shooting of a fellow officer are rated as being among the most traumatic experiences that an officer may have while on duty. As in other cases of trauma, the range of responses of affected individuals varies widely. A good understanding of posttraumatic stress disorder and its particular manifestations among workers in high-risk occupations is necessary so as not to unduly burden an officer who is doing well with months of treatment or of allowing an officer who is brittle but “looking good” to return to work prematurely.

Return-to-Work Evaluations Although most FFDEs are RTEs, not all RTEs involve workers in high-risk occupations. In almost any work setting, a worker may develop a mental illness or substance abuse problem that results in temporary disability. In many cases, it makes sense for the employer to get the employee back to work as soon as possible. If the position requires extensive training or if the employee is a long-time incumbent in the position, the employer has a significant financial investment in the employee. Likewise, the employee has an investment in the job and the relationships and income that come from it. RTEs are carried out very much in the same way as FFDEs. The psychologist must have an understanding of the worker’s duties and work setting. A clear history of the events that led up to the worker leaving the workplace must be developed, both from the employer’s perspective and from the history of the worker. Informed consent is also essential in this setting, including the worker knowing whether a copy of the report will be made available. Testing may be used as appropriate, although for most other occupations specialized test reports are usually not available. The report should include the same elements, with a well-developed recommendation section. RTEs may often be conducted with individuals with chronic illnesses, such as a major depressive disorder or a substance dependence disorder, which would eliminate a security or police officer from consideration for employment. Because of considerations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers may be required to provide reasonable accommodation for these chronic conditions. An RTE may be part of this process and may include recommendations for specific accommodations for the worker to be able to function in the workplace.

Conclusion Both FFDEs and RTEs assess the worker’s fit with the job duties and job setting. In the case of workers in high-risk occupations, the FFDE often occurs at a critical juncture in the officer’s career. For the RTE, this may also be the case, but it may also occur in situations with more chronic illnesses or recurring problems than would be tolerated in high-risk jobs. The psychologist should be aware that the ramifications of an FFDE are serious. An officer who has demonstrated a history of problems on the job is going to be returned to duty, a situation that may place not

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only the officer but his or her fellow officers and members of the public in danger. This makes essential the performance of these evaluations within the highest professional standards. William E. Foote See also Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Further Readings

Borum, R., Super, J., & Rand, M. (2003). Forensic assessment for high-risk occupations. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology (pp. 133–147). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Foote, W. E. (2003). Forensic evaluation in Americans with Disabilities Act cases. In A. D. Goldstein & I. B. Weiner (Eds.), Comprehensive handbook of forensic psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology. New York: Wiley. IACP Police Psychological Services Section. (2004). Psychological fitness-for-duty evaluation guidelines. Los Angeles: Author. Retrieved April 15, 2007, from http://www.theiacp.org/div_sec_com/sections/ PsychologicalFitnessforDutyEvaluation.pdf

RISK ASSESSMENT APPROACHES Violence risk assessment is relevant to the field of law and psychology because it occurs at numerous junctures in the legal system, and it is one of the key areas of research and clinical practice in forensic psychology. This entry reviews two primary approaches to risk assessment: unstructured and structured. The former approach, sometimes also called clinical prediction or judgment, imposes no rules on the decision-making process, whereas the latter approach does. Two primary approaches to structured risk assessment include (1) actuarial and (2) structured professional judgment (SPJ). Although both structured approaches impose rules in terms of which risk factors are considered and defined, actuarial risk assessment uses an algorithm to combine risk factors into a final decision, whereas SPJ does not. This entry will describe these approaches, along with their attendant strengths and weaknesses.

The Relevance and Context of Risk Assessment Risk assessment informs decisions about future violence. In numerous legal and clinical practice areas,

such decisions are required by statute, professional ethics, or common law. For instance, in most jurisdictions, a person must pose, inter alia, a risk of harm to others (or to self) to be involuntarily civilly committed. The release of prisoners from institutional to community placement is typically contingent on whether they constitute an undue risk to public safety. Risk assessment is the basis for decision making in these situations. Depending on jurisdiction in the United States, psychologists and other mental health professionals have common law and ethical duties to protect third parties from the violence posed by their patients. Correspondingly, risk assessment is used to determine whether a sexual offender will be subjected to postsentence involuntary commitment under sexual predator laws. Analogous “indeterminate sentencing” provisions exist in non-U.S. jurisdictions as well, for example, Canada and the United Kingdom. As such, risk assessment plays a pivotal role in balancing public safety with constitutionally protected rights and freedoms such as liberty.

Approaches to Risk Assessment Contemporary approaches to risk assessment have been heavily influenced by Paul Meehl’s distinction between actuarial and clinical prediction. The former refers to decision-making procedures that involve the formal combination of variables or pieces of information, by way of equations or other algorithmic processes, to reach a decision. The latter is defined by a lack of such rules. In contemporary risk assessment, approaches may be generally classified as structured and unstructured. As described below, unstructured risk assessment is, in essence, the clinical prediction to which Paul Meehl referred. Structured risk assessment includes actuarial prediction as well as a more recent approach termed structured professional judgment. Unstructured Risk Assessment

Conventionally, unstructured clinical judgment is the most common approach to appraising an individual’s risk for violence. By definition, it is based primarily on professional opinion, intuition, and clinical experience. Assessors have absolute discretion in terms of selecting risk factors to consider, how to conceptualize them, how to synthesize case material, and how to interpret this information to render decisions. As such, this method is inherently informal and subjective. Although clinical judgment is a routine and necessary component within many clinical decision-making contexts, the defining

Risk Assessment Approaches———699

feature of clinical judgment in terms of prediction is the lack of rules to integrate case information. Although this permits flexibility, ostensible widespread applicability, and relevance to the individual patient, there are numerous problems with this approach. First, because of the lack of rules, critics contend that the technique generally lacks consistency because independent clinicians may focus on dissimilar sources of information and subsequently form disparate conclusions (low interrater reliability). Second, clinicians may or may not attend to variables that actually relate to violent behavior (low content validity). Third, either failing to attend to important risk factors, attending to irrelevant variables, or giving improper weight to risk factors, will inevitably decrease the accuracy of decisions (low predictive validity). Fourth, detractors argue that unaided clinical decision making precludes transparency of decision making, which is essential in a legal forum (low legal helpfulness). Other factors leading to low (or at least inconsistent) accuracy include susceptibility to decisional biases and heuristics, failure to consider base rate information, failure to integrate situational information, and a lack of specificity about the criterion variable. Research bears these weaknesses out: The accuracy of unstructured risk assessment has been shown (a) to vary considerably across different clinicians and (b) though predictive of violence, to be less strongly related to violence than more systematic approaches. Structured Risk Assessment

In response to the shortcomings of the unstructured clinical approach and the disquieting implications these held for important legal decisions, researchers started to investigate structured approaches. Contemporary structured risk assessment approaches share common features such as (a) inclusion of a fixed set of risk factors, (b) operational definitions of risk factors, (c) scoring or coding procedures for risk factors, and (d) direction for how to integrate risk factors to reach a final decision about risk. As described below, however, there are important differences between the two primary approaches to structured risk assessment. Actuarial Prediction The first structured approach that was investigated was actuarial prediction. Technically, a prediction approach is said to be actuarial when it uses formal rules to combine variables or risk factors to make a decision. This process, therefore, involves the formal

application of a predetermined set of explicit and formulaic decision rules to make a decision about the likelihood of violence. The actuarial approach has been described as algorithmic, mechanical, well specified, and completely reproducible. An associated, though not defining, feature of actuarial prediction is the use of empirical item selection; that is, the variables that comprise risk factors on an actuarial risk assessment measure are often selected because they demonstrated statistical associations with violence in one (or, more rarely, two or more) specific construction or calibration sample. Another associated feature of actuarial prediction is that the risk factors that are derived empirically are typically weighted according to the strength of association with violence observed in the construction sample(s). The primary argument in support of actuarial prediction techniques is that they facilitate interrater reliability and predictive validity, especially in comparison with unstructured approaches. Because actuarial procedures use explicit rules for combining risk factors, they yield the same decision regardless of who uses them (high interrater reliability), and given the presence of the same risk factors across cases, they yield the same outcome. Furthermore, they are transparent (reviewable and accountable). Many actuarial prediction techniques are statistically optimized because they weigh variables according to their relationship with violence. Hence, at least in the samples in which they were developed, they tend to have high predictive validity in comparison with unstructured approaches. There is general agreement that the actuarial approach to risk assessment yields higher predictive accuracy than does the unstructured approach when the two are compared for group-based (nomothetic) predictions within the same sample. Perhaps the best evidence of this stems from a meta-analysis of 136 studies conducted by William Grove and colleagues that directly compared actuarial prediction with unstructured clinical prediction. Actuarial prediction was more accurate than clinical prediction in approximately one-third to half of the studies. In approximately half the studies, there was no difference in predictive accuracy. In a small minority of studies, unstructured clinical prediction was more accurate. On average, actuarial prediction was more accurate than clinical prediction by an approximately 10% increase in hit rate. Despite the important advantages of enhanced interrater reliability and predictive validity that actuarial prediction possesses, commentators have noted several

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weaknesses. Perhaps most important, the predictive properties of actuarial models tend to be optimized within the sample of development, with no guarantee that these properties will apply to novel settings or samples (generalizability). For this reason, the precise numerical probability estimates, or bright-line classification cut scores, that tend to be used in actuarial prediction are in crucial need of cross-validation and replication prior to use. Second, some actuarial techniques may have limited clinical applicability, in that decision makers may be concerned about violence in a context (e.g., imminent violence) that is incongruent with existing actuarial protocols constructed with a specific set of conditions (e.g., a long-term follow-up period). Third, actuarial approaches tend to ignore low base rate factors that failed to enter nomothetically derived statistical equations because of their rarity or their case-specific nature, even if they may be important in individual cases. Under the strictest actuarial approaches, any extraneous information not contained on the instrument cannot be considered. Fourth, some actuarial models have been criticized for not being helpful in terms of risk management, treatment, or risk reduction more broadly because they tend to focus on static risk factors as opposed to dynamic (changeable) risk factors that may be better suited to treatment efforts. Structured Professional Judgment To contend with these weaknesses, a more recently developed risk assessment approach, termed structured professional judgment, has been forwarded. Like most actuarial approaches, the SPJ approach specifies a fixed set of operationally defined risk factors with explicit coding procedures. The purpose of this structure is to facilitate both interrater reliability and comprehensive domain coverage, or content validity. It has three primary differences compared with most actuarial approaches. First, SPJ approaches use logical or rational item selection as opposed to empirical item selection procedures to select risk factors. This process involves extensive consultation of the scientific and professional literature to select risk factors with broad support across contexts. In theory, this approach fosters generalizability as well as comprehensiveness of the set of risk factors. Second, SPJ approaches do not require algorithmic combinations of risk factors to derive risk estimates, and hence they are not actuarial. There are four

primary reasons why SPJ approaches do not adopt algorithmic item combinatory procedures. (1) Such procedures are susceptible to degradation of predictive accuracy across contexts, meaning that a cutoff score in one sample cannot be assumed to apply to another context. (2) While combination rules promote consistency, they may do so at the expense of individual relevance; that is, certain risk factors will be more relevant for one person’s violent risk than for another’s risk, and a risk assessment process should be able to account for this differential individual relevance. (3) Decisions based on fixed algorithmic procedures presume that the future is fixed as well; if circumstances change, the actuarial estimate may be invalid. (4) There may be cases with only a few risk factors present, but their salience compels a conclusion of high risk. SPJ approaches attempt to optimize the relevance of nomothetically derived risk factors to the individual— which, whether for legal or clinical purposes, is the level of decision making. Final decisions of low, moderate, or high risk are formed by decision makers after consideration of the number and relevance of risk factors present in the case and the intensity and urgency of any necessary intervention or management strategies to mitigate risk. The SPJ model does not provide estimated numerical probability levels of future violence for the individual case, because it is assumed that it is not actually possible to do so given the problems with lack of stability of such procedures, as reviewed above. Furthermore, actuarially derived numerical probability estimates are group-based estimates (i.e., 53 of 100 persons in X risk group were violent); their applicability to what an individual who was not in this group might do in future is tenuous. Critics of the SPJ approach have argued that it lowers reliability and validity through the allowance of discretion at the variable integration phase of decision making. Though this is a controversial aspect of SPJ, research to date suggests that the reliability and predictive validity of the SPJ approach are at least comparable with the reliability and predictive validity of the actuarial approach—and in some studies, exceed them. Researchers continue to study the strengths and limits of both actuarial and SPJ approaches to risk assessment. Both have promise, and both have limitations. The field would benefit from research on how to increase individual relevance, treatment relevance, and cross-validated generalizability of actuarial procedures. In terms of SPJ research, questions in need of research include whether additional structure can be

Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory (RSTI)———701

added to the final decision without introducing the problems associated with actuarial decision making. Jennifer A. A. Lavoie and Kevin S. Douglas See also Classification of Violence Risk (COVR); Danger Assessment Instrument (DA); HCR–20 for Violence Risk Assessment; Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR); Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory (RSTI); Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR); Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG); Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20); Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START); STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments; Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY); Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)

Further Readings

Douglas, K. S., & Kropp, P. R. (2002). A prevention-based paradigm for violence risk assessment: Clinical and research applications. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 29, 617–658. Grove, W. M., Zald, D. H., Lebow, B. S., Snitz, B. E., & Nelson, C. (2000). Clinical versus mechanical prediction: A meta-analysis. Psychological Assessment, 12, 19–30. Meehl, P. E. (1954). Clinical versus statistical prediction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Monahan, J., Steadman, H. J., Silver, E., Appelbaum, P. S., Robbins, P. C., Mulvey, E. P., et al. (2001). Rethinking risk assessment: The MacArthur study of mental disorder and violence. New York: Oxford University Press.

RISK-SOPHISTICATION-TREATMENT INVENTORY (RSTI) The Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory (RSTI) is a semistructured interview and rating scale that is designed to help clinicians assess Risk for Dangerousness, Sophistication-Maturity, and Treatment Amenability as well as treatment needs. The RSTI demonstrates reliability and validity and can assist mental health professionals with the assessment and development of treatment plans for juveniles in forensic settings.

Description Each of the three scales (Risk for Dangerousness, Sophistication-Maturity, and Treatment Amenability)

of the RSTI contains 15 items that represent both static and dynamic factors. Additionally, each scale of the RSTI consists of three clusters, thus providing psychological information on nine subconcepts. Specifically, the Risk for Dangerousness Scale consists of Violent and Aggressive Tendencies, Planned and Extensive Criminality, and Psychopathic Features clusters. The Maturity Scale is composed of Autonomy, Cognitive Capacities, and Emotional Maturity clusters and allows for the assessment of whether youths are using their maturity prosocially or antisocially. The Treatment Amenability Scale consists of the Psychopathology— Degree and Type, Responsibility and Motivation to Change, and Consideration and Tolerance of Others clusters. These clusters are dynamic, although some types of psychopathology might be more difficult to treat than others. The RSTI materials include the Professional Manual, the Semi-Structured Interview Booklet, and the Rating Form and are available from Psychological Assessment Resources. The professional manual describes the reliability and validity of the instrument and includes case studies that provide examples of appropriate scoring and interpretation of the results. The interview booklet provides guidance for obtaining background, clinical, and historical information and a sample of the juvenile’s behavioral and psychological functioning. Optional probes are provided throughout the interview to garner further information if needed. The rating form enables the clinician to score the items by reviewing and synthesizing information from collateral sources. Each item is rated on a 3-point scale reflecting the extent to which the individual demonstrates the specific characteristic (0 = absence of the characteristic/ability, 1 = subclinical/ moderate, 2 = presence of the characteristic/ability).

Development The RSTI was developed according to conventional scale construction procedures and involved three primary steps. First, item generation entailed an extensive search for items in case law and psychological literature. Descriptions of juveniles and their families were drawn from relevant statutes pertaining to transfer criteria, appellate cases (both successful and unsuccessful), and research (both psychological studies and law reviews) related to the primary constructs and transfer decisions. The second step involved two separate prototypical analyses. Clinical child and adolescent psychologists were asked to rate the items they considered to

702———Risk-Sophistication-Treatment Inventory (RSTI)

be central to Dangerousness, Sophistication-Maturity, and Treatment Amenability. Forensic diplomates were asked to provide ratings of juveniles they had evaluated who had subsequently been transferred to adult criminal courts. Next, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court judges were asked to rate core characteristics for the three loosely defined concepts. Prototypical items for each of the constructs aligned across the raters, indicating that there was general agreement regarding the central components of Risk for Dangerousness, Sophistication-Maturity, and Treatment Amenability.

Structure of the RSTI Exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) procedures were used to examine the structure of the prototypical ratings. CFA results formed the basis for the development of the RSTI scales. Assignment of items to scales relied heavily on consideration of prototypical ratings and factor structures. Items with low prototypical ratings were not included on scales, even though they might have loaded on a factor. For example, reckless and hyperactive characteristics were loaded on the dangerousness factor but were excluded because they received low prototypical ratings and produced inadequate model-fit indices in the CFA.

Internal Consistency and Reliability Alpha coefficients for the three RSTI factors range from .78 to .83. Intraclass correlations for the RSTI scales range from .74 to .94, indicating good interrater reliability across types of raters and scoring methods. Comparing interview-based RSTI ratings between clinicians and trained graduate student raters resulted in slightly higher reliability, ranging from .81 to .94, indicating that interviews may increase the reliability of ratings.

Validity Several studies have reported evidence for the RSTI’s concurrent validity using other measures of psychological constructs to which the RSTI constructs should be related. The RSTI Risk for Dangerousness Scale correlated positively with Conduct Disorder, Violent Conduct Disorder, Psychopathic Traits, and both Reactive and Total Aggression. The Treatment Amenability Scale was associated with older ages of

onset of conduct disorder and negatively associated with conduct disorder symptoms. Criterion validity of the Treatment Amenability Scale was examined by testing the association between file-based RSTI ratings and later treatment compliance and other criteria among male juveniles at a juvenile treatment center. The scale was associated with positive interactions with staff and maintenance of appropriate boundaries, both of which are important to the therapeutic relationship. The Dangerousness Scale was negatively associated with maintenance of appropriate boundaries, and the Maturity Scale was associated with excellent classroom behavior. Criterion validity was assessed in two studies of retrospective outcomes among youths facing transfer to adult court. Relative to youths not transferred to adult court, transferred youths received, on average, significantly higher dangerousness and maturity scores and lower treatment scores.

Application The RSTI manual is available from Psychological Assessment Resources. The RSTI is copyrighted and can be purchased as a kit, which includes a manual, 25 structured interview booklets, and 25 rating scales. Mental health professionals with experience in juvenile justice settings can administer the RSTI. The RSTI can be administered in court evaluation units, detention centers, and by consulting clinicians in outpatient settings. The RSTI can be used in evaluations related to recommendations for general disposition decisions, commitment and transfer to adult court and reverse transfer hearings, treatment recommendations, and most important, development of individualized treatment plans. Randall T. Salekin See also Juvenile Offenders; Juvenile Offenders, Risk Factors; Risk Assessment Approaches

Further Readings

Leistico, A. R., & Salekin, R. T. (2003). Testing the reliability and validity of the Risk, SophisticationMaturity, and Treatment Amenability–Inventory (RST–I): An assessment tool for juvenile offenders. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 2, 101–117. Salekin, R. T. (2002). Psychopathy and therapeutic pessimism: Clinical lore or clinical reality. Clinical Psychology Review, 22, 79–122. Salekin, R. T. (2004). Risk-SophisticationTreatment–Inventory (RST–i): Professional manual. Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (R–CRAS)———703

Salekin, R. T., & Grimes, R. (2008). Clinical evaluations of juvenile offenders facing transfer to adult court. In R. Jackson (Ed.), Learning forensic assessments. New York: Routledge.

ROGERS CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY ASSESSMENT SCALES (R–CRAS) The Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (R–CRAS) is a structured decision model for quantifying relevant psychological variables that are salient for the retrospective evaluation of insanity. The R–CRAS was validated to address specifically the American Law Institute (ALI) insanity standard that requires an assessment of a defendant’s cognitive and volitional impairment at the time of the alleged offense. In addition to the ALI standard, the R–CRAS provides clinical data relevant to the M’Naghten insanity standard and the Michigan-based guilty but mentally ill (GBMI) standard. The R–CRAS decision process combines an appraisal of general diagnostic categories with an assessment of cognitive and behavioral (i.e., volitional) abilities at the time of the offense. Three rationally constructed scales evaluate diagnostic issues: (1) Patient Reliability, which includes malingering or involuntary interference with accurate recall; (2) Organicity, which addresses the likely effects of brain damage or mental retardation; and (3) Psychiatric Disorders, which examines the effects of key Axis I symptoms. Two scales address legally relevant impairment: (1) Cognitive Control, which evaluates impairment in verbal abilities, awareness of the criminal behavior, and capacity for planning; and (2) Behavioral Control, which considers level and focus of criminal activity, as well as the defendant’s capacity to control criminal behavior and engage in responsible behavior. Finally, the GBMI items address general domains of impairment that are not specific to criminal behavior.

Description and Development The R–CRAS was developed by a study group of five experienced forensic psychologists and psychiatrists who reached consensual agreement for the inclusion of core psychological and situational variables relevant to insanity. This operationalization of the ALI standard requires forensic experts to make a series of professional judgments based on anchored ratings. These ratings provided descriptions of impairment for each

level that typically ranged from “none” and “slight” to “moderate,” “severe,” and sometimes “extreme.” The primary standardization sample was drawn from two well-established outpatient forensic centers: the Isaac Ray Center in Chicago and the Court Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Toledo. Using eight forensic psychologists and eight forensic psychiatrists, R–CRAS data were collected on a total of 157 insanity evaluations with test-retest reliability on 76 cases. A secondary sample of 103 insanity referrals was collected from two inpatient and two outpatient forensic facilities.

Reliability The reliability of the R–CRAS is challenging to establish, given the retrospective nature of insanity evaluations. As a rigorous test of its reliability, the R–CRAS was administered by independent evaluators on separate occasions with an average interval of 2.7 weeks. For individual variables, the mean reliability coefficient was .58, which is very acceptable given the rigorousness of the retrospective test-retest design. One critical issue is the reliability of the ALI decision model to demonstrate the reproducibility of R–CRAS decision variables by independent experts at separate times. Average agreement between experts was very high with values ranging from 85% to 100% (M = 91%). Kappa coefficients were generally excellent with an average of .81. Because kappas are affected by low base rates, the kappa for malingering was modest (.48) despite the high level of agreement (85%). For the final decision regarding insanity, the agreement between independent experts was almost perfect (97%; k = .94).

Validity The R–CRAS used Loevinger’s model of construct validation, which is conceptualized in terms of substantive, structural, and external validities. The development of the R–CRAS addressed substantive validity in its selection and operationalization of key variables relevant to insanity. The structural validity used a formulation of insanity that could be tested as a series of hypotheses. In comparison with sane defendants, clinically evaluated insane defendants would manifest (a) a relative absence of malingering, (b) greater psychological impairment (i.e., organicity and mental disorders), and (c) greater impairment (i.e., cognitive and volitional). Marked differences were observed in the predicted direction. For

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example, very large effect sizes were found for the role of hallucinations (Cohen’s d = 1.80) and delusions (Cohen’s d = 3.15) in criminal behavior. Discriminant analyses were also used to demonstrate differentiating patterns between sane and insane defendants on calibration and cross-validation samples. As evidence of external validity, R–CRAS decisions were compared with legal outcomes. The primary samples yielded high concordance rates that were nearly identical—88.5% for the Isaac Ray Center and 88.1% for the Court Diagnostic and Treatment Center.

Forensic Applications The R–CRAS is the only well-validated decision model for the assessment of criminal responsibility. Its model requires forensic psychologists and psychiatrists to quantify key variables related to the severity of Axis I symptoms and elements of criminal behavior. This model appears to be generalizable to defendants with different sociodemographic (e.g., gender, race, age, and education), criminal (e.g., prior arrests and delinquency), and clinical (e.g., prior diagnoses and hospitalizations) variables. Forensic psychologists may prefer to use the R–CRAS for insanity evaluations as a structured guide rather than a formal test. This use appears warranted,

especially in jurisdictions that do not use the ALI insanity standard. For GBMI consultations, the Michiganbased R–CRAS criteria are used in many jurisdictions. However, forensic clinicians should carefully check its relevance to their particular jurisdiction. Finally, experts are likely to be divided on whether to render conclusory opinions with insanity cases. Forensic psychologists avoiding conclusory opinions should use the final decision point for sanity as simply advisory and not document it in their forensic reports. Richard Rogers See also Criminal Responsibility, Assessment of; Criminal Responsibility, Defenses and Standards; Forensic Assessment; Insanity Defense, Juries and

Further Readings

Grisso, T. (2003). Evaluating competencies: Forensic assessments and instruments. New York: Kluwer. Rogers, R. (1984). Rogers criminal responsibility assessment scales (R–CRAS) and test manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Rogers, R., & Sewell, K. W. (1999). The R–CRAS and insanity evaluations: A re-examination of construct validity. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 17, 181–194. Rogers, R., & Shuman, D. W. (2000). Conducting insanity evaluations (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.

S Traditional Attorney-Conducted Jury Selection

SCIENTIFIC JURY SELECTION

How do attorneys evaluate venirepersons and decide whom to favor or oppose? Lawyers are sometimes influenced by the published preferences of famous colleagues—the idols of the tribe. These famous trial lawyers have published preferences mainly based on ethnic, religious, gender, and occupational stereotypes that may often conflict with each other. These stereotypes were formed long ago and have no application to modern jurors or cases. Many attorneys hold other stereotypes that may have some limited value, for example, that nurses are unsympathetic to pain and suffering or that people who use newspaper coupons give stingy monetary awards. In addition, a trial attorney’s experience with a particular type of juror may result in prejudice for or against such jurors in future trials. Attorneys also evaluate venirepersons on the basis of “vibes”—their impression of the venireperson’s nonverbal behavior and deportment. Generally, the attorney has a limited profile of good and bad jurors derived from advice from other attorneys, prejudices, speculation, and experience.

Scientific jury selection (SJS) is the use of a survey to decide which jurors to favor in a trial. Prior to the 1970s, jury selection was done by attorneys based on their hunches. The new quantitative method was welcomed enthusiastically by trial attorneys. Social scientists were more reserved. SJS led to the employment of social scientists as trial consultants. This entry describes traditional jury selection as conducted by attorneys, reviews the origin of SJS, presents an example of a 2003 survey used in Florida to implement SJS, and examines evidence on the utility of SJS. Voir dire is the process at the beginning of a trial when prospective jurors, called venirepersons, are examined verbally to determine their fitness for service as jurors in a particular trial. An unlimited number of venirepersons can be excused for cause—that is, found unfit by the trial judge for reasons of incompetence or prejudice. Venirepersons are also excused peremptorily, that is, by the attorneys without stated reason. The rules for using peremptory excusals vary by jurisdiction and preferences of trial judges. Judges differ widely in the questions they ask or allow the attorneys to ask. Some judges allow venirepersons to complete trial-specific questionnaires constructed by the attorneys. The information about venirepersons available to the attorneys varies greatly, given the court’s voir dire practice. Nevertheless, in U.S. courts, the parties (prosecution, plaintiff, and defendant) have a right to a certain number of peremptory excusals. These peremptory excusals are determined and used during the jury selection process.

Origin of Scientific Jury Selection In the 1972 Harrisburg Seven trial of Vietnam War resisters, Jay Schulman and colleagues decided to evaluate venirepersons on the basis of a survey. Schulman surveyed 840 respondents in the trial venue, recording diverse attitudes possibly related to juror view of war resisters. Respondents indicated what they thought of various antiwar activities, which historical figures they 705

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admired, their level of trust in government and the establishment, and many demographic features such as age, sex, education, occupation, media preference, and residence. Demographic variables were then statistically correlated with attitudes suggesting support for the government and the Vietnam War. Schulman reported that respondent sex, education, religion, and media preference distinguished “good” from “bad” jurors. In principle, jurors at the trial who had features that were bad (male, better educated, Protestant, attended to local media) would be excused peremptorily. Despite the apparently scientific approach, it is clear from Schulman’s article that the Harrisburg Seven jury was chosen by a mishmash of survey findings and old-fashioned practice (including informant information on certain venirepersons; speculation about how a given juror was likely to relate to other jurors; speculation on racism; and deliberation among the multiple lawyers, social scientists, and defendants about the desirability of prospective jurors). If it is unclear how SJS was employed in the Harrisburg Seven trial, it was abundantly clear to the litigation profession that a promising new tool was available to assist in jury selection. While Schulman’s academic colleagues continued pro bono work on political trials, some of his followers formed the National Jury Project in 1975. In 1979, in the wake of success in the MCI/ATT antitrust case, Donald Vinson founded Litigation Sciences. In 1987, he founded Decision Quest, which was employed by prosecutor Marcia Clark in the 1995 trial of O. J. Simpson. Today, trial consultation is a billion-dollar enterprise, with practitioners in all metropolitan areas.

An SJS Survey The following survey was conducted in 2003 in preparation for a trial with charges of vehicular homicide while driving under the influence of alcohol, a felony punishable by as much as 50 years in a Florida state prison. The sample in this SJS survey consisted of 211 Miami-Dade county residents whose sex, age, family income, marital status, education, and race/ethnicity closely paralleled those of registered voters, from among whom state court venirepersons are subpoenaed. These people’s responses should be similar to those of people who show up for duty at this trial. The survey begins with the case summary, a onepage description of the most essential features of the case, to wit, that an elderly lady was hit and killed by a speeding BMW. The driver failed to stop. A witness

with a cell phone described the driver as a black or darkskinned male. A police BOLO (be on the outlook for) broadcast this description. The police found the abandoned, damaged car within 20 minutes at a distance of 1.5 miles from the accident. About 1 hour after the accident, the police went to the apartment of the registered owner of the car, who lived 8 miles away. He was a light-skinned White man who was wearing his bathrobe. He had been in bed and in the shower and appeared intoxicated. There were glass shards in his robe and in the shower. He admitted having been out drinking all night at two gay bars. He claimed his car was parked below in the garage. When it was not found there, he agreed with the police that it must have been stolen. He was interrogated at the police station and continued to deny guilt. He claimed to have blacked out in a bar and to be unable to remember anything thereafter. His blood alcohol level 4 hours after the accident was 0.17, far above the legal limit. At that point he was arrested. The summary concludes with a statement of a defendant’s right to be presumed innocent and stresses that the entire burden of proving guilt rests with the prosecution. The summary is followed by a 9-point verdict scale asking the respondent to indicate the likelihood of guilt based on what he or she knows. This verdict scale is repeated after each separate additional fact introduced in the second section. A final verdict scale comes after the respondent has heard the case summary and all eight additional facts. This is the most important measure of the verdict. The second section of the survey records the respondent’s verdict after hearing specific critical facts. These verdicts determine trial themes and are the most important information in an SJS survey. They tell the attorney which facts fly and which crash, what to leave in the argument at a trial, and what to leave out. It is no simple matter to know which evidence and which themes to emphasize in a trial. Recall that respondents indicated verdicts after hearing eight specific bits of evidence or argument. In terms of the prosecution’s case, respondents did not increase their guilt ratings on the basis of evidence stressing that the defendant’s car was involved or that he was out drinking all night without an alibi. However, evidence that the glass spray pattern in the damaged auto proved that no one other than a driver was in the car at the time of the accident resulted in a sharp increase in guilt ratings. These findings identify the critical defense problem that must be successfully addressed. Two defense themes proved most helpful. First, the police BOLO identified the driver as a dark-skinned

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male. Second, sloppy police work such as failing to fingerprint the steering wheel led to lower guilt ratings. The defense was on notice to focus on these points and ignore certain other evidence such as a doctor’s testimony that the defendant had no memory of postblackout events under hypnosis. The third section of the survey consists of openended items answered in the respondent’s own words. Respondents are asked for the best reasons for convicting and acquitting, and for any suggestions they might have. The responses confirmed that the best reasons for acquittal were the legal ground rules favoring the defendant, sloppy police work, and the BOLO. Responses to free-response questions often produce useful articulations. These can be used to make a point in argument. The fourth section consists of opinion items. Respondents used rating scales to indicate their opinions about alcohol and driving, sloppy police work, eyewitness accuracy, and conventionality. The results indicated that opinions about convicting when the police work has been sloppy, not convicting on strong suspicion but only on proof, and concern about irresponsibility and sexual immorality predicted the verdict. The defense would focus on these opinions in voir dire. Experience has shown that demographic predictors emphasized in the original SJS research are usually less predictive of the verdict than are experiences and/or opinions. Nevertheless, as in the current case, they are sometimes predictive. This is extremely helpful when court procedure limits voir dire as in the federal courts. The current study indicates Cuban Whites reach verdicts similar to those of married jurors, jurors with lower incomes and less education, male jurors, and jurors who never drink even moderate amounts of alcohol when driving. These characteristics are associated with conviction. In the current case, the survey has distinguished critical and less significant evidential issues. Nine opinion and demographic predictors have been identified. In juror selection, venirepersons with more of these features will be favored for defense peremptory excusals. The disposition of this case is instructive in evaluating the utility of SJS. Preparation for jury selection is only one aspect of trial outcome and usually far from the most important. In this case, as noted, the defense knew from the survey that the police BOLO indicating that the driver was a dark-skinned male was crucial to introducing doubt that the fair-skinned defendant was driving the car. The prosecution argued that the BOLO

was in error because the eyewitness in fact told the police that it was the car that was black. Unfortunately for the defense, the judge disallowed mention of the BOLO. Faced with 50 years in prison if convicted, the defendant agreed to plead guilty and serve 12 years in prison. In this case, SJS succeeded in identifying crucial evidence and juror features predictive of the verdict.

Utility of SJS Informed opinion differs, but most academic reviewers are skeptical that SJS improves attorney-conducted jury selection. Eight traditional published studies of the statistical utility of SJS indicate that on average only 11% of the factors that determine a juror’s verdict are explained by SJS opinion and demographic predictors. This is, however, better than it may sound as it suggests an improvement of 17% in the accurate prediction of a venireperson’s verdict. If, for the sake of argument, we assume that attorney jury selection is no better than guesswork—50% accurate (it is unknown but probably better on average)—then SJS improves this to 67% accurate prediction. Eleven (nine unpublished) additional SJS studies at Florida International University in recent years suggest that verdict prediction accuracy can be further improved (up to 76% accuracy). SJS is of no value if the evidence makes conviction inevitable. SJS is more frequently used in civil trials, where the evidence is more likely to be balanced. Finally, it must be recognized that the survey must capture the essence of the evidence to be presented at the trial as well as caserelevant opinions, which are known to predict juror verdicts better than demographic characteristics or general attitudes do. Gary Moran See also Jury Questionnaires; Jury Selection; Trial Consulting; Voir Dire

Further Readings

Kovera, M. B., Dickinson, J. J., & Cutler, B. L. (2003). Voir dire and jury selection: Practical issues, research findings, and directions for future research. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Vol. 11. Forensic psychology (pp. 161–175). New York: Wiley. Lieberman, J. D., & Sales, B. D. (2007). Scientific jury selection. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

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SENTENCING DECISIONS The sentencing decision is typically the last court decision made in a case. This decision has attracted the most attention from researchers studying legal decision making. After being convicted of a crime, a defendant may be sentenced to, for example, imprisonment, a community penalty, fine, restitution or compensation, or probation. A sentence may have one or more goals, including to deter, rehabilitate, and incapacitate the offender. Crimes may have maximum and minimum penalties attached to them. However, in between these penalties, sentencers have discretion as to the sentence they pass. Efforts have been made to curb this discretion through the introduction of sentencing guidelines. Past research on sentencing has largely been conducted in the American and English criminal justice systems. Researchers have aimed to describe and explain sentencing practice. They have found that guidelines do not necessarily reduce sentencing disparity. Sentencing decisions are associated with earlier decisions in a case. In addition, sentencers may be influenced by myriad individual-level factors such as offender, victim, and case characteristics as well as higher-level factors related to the sentencer, court, and area or jurisdiction.

Sentencing Theory and Policy Once a defendant has been convicted of a crime, he or she will be sentenced. This sentencing decision is typically made by a judge or magistrate (depending on the sentencing court). Several sentencing options are available to sentencers; common ones include incarceration (prison or jail), community sentences, fine, restitution or compensation, and probation. Of these, incarceration is usually the most severe sentence, although some crimes carry the death penalty in some jurisdictions. Defendants convicted of more than one crime may be given consecutive or concurrent sentences. Sentencing statistics indicate trends in sentencing such that the relative use of different options changes over time, largely in response to changes in sentencing policy or public opinion. A sentence may be justified on one or more of several theoretical grounds. In their simplest forms, desert or retributive theories propose that those who commit crimes deserve punishment and should receive sentences proportionate to the seriousness of the crime. Deterrence theories state that a sentencing should aim to

deter specific people, or people in general, from committing crimes and that doing so requires that a sentence be certain and severe. Rehabilitative approaches also suggest that a sentence should aim to prevent further reoffending but hold that this should be done by means of treatment. The incapacitative approach advocates that a sentence should aim to protect the public by detaining persistent or dangerous offenders. Finally, restorative and reparative theories state that sentences should aim to repair the harm done by crime and encourage social integration. Research on public opinions of sentencing has found that support for the purposes of punishment varies by the nature and seriousness of the offense. Nevertheless, studies have consistently reported that people perceive sentencing policies and practices as being too lenient. In fact, public opinion has been a driving force behind several sentencing policies such as the “three strikes” policy in the United States. However, evidence also suggests that the public may be ill informed or misinformed about current sentencing policy and practice as well as crime rates. Studies indicate that the public are less likely to favor imprisonment when they are made aware of the range of sentencing options available, and they support alternatives to imprisonment under certain circumstances. Most offenses have fixed maximum penalties assigned to them, usually in the form of a length of incarceration or fine amount, and some offenses also have mandatory minimum sentences. In addition, the sentencing options may differ for offense type. Finally, sentencing options may differ for adults and youths (juveniles and young offenders). Despite this, the sentencer is afforded considerable discretion in the sentence passed. When making a sentencing decision, sentencers are expected to use legal factors such as the nature and seriousness of the offense and the defendant’s criminal history. The sentencer is also obliged to take into account any aggravating factors, such as the vulnerability of the victim, whether the victim was racially/religiously targeted, the offender’s leading role in the offense, his or her profit from the offense, as well as mitigating factors, such as whether the offender was provoked, the offender’s minor role in the offense, and his or her acceptance of responsibility or show of remorse. Finally, sentencers may also have access to sentencing recommendations provided by a probation officer in what is called a presentence report. Sentencing guidelines have been introduced in some jurisdictions to focus sentencers’ attention on

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legal factors and to promote predictability, consistency, transparency, and accountability in sentencing. For example, in the United States, since the 1980s, there have been both state and federal guidelines that employ a grid structure. State guidelines vary in their use of the axes of criminal history and offense seriousness, as well as the sentence ranges proposed. Some guidelines are advisory/optional (voluntary), and others are legally mandated (presumptive); some are based on past sentencing practices, while others offer a new sentencing goal or philosophy. In the English system, optional sentencing guidelines are being produced for all criminal courts since 2004. Although these guidelines are much less structured than in the United States, they are informed by public consultation and data on the effectiveness of sentences in reducing re-offending, as well as the financial cost of different sentences. However, commentators are pessimistic about the extent to which objectivity in sentencing can be achieved by the English guidelines. Research evaluating guidelines in the American system suggests that while successful in reducing extralegal disparity in sentencing in some jurisdictions, the guidelines have sharply increased such disparity in other jurisdictions.

Research Describing and Explaining Sentencing Practice Much of the past research has investigated sentencing decisions in the American and English criminal justice systems. Studies have been conducted by psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, and legal scholars using methodologies such as experiments involving sentencers being presented with simulated cases, interview and questionnaire surveys of sentencers, analyses of sentenced case records and sentencing statistics, and analyses of sentencing policies. Researchers have examined both sentencing decisions generally as well as the choice of specific sentencing options. They have documented the influence of legal and extralegal factors on sentencing, variations in sentencing practice across areas or jurisdictions, and disparities in the sentences passed on subgroups of defendants. Sentencers are often required to give reasons for their sentencing decisions. The reasons given in court or in self-report studies typically do not concur with the findings of research that is based on an analysis of sentencing behavior.

Evidence from studies of sentencing behavior suggests that sentencing decisions are associated with earlier decisions made in a case such as the bail-setting decision and the defendant’s plea. In particular, defendants who were denied bail or remanded in custody are more likely to receive a custodial sentence than those who are given bail, after controlling for some legally relevant variables such as offense type. Furthermore, sentencing discounts may be given to those defendants who plead guilty. Some of the relations between the sentencing decision and earlier decisions are supported by policies such as the guilty plea discounts in the English system and plea agreements in the American federal system. However, the association between the bail-setting decision and the sentencing decision are not mandated by sentencing policy. Studies have examined the extent to which sentencers may be influenced by myriad individual-level factors such as offender, victim, and case characteristics as well as higher-level factors related to the sentencer, court, and area or jurisdiction. With regard to individual-level factors, there is evidence that in addition to legally proscribed factors, sentencers may use extralegal factors such as the race or ethnicity and gender of the defendant. In particular, Black defendants have been reported to be treated more punitively than White defendants, and females have been shown to be treated more leniently than their male counterparts, even after controlling for the defendant’s offense and criminal history. However, there may be other legally relevant case variables that covary with these extralegal factors that also need to be controlled, and the impact of extralegal factors on sentencing may also be partly accounted for by the impact of these factors at earlier stages of the criminal justice process such as at the bail-setting stage. With regard to higher-level factors, criminological research in America shows that the decision to incarcerate as well as the length of incarceration can be predicted by sentencer characteristics, such as age, and court and area factors, such as court size, availability of custodial spaces, and proportion of ethnic population. For instance, minority judges have been found to be more lenient than their White counterparts. Sentences have been found to be more severe in small courts than in large courts. The availability of custodial spaces has been found to increase the likelihood of incarceration. In some areas, it has been found that as the proportion of the population belonging to an ethnic minority increases, so does the length of incarceration. Criminological research

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in the English system similarly reports that, for offenses of similar levels of seriousness or for similar types of offenders, sentences appear to vary by area, court type, and sentencer. Here, sentences given in the Crown court tend to be more severe than those given by the magistrates’ (lower) court for similar offenses, and sentences by professional judges tend to be more severe than those given by lay judges (magistrates). Although psychologists have generally not studied the impact of higher-level variables on sentencing decisions, they have demonstrated how the personal characteristics of the sentencer, such as his or her attitudes and experience, may influence the sentencing decision. Psychological research has also pointed to the types of heuristic decision-making strategies that sentencers may use. More recently, criminologists such as Brian Johnson have begun to argue for the importance of studying sentencing decisions using multilevel theories. These allow the researcher to simultaneously examine the relative (direct) impact of individual- and higher-level factors on sentencing decisions and to measure the interactive effects of individual- and higher-level factors. Therefore, theories of sentencing can better consider how sentencers are influenced by the individual offender, case, or victim and how sentencing behavior is affected by the characteristics of the sentencer and his or her environment such as court or area. Mandeep K. Dhami See also Bail-Setting Decisions; Death Penalty; Parole Decisions; Plea Bargaining; Probation Decisions; Public Opinion About Sentencing and Incarceration; Sentencing Diversion Programs

Johnson, B. (2006). The multilevel context of criminal sentencing: Integrating judge- and county-level influences. Criminology, 44, 259–298. Von Hirsch, A., & Ashworth, A. (Eds.). (1998). Principled sentencing (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Hart.

SENTENCING DIVERSION PROGRAMS Sentencing diversion programs are formal, institutionalized programs for people with mental illness that were created to reduce the volume of and frequency with which this population is involved in the criminal justice system as defendants. Their primary purpose is to divert persons with mental illness (PMIs) from the criminal justice system (including jail and prison) into community, outpatient mental health, and substance abuse treatment. Diversion, which can occur at any point in the criminal justice process (from prearrest to postconviction), has several defining features. These features include sharing a common goal of reducing recidivism rates of PMIs, relying on a therapeutic jurisprudence model, having predefined target populations, using a carrot-and-stick approach to achieve compliance, maintaining collaborations across multiple systems of care, and sometimes mandating treatment. Preliminary research on the effectiveness of the programs is equivocal but promising, in that diversion can improve the lives of PMIs involved in the criminal justice system.

The Purpose of Diversion Programs Further Readings

Albonetti, C. A. (1997). Sentencing under the federal sentencing guidelines: Effects of defendant characteristics, guilty pleas, and departures on sentence outcomes for drug offenses. Law and Society Review, 31, 789–822. Daly, K., & Bordt, R. L. (1995). Sex effects and sentencing: An analysis of the statistical literature. Justice Quarterly, 12, 141–175. Mitchell, O. (2005). A meta-analysis of race and sentencing research: Explaining the inconsistencies. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 21, 439–466. Roberts, J. V., & Hough, M. (2005). Understanding public attitudes to criminal justice. Berkshire, UK: Open University Press.

Diversion has always been an informal option for the police and prosecutors, but the development of formalized programs is relatively recent. Diversion is an attempt to stem the tide of PMIs who enter the criminal justice system. An estimated 900,000 persons with serious mental illness are booked into U.S. jails annually. (Serious mental illness is typically defined as having a schizo-spectrum, bipolar, or major depressive disorder.) Approximately 10% to 15% of jail and prison inmates have a serious mental illness compared with about 3% of the general population. Moreover, PMIs who are involved in the justice system tend to have repeated, “revolving-door” contact with law enforcement and the courts. It has been said that U.S. jails and prisons have become de facto mental health institutions. Because of

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the volume of PMIs involved in the criminal justice system and the associated problems (e.g., behavioral problems while incarcerated, access to medication), formal diversion programs have been developed to help reduce the number and frequency with which PMIs pass through the criminal justice system. Typically, diversion programs are premised on the notion that PMIs who access and engage in community treatment will be less likely to have police contact and less likely to be charged with crimes, thereby reducing the repeated cycling.

Timing of Diversion There are two main forms of diversion programs: prebooking (or prearrest) and postbooking (including mental health courts). Although diversion can occur at any point along the criminal justice continuum, including probation and parole, one goal of diversion is to identify potential participants as early as possible. The timing of diversion, however, can depend on awareness of the mental illness and of the diversion program itself. For example, an inmate may not be recognized as having a mental illness (or as being a suitable candidate for the program) until after several months of pretrial detainment. Additionally, in larger urban communities, many criminal justice personnel with whom the PMI interacts may not even know a diversion program exists in their locale. The timing of the referral and whether the program is pre- or postbooking also influence the diversion process itself. Specifically, prebooking programs divert the PMI from being arrested and charged and, thus, from criminal justice involvement entirely. That is, for PMIs involved in prebooking diversion programs, law enforcement has used their discretion to not arrest them. Currently, there are an estimated 120 prebooking diversion programs. A growing form of prebooking diversion programs are crisis intervention teams (CITs). The CIT model is primarily concerned with de-escalating crisis situations between police officers and PMIs in the field, but it also involves making informed decisions about when to arrest PMIs rather than taking them to treatment settings. Postbooking diversion occurs after the person has been charged. Two critical points for this type of diversion to occur are when making decisions concerning pretrial release and deferring prosecution. Usually, the decision to release a defendant occurs soon after the arrest. If the arraignment judge is aware that the person has been accepted into a diversion program that is partially responsible for community supervision, the

judge may be more inclined to release the person from jail. Similarly, when the prosecutor is deciding whether to go forward with a case, knowing that the defendant is involved in a diversion program, and is thus likely to be getting treatment and supervision, can affect that decision. To date, there are approximately 150 postbooking U.S. diversion programs that are not mental health courts. Mental health courts, while a form of postbooking diversion, are distinct. Mental health courts are criminal courts with typically one judge presiding. Clients are supervised by the judge (in periodic status review hearings) and in the community by mental health and/or criminal justice professionals. Often, communities that have instituted successful drug courts will form mental health courts as well. The courts are part of a growing field of specialty courts, which include domestic violence, DUI, and even teen smoking cessation courts. The first two mental health courts were formed in 1997. In 2006, there were more than 130 U.S. mental health courts.

Features of Diversion Programs Diversion programs are most often created by individual communities and thus meet the needs of that specific jurisdiction. As such, diversion programs can appear quite distinct from one another, especially when examined at a micro level. However, at a macro level, there are several shared and defining aspects of diversion programs. Common Goal

Diversion programs have the shared goal of reducing the frequency with which PMIs become justice involved. They also aspire to linking their clients with community treatment services and, quite often, with other services such as vocational training, housing, and accessing government funds. Generally, diversion personnel are concerned with what is in the best interests of their clients, and many programs are paternalistic in their nature. Therapeutic Jurisprudence

Therapeutic jurisprudence is defined as an outlook that views the law as a system for social change (either in a therapeutic or nontherapeutic direction). Diversion programs strive to improve the lives of their participants. The programs, particularly mental health courts,

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are also less adversarial and less formal than traditional criminal court processing. In mental health courts, often, defendants can approach and speak to judges directly, and sometimes clients and judges will hug. Most programs are also lenient, have realistic expectations, and understand that the population they are serving is prone to relapse and instability. For example, if a client in a mental health court misses a scheduled court hearing, the immediate response is not to issue a bench warrant but rather to use a gradated list of sanctions that increase in intensity as noncompliance increases. Expulsion from the program and incarceration, while possible, are usually the last resorts. Finally, diversion program clients tend to report high levels of procedural justice, in that they feel they have a “voice,” are respected, and heard. Target Populations

Diversion programs set criteria for who is allowed entry into the program. Mental health screening and assessment procedures are important components necessary to diversion. Most programs have both clinical and criminal eligibility criteria. Clinical criteria can be specific or broad and can include, for example, accepting only persons diagnosed with Axis I (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition [DSM-IV]) disorders or requiring a link between the commission of the crime and the person’s mental health problem. Criminal criteria can include limiting the program to misdemeanants or requiring victims’ assent to be involved. For the most part, diversion programs exclude violent felons for public safety reasons. Finally, some communities have developed women-only diversion programs, recognizing that male and female defendants with mental illness have different treatment needs (such as trauma-based services) and routes to recovery. Carrot-and-Stick Approach

All diversion programs offer some end benefit, whether it be avoiding an arrest, avoiding a jail or prison sentence, and/or having the charges dropped or reduced. However, in exchange for not being charged or sentenced, the person agrees to go to mental health and substance abuse treatment in the community, to take prescribed medications, and sometimes to attend periodical status review hearings before a judge. If the person is not compliant on a repeated basis, the charges or sentences that were held in abeyance can be instated. Alternatively, some programs require participants to

plead guilty and only after successful completion reduce the original charges (e.g., from a felony to a misdemeanor) or expunge the conviction from their criminal record. Thus, like drug courts, diversion programs use this carrot-and-stick approach to induce cooperation and compliance. As mentioned above, this is generally not done in a coercive manner but rather with an eye toward the person’s best interest. Cross-System Collaborations

Almost by definition, diversion programs need to involve professionals from the criminal justice and mental health systems who work collaboratively. Very often, a group of key stakeholders in the community come together to form the program. These stakeholders can include a judge, state and/or county mental health and substance use officials, attorneys, pretrial service personnel, correction officers, advocates for mental illness, and the police. Elements identified as being essential to the success of diversion programs are (a) ongoing and active cross-systems collaboration, (b) written memorandums of understanding between the systems, (c) strong leadership, and (d) a “boundary spanner.” A boundary spanner is a staff member who bridges across the mental health, criminal justice, and substance abuse systems and who serves to coordinate cross-systems collaborations. Mandated Community Treatment

Many, but not all, diversion programs can be considered a form of mandated community treatment, in that they require the person to go to treatment and to take prescribed medications and will impose consequences when the person is nonadherent. Typically, prebooking diversion does not mandate treatment or have long-term follow through with divertees. In contrast, mental health courts, while voluntary to enroll, exemplify the concept of mandated community treatment.

Effectiveness of Diversion Programs In regard to the effectiveness of diversion, preliminary research has shown mixed but promising results. On one hand, there is research demonstrating that diversion programs can be successful in achieving their goals of reducing recidivism and linking clients with treatment. For example, a research study examining nine pre- and postbooking diversion programs found that in comparison with a group of similar but nondiverted individuals,

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divertees spent more days in the community than in jail, received a higher number of treatment services, and showed improved mental health symptoms. On the other hand, the same study also showed that divertees had higher rates of emergency room usage and hospitalizations, and a similar number of new arrests compared with nondivertees. Additionally, a study on clients from one mental health court found reductions in the number of arrests and increases in the number of treatment services used, but no change in mental health symptoms over the course of court participation. Studies have also shown that there are individual characteristics that influence whether diversion is successful. That is, diversion is not a “cure-all” that works equally well for every participant. The exact characteristics (such as gender, criminal charges, diagnosis) that lend themselves toward success are still being explored. Major research studies of all forms of diversion programs are now underway.

Future of Diversion Programs In the years to come, diversion programs are likely to continue to proliferate. President George W. Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health recommended the wide adoption of these programs, and the federal government has provided millions of dollars in financial support to create new, and sustain existent, programs. The number of persons with serious mental illness involved in the criminal justice system is a significant and complex problem. Diversion can play an integral role in the solution to this problem. Allison D. Redlich See also Drug Courts; Mandated Community Treatment; Mental Health Courts; Police Interaction With Mentally Ill Individuals; Therapeutic Jurisprudence

Further Readings

Broner, N., Lattimore, P., Cowell, A. J., & Schlenger, W. E. (2004). Effects of diversion on adults with co-occurring substance abuse and mental illness: Outcomes from a national multi-site study. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 22, 519–541. Council of State Governments. (2002, June). Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project. New York: Author. Retrieved from http://consensusproject.org/the_report Redlich, A. D., Steadman, H. J., Monahan, J., Petrila, J., & Griffin, P. (2005). The second generation of mental health courts. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 527–538.

Reuland, M. (2005). A guide to implementing police-based diversion programs for people with mental illness. Delmar, NY: National GAINS Technical Assistance and Policy Analysis Center for Jail Diversion. Steadman, H. J., Cocozza, J. J, & Veysey, B. M. (1999). Comparing outcomes for diverted and non-diverted jail detainees with mental illness. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 615–627.

SERIAL KILLERS People are fascinated by violent crime, and serial murder may be the most fascinating crime of all. Books, newspapers, television shows, and movies recount the destructive paths of those who kill repeatedly. Many of these accounts leave the impression that serial killers are distinct from other types of criminals and from the public at large. However, current knowledge on serial killers is based almost exclusively on a small number of case studies and a handful of moderately sized archival investigations. Thus, our current level of knowledge on serial murder is, at best, sketchy, and this knowledge may not stand up to more rigorous empirical testing. This entry reviews the definition of serial killing, demographics of serial murder, results of research on serial killers and their motivations, and typologies that have been used to classify serial killers.

Definition Serial murder is defined by three key elements: number, time, and motivation. Most murderers have only one victim; serial killers, by definition, have multiple victims. The minimum number of victims listed in various definitions of serial murder proposed in recent years range from 2 to 10, with a modal value of 3. The time element in serial murder is designed to distinguish serial killers from mass murderers and spree killers. Whereas mass murderers have multiple victims in a single episode and spree killers have multiple victims in several separate but related episodes, in neither case is there an emotional cooling off period between murders. In contrast, in serial murder, there is a cooling off period of several days, weeks, months, or years. Finally, to differentiate serial killers from professional hit men, political terrorists, and military combatants, most definitions of serial murder omit individuals who kill exclusively for financial, political, or military gain.

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Demographics Men are responsible for the vast majority of crimes committed worldwide. An even greater percentage of men engage in serial murder. The ratio of male to female criminals, including those who commit singleincident homicides, is 9:1; the ratio of males to females who commit serial murder is somewhere in the neighborhood of 19:1. Although rare, female serial killers do exist and are more likely to work in pairs than male serial killers. In the United States, as many Blacks as Whites commit single-incident murder; the ratio of White to Black serial killers, on the other hand, is 5:1, which is roughly comparable with each group’s representation in the general population. Single-incident murders are normally committed by individuals in their early to mid-20s, while the initial murder in a series is normally committed by an individual in his or her late 20s to early 30s. The victims of serial murder are just as likely to differ from the victims of single-incident homicide as the perpetrators of serial murder differ from the perpetrators of single-incident homicide. Young adults are the most common targets of serial murder, but victims could be anywhere from their early childhood to late adulthood. Some serial killers prefer male victims, others prefer female victims, and still others have no gender preference. According to recent estimates, females are more likely to be victimized by a serial killer than males, a pattern that runs counter to what has traditionally been observed in singleincident homicide, where male victims predominate. There are also single-serial differences in the victimperpetrator relationship. Whereas the victims of single-incident murder are often family members, friends, and acquaintances, the victims of serial murder are nearly always strangers.

to be noticed. Hence, single women, transients, runaway teenagers, and prostitutes are prime targets for serial murder. With respect to the method of murder, serial killers prefer to strangle, stab, or beat their victims rather than shoot them (the staple of singleincident murder). It has been speculated that “handson” murder techniques such as strangulation, stabbing, and beating offer the serial killer greater personal control over the victim than killing from a distance. Once the crime has been committed, the serial killer is more likely than the single-incident killer to try and deceive law enforcement by burying the body, moving the body to another location, or altering the crime scene. There is no single psychological or personality profile that all serial killers fit, but there are certain characteristics that have been observed on a fairly regular basis in serial killers. First, serial killers are more likely to have a history of criminal involvement, often in the form of petty criminality, than a history of psychiatric treatment. Second, some serial killers exhibit tell-tale signs of a psychopathic personality. In several small-scale studies, approximately half the serial killers satisfied criteria for psychopathy as measured by Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist. This may explain why some serial killers are adept at disarming their victims without coercion and avoiding apprehension for an average of 4 to 5 years. Third, many serial killers have a rich fantasy life capable of fueling their appetite for murder, with or without the aid of additional facilitative conditions such as pornography and alcohol or drugs. Objects the serial killer collects from the crime scene or takes from the victim, commonly called trophies, not only help the killer relive the murder but can also trigger future killings. Several studies indicate that it is not unusual for an individual to entertain murder fantasies for several years before acting on them.

Research on Serial Murder

Motivation of Serial Killers

The research that has been conducted on serial murder has been largely descriptive in nature. Most serial killers work alone, although in 10% to 37% of cases serial killers work in pairs. When serial killers operate as a pair, one member ordinarily assumes the dominant role while the other member assumes the submissive role. Serial killers generally select their victims, and the victims they find most appealing are those that seem preoccupied, distracted, or vulnerable and those whose disappearance would be least likely

Research on the motivation behind serial homicide is complicated by the fact that motivation is often used to define serial murder and distinguish it from other categories of multiple murder (i.e., political terrorism, organized crime, military combat). It has traditionally been assumed that serial murder is driven by sexual motives, and in more than half of the serial killers interviewed, a clear sexual motive has been identified. Furthermore, in comparison with the emotional and social issues that frequently motivate single-incident homicide, serial

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homicide is more often motivated by sexual fantasies and desires. Having said this, the relationship between serial murder and sexual motivation may be an artifact of how serial murder is defined. Future researchers must consequently avoid confounding the criteria used to define serial murder (i.e., motivation) with the presumed motivation for serial murder by defining serial murder using variables other than sexual motivation. Whether sexual motivation is an artifact of how serial murder is defined, nearly half of the serial killers who have been interviewed deny that there was a strong sexual component to their crimes. A small portion (4–5%) of serial murders appear to be motivated by psychosis, and slightly more are motivated by a strong profit motive. Revenge, on the other hand, may be a more powerful motive for serial murder than either psychosis or profit. There is preliminary evidence, for instance, that some serial killers target victims who display characteristics symbolic of a group or person they despise. Ted Bundy targeted young women with long dark hair parted down the middle because these were prominent features of a woman who had spurned him years earlier. John Wayne Gacy preyed on young males as a way, perhaps, of venting hatred toward his own homosexuality. An even stronger motive for serial murder is the power a person can derive from taking control of another person’s life. Forcing a stranger to submit to their every demand and then killing the person with their bare hands, a knife, or a piece of rope can be highly reinforcing to a serial killer.

Typologies Several typologies have been advanced in an effort to classify serial killers into discrete categories. One of the more popular typologies, the organized/disorganized typology, was developed at the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia. The organized serial killer is said to be of average to above-average intelligence, with good social skills, and a reasonably stable employment history. The murders enacted by an organized serial killer are usually well planned and typically involve the use of a weapon. Such individuals are said to leave an organized crime scene. A disorganized serial killer, on the other hand, possesses below average intelligence, weak impulse control, and poor social skills, leading to an unplanned attack that often results in a disorganized crime scene. The organized/disorganized typology was developed and validated on a group of 36 serial killers and other offenders

who volunteered to be interviewed by the FBI. Recent empirical research has failed to support the organized/disorganized dichotomy, showing instead that most serial killers are organized and that they vary along a continuum of increased organization rather than splitting off into two groups. Another popular typology of serial murder was proposed by Holmes and DeBurger. This typology consists of four categories: (1) visionary type; (2) missionoriented type; (3) hedonistic type, which is broken down further into the lust killer, the thrill killer, and the creature-comfort killer; and (4) power/control type. Separate descriptions and motives are listed for each category in the typology. For instance, the visionary type is alleged to be motivated by delusions and hallucinations, is opportunistic in selecting victims, and leaves a messy crime scene, whereas the hedonistic type is motivated by personal enjoyment, pleasure, or gain, carefully selects victims based on predetermined criteria, and generally leaves a tidy crime scene. The problem with the Holmes and DeBurger typology is that because the four types are so poorly defined and the boundaries that separate them so indistinct, there is a high degree of overlap between types—a fatal flaw in any typology. Furthermore, there is no empirical support for the typology either as an effective shorthand in describing serial homicide or as a mechanism for predicting future behavior.

Future Research Serial murder is a rare event, thereby making it difficult to research. At present, nearly all of what we know about serial murder is based on a few case studies conducted on individuals who agreed to be interviewed by law enforcement and a handful of archival studies using information gleaned from newspapers, police files, and court documents. Consequently, there is a need for more empirical research on serial murder. First, a generally accepted definition of serial murder must be found so that it can serve as the standard for future research on serial homicide. The use of divergent definitions of serial murder and confounding definitions with variables (e.g., motivation) have thus far hindered progress in the field. Second, theoretical models, such as Hickey’s Trauma-Control Model, need to be created, tested, and refined. A good theory could reap tremendous benefits by advancing research and practice in the field. Third, alternatives to the traditional serial killer typologies need to be found. One such alternative is the

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instrumental-affective dimensional approach in which instrumental and affective motives for serial murder are allowed to coexist. Finally, more research needs to be devoted to prediction—not just as a way of narrowing down the field of suspects in a series of seemingly related murders but also as a way of understanding the factors that lead to serial murder and how some of these features can be ameliorated, altered, or changed. Glenn D. Walters See also Profiling; Psychopathy

Further Readings

Beasley, J. O. (2004). Serial murder in America: Case studies of seven offenders. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 22, 395–414. Canter, D. V., Alison, L. J., Alison, E., & Wentink, N. (2004). The organized/disorganized typology of serial murder: Myth or model? Psychology, Policy, and Law, 10, 293–320. Hare, R. D. (2003). The Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd ed.). Toronto, ON, Canada: Multi-Health Systems. Hickey, E. W. (2002). Serial murderers and their victims (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Holmes, R. M., & DeBurger, J. (1988). Serial murder. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Kraemer, G. W., Lord, W. D., & Heilbrun, K. (2004). Comparing single and serial homicide offenses. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 22, 325–343.

SEX OFFENDER ASSESSMENT Although clinical psychological assessment is generally expected to be specific to particular interventions with demonstrated efficacy, there is insufficient empirical evidence on which to prescribe clinical assessment practice with sex offenders. The best strategy is to examine interventions that target personal and circumstantial characteristics empirically related to commission of sex offenses or to recidivism among sex offenders. The most reliable and robust empirical differences between sex offenders and other people pertain to sexual preferences. The best available assessments of the risk of recidivism are provided by actuarial systems that include indicators of deviant sexual preferences and of persistent antisociality across the life course. The Hare Psychopathy Checklist is the best available measure of

such antisociality. Equivocal evidence supports the use of some assessments of specific attitudes and symptoms. This entry discusses the psychological assessment of men who have sexually assaulted women and children; much of the discussion also applies to assessment of adolescent male sex offenders.

Forensic Psychological Practice With Sex Offenders At the time of this writing (early 2007), crucial lacunae affect clinical practice with sex offenders. Despite several decades of research, there are no generally accepted scientific explanations for sex offending. There is also no empirically conclusive evidence about what specific interventions, if any, reduce the likelihood of subsequent offending among sex offenders. Regarding psychological treatment, the most authoritative and comprehensive meta-analysis concluded in 2002 that the available evidence suggested that some psychological therapies were effective, but a firm conclusion could not be drawn. A glaring problem highlighted by meta-analyses is the absence of useful data pertaining to which specific changes in psychological or clinical constructs induced by therapy were responsible for reductions in recidivism (if indeed any had occurred). The intervening 5 years has seen no improvement. Most of the experts’ efforts over the past several years appear to have been devoted to debating, with no evident resolution, whether existing evidence convincingly demonstrated treatment effects. Although novel therapies were recommended and tried, no new effects of sex offender treatment were demonstrated. Consequently, forensic psychologists planning interventions are not in a strong empirical position to know what clinical constructs ought to be assessed for sex offenders. The most appropriate course for psychologists in such circumstances is to implement interventions that specifically target those ostensibly changeable characteristics that distinguish men who commit sex offenses from those who do not or that distinguish those sex offenders who recidivate from those who do not. The intensity of intervention (including supervision and, in the very highest risk cases, incapacitation) should be related to the measured risk of recidivism. Assessment would generally then give greatest priority to assessing this risk of recidivism and the measurement of those constructs selected for intervention. Some historical and sociodemographic variables are clearly related to offenders’ status as sex offenders or to sex offenders’ risk of recidivism but will mostly be

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addressed in the later section on risk assessment because their unchangeable nature means they are unlikely to form the basis of clinical psychological intervention (e.g., past sex offending history, past history of other criminal conduct, having experienced abuse, neglect, or abandonment as a child, etc.). Similarly, recent research has strongly suggested that various neurophysiological and neuroanatomical measures are related to sexual offending against children, but again, it would currently be unclear what could be done about such problems in clinical intervention, and therefore, they would be expected to have lower priority in typical clinical assessment with sex offenders. Conversely, other psychological constructs, especially intellectual ability as one example, do not distinguish sex offenders and are very unlikely to be a target for intervention but would usually be assessed because they are probably relevant to program assignment and design. Acute symptoms of psychosis might be another rarer example in this category. What are the psychological characteristics that distinguish sex offenders from other men or are related to recidivism among sex offenders? There is no doubt that the two most important domains are sexual preferences and life-course-persistent antisociality; these are discussed at greater length in the next two sections. Several other variables are clearly relevant, especially the age and sex of victims and the victim–offender relationship. Sex offenders who target males and adults represent greater than average risk, while those who have targeted only children in their own families represent lower than average risk. Thus, thorough investigation of such details pertaining to all victims, involving collateral sources is probably essential. Although not specific to sex offending, it is probable that assessment for substance abuse problems is relevant to clinical services with all sex offenders. Evidence supports efforts by forensic psychologists supervising sex offenders under conditional release to assess fluctuations in hostility, anger, and noncompliance, and to monitor (via direct observation and collateral reports) access to potential victims. Much more equivocal evidence relates to the assessment of several other domains including attitudes, beliefs, and symptoms. In this category are assessments of specific justifications and excuses for sexually coercive behavior (e.g., endorsing the idea that victims deserve or enjoy being sexually assaulted) or attitudes supporting generally exploitative and selfish conduct. Similarly, lack of social competence and clinically

significant depression have been reported to be relevant in some studies but disconfirmed by others. Polygraphy has been recommended as an adjunct assessment for sex offenders, but evidence to support its use is sparse and equivocal. Some clinical constructs can, on the basis of available evidence, be ruled out as worthwhile assessment concerns among sex offenders. Based on available evidence, self-esteem, anxiety, specific victim empathy, loneliness, denial, and insight would be difficult to support as targets for assessment and intervention among sex offenders. Novel theories about the causes of sex offending might imply new approaches to intervention that would, in turn, imply new ways of assessing these constructs or the measurement of psychological characteristics not yet entertained among sex offenders. Such novel interventions could be ethically attempted as a test of such novel explanations but only in the context of a rigorous outcome evaluation. Comprehensive discussions of the psychometric and other properties of the many formal assessment tools for these characteristics as well as advice about sources of information and interviewing tactics are provided in the recommended readings and related entries.

Assessment of Sexual Preferences The only assessment shown to reliably distinguish sex offenders from other men (especially offenders without sex offenses) and also to predict recidivism among adjudicated sex offenders is phallometrically evaluated sexual preferences. Phallometry is the measurement of penile tumescence in response to controlled stimuli. Research clearly shows that, on average, men who have sexually assaulted prepubescent children exhibit relatively greater erectile responses to stimuli that sexually depict children (versus adult stimuli) compared with men without such sexual histories. Such “pedophilic” sexual test results are also related to the likelihood of recidivism among such sex offenders. Similarly, several meta-analyses have demonstrated that men who have committed coercive sexual assaults against women exhibit relatively greater erectile response to depictions of rape and violence (vs. depictions of consensual sex) compared with men without such sexual histories, and there is evidence that such test results are related to recidivism. Although the theoretical meaning of these robust and reliable relationships pertaining to sexual preferences has not been fully settled, it seems inescapable that the scientific explanation of sex offending will at least partly depend on them.

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There are no fully standardized phallometric assessment packages, but several procedural, instrumentation, and interpretation issues have been worked out. Most important, validity is enhanced with relative measurement—for example, comparing each man’s greatest mean response to a prepubescent child category with his response to his largest adult category or comparing his largest response to a violent category with his mean response to consenting sex. Responses to a single stimulus or category are much less informative. Validity is also improved by having multiple stimuli in each category, using ipsative scoring to remove between-subject variability in overall response magnitude, using stimuli in which the brutality of the deviant sexual behavior is emphasized, and including sexually neutral stimuli to aid in the detection of attempts at dissimulation. Validated stimuli include still pictures and aural stories; video materials have not been shown to be valid in forensic assessment. Other strategies to detect and foil faking have also been reported. Phallometry is probably more specific than sensitive—a deviant result is more informative than a nondeviant profile. There have been reports of low test-retest reliability for phallometric testing, but the well-established discriminate and predictive validity implies that test-retest is probably an inappropriate index of reliability for this form of assessment. Comprehensive discussions of the best ways to conduct phallometric measurement for research and clinical evaluation have been provided elsewhere (see the Further Readings and related entries). Obviously, phallometric assessment requires specialized techniques and might not be suitable in all forensic practice with sex offenders. In nonclinical populations, self-reported sexual preferences can be valid, but self-report is unlikely to be trusted in most forensic work. There is evidence that a simple count of relevant characteristics of past sexual victims (a male victim, multiple child victims, a victim under the age of 12, and an unrelated victim) is closely related to pedophilic sexual preferences. Of course, by definition, such a measure, though a valid index of preferences, cannot detect changes in such interests. Also, there is no parallel index for sexual interest in coercive and violent sex directed toward adults. Researchers have attempted a variety of other cognitive-behavioral techniques to detect deviant sexual interests. For example, a picture of a naked person in a man’s most sexually preferred category causes maximal interference (compared with pictures from nonpreferred

categories) in some speeded concurrent mental tasks. As another example, when men can control how long they look at pictures, covertly recorded viewing times have also been found to be related to sexual preferences—for example, heterosexual men spend the most time viewing pictures of adult women. Some of these latter measures are still in the development stages, while others have been marketed to forensic clinicians. However, the empirical basis to support their ability to detect sexual interest in children is scant in the context of forensic assessment, and there are no data to support their use to detect interest in the sexual coercion of adults or in the assessment of sex offenders’ risk of recidivism.

Risk Assessment Among Sex Offenders Many forensic psychologists take on the task of assessing the risk of recidivism represented by sex offenders. Much of this work occurs under the aegis of statutes mandating preventative detention for “sexually violent persons,” “dangerous offenders,” or “dangerous people with severe personality disorders” in various Englishspeaking jurisdictions. This form of assessment is frequently undertaken outside any other clinical responsibility to provide psychological interventions or services. In this context, the assessment of recidivism risk among sex offenders has been controversial, with some commentators saying that psychologists’ participation is unethical. This condemnation has been partly based on the inaccurate assertion that sex offenders are generally very unlikely to recidivate. In fact, the best long-term data indicate that approximately 40% of adult male sex offenders released from secure custody will be apprehended for subsequent sexually violent crime. Most forensic psychologists would probably espouse the view that assessing the risk of sex offenders can be ethically conducted as long as psychologists’ practice is in accord with the best available empirical evidence. In that regard, and in contrast with the scientifically less fruitful field of sex offender therapy, there has been clear recent progress in empirically based risk assessment among sex offenders. This recent empirical progress has occurred in the context of a much larger literature on assessment, in general establishing (beyond any responsible debate) the superiority of actuarial assessment over informal, intuitive, subjective methods. The latter approach occurs when the assessor makes the decision about what information to select, combine, and process. In contrast, the

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actuarial method eliminates human judgment about the selection of relevant assessment information and about how to combine that information—assessment results depend only on empirically measured relationships between data and the outcome of interest. Several wellvalidated and replicated actuarial assessments have been developed for use among adjudicated adult sex offenders—men in custody for sexual assaults against women or children. Consequently, psychologists could not defend failing to use such a tool in assessing the risk of recidivism for such sex offenders. A few psychologists have claimed that instructing clinicians to insert an idiosyncratically determined amount of unaided clinical intuition at the end of the assessment process confers an advantage in predictive accuracy, and they have promulgated nonactuarial schemes for doing so with sex offenders. This promulgation was accompanied by no evidence in support of these claims. The few studies that have since examined these claims among sex offenders show little evidence overall of an improvement due to the addition of unaided clinical intuition, which rather appears to worsen assessment reliability when applied to offenders in general. Because of the overwhelming evidence against the use of unaided clinical intuition in general and the ready availability of actuarial systems for sex offenders, use of such schemes could not be recommended. It should be noted that no actuarial systems have been developed specifically for juvenile sex offenders. However, some of the samples on which the existing actuarial assessments are based included sex offenders who were adolescents at the time of their referral offenses, even though they were adults when followed up. Structured schemes for juvenile sex offenders have been published with some evidence of predictive accuracy. The available actuarial assessments for sex offender recidivism are moderately to highly intercorrelated, meaning that they do not rank order sex offenders identically. Some of this apparent disagreement is due to differences in the operational definition of recidivism. That is, some researchers have designed actuarial systems to predict only those recidivistic sex offenses labeled as such on police rap sheets. This research strategy is known to miss some officially detected sex offenses, especially the most serious ones (i.e., those involving homicide). It is clear, nevertheless, that the predictive accuracy of all these actuarial systems derives principally from two domains. The first of these was discussed earlier—deviant sexual preferences assessed

phallometrically or as indicated by aspects of sex offenders’ offending history (prior sex offenses, multiple sexual victim categories, unrelated and stranger victims, clinical evidence of other paraphilias, etc.). The second and even more powerfully predictive domain is life-course-persistent antisociality. The best single measure of this for forensic practice is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL–R), which is an item in some of the available actuarial systems for sex offenders. Other characteristics (some of which are also evaluated in the PCL–R) indicative of this crucial forensic risk assessment construct are a history of criminal and violent offending; parents’ criminality and substance abuse; early age of onset for sexually aggressive, violent, and criminal conduct; aggression and antisocial behavior as a child; disrupted and disturbed family background; failure on prior conditional release; substance abuse; antisocial friends and associates; poor employment stability; hostile and selfish attitudes; quitting or being ejected from sex offender treatment; and meeting the diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder or antisocial personality disorder. Considerable clinical skill is required to assess some of these, but the manner of the assessment and the combination of individual measures should be determined entirely by an actuarial system. Note that these constructs are somewhat redundant, so that an optimal actuarial system need only capture some of them. Instructions on the scoring and interpretation of actuarial risk assessment systems for sex offenders are provided in the recommended readings or suggested related entries.

Conclusions The sex offenders of greatest forensic concern are those men who sexually assault children and those who engage in sexually coercive offenses against women. There is no accepted scientific explanation of these criminal behaviors and no useful data on specifically what personal or circumstantial changes caused by intervention affect the likelihood of such behavior. As a result, forensic clinicians can rely on very little empirical data to guide assessment when designing treatment. Nevertheless, sufficient evidence exists to show that greatest priority in clinical assessment should be given to comprehensive information on the age, sex, and relationship to all victims; substance abuse; access to potential victims; deviant sexual preferences; and various measures indicative of life-course-persistent antisociality (especially the Hare PCL–R). Available actuarial

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systems are the most appropriate way to select and combine individual assessment findings to make decisions about sex offenders’ risk of recidivism. Grant T. Harris and Marnie E. Rice See also Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R); Pedophilia; Psychopathy; Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR); Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG); STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments; Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)

Further Readings

Harris, G. T., & Rice, M. E. (1996). The science in phallometric testing of male sexual interest. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 5, 156–160. Harris, G. T., Rice, M. E., Quinsey, V. L., Chaplin, T. C., & Earls, C. (1992). Maximizing the discriminant validity of phallometric assessment. Psychological Assessment, 4, 502–511. Lalumière, M. L., Harris, G. T., Quinsey, V. L., & Rice, M. E. (2005). The causes of rape: Understanding individual differences in the male propensity for sexual aggression. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Prescott, D. S. (2004). Emerging strategies for risk assessment of sexually abusive youth: Theory, controversy, and practice. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 13, 83–105. Quinsey, V. L., Harris, G. T., Rice, M. E., & Cormier, C. A. (2006). Violent offenders: Appraising and managing risk (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Quinsey, V. L., & Lalumière, M. (2001). Assessment of sexual offenders against children (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rice, M. E., Harris, G. T., Lang, C., & Cormier, C. A. (2006). Violent sex offenses: How are they best measured from official records? Law and Human Behavior, 30, 525–541.

SEX OFFENDER CIVIL COMMITMENT During the past 15 years, sex offender civil commitment laws have emerged that require some dangerous sex offenders to receive involuntary treatment in a secure facility after their criminal incarceration. Following an assessment of risk, sex offenders who are considered likely to re-offend are entitled to a trial with a judge or jury, where evidence of their dangerousness is presented. If they are found to meet statutory criteria for civil commitment, they are detained, with yearly evaluations, until

they are considered no longer dangerous to the community. Sexually violent predator (SVP) statutes seek to prevent the recurrence of sexual victimization by incapacitating potentially violent and dangerous sexual offenders. Though it is well established that a proportion of sex offenders are dangerous and likely to re-offend, the effectiveness of civil commitment in preventing re-offense has yet to be empirically determined.

Background The first of these new SVP commitment laws was passed in Washington state in 1990 after a convicted sex offender who was recently released from prison abducted and brutally sodomized a 7-year-old boy. Washington’s Community Protection Act of 1990 increased penalties for sex crimes and created stricter supervision for sexual offenders. It also contained the “Sexually Violent Predator Statute,” the nation’s first law allowing for the civil commitment of SVPs following their criminal incarceration. Currently, 17 states have passed sex offender civil commitment statutes (Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin). Texas allows outpatient commitment only, where offenders are treated in an intensely supervised program in the community, and Pennsylvania allows commitment only for juvenile sex offenders who are likely to go on to commit sex crimes as adults.

Sex Offender Civil Commitment Criteria The constitutionality of sex offender civil commitment was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1997 ruling in Kansas v. Hendricks. The Court ruled that states must require that a sex offender exhibit both a mental abnormality and a likelihood to re-offend in order to be committed. A second Supreme Court ruling, in the 2002 case of Kansas v. Crane, established that some degree of inability for a sex offender to control his or her behavior must also exist. This concept is called “volitional impairment” and implies “difficulty if not impossibility” in controlling one’s behavior. To meet criteria to be civilly committed, a convicted sex offender must display (a) a mental abnormality or personality disorder predisposing him to commit sexually violent offenses and (b) a likelihood of future sexual violence. The mental abnormality is generally

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diagnosed as a disorder listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR). Because the disorder must “predispose” the offender to sexually re-offend, sex offenders who meet criteria typically display a paraphilia (e.g., pedophilia) or personality disorder (e.g., antisocial personality). The likelihood of future sexual violence is usually determined through the use of actuarial risk assessment instruments, which estimate the probability of re-offense by using a formula incorporating risk factors statistically associated with recidivism. The most commonly used instrument for this purpose is the STATIC–99. Determination of whether a sex offender meets criteria for civil commitment is a multistep process. In most states, the first step is a record review of sex offenders due to be released from prison. The screening identifies inmates who display a multitude of risk factors for sexual re-offense. These individuals are then referred for a more thorough face-to-face evaluation and risk assessment by a psychologist or psychiatrist. If the individual is found to meet the statutory criteria for commitment, a trial is held in which the state and the offender present evidence that is heard by a judge or a jury. Most states use a legal threshold of “more likely than not” to quantify re-offense risk. If found by the trier of fact to be an SVP, the individual is confined indefinitely for treatment in a secure facility, usually with yearly evaluations, until his risk to re-offend has diminished sufficiently to be returned to the community. States differ somewhat in their implementation of sex offender civil commitment criteria. For instance, California requires that individuals evaluated for commitment have two or more sex crime arrests, while Florida allows commitment proceedings for any offender with a past conviction for a sexual crime— even if the sexual crime is not the offense for which the inmate is currently incarcerated. Other states, such as Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin, allow juveniles to be considered for commitment. New Jersey requires a “pattern of repetitive, compulsive behavior” and Minnesota requires a “psychopathic personality,” while other states require a history of “predatory behavior.” Though the vast majority of civilly committed sex offenders are male, most states allow females to be considered for commitment. Nationally, it is estimated that approximately 5% to 12% of sex offender inmates are referred for civil commitment proceedings. Child molesters account for the majority of individuals committed under SVP statutes (approximately 51% to 76%), with the remainder being

rapists. Most state laws appear to exclude from their definitions those offenders who have had only incestuous victims or those who have not had physical contact with a victim (e.g., exhibitionists).

Mad or Bad? The goals of sex offender civil commitment statutes have sparked controversy and debate among mental health professionals and legal scholars. Although the civil commitment of SVPs implies rehabilitation, some argue that punishment, isolation, and incapacitation are its primary purposes. Others question whether sex offender civil commitment criteria conform to the traditional concept of mental illness as established by courts to justify psychiatric civil commitment. The “mad or bad?” debate argues that if sex offenders are truly mentally ill, they should have qualified for an insanity defense or traditional psychiatric commitment in lieu of criminal sentencing. If sex offenders are responsible moral agents and were, therefore, appropriately tried and punished through the criminal justice system, then culpability and mental or volitional impairment should be mutually exclusive. Jill S. Levenson See also Sex Offender Assessment; Sex Offender Recidivism; Sex Offender Treatment; Sex Offender Typologies

Further Readings

Kansas v. Crane, 534 U.S. 407 (2002). Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346 (1997). Levenson, J. S. (2004). Sexual predator civil commitment: A comparison of selected and released offenders. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 48(6), 638–648. Levenson, J. S., & Morin, J. W. (2006). Factors predicting selection of sexual offenders for civil commitment. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 50(6), 609–629.

SEX OFFENDER COMMUNITY NOTIFICATION (MEGAN’S LAWS) Sexual assault is a serious social problem of great concern. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that approximately 100,000 cases

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of child sexual abuse are substantiated each year. In addition, according to the 2005 National Crime Victimization survey, there were nearly 192,000 victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. In an effort to prevent sex crimes, community notification laws (also known as Megan’s Laws) allow information about convicted sex offenders to be disseminated to the public. Distribution of this information occurs through various means, including Internet registries, community meetings, media announcements, and distribution of flyers. The goal of community notification is to prevent sexual assault by warning potential victims that a convicted sex offender lives in the vicinity. Thus far, research has been limited in demonstrating the effectiveness of community notification in preventing sex crimes, in general, or sex offense recidivism more specifically. There is research to suggest that the collateral consequences of notification interfere with community reintegration for many sex offenders.

History and Development of Notification Laws The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1994. This federal statute mandated that all 50 states pass laws requiring sex offenders to report their addresses to local law enforcement agencies. The police are required to maintain a registry of convicted sex offenders’ current whereabouts. The law was named for an 11-year-old Minnesota boy who was abducted and remains missing to this day. The purpose of sex offender registration is to assist law enforcement agencies to track where sex offenders are located and to aid in the investigation of sex crimes by identifying a potential pool of suspects. In 1996, the Wetterling Act was amended by adding a provision allowing states to distribute sex offender registry information to the public. This amendment is often referred to as Megan’s Law, and was named for a 7-yearold New Jersey child who was murdered by a previously convicted sex offender. The purpose of community notification is to provide information about sex offenders living in the community so that parents and other concerned citizens can take steps to protect themselves. About half of the states classify sex offenders according to risk levels and use more aggressive notification to warn of sex offenders who are assessed to pose the greatest threat to public safety. Other states use broad community notification, publishing information

about all sex offenders without an assessment of risk. Community notification methods vary in each state, but media releases, door-to-door warnings, flyers, community meetings, and Internet access are the most common strategies. The Wetterling Act was again modified under the PROTECT amendment in 2003 to require states to post information about convicted sex offenders on public Internet registries. The Adam Walsh Act, passed in July 2006, increased the amount of information that can be disclosed on public registries, created more stringent registration requirements for offenders, and provided further guidelines for the development and activation of a national sex offender registry by which information from various states can by integrated into one database. Sex offender registration and community notification initially began as distinct social policies with different goals. Registration was intended to be a tool to assist law enforcement agents to track sexual criminals and apprehend potential suspects. The purpose of notification was to increase public awareness and provide communities with information to help them avoid contact with sex offenders and thus prevent victimization. Over the past decade, however, Internetbased registries have led registration and notification to become nearly interchangeable. The constitutionality of community notification statutes has been challenged. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Connecticut statute was constitutional, allowing sex offenders to be placed on an Internet registry without first holding a hearing to determine their danger to the community. In an Alaska case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that registration and notification of sex offenders whose crimes were committed prior to the passage of the laws did not constitute ex post facto punishment.

Effectiveness of Community Notification Community notification is a very popular social policy. However, little research has investigated the success of registration and community notification in reducing sex crime rates or preventing recidivism. One of the first studies of community notification was conducted by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy in 1995. No significant differences were found in the rearrest rates of high-risk sex offenders who were subject to community notification and those who were not. In Iowa, no significant differences were found in the

Sex Offender Community Notification (Megan’s Laws)———723

reconviction rates of registered and unregistered sex offenders. About 3% of registered sex offenders were convicted of a new sex crime after 4 years, compared with the 3.5% recidivism rate of unregistered sex offenders. In Wisconsin, it was found that high-risk sex offenders exposed to aggressive community notification actually had higher rates of recidivism (19%) than those about whom little information was publicly disclosed (12%). A multistate study examining the effect of registration and notification laws in 10 states found no systematic reduction in sex crime rates after registration and notification laws were passed. A more recent study conducted in Washington state did find substantial reductions in sex offense recidivism. However, it is unclear whether the changes can be directly attributed to notification or whether they are a result of more stringent sentencing and probation policies.

Unintended Consequences of Community Notification Community notification laws have been criticized as creating unforeseen negative consequences for victims, communities, and offenders. For instance, victims may be discouraged from reporting sexual abuse, especially if the perpetrator is a family member, because of the potential for the crime to be publicly disclosed. Broad notification that disseminates information about all sex offenders regardless of risk may dilute the community’s ability to determine who is truly dangerous if all offenders are similarly publicized. Finally, the high costs of community notification may take away funding from victims’ treatment, protective services, and foster care programs. A small but growing body of research has begun to investigate the experiences of sex offenders and the impact of notification on their community reintegration. Research in several states has found that community notification often leads to harassment, vigilantism, and migration for sex offenders. Sex offenders report that public disclosure interferes with their ability to secure housing and employment. Some scholars have speculated that public registries may not be advantageous to a goal of preventing recidivism, because they create obstacles to successful community reentry by limiting education and employment opportunities and by creating social environments marked by shame, loneliness, instability, and psychosocial stress. The practical, legal, and social consequences of crime may be more severe for sex offenders than for other criminals. Obstacles such as maintaining housing

and employment, social stigma, a sense of vulnerability, and relationship problems are recognized as factors that can facilitate recidivism. Criminological research has indicated that employment, positive social bonds, and stability increase the likelihood of successful reintegration for criminal offenders. Social policies that ostracize and disrupt the stability of sex offenders may increase their risk and, therefore, may not be in the best interests of public safety. States that assess risk and reserve more aggressive notification for high-risk offenders may minimize potential unintended negative consequences for lower-risk offenders, with little probability of compromising community safety. Although each state prohibits harassment or violence toward registered sex offenders, community notification has been known to lead to vigilantism. Though extreme vigilante violence appears to be relatively rare, cases of arson, shootings, hangings, and severe property damage have been documented. Murders of registered sex offenders by vigilantes have occurred in Maine, Washington, and New Hampshire. A survey of sex offenders in Florida found that one third reported being threatened or harassed, 21% suffered property damage, and 5% said they had been physically assaulted or injured. In Kentucky, 16% of male sex offenders and 15% of female sex offenders said that they had been physically attacked. In Indiana and Connecticut, about 20% of sex offenders reported that they had experienced harassment, threats, or property damage, and 10% had been assaulted. The accuracy of Internet registries has been criticized by the media. The validity of registries can affect their ability to protect the public. In 2003, the Boston Herald reported that the whereabouts of 49% of registered sex offenders in Massachusetts were unknown. Research regarding the accuracy of Kentucky’s sex offender registry revealed that about one quarter of registered addresses might be incorrect. Newspapers in Florida reported that nearly half of the sex offenders on the state’s Internet registry were incarcerated, dead, or missing.

Recidivism, Risk Assessment, and Community Notification Practices Community notification is a very popular social policy, largely because of the belief that sex offenders have alarmingly high recidivism rates. In actuality, sex offense recidivism is lower than commonly believed. Studies by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Canadian governments suggest that 5% to 14% of sex

724———Sex Offender Community Notification (Megan’s Laws)

offenders are re-arrested for new sex crimes within a 3to 6-year follow-up period. Longer follow-up studies have found that after 15 years, the vast majority (about three quarters) of convicted sex offenders had not been re-arrested for a new sex crime. All these studies involved very large sample sizes ranging from about 4,700 to 29,000 subjects. There is also a widespread belief that sex offenders do not respond to psychological therapies. Early studies were unable to demonstrate that treatment reduced recidivism. However, more recent research indicates that contemporary cognitive-behavioral sex offender treatment can reduce recidivism by about 40%. A more recent meta-analysis found that 10% of sex offenders who received treatment were re-arrested for new sex crimes, while 17% of untreated sex offenders re-offended. This was a statistically significant difference. A recent experimental design was unable to detect general differences in recidivism between treated and untreated groups but did find that those sex offenders who successfully completed the treatment goals were re-arrested at significantly lower rates than those who did not. Though most sex offenders do not re-offend sexually over time, and many do not meet the criteria for a paraphilia disorder as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV), some subgroups of sex offenders are dangerous and likely to re-offend. Research consistently suggests that pedophiles who molest boys are at highest risk to re-offend and have the largest number of victims. Rapists of adult women are also among those sex offenders most likely to re-offend, and they are also more likely than other types of sex offenders to use weapons and physically injure their victims. Incestuous offenders consistently have the lowest recidivism rates. At the same time, research has found that many sex offenders have committed more sex crimes than those for which they have been arrested. So, official recidivism rates are likely to underestimate true offense rates. Also, some sex offenders abuse multiple types of victims (i.e., adults and children, or both boys and girls), and official documents may not fully reflect an offender’s patterns and risk factors. Those challenges notwithstanding, great progress has been made in the ability to assess risk for future sexual violence and estimate the likelihood that a sex offender will commit a new sex crime in the future. Researchers have identified factors statistically associated with recidivism and have combined those

factors into risk assessment instruments. In general, the more risk factors a person displays, the more likely he or she is to re-offend. Risk factors most highly correlated with sex offense recidivism include sexual attraction to children, sexual deviance in general, previous arrests and charges for both sexual and nonsexual offenses, male victims, extrafamilial victims, stranger victims, variety of offending behavior, intimacy deficits, noncontact offenses, and age under 25. Some states use this knowledge of risk factors to assess the likelihood of recidivism and classify sex offenders into categories (i.e., high, low, and moderate risk) for community notification purposes. States that use risk assessment often provide a different amount of information to the public depending on the danger an offender poses to the community. For example, high-risk offenders (for instance, a child molester who victimized multiple prepubescent boys in a cub scout troop) might have their address, photo, and information about their crimes displayed on a public Internet registry, while lower-risk offenders might be subjected to less aggressive community notification. Using risk classification systems benefits states in several ways. They are a more efficient use of resources because more aggressive notification procedures are reserved only for higher-risk individuals. They also allow the public to better identify who poses the most severe threat to women and children in the community. Broad notification policies, on the other hand, weaken citizens’ ability to tell who is truly dangerous, use vast resources to warn communities about sex offenders who may pose very little risk, and can interfere with successful community reentry. Recent federal policies (i.e., the 2006 Adam Walsh Act) have enhanced registration and notification requirements, so it is likely that community notification will become more inclusive. There is a need for continued research to investigate the effectiveness of community notification in preventing sexual assault. Jill S. Levenson See also Child Sexual Abuse; Sex Offender Assessment; Sex Offender Recidivism; Sex Offender Treatment; Sex Offender Typologies

Further Readings

Hanson, R. K., & Morton-Bourgon, K. (2005). The characteristics of persistent sexual offenders: A metaanalysis of recidivism studies. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(6), 1154–1163.

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Levenson, J. S., & D’Amora, D. (2007). Social policies designed to prevent sexual violence: The emperor’s new clothes? Criminal Justice Policy Review, 18, 168–199. Levenson, J. S., & Cotter, L. P. (2005). The effect of Megan’s Law on sex offender reintegration. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 21(1), 49–66. Sample, L. L., & Bray, T. M. (2003). Are sex offenders dangerous? Criminology and Public Policy, 3(1), 59–82. Zevitz, R. G. (2006). Sex offender community notification: Its role in recidivism and offender reintegration. Criminal Justice Studies, 19(2), 193–208.

SEX OFFENDER NEEDS ASSESSMENT RATING (SONAR) Now primarily of historical interest, the Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR) was the first focused attempt to assess change in sexual offenders based on dynamic risk factors. Dynamic risk factors are personal skill deficits, predilections, and learned behaviors correlated with sexual recidivism that can be changed through a process of “effortful intervention” (i.e., treatment or supervision). It was theorized that if such intervention reduced these risk-relevant factors, there would be a concomitant reduction in the likelihood that the offender would recidivate with another sexual crime. The SONAR demonstrated adequate internal consistency and a moderate ability to differentiate sexual recidivists from nonrecidivists (r = .43; ROC [receiver operating characteristic] area of .74). As the 1990s drew to a close, the profession was making ever increasing use of actuarial risk assessments for sexual and violent offenders. The debate about the utility of such measures and their ability to reliably rank offenders according to risk of re-offense had, for the most part, been decided in favor of actuarial assessment. General acceptance of actuarial assessment grew as a number of tools (Violence Risk Appraisal Guide [VRAG], Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide [SORAG], Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism [RRASOR], Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised [MnSOST–R], STATIC–99) gained acceptance in the courts and were used in most jurisdictions. However, those assessing risk in actual sexual offenders had no reliable technology for assessing change in risk status subsequent to treatment or other intervention. Actuarial measures, listed above, are based almost totally on the assessment

of historical, nonchangeable (static) factors that are insensitive to clinical change. There had been previous attempts to measure dynamic or “changeable” factors, most notably in Don Andrews and Jim Bonta’s LSI–R; but prior to SONAR, there were no focused attempts to delineate changeable risk factors for individual types of crimes such as sexual crimes or violent crimes. Using a group of 409 sexual offenders on community supervision, the SONAR authors assessed by both file review and interview of the supervising community parole or probation officer the antecedents of sexual recidivism in a group of Canadian sexual offenders from nine Canadian provinces. Half of these sexual offenders had sexually recidivated while on community supervision, and half had not sexually recidivated while on community supervision. The sample was also roughly divided into equal numbers of incest offenders, child molesters, and rapists. Offenders were matched on offense history, type of index victim, and jurisdiction; nonrecidivists had an average of 24 months of supervision in the community, while recidivists had, on the whole, re-offended within 15 months. The interview and the file review sought data on 128 individual items from within 22 risk-relevant domains. Comparison of these two groups of sexual offenders on this number of risk-relevant factors revealed a subset of those factors that were seen to change for the worse in the recidivistic group during the period of community supervision. Often, deterioration in the assessed areas of functioning preceded a sexual re-offense. These factors were divisible into two categories, each of which had an attending temporal association. Labeled Stable factors, the following five risk-relevant factors—intimacy deficits, social influences, antisocial attitudes, sexual self-regulation, and general self-regulation—seemed to be amenable to clinical intervention or treatment but on an intermediate term. These behavioral influences were seen as more “stable” in the personality and requiring sustained effort to change. The other four factors seemed to change on a much faster basis and to be a reaction to rapidly changing environmental stresses, conditions, or events. Labeled Acute risk factors, substance abuse, negative mood, anger/hostility, and opportunities for victim access were seen as transient conditions that would only last hours or days. As such, these factors were seen as more strongly related to predicting the arrival of imminent re-offense. Statistical analysis provided a scale, showing moderate predictive accuracy, that was able to assess ongoing changes in risk in sexual offenders.

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An important limitation of the study flows from this data having been collected retrospectively, with everyone involved knowing, a priori, the recidivism/nonrecidivism status of the offender. In addition, the same sample was used both to develop the instrument and to test it. The potential for retrospective recall bias, the retrospective nature of the study, and the lack of crossvalidation called urgently for a truly prospective study of dynamic risk factors in sexual offenders. Karl Hanson and Andrew Harris responded to these shortcomings, splitting the SONAR into two parts, manualizing the assessment, and expanding on the first 5 items of the SONAR to form the STABLE–2000 and the final 4 items of the SONAR to form the ACUTE–2000. The STABLE–2000 and ACUTE–2000 were subsequently tested in a truly prospective study using more than 1,000 sexual offenders on community supervision. Both tests showed predictive ability above that available to static assessment alone. That study led to the development of two new tests with even better predictive validity: the STABLE–2007 and the ACUTE–2007. These two measures have demonstrated predictive validity beyond that available to static assessment alone and beyond that of the SONAR and the STABLE–2000/ACUTE–2000 packages. The authors do not support or recommend the use of the SONAR but recommend the STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007, both available from the authors, for assessing dynamic changes in risk in sexual offenders. Andrew J. R. Harris See also Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R); Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR); Risk Assessment Approaches; Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG); STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments; Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)

Further Readings

Hanson, R. K., & Harris, A. J. R. (2001). A structured approach to evaluating change among sexual offenders. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 13(2), 105–122. Hanson, R. K., Harris, A. J. R., Scott, T.-L., & Helmus, L. (2007). Assessing the risk of sexual offenders on community supervision: The Dynamic Supervision Project (User report, Corrections research). Ottawa, ON, Canada: Public Safety Canada. Retrieved from http://www. ps-sp.gc.ca/res/cor/sum/cprs200709-en.asp

SEX OFFENDER RECIDIVISM Sex offender recidivism refers to the commission of a subsequent offense by a sex offender on release. The base rates of sexual offending have been found to range anywhere from 4% to 71% across studies. Some research findings suggest that the risk of re-offending may differ according to the sex offender typology. Furthermore, there is some research that suggests that there are various static and dynamic risk variables that can increase the likelihood of re-offense. However, there has been a considerable amount of debate in the literature about how sex offender recidivism should be operationalized. These debates center on the definition of a subsequent re-offense, how to handle unreported crimes, and the duration of the follow-up period.

Sex Offender Recidivism Although there have been numerous individual studies assessing recidivism rates of sex offenders, Hanson and his colleagues have conducted two seminal metaanalyses examining recidivism rates of sex offenders. In studying sex offender recidivism, meta-analyses are superior to individual studies as they can statistically combine results from several studies, thus increasing the generalizability of the findings. Hanson and Bussière conducted a meta-analysis of 61 recidivism studies, which provided information on 28,972 sexual offenders. They found that, on average, the sexual recidivism rate was 13.4% after between 4 and 5 years. When they examined sexual recidivism by the type of sex offender, they found a recidivism rate of 18.9% for rapists and 12.7% for child molesters. When they examined recidivism rates for nonsexual violent recidivism, they found an overall recidivism rate of 12.2%, with child molesters re-offending at a rate of 9.9% and rapists at 22.1%. Finally, when they defined re-offending as any re-offense (sexual, violent nonsexual, or nonviolent nonsexual), Hanson and Bussière found an overall recidivism rate of 36.3%, with 36.9% for child molesters and 46.2% for rapists. In 2005, Hanson and Bourgnon conducted another meta-analysis of 82 recidivism studies providing information on 29,450 sex offenders over an average of 5 to 6 years postrelease. This time they found an average sexual offense rate of 13.7%, a violent nonsexual reoffense rate of 14.3%, and a general (including sexual, violent nonsexual, or nonviolent nonsexual) re-offense rate of 36.2%.

Sex Offender Recidivism———727

Factors to Consider in Defining Sex Offender Recidivism Factors such as the definition of recidivism, unreported sex crimes, and the length of follow-up can have an impact on the determination of recidivism rates. The definition of what constitutes sexual recidivism is a hotly contested topic. While almost all researchers agree that recidivism should be defined as a subsequent offense, the nature of the re-offending has been contested. In some studies, recidivism is defined as a subsequent charge or arrest, while other studies specify that the subsequent charges or arrests must result in a conviction. Furthermore, some researchers argue that among sex offenders, recidivism should refer only to new sexually based crimes. However, other researchers define recidivism as any subsequent crime, regardless of its nature. Finally, some studies define recidivism as re-incarceration. These differences in the operational definition of recidivism have serious implications when considering the prevalence of sex offender recidivism. For example, studies in which subsequent arrests were used as the criterion would result in higher recidivism rates because being arrested or charged with a crime does not always result in conviction. Operationalizing recidivism as subsequent re-incarceration makes the definition more narrow thus decreasing recidivism rates. However, some researchers would argue that sex offender recidivism should encompass reconviction only for sexually based crimes and not crimes that are nonsexual in nature. Finally, using subsequent reincarceration as the criterion could also erroneously inflate recidivism statistics as many sex offenders have long periods of parole following the completion of their sentence, and they could be re-incarcerated for technical parole violations such as drinking alcohol or failing to meet with their parole officer. Therefore, it is very important when examining rates of sexual recidivism to determine how the researchers have operationalized recidivism. Another issue to consider when examining rates of sexual recidivism is the number of sex crimes that go unreported or undetected. For example, it is estimated that only 32% (or 1 in 3) of sex crimes against individuals older than 12 are reported to the police. Polygraph studies of convicted sex offenders found that sex offenders had committed significantly more sexual offenses than they were charged or convicted of and that, on average, sex offenders had been committing crimes for 16 years before being caught.

Furthermore, even if an offender is charged with a sex crime, it may be harder to prove, so they may plead to a lesser nonsex crime. Finally, when conceptualizing sex offender recidivism, it is also important to examine the length of the follow-up period. While recidivism may be considered to be a lifelong occurrence, many studies use discrete periods of 5 or 10 years postrelease, while some studies have followed sex offenders for up to 25 years. However, the duration of postincarceration follow-up could also influence recidivism rates as it is inevitable that the longer the follow-up period, the more likely it is that a sex offender will re-offend.

Static and Dynamic Predictors of Sex Offender Recidivism Factors predicting risk for recidivism among sex offenders can be separated into static and dynamic risk variables. Static risk variables are risk factors that are unchangeable, such as age or ethnicity, while dynamic risk variables are factors that are amenable to change with treatment, such as anger. In their 1998 meta-analysis, Hanson and Bussière found several static variables that were related to sex offender recidivism. They categorized them into four broad domains encompassing criminal lifestyle, psychological maladjustment, sexual deviance, and treatment motivation. Of those general categories, they found that the strongest predictor of sexual recidivism was deviant sexual interest. Specifically, they found that offenders who had sexual interest in boys and those who had any other sort of deviant interest were more likely to re-offend sexually. Additionally, they found that offenders who were young (under the age of 25) and single (never having been in a long-term relationship) were more likely to re-offend. The risk for recidivism was also increased if the sex offender had a prior sexual offense, had victimized strangers, had an extrafamilial victim, started offending at an early age, had male victims, and had engaged in diverse sexual crimes. Finally, they found that offenders who had failed to complete treatment or those who were exhibitionists were more likely to have committed another sexual offense. These findings were used as the basis for the development of the STATIC–99, an actuarial risk assessment tool used to assess the risk for future sex offender recidivism. In a subsequent meta-analysis of 82 recidivism studies, Hanson and Morton-Bourgnon found that sexual deviancy and antisocial orientation (composed of antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, antisocial

728———Sex Offender Recidivism

traits, and a history of rule violation) were the best predictors of sexual recidivism. Few studies have focused on dynamic factors related to recidivism. In their meta-analysis, Hanson and Morton-Bourgnon found several dynamic factors that were related to sexual recidivism, including sexual preoccupation and general self-regulation deficits. However, it should be noted that they found no relationship between factors that have been commonly assumed to be related to sexual re-offending and subsequent sexual recidivism, such as psychological distress, denial of sex crimes, victim empathy, and motivation for treatment. Hanson and Harris conducted another study looking specifically at dynamic factors related to sexual recidivism. They examined sexual re-offending in a sample of 400 sex offenders for a period of 5 years following release. The researchers found that sex offenders who had committed new sex crimes were more likely to be unemployed, have substance use disorders, engage in deviant sexual activities, demonstrate low levels of remorse for the victim, and report a more chaotic and antisocial lifestyle than those who had not committed new sexual offenses.

Sex Offender Typologies and Recidivism Some evidence suggests that the risk of sexual recidivism may differ by sex offender typology (category of sex offender). One study found that rates of sexual reoffense for incest offenders (those who offend against family members) ranged between 4% and 10%; rates of sexual recidivism for child molesters with female victims ranged between 10% and 29%; rates of sexual recidivism for child molesters with male victims ranged between 13% and 40%; rates of sexual recidivism for rapists ranged between 7% and 35%; and rates of sexual recidivism for exhibitionists (those who expose themselves in public) ranged between 41% and 71%. Numerous studies have examined recidivism rates for rapists. Rates of sexual recidivism for rapists have ranged between 11% and 28% over 5 years. Researchers have postulated that these discrepancies in recidivism rates could be attributed to the fact that there are different types of rapists (such as those who are mentally disordered vs. those on probation) and the differential length of follow-up. When studying recidivism rates among sex offenders who commit sexual offenses against children, researchers generally separate the sex offenders into

three categories: (1) those who molest girls; (2) those who molest boys; and (3) those who molest family members (incest offenders). Generally, it has been found that child molesters who have same-sex victims are at risk of higher rates of re-offending than those who offend against children of a different sex. A study of mentally disordered child molesters who offended against boys found a recidivism rate of 30% over 5 years, compared with a 25% recidivism rate for child molesters who offended against girls and a recidivism rate of 6% for incest offenders. However, other studies have found no differences between recidivism rates for child molesters with male or female victims. It should be noted that there have been some contradictory findings regarding sex offender typologies and risk for re-offending in the recidivism literature. Many studies, including Hanson and Bussière’s metaanalysis, have found higher sexual recidivism rates for rapists compared with child molesters, with incest offenders having the lowest rate of re-offense of all categories of sex offenders. However, one study found that over a 25-year period, child molesters had a higher rate of re-offense than rapists (52% vs. 39%). In this study, recidivism was recorded as any new re-arrest that could inflate recidivism statistics. Another factor that should be considered when examining sex offender typologies and recidivism is that there is some evidence that sex offenders may not be stable in their victim choice, and there could be crossover (e.g., a child molester with male victims could offend against a female) in victim age and gender. Elizabeth L. Jeglic See also Sex Offender Assessment; Sex Offender Treatment; Sex Offender Typologies

Further Readings

Hanson, R. K., & Bussière, M. T. (1998). Predicting relapse: A meta-analysis of sexual offender recidivism studies. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66(2), 348–362. Hanson, R. K., & Harris, A. (2000). Where should we intervene? Dynamic predictors of sexual offense recidivism. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 27(1), 6–35. Hanson, R. K., & Morton-Bourgnon, K. E. (2005). The characteristics of persistent sexual offenders: A metaanalysis of recidivism studies. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(6), 1154–1163. Marshall, W. L., & Barbaree, H. E. (1990). Outcomes of comprehensive cognitive-behavioral treatment programs.

Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG)———729

In W. L. Marshall, D. R. Laws, & H. E. Barbaree (Eds.), Handbook of sexual assault: Issues, theories, and treatment of the offender (pp. 363–385). New York: Plenum. Prentky, R., Lee, A., Knight, R., & Cerce, D. (1997). Recidivism rates among child molesters and rapists: A methodological analysis. Law and Human Behavior, 21, 635–659.

SEX OFFENDER RISK APPRAISAL GUIDE (SORAG) The Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG) is a 14-item actuarial scale designed to predict violent, including hands-on, sexual recidivism among men who have committed at least one previous hands-on sexual offense. The items on the scale are the following: 1. Lived with both biological parents until age 16 2. Elementary school maladjustment 3. History of alcohol problems 4. Never been married at time of index offense 5. Criminal history score for nonviolent offenses 6. Criminal history score for violent offenses 7. Number of convictions for previous sexual offenses 8. History of sexual offenses only against girls below 14 years of age (negatively scored) 9. Failure on prior conditional release 10. Age at index offense (negatively scored) 11. Diagnosis of any personality disorder 12. Diagnosis of schizophrenia (negatively scored) 13. Phallometric test results indicating deviant sexual interests 14. Psychopathy Checklist (Revised) score

Each item is scored and then assigned a weight based on the relationship of that item to violent recidivism in the construction sample; the weights are then summed to obtain a total score. The score yields the percentile rank of the offender as compared with the construction sample and the estimated probability of violent recidivism based on a 7- and a 10-year period

of opportunity to re-offend. The items can be scored from complete institutional files or from files and interviews (but note that external corroboration of offender self-report is important). The initial construction sample used by Rice and Harris in 1997 comprised released child molesters and rapists who had been briefly assessed in a Canadian maximum security psychiatric hospital before transfer to corrections and offenders treated in the psychiatric institution. Outcome data were obtained from a variety of official sources, and criminal charges for violent or hands-on sexual crimes were the primary predicted outcome. Outcome data were collected by individuals blind to offenders’ SORAG scores. The SORAG is closely related to the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG), an instrument designed to predict violent recidivism among serious offenders (not exclusively sex offenders), and it contains many of the same items. Accuracy of predicting recidivism is similar in the two instruments among sex offender samples, but the estimated probability of recidivism is higher for the SORAG (reflecting the fact that sex offender samples have higher violent and sexual recidivism rates than unselected samples). Follow-up studies of sex offenders using the SORAG have examined variations in sample (correctional releasees, forensic psychiatric hospital releasees, offenders supervised in the community), jurisdiction (Canada, United States, Europe), and variations in average follow-up time. The SORAG has been robust to these variations, and SORAG scores are consistently linearly related to an offender’s probability of violent recidivism. In replication studies, the accuracy of prediction as indexed by the area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic or, equivalently, the common language effect size is about .75, meaning that 75% of randomly selected violent recidivists have higher SORAG scores than randomly chosen men who are not violent recidivists. Accuracy is degraded when recidivism is measured poorly, when data are missing for SORAG variables, and when the length of the follow-up period varies widely across offenders. In 2003, Harris and colleagues found that, under optimum conditions, an accuracy of about .85 can be achieved. Scores on the SORAG correlate with both the speed and severity of recidivistic offenses. The SORAG has also been used to estimate the likelihood that an offender will recidivate with a specifically sexual offense, although these offenses are a subset of the violent offenses that the SORAG was designed to predict. In 2006, Rice, Harris, Lang, and Cormier found,

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using actual behaviors involved in offending, that sexually motivated offenses are frequently labeled as violent (nonsexual) offenses in official police “rap sheet” records: For example, sexually motivated homicides were recorded as homicides. It was argued on the basis of these data that a tabulation of violent offenses corresponds more closely to the number of sexually motivated offenses than a tabulation of officially recorded sexual offenses. The prediction of violent offenses rather than sexual offenses appears on the basis of this work to better capture the intent of legislation dealing with the risk sex offenders present to society. Descriptions of the items, scoring criteria, the method of derivation of the scale, and the results obtained with it in follow-up studies can be found in the 2006 book Violent Offenders: Appraising and Managing Risk (see Further Readings below). Updated information on the SORAG is maintained at www .mhcp-research.com/ragpage.htm. Vernon L. Quinsey See also Forensic Assessment; Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG); Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

Harris, G. T., Rice, M. E., Quinsey, V. L., Lalumière, M. L., Boer, D., & Lang, C. (2003). A multi-site comparison of actuarial risk instruments for sex offenders. Psychological Assessment, 15, 413–425. Quinsey, V. L., Harris, G. T., Rice, M. E., & Cormier, C. (2006). Violent offenders: Appraising and managing risk (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Rice, M. E., & Harris, G. T. (1997). Cross validation and extension of the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide for child molesters and rapists. Law and Human Behavior, 21, 231–241. Rice, M. E., Harris, G. T., Lang, C., & Cormier, C. (2006). Violent sex offenses: How are they best measured from official records? Law and Human Behavior, 30, 525–541.

SEX OFFENDER TREATMENT Given the rising concern about the problem of sexual violence, increased attention has been given to the evaluation of existing treatment interventions and the exploration of new treatment models that aim to prevent or

reduce future sexual violence. Because the rehabilitation of sex offenders might curb future sex offending and thus enhance overall public safety, the importance of research that examines the efficacy of sex offender treatment interventions cannot be overstated. To date, the majority of research has been directed at examining whether suitable treatment interventions exist, whether sex offenders are amenable to such treatment, and most important, whether such treatments “work.” Numerous treatment models have been used to rehabilitate sex offenders. While some forms of treatment were developed specifically for use with sex offender populations, most have been adopted from the larger class of treatment techniques developed for use with wide-ranging clinical populations. Moreover, while some of these sex-offender-specific treatment approaches have received at least modest empirical support, others have only limited support or have not yet been subject to any form of systematic evaluation. Indeed, because of the many difficulties in evaluating treatment outcome with this population, considerable work remains with regard to understanding what works for whom and whether this treatment success actually translates into reductions in recidivism.

Treatment Models The cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) approach, which involves an integration of both cognitive and behavioral therapy techniques, has been adapted for use with sexual offenders. The central tenet of CBT is essentially that our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions interact with one another in a cyclical manner, such that changing thoughts about a situation or event might change subsequent behaviors that ultimately change our emotions. Purely cognitive interventions used with sex offenders include cognitive restructuring, which is aimed at challenging rationalizations, minimizations, or other offense-supportive beliefs involved in the initiation or maintenance of sexual offending behavior. For example, a therapist using a cognitive restructuring technique might challenge an offender’s minimization that “no one was hurt,” by having the offender examine the veracity of such belief. Behavioral approaches have also been used in the treatment of aberrant sexual behaviors. Behavioral therapies are premised on the idea that deviancy is a learned behavior that can be unlearned. Thus, inappropriate (or deviant) sexual desire might be reduced if associated with negative consequences, while appropriate sexual

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desire might be enhanced if paired with rewards or other positive consequences. Masturbatory satiation, for example, involves having an offender masturbate to deviant fantasies for an extended amount of time through the sexual refractory (i.e., postorgasm) period, with the idea that this unrewarded and perhaps aversive masturbatory experience will reduce or eliminate deviant arousal. Although procedures might vary, verbal satiation similarly aims to reduce deviant interest by having an offender repeat aloud deviant sexual fantasies during the postorgasm period. Aversion techniques similarly aim to reduce the deviant sexual response by pairing aversive stimuli (such as mild electric shock or foul odors) with deviant arousal. When the arousal is followed by a shock or other aversive stimuli, the resulting behavior (deviant arousal) is, again, expected to decrease. Just as behavioral strategies might be used to reduce deviant arousal, they are also used to reinforce or enhance “normal” sexual arousal. While there is some limited support for the use of these pure behavioral techniques, these approaches have generally fallen out of favor in preference of more integrative and comprehensive treatment interventions. Cognitive-behavioral interventions thus combine elements of the pure cognitive and pure behavioral camps. Covert sensitization, for example, relies on the behavioral technique of pairing negative stimuli with deviant arousal, but instead of a physical stimulus uses an imaginal (or cognitive) negative stimulus. In a typical use of the technique, an offender might be asked to masturbate to a deviant fantasy, pairing with that fantasized act an imagined unpleasant negative consequence. For example, the offender might fantasize about committing a deviant offense but then interrupt that fantasy with a vivid and highly personalized negative consequence, such as the offender’s wife discovering the act and reporting it to the police. Relapse prevention (RP), a model adopted from the substance abuse literature, aims to help sex offenders identify the emotional and situational precursors to sex offending. In emphasizing the importance of cognitive states and decisional processes, RP often employs a CBT framework. RP operates under the assumption that by identifying the emotional or contextual states that precede offending, an offender can intervene in the cycle and prevent a recidivistic sexual offense from occurring. RP might typically incorporate a wide range of treatment components, such as anger management, social skills training, empathy enhancement, or the aforementioned CBT techniques. Indeed, the general

focus is on giving offenders the skills to manage their offending behavior once they return to the community. Thus, offenders learn their “offense cycles” and are taught how to use this knowledge to recognize highrisk situations, with the aim of preventing relapse (or re-offense). Although RP is one of the most widely used models for treating sexual offenders, there have been mixed findings with regard to its utility in reducing sexual recidivism. More research is needed to examine whether there is sufficient empirical support for the continued use of this model. Because evidence suggests that the suppression of sexual drive will reduce sexual offending, there is general support for a combined psychological and pharmacological approach to treating sexual deviancy. Such pharmacological treatment (at times referred to as “chemical castration”) includes anti-androgens and hormonal agents that work to reduce sex drive, sexual arousal, and/or sexual fantasizing. These drug interventions, which diminish or alter testosterone levels, have been shown to be related to reduced rates of re-offending. Additionally, there has been support for the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in reducing deviant sexual behavior. The class of SSRIs, which have generally been used in treating obsessivecompulsive tendencies, may have specific utility in reducing the intrusive or obsessive sexual thoughts often associated with sexual offending. Finally, some mention of surgical castration deserves mention. Although rarely used, surgical castration involves the removal of the testes, which has the effect of reducing circulating levels of testosterone and thereby diminishing sexual drive. While some have expressed concern regarding the ethical merits of this form of intervention, surgical castration has been associated with reductions in sexual recidivism.

Risk, Need, and Responsivity Some have maintained that treatment should be based on the principles of risk, need, and responsivity. Risk refers to the notion that treatment should be matched to the risk level (typically assessed through actuarially derived risk assessment tools such as the STATIC–99/STATIC–2002 or RRASOR) of the offender, with higher-intensity treatment services reserved for the highest risk offenders. The need principle distinguishes between criminogenic and noncriminogenic needs, with criminogenic needs referring to those factors that directly relate to recidivism, that is,

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those factors that have a direct relevance to reducing reoffending. Noncriminogenic factors include treatment needs that do not directly relate to re-offense risk but that may improve the overall adjustment or quality of life of the offender, which may thereby indirectly reduce sexual recidivism. Finally, the responsivity principle maintains that treatment interventions should be delivered in a way that is compatible with the ability, treatment readiness, or cognitive capacity of the offender. The strength of this risk, need, and responsivity model lies in its consideration of the heterogeneity of sexual offending. Indeed, this model advocates for the use of differential treatment strategies for offenders with varied criminogenic and noncriminogenic needs, thus renouncing a “one size fits all” approach to treatment.

Does Treatment Work? Despite the early notion in the sex offender academic community that “nothing works,” recent research has been more optimistic with regard to the value of sex offender treatment. Indeed, recent evidence seems to suggest that there are small but important differences in the recidivism rates of offenders who do and do not receive sex-offender-specific treatment interventions. Indeed, researchers have found that sex offender treatment is effective in reducing both sexual and general recidivism. A meta-analysis of sexual offender treatment outcome studies found that, on average, sex offenders who had completed treatment had a 12.3% sex offense recidivism rate compared with the 16.8% recidivism rate seen for offenders who did not complete treatment. In support of more recent (typically CBT) interventions, those who completed treatment demonstrated a sexual recidivism rate of 9.9%, while those who did not receive one of these newer interventions had a 17.4% recidivism rate. While more research may shed light on the particular strategies that work for particular types of offenders, one can reasonably conclude from the existing research that treatment does indeed reduce recidivism. Given this research evidence, some contend that effective treatment programs should target offenders who are deemed to be at highest risk to recidivate and, moreover, that best practices suggest that such programs must target the offender’s criminogenic needs and be based on a combined CBT and psychopharmacological model. Critics charge, however, that the overwhelming majority of sex offender treatment studies use too weak

a methodology to draw any firm conclusions. As a result of practical constraints and the many impediments to implementing sound research methodologies in criminal justice or treatment settings, treatment outcome studies typically fail to use rigorous research designs that use, for example, random assignment or lengthy follow-up periods. Sex offenders typically cannot be randomly assigned to treatment or no-treatment groups in these settings. Instead, researchers tend to examine differences between treated and untreated groups where assignment has been based on need, resulting in a selection bias. That is, offenders selected for treatment are typically different in important respects—either being viewed as amenable to treatment or more dangerous and, therefore, more in need of treatment. Thus, the groups being compared differ in risk level or motivation or other important respects that affect conclusions. Unfortunately, researchers are seldom able to use rigorous, tightly controlled designs, because they must do this research in real-world settings that allow for less sophisticated methodologies. Moreover, there is often divergence with regard to what sort of outcome should be measured. While some studies might consider outcome very narrowly to include only sexual reconvictions, other studies consider outcome much more broadly, including for example, any arrests (even for nonsexual offenses), probation violations, and/or informal reports of re-offense. Some attention has also been given to the measurement of intreatment change. Indeed, some research has examined pre- and posttreatment scores on dynamic variables related to sexual recidivism. Thus, treatment providers or researchers might focus on changes in attitudes tolerant of sexual offending or intimacy deficits as a function of treatment interventions. More research is needed to establish the direct relationship between these withintreatment gains and actual reductions in recidivism. In sum, while meta-analytic research has generally supported the value of treatment for sex offenders, the research studies on which these meta-analyses were based have typically employed suboptimal methodological designs. Despite this, the weight of the research does show some support for cognitivebehavioral and psychopharmacological interventions. Thus, while there is room for optimism, especially with regard to certain techniques, firm conclusions about the utility of sex offender treatment await further research. Cynthia Calkins Mercado

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See also Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR); Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR); Sex Offender Recidivism; Sex Offender Typologies; STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments

Further Readings

Abracen, J., & Looman, J. (2004). Issues in the treatment of sexual offenders: Recent developments and directions for future research. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 9, 229–246. Hanson, R. K., Gordon, A., Harris, A. J. R., Marques, J. K., Murphy, W., et al. (2002). First report of the collaborative outcome data project on the effectiveness of psychological treatment for sex offenders. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 14, 169–194. Marques, J. K. (1999). How to answer the question, “Does sex offender treatment work?” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14, 437–451. Marshall, W. L., Fernandez, Y. M., Marshall, L. E., & Serran, G. A. (2006). Sexual offender treatment: Controversial issues. West Sussex, UK: Wiley. Rice, M. E., & Harris, G. T. (2003). The size and sign of treatment effect in sex offender therapy. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 989, 428–440.

SEX OFFENDER TYPOLOGIES Sex offenders are a heterogeneous group. While there is no standardized system for the taxonomy of sex offenders, they are generally classified into various typologies based on their offense characteristics, motivations for offending, and likelihood of recidivism. Typologies are important in that they capture the characteristics of sex offenders, and they can be useful for treatment intervention and risk assessment. However, it should be noted that these typologies do not always coincide with criminal justice classifications of sex offenders. Sex offenders are generally separated into those that commit contact sex offenses and those that commit noncontact sex offenses. Contact sex offenders include child molesters, incest offenders, and rapists. Noncontact sex offenders include exhibitionists, voyeurs, and frotteurs.

Child Molesters Child molesters are sex offenders whose victims include minors (under the age of 18). Child molesters can be further categorized by their sexual preferences. Those

child molesters who are sexually attracted to children under the age of 13 (i.e., prepubescent children) are referred to as pedophiles, while child molesters whose sexual preference is for teenagers or those between the ages of 13 and 18, are considered hebophiles. However, it should be noted that neither pedophilia nor hebophilia are considered crimes, as they relate only to sexual interest and not to the commission of any sexual act. Child molesters generally report attraction to children of a certain age that are not related to them. Some child molesters have only male victims, some only female victims, while other child molesters offend against both boys and girls. Child molesters who offend against boys have been found to have higher rates of recidivism. Child molestation can involve a variety of inappropriate sexual activities and behaviors. These include undressing the child, exposing themselves to the child, masturbating in front of the child, or touching and fondling the child. They could also include more serious sexual offenses, including performing fellatio or cunnilingus on the child or penetrating the child’s vagina, mouth, or anus with their fingers, foreign objects, or penis. Physical force, coercion, or threats may be used to compel the child into the sexual act. To gain access to their victims, child molesters often engage in relationships with the child or with the adult guardians of the child. This is referred to as grooming behavior. The sex offender appears to be very interested in the child’s needs to gain the child’s affection and loyalty and the guardian’s confidence so that the molestation will not be reported. Some child molesters may also use threats to prevent the children from reporting the abuse. Child molesters often believe that their victims want to be involved in a sexual relationship. When a child responds positively to the grooming behavior, the child molester interprets this as the willing participation of the victim. As a result, the child molester can believe that the molestation is not damaging to the child. This is referred to as a cognitive distortion.

Incest Offenders Incest offenders are sex offenders who offend against minors (children) who are related to them by blood. Additionally, offenders are also considered incest offenders if they abuse a child that they have quasiparental authority over, such as a stepfather or the boyfriend of the child’s mother.

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The most common form of incest is sexual contact between a father and daughter or a stepfather and stepdaughter. Perpetration of inappropriate sexual contact may occur only once, but more often, it takes place over several years. It is not uncommon for incest offenders to offend against several children in the same family. Unlike child molesters, the majority of incest offenders have female victims and their victims tend to be older. While they may start offending against a prepubescent child, the offending may continue after the child hits puberty. Unlike a child molester, the incest offender is generally sexually attracted to adult females. Most incest offenders have had consensual, age-appropriate partners at some point in their lives. While by definition they would be considered pedophiles as they are engaging in sexual acts with a minor, they often view the victim as a surrogate for an age-appropriate partner. Incest offenders often only start abusing children as a way to cope with the stress they are experiencing. Stressors reported by incest offenders include dysfunctional relationships, sexual problems or dissatisfaction, and social isolation. Often alcohol and drugs are involved in the commission of the offense. However, once identified, incest offenders have the lowest rates of recidivism compared with other sex offenders.

Rapists Rape is generally defined as forced sexual intercourse without consent against adult victims. Rape is a violent crime. Rapists engage in behaviors such as threats, hostility, and physical violence to overpower the victims and force them into sexual activity against their will. Rape does not always result in overt physical injury to the victim. Rapists’ primary interests are self-gratification, dominance, and control. Unlike child molesters and incest offenders, rapists generally offend against the same victim only once. Rapists have been found to have high levels of deviant sexual arousal and impulsivity. Additionally, they are more criminalized than child molesters and incest offenders. Rapists who use violence in the perpetration of the rape and who have a history of violent behavior recidivate at higher rates than rapists who do not use physical violence in the commission of the crime. In 1979, Nicholas Groth identified three different kinds of rapists: anger rapists, power rapists, and sadistic rapists. According to Groth, anger rapists are angry

about a variety of issues in their lives and are unable to cope with them in a prosocial manner. While their anger may be directed at women, this is not always the case. Anger rapists tend to use excessive physical and verbal violence in the commission of the rape, thus leaving the victim battered and bruised. In addition, anger rapists may use weapons to hurt their victims. The offenses are generally not planned and are short in duration. The anger rapist tends to choose victims who are perceived to be vulnerable when the rapist becomes angry. It is believed that between 25% and 40% of all rapes are committed by anger rapists. Groth describes power rapists as offenders who use power and control to dominate their victims. Contrary to anger rapists, power rapists tend to use the threat of violence, rather than violence, to force their victims into submission. While a power rapist may use a weapon in the commission of the rape, the weapon is used primarily to gain compliance from the victim. Victims of power rapists are often not physically harmed during the perpetration of the crime. These rapists seek out women who are both physically and emotionally vulnerable and who will require little force to be dominated. Groth estimates that the majority of all rapists fall into the power rapist category. The third type of rapist is the sadistic rapist. According to Groth the sadistic rapist derives sexual gratification from the physical and psychological suffering of his or her victim and often engages in ritualized sexual behavior involving degradation and torture of the victim. Activities may range from restraint, beating, and punching, to stabbing, strangulation, torture, and murder. Sadistic rapists frequently have psychiatric difficulties that may have a direct relationship to the offense behavior. Sadistic rapists often continue offending until they are apprehended, and the severity of sadistic acts increases over time. It is estimated that only between 2% and 5% of all rapes are committed by a sadistic rapist. Due to the violent and sadistic nature of their attacks, sadistic rapists often receive long prison sentences.

Exhibitionism Exhibitionism is the most common form of sexual offending behavior. The exhibitionist is typically a male, and the victim is usually a female. Exhibitionists derive sexual pleasure and arousal from the exposure of their genitals or entire naked body to unsuspecting

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strangers. Exhibitionism is considered a paraphilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, text revision (DSM-IV-TR). On occasion, exhibitionists will masturbate while exposing themselves. While exhibitionism is sometimes considered a humorous topic, it often causes the victims a significant amount of fear and distress. Exhibitionists will rarely seek physical contact with their victims. Generally, they become aroused by the reaction of the victim. In other cases, the exhibitionist may fantasize that the victim becomes sexually aroused following the exposure. Exhibitionists frequently have high rates of recidivism. It is speculated that exhibitionism generally starts by the age of 18; however, very few arrests for exhibitionism are documented in adults over the age of 40.

Voyeurism Voyeurism is the act of becoming sexually aroused by observing unsuspecting individuals who are naked, in the process of disrobing, or engaging in sexual activity. Voyeurism is considered a paraphilia in the DSM-IVTR. Masturbation usually occurs during or shortly after voyeuristic activities. There is usually no relationship between the voyeur and the victim. Individuals who engage in voyeurism are often referred to as “Peeping Toms.” In most cases, the voyeur observes the victim to become sexually aroused and does not desire any contact with the victim. However, on occasion, voyeurs suffer from delusional disorders and thus truly believe themselves to be in a relationship with the victim. In these cases, the voyeur could pose a danger to the victim. Voyeurism generally begins before the age of 15 years and tends to be a chronic behavior. Many voyeurs have consensual age-appropriate relationships in addition to the voyeuristic behavior. However, in its extreme form, voyeurism constitutes the only form of sexual activity.

Frotteurism Frotteurism involves touching and rubbing against a nonconsenting person to achieve sexual gratification. Frotteurism is considered a paraphilia in the DSM-IVTR. The behavior usually takes place in crowded areas in which the frotteur can more easily escape arrest or detection (e.g., on busy sidewalks and on crowded trains or buses). Frotteurs are generally male, and their

victims are usually female. During the assault, the frotteur generally rubs his genitals against the victim’s thighs and buttocks or fondles the victim’s genitalia or buttocks with his hands. Some frotteurs will grab a woman’s breast as they are walking by. While engaging in frotteurism, the frotteur usually fantasizes that he is in a consensual sexual relationship with the victim. However, the frotteur recognizes that he must escape following the assault to avoid prosecution from the authorities. Some acts of frotteurism are very overt (such as grabbing a breast), while others are less so (rubbing against someone in a crowded shopping mall). Therefore, victims may not always be aware that they have been assaulted. Usually, this paraphilia begins by adolescence. Most frotteurs are between the ages of 15 and 25; however, frotteurism has also been noted in older, shy individuals. Elizabeth L. Jeglic See also Sex Offender Assessment; Sex Offender Recidivism; Sex Offender Treatment

Further Readings

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text revision). Washington, DC: Author. Groth, A. N. (1999). Men who rape: The psychology of the offender. New York: Plenum Press. Knight, R. A., & Prentky, R. A. (1990). Classifying sex offenders: The development and corroboration of taxonomic models. In W. L. Marshall & H. E. Barbaree (Eds.), Handbook of sexual assault: Issues, theories, and treatment of the offenders (pp. 23–52). New York: Plenum.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT Law and psychology scholars have studied judgments of sexual harassment for several decades and have reported a number of findings that add to and draw from the literatures in social, clinical, and industrial organizational psychology. This entry discusses some of the more important variables such as sex of the observer, complainant, and alleged harasser; organizational structure; and individual differences in observers, complainants, and alleged harassers. While not all psychological studies of sexual harassment follow the contours of

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discrimination law, all the scientific literature eventually comes into contact with the law either as a starting point that shapes judgments of responsibility or as an ending point to address issues of discrimination. Therefore, it is helpful to organize the literature around the law.

Federal Sexual Harassment Law Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (amended in 1991) prohibits an employer from discriminating with respect to compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. With respect to sex, Title VII prohibits employers from exacting sexual contact in exchange for compensation or advancement (quid pro quo harassment) and from subjecting workers to abusive or hostile working environments because of their gender. In 1986, in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a liability finding against an employer who subjected a worker, because of her sex, to unwelcome misconduct that was “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment.” After the Court heard Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. in 1993, hostile work environments required subjective (the victim actually experienced abusive conduct) and objective tests (a reasonable person would have found the conduct abusive). More recently, in its 2001 term, the Supreme Court affirmed in Clark County School District v. Breeden limits for the “severe or pervasive” test, holding that a comment and a chuckle were insufficient to define a hostile work environment. However, going the other way (increasing Title VII protection), the Court prohibited intragender harassment: “Nothing in Title VII necessarily bars a claim of discrimination ‘because of . . . sex’ merely because the plaintiff and the defendant (or the person charged with acting on behalf of the defendant) are the same sex” in its holding in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc. (1998). In recent times, the majority of cases brought to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the courts are hostile work environment theories of liability. Psychologists find these cases most interesting to study as well. To determine whether unwelcome social sexual conduct reaches the threshold of a hostile work environment, most courts adopt the reasonable person test, which according to Rabidue v. Osceola Refining Co. (1986) is “the perspective of a reasonable person’s reaction to a similar environment under essentially like or similar circumstances.” Other courts emphasize differences in how men and women view social sexual

conduct. Specifically, in Ellison v. Brady (1991), the Ninth Circuit held that “a female plaintiff states a prima facie case of hostile environment when she alleges conduct which a reasonable woman would consider sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment.” In Fuller v. City of Oakland (1995), the Ninth Circuit clarified this standard, holding that “whether the workplace is objectively hostile must be determined from the perspective of a reasonable person with the same fundamental characteristics” as those of the plaintiff. After the intragender holding in Oncale, the reasonable victim test looks to the background (e.g., gender, race, and age) of the complainant as well as the context of the conduct (e.g., persistence, status, and sexual orientation of the participants). Thus, the reasonable victim standard is a semisubjective test, which is concerned with whether a reasonable person with the same key attributes and in a situation similar to the complainant would find the offensive conduct sufficiently hostile to violate Title VII. While the issue of appropriate legal standard remains open today, after Harris there has been movement in most (but not all circuits) toward a more objective reasonable person test. In Burlington Northern v. White, a recent 2006 case defining retaliatory action in hostile work environment sexual harassment, the Court reiterated that there are two types of hostile work environment claims. One type involves a tangible work action (e.g., hiring, firing, promoting, changing work assignments) in which defendants are strictly liable (if their supervisors were responsible for the tangible actions), and the second type creates abusive conditions through other conditions of employment (such as sexual comments, pornography in the work place, unwanted requests for dates). Interestingly, Justice Samuel Alito’s dissenting opinion in Burlington Northern pointed out confusion about whether the reasonable person is an objective test (ignoring plaintiff attributes) or a subjective test that takes into consideration the complainant’s individual characteristics (i.e., age, gender, race, family relations). Justice Alito’s opinion in Burlington suggests that the issue of objective versus subjective standard may soon become an important concern in this area of jurisprudence. There is need for more work that examines the power of the reasonable victim test to sensitize workers to gender, racial, and sexual orientation differences. Knowledge about how legal standards influence workers’ judgments should be of interest to social scientists,

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lawyers, legislators, and judges as they grapple with sexual harassment in a multicultural workforce populated with large numbers of members of both sexes.

Psychological Research on Sexual Harassment Despite a plethora of empirical research efforts, few theories explain the production of sexually harassing conduct or the evaluation of sexual harassment allegations at work. With regard to the production of sexually harassing conduct, Barabara Gutek proposed and successfully tested sex-role spillover theory as one of the earliest models of workplace misconduct resulting from gender-based interactions. Data collected in a telephone survey of Los Angeles workers supported a tendency for male workers to invoke sex-based stereotypes, which sometimes produced inappropriate sexual conduct, especially in male-dominated occupations and work groups. In male-dominated settings, gender became highly salient and activated social stereotypes that were inappropriate guides for workplace conduct. Later tests of the theory have not been as successful. Other researchers presented vignettes of ambiguous incidents and found that participants rated the behaviors more harassing when they occurred in integrated or nontraditional occupations. Sex-role spillover theory has successfully explained how workers label only some forms of harassment and only with certain stereotypes of women workers. Thus, the literature supports a role for gender distributions (i.e., the ratio of men to women in the workplace) in explaining harassment, but the exact form of that relationship is not at all clear. Focusing on the situational side of the workplace, Louise Fitzgerald and colleagues theorized that sexual harassment is a function of both gender distribution and the extent to which the organization communicates tolerance of harassment. In one study examining women in a large West Coast utility company, these researchers report that workers who perceived the organizational climate to be tolerant of harassment and who participated in nontraditional gender occupations reported higher levels of harassment, job dissatisfaction, and psychological distress. Data from another organizational survey suggested that women who selfreport harassment and those who experience behavior that others find harassing suffer from similar psychological harms. Relying on traditional social psychological theory, John Pryor and his group posited that sexual harassment is the joint product of situation and person

variables. In one study, they found that men who scored high on the Likelihood to Sexually Harass Scale (LSH) overestimated the co-occurrence of words power and sex on a paired-associates memory test. Other studies using subliminal primes found evidence for an automatic power and sex link in high LSH men. In still other research, men high in LSH and men primed with sexist ads, such as those seen on television, asked sexist questions of a female confederate during an ostensible job interview. Together, these studies showed how stimuli commonly encountered by workers can trigger uncontrollable cognitive responses in some men that produce harassing behavior.

Gender Differences One area in which a great deal of psychological research exists concerns judgment differences between men and women in cases of alleged harassment. With few exceptions, experiments, field studies, and surveys show consistent gender differences in judgments of harassment against women, with women using broader definitions and being more likely to label specific incidents as harassing. To explain the extant gender effects, one group of researchers presented scenarios to evaluators and produced a path analysis in which hostile sexism, observer self-referencing, and complainant credibility explained gender effects in harassment judgments. However, others found gender effects on harassment tolerance and on harassment judgments even after they controlled for hostile sexism. Despite these findings, some authors have questioned the size and consistency of gender effects, and one metaanalysis of 83 investigations found significant but small effects for gender. Richard Wiener and colleagues suggested that the severity of the unwelcome conduct might explain the seemingly small effects. Researchers using experimental (scenario) methods with undergraduate participants reported that women rated ambiguous conduct more harassing, but perceived severe and benign instances similarly to men, while others surveying workers found gender effects with ambiguous, but not with severe or innocuous cases. A subsequent meta-analysis completed in 2001 took type and severity of harassment into account and found a moderately large overall gender effect (i.e., women found a broader range of behaviors harassing) and even stronger gender effects in studies using moderately severe hostile work environments. Furthermore, when Wiener and colleagues presented evaluators scenarios based on Ellison v. Brady and Rabidue v. Osceola Refining Co. and two video

738———Sexual Harassment

reenactments, women found more evidence of legally defined harassment. With regard to intragender harassment, early work found that male workers experience at least as many potentially sexual harassing behaviors from other men as from women, but reacted less negatively to encounters with women. Furthermore, one study reported that men experience cross-gender social sexual conduct at work as seductive but same-gender behavior as harassing. Expanding on this work, Margaret Stockdale and colleagues showed that male-on-male harassment results, in part, from men’s motivation to enforce strict gender role norms on less masculine men. Data from a 1995 Armed Forces survey showed intragender harassment occurred mostly among men who treat other men harshly. That is, these male workers reject other men as too feminine and do not approach them sexually. While others have begun to study intragender harassment, the influence of sexual orientation of men in intragender cases remains largely untested. Following up on their earlier work, Margaret Stockdale and colleagues presented approach and rejection scenarios in which males experienced unwanted sexual attention from women or other men. In the rejection scenarios only, female as compared with male observers rated higher sexual harassment using their own personal definitions of harassment. These results supported Richard Wiener and colleagues’ self-referencing hypothesis that people use themselves as reference points to judge the abusiveness of harassment complaints. Other research using vignette studies found that subjective ratings of how evaluators would perceive the egregious conduct if they were the object of the unwanted behavior explained the effects of observer gender. There is also support in the literature for self-referencing in another scenario study in which women (compared with men) found more evidence of male-on-male harassment. Unlike the gender literature, a smaller and much less organized literature attests to the importance of cultural factors. Most interestingly, one cross-cultural scenario study involving eight nations conducted by Janet Sigal and colleagues found participants from individualist countries (e.g., the United States and Germany) were less likely than those from collectivist countries (e.g., Taiwan and the Philippines) to find a professor “guilty” of sexually harassing a female student. Other research manipulated a litigant race in a mock jury study of sexual harassment to find jurors (especially White males) more sympathetic to litigants of their own race.

While several studies have examined race and ethnicity as factors that qualify the way in which workers experience sexual and ethnic harassment, the results of those investigations are inconsistent, sometimes supporting conditional findings and sometimes not supporting the effects of these qualifying factors. Louise Fitzgerald and colleagues empirically developed and successfully tested an organizational model to explore the effects of race and ethnicity as explanations for outcomes of sexual harassment. Others have also built empirical models to identify some of the correlates of gender that help explain its effect on harassment judgments. Approaching the problem from a theoretical perspective, Richard Wiener and colleagues offer a social cognitive model of liability decisions to account for gender, race, and sexual orientation effects.

Social Cognitive Model of Sexual Harassment Judgments The social cognitive model tries to integrate the law and psychology in this area. According to this model, sexual harassment judgments emerge from a two-stage model, with a preliminary judgment based on wellrehearsed and easily retrievable rules of categorization (i.e., sexual assault is harassment, telling dirty jokes is not). The initial judgment compares the complained after conduct to existing standards of behavior. If the conduct exceeds an offensiveness threshold, people perceive it as harassment with little cognitive activity (e.g., quid pro quo harassment, assault, and rape). If the conduct falls below a minimum offensiveness, people perceive it as nonharassing, again with little cognitive activity (e.g., compliments and personal talk). If the conduct falls between these norms, or if the observer is motivated to engage in further efforts, then a second, deliberative process ensues. The model anticipates a second stage that triggers self-referencing to analyze more carefully the complained after incident(s). Here, the effects of the gender, race, and sexual orientation of the observer, alleged harasser, and complainant come into play. Because of prior experiences in and out of work, men and women, as well as people with different racial/ethnic backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, and sexual orientations, use different standards to judge harassment complaints. Women, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals use a broader definition because their vulnerable positions in society make them more sensitive to the role of social underdogs.

Sexual Harassment———739

This model and prior research argue that people informed of the law and motivated to do so will test the unwelcomeness, severity, and pervasiveness of the incident(s) to evaluate the accuracy of their initial harassment judgments. Observers use themselves as reference points to determine whether ambiguous social sexual conduct at work is unwelcome, severe, and/or pervasive. If the perceivers think that the unwelcome behavior would have seemed sufficiently pervasive or severe to themselves as targets, then they will conclude that it was harassing for the complainant, to the extent to which they perceive themselves to be similar to the complainant. Findings from several studies by Richard Wiener and colleagues support the two-stage approach. In one study, 50 male and 50 female workers completed semistructured interviews with card sorting and rating tasks. The resulting mental concept maps showed that women evaluated male harassers with attributes (i.e., intimidation, arrogance, and popularity) related to the harassers’ power and social aptitude, but men evaluated male harassers around the dimensions of responsibility and psychological adjustment attributes (i.e., strength, confidence, and being a bully). Women grouped female victims along dimensions of blameworthiness and assertiveness, relying heavily on security, upward mobility, and gullibility as victim attributes. Men used attributes of attractiveness, shyness, and anger to differentiate between helpless and blameful victims who were sexually aggressive or physically alluring. Statistical analyses (logistic regression) produced accurate gender classification for 86% of the sample using these attributes. In another study, this research team presented videotapes of equal employment opportunity officers interviewing ostensible workers based on Rabidue v. Osceola Refining Co. and Ellison v. Brady fact patterns. Two hundred full-time workers applied either the reasonable person or reasonable woman legal standard and rated the complained after conduct on unwelcomeness, severity, pervasiveness, and harassment likelihood. The main effect for gender was significant across cases. However, self-referencing questions that asked respondents how they would have perceived the conduct had they been the complainant completely explained the gender effects. Several additional studies replicated the gender and self-referencing findings. In other results, participants who applied the reasonable person (as opposed to the reasonable woman) standard and those high (as opposed to low) in hostile sexism found less

evidence of sexual harassment, regardless of gender or case. Most notably, use of the reasonable person legal standard offset the effects of hostile sexism so that the difference in harassment judgments between high and low hostile sexists disappeared under the reasonable woman standard. In more recent efforts, this research team presented respondents with two scenarios (videotaped reenactments of Rabidue v. Osceola Refining Co. and Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 1998), which depicted independent cross-gender allegations. A female complainant in the first set of allegations displayed aggressive, submissive, mixed, or neutral conduct. Most interestingly, perceptions of complainant aggressiveness in the priming sequence lowered likelihood of harassment judgments in the target sequence. The fact that hostile attitudes toward women triggered by one sequence of behavior influenced harassment judgments of later new facts supports the automatic internal standard component of the social cognitive model. Finally, hostile and benevolent sexism influenced judgments under the reasonable person but not under the reasonable woman standard. Current efforts are under way to examine the implications of the two-stage model for judgments that men and women make when males accuse other males of harassment in multicultural workplace scenarios. These efforts are looking more closely at the effects of ethnicity and sexual orientation as precursors to sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination in the workplace, schools, and housing markets. The extension of the social cognitive model of discrimination in these settings is important in our increasingly multicultural work, education, and living environments. Richard L. Wiener See also Sexual Harassment, Jury Evaluation of

Further Readings

Burlington Northern v. White, No. 05-529 (U.S. S. Ct. June 22, 2006). Clark County School District v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268 (2001). Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir. 1991). Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998). Fitzgerald, L., Drasgow, F., Hulin, C., Gelfand, M., & Magley, V. (1997). Antecedents and consequences of sexual harassment in organizations: A test of an integrated model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 578–589.

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Fuller v. City of Oakland, 47 F.3d 1522 (9th Cir. 1995). Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 114 S. Ct. 367 (1993). Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986). Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, 523 U.S. 75 (1998). Rabidue v. Osceola Refining Co., 805 F.2d 611 (6th Cir. 1986). Wiener, R. L., & Hurt, L. E. (2000). How do people evaluate social-sexual conduct: A psycholegal model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 75–85. Wiener, R. L., Winter, R., Rogers, M., & Arnot, L. (2004). The effects of prior workplace behavior on subsequent sexual harassment judgments. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 47–67.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT, JURY EVALUATION OF Research examining juror decisions in sexual harassment has generally found a relationship between juror gender and liability decisions, in that women are more likely than men to consider sociosexual behavior sexual harassment. This relationship is mediated by several variables, including attitudes of hostile sexism, juror self-referencing, juror ratings of the credibility of the plaintiff, and the story constructed by the juror. Using a “reasonable woman” standard as opposed to a “reasonable person” standard has not been successful in attenuating the gender gap in decision making in sexual harassment cases. However, some research suggests that expert testimony addressing these issues may help jurors make better decisions. Expert testimony addressing the “abuse excuse” has been suggested by some experts as a defense strategy, but researchers have demonstrated that this defense is not only flawed but also ineffective with jurors. Some research suggests that jurors may need an expert to testify about the harms experienced by targets of sexual harassment because they underestimated those harms. In addition, researchers have begun to examine how jurors award damages in sexual harassment cases, and a preliminary study has demonstrated that they award compensatory damages incorrectly but are correct in their allocation of punitive damages. Sexual harassment in the workplace is a serious legal problem that has only gained attention in the legal arena in the past few decades. There are two types of sexual harassment that are actionable in the U.S. legal arena: (1) quid pro quo sexual harassment,

that is, behavior in which an employee directly threatens a subordinate employee with a sexual request that the subordinate must comply with to maintain employment, and (2) sexual harassment caused by a hostile work environment (HWE), that is, unwelcome behavior from any employee that is gender-based and that is severe and pervasive enough to negatively affect the victim’s working environment. Research investigating juror decisions in sexual harassment cases has focused on how jurors perceive different types of sexual harassment and has examined several different factors that affect jurors’ decisions in sexual harassment cases (e.g., juror gender, the legal standard used, the use of expert testimony). Researchers have also begun to examine how jurors award damages in sexual harassment cases.

Gender Effects on Juror Decisions in Sexual Harassment Cases Research on jurors’ decisions in sexual harassment cases has consistently demonstrated that women are more likely than men to perceive more types of sociosexual behavior in the workplace as sexually harassing. This effect has been consistent across several levels of ecological validity (e.g., participants acting as jurors, participants judging workplace scenarios), types of stimuli (e.g., written summaries of workplace situations, videotaped trials), and participant types (e.g., students, community members) and has been confirmed by two meta-analyses. In addition, researchers have found that the magnitude of the gender difference is moderated by the type of harassment perceived. Specifically, men and women make similar judgments about cases of clear-cut sexual harassment (e.g., quid pro quo, sexual coercion), but women are more likely than men to make judgments in favor of the plaintiff in cases in which the behavior is more ambiguous (e.g., HWE sexual harassment). Mediating Variables in the Relationship Between Gender and Verdict

Researchers have also examined mediating variables in the relationship between gender and verdict in sexual harassment cases. Several studies have shown a mediating effect of juror self-referencing (i.e., jurors imagining how they would have acted or what they would have done in the same situation) on the relationship between juror gender and verdict. In these studies, women were

Sexual Harassment, Jury Evaluation of———741

more likely than men to self-reference and, therefore, were more likely to find for the plaintiff. Research expanding on this relationship found that attitudes of hostile sexism mediated the relationship between gender and self-referencing, in that men were more likely than women to hold attitudes of hostile sexism, and therefore, men were less likely to self-reference than women. In addition, those jurors who were higher in self-referencing (typically women) also rated the plaintiff’s credibility higher than those who were low in selfreferencing; those who rated the plaintiff’s credibility higher were more likely than those who rated the plaintiff’s credibility lower to render a judgment in favor of the plaintiff. Further research replicated and extended this model to show that the content of expert testimony may affect jurors’ tendencies to self-reference. In this study, self-referencing was a significant mediator for jurors who heard traditional forms of expert testimony but not a significant mediator for jurors who heard expert testimony from a traditional plaintiff expert and a defense expert who included information about the plaintiff’s history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) as a possible cause of the harassment. Thus, jurors were most able to relate to the plaintiff who had no history of CSA rather than to the plaintiff with a history of CSA and, therefore, only self-referenced in those conditions with no claims of prior CSA. Other researchers used the story model for juror decision making as a basis for explaining jurors’ decisions in sexual harassment cases and accounting for the gender difference in juror decisions. These researchers showed that the story endorsed by the jurors (either proplaintiff or prodefense) mediated the relationship between juror gender and juror decisions. Women were more likely to endorse a proplaintiff story than men (who were more likely to endorse a prodefense story), and therefore, women were more likely than men to render a verdict for the plaintiff.

The Effect of Legal Standard on Juror Decisions To find an employer liable for HWE sexual harassment, jurors are instructed that not only must the plaintiff show that she experienced discrimination based on gender, but she must also show that the behavior must have been so severe and pervasive that a reasonable person would believe that the conditions of employment were altered

or that the working environment was hostile. This reasonable person standard is reflective of the unique nature of sexual harassment compared with most other tort claims—namely, that it involves a subjective component. Because of the gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassments, some courts have adopted a “reasonable woman” standard instead of the reasonable person standard traditionally used in sexual harassment cases. The thought behind using a reasonable woman standard is that men and women differ in their perceptions of sexual harassment, so the decision maker should adopt the perspective of the victim (who is most likely a woman) when deciding whether the behavior in question is sexual harassment. Despite these good intentions, researchers have found little to no effect of legal standard on juror decisions in sexual harassment cases. Researchers have conducted several studies, varying in ecological validity and with different types of participants and have found little to no evidence that using a reasonable woman standard as opposed to a reasonable person standard diminishes the gender effect. It is possible that using the reasonable woman standard is ineffective in attenuating the gender gap in juror decisions because jurors may not notice the difference in standard. Scholars have also postulated that jurors may not understand the differences between a “reasonable person” and a “reasonable woman” or may ignore the reasonable woman standard in their decision making.

The Effect of Expert Testimony on Juror Decisions Experts have suggested that perhaps expert testimony addressing the differences between the reasonable woman and reasonable person standards and/or expert testimony addressing gender differences in juror decision making about what behavior constitutes sexual harassment may help reduce the gender gap in decision making in sexual harassment cases. Some research suggests that this may be a successful strategy. In one study, researchers examined the effect of expert social framework testimony, addressing the effects of gender stereotyping on juror judgments. The expert testimony did not affect women’s judgments, but men were more likely to find for the plaintiff in conditions with expert testimony than in conditions without expert testimony. The gender gap was not completely eliminated, but this research shows the potential of expert testimony to aid juror decisions.

742———Sexual Harassment, Jury Evaluation of

In addition to using expert testimony to help jurors make good decisions in sexual harassment trials, some researchers have suggested that experts should examine plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases for evidence of prior sexual abuse (which these experts have suggested may have caused the sexual harassment), termed the abuse excuse. Most scholars have rejected this hypothesis, demonstrating that it is based on flawed logic and is fundamentally false according to the empirical literature in the area. In addition to its flawed basis, testimony based on the abuse excuse does not have the expected effect on juror judgments in sexual harassment cases. In one study, jurors were less likely to find in favor of the defense if an expert testified using the abuse excuse argument compared with if the defense expert testified more traditionally (with an opposing expert) or did not testify at all.

Jurors’ Common Understanding of the Consequences of Sexual Harassment Some experts have argued that plaintiffs should claim ordinary or garden variety damages (e.g., sadness, loss of enjoyment) rather than claiming injuries in sexual harassment cases (e.g., Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), so that the plaintiff’s mental health does not become a subject of controversy. Claiming an injury could result in a compelled mental health examination by a defense expert. However, claiming garden variety damages assumes that jurors have a general understanding of the harms experienced by targets of sexual harassment. Research comparing jurors’ and experts’ perceptions of the harms experienced by sexual harassment targets in several different workplace scenarios suggests that jurors consistently underestimate the amount of harm experienced by targets in both sexual harassment scenarios and other stressful workplace situations. Thus, such litigation strategies may be more detrimental than helpful to the plaintiff’s case.

Damage Award Decisions If the defendant is found liable for sexual harassment, victims of sexual harassment may also recover both compensatory damages (designed to restore the victim to the state prior to the injury) and punitive damages (designed to punish the defendant for behavior that was particularly egregious and deter others from acting

similarly). Thus, in addition to determining liability, the jury is also given the task of determining damages. Generally, jurors award damages appropriately in civil cases. However, given the difference between the psychological nature of the harm in sexual harassment cases and the physical harm alleged in most other civil cases, there may be a discrepancy in how jurors award damages, and researchers have just begun to investigate juror allocation of damages in sexual harassment cases. In one study, researchers demonstrated that jurors inappropriately awarded compensatory damages in a sexual harassment case, confusing harassment severity with pain and suffering. However, jurors did correctly award punitive damages as a function of the behavior of the organization. In addition, juror gender did not have an effect on damage award amounts, counter to the robust gender effect found in liability decisions. Lora M. Levett See also Damage Awards; Sexual Harassment; Story Model for Juror Decision Making

Further Readings

Blumenthal, J. A. (1998). The reasonable woman standard: A meta-analytic review of gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment. Law and Human Behavior, 22(1), 33–57. Gutek, B. A., O’Connor, M. A., Melancon, R., Stockdale, M. S., Geer, T. M., & Done, R. S. (1999). The utility of the reasonable woman legal standard in hostile work environment sexual harassment cases: A multimethod, multistudy examination. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 5, 596–629. Kovera, M. B., & Cass, S. A. (2002). Compelled mental health examinations, liability decisions, and damage awards in sexual harassment cases: Issues for jury research. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 8(1), 96–114. O’Connor, M., Gutek, B. A., Stockdale, M., Geer, T. M., & Melancon, R. (2004). Explaining sexual harassment judgments: Looking beyond gender of the rater. Law and Human Behavior, 28(1), 69–95. Rotundo, M., Nguyen, D. H., & Sackett, P. R. (2001). A meta-analytic review of gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 914–922. Wiener, R. L., & Gutek, B. A. (1999). Advances in sexual harassment research, theory and policy. Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law, 5, 507–518.

Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20)———743

SEXUAL VIOLENCE RISK–20 (SVR–20) The Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20) is a set of structured professional judgment guidelines for conducting sexual violence risk assessments in criminal and civil forensic contexts. The SVR–20 is not a quantitative test that yields norm-referenced or criterion-referenced scores. Rather, it was developed as an aide mémoire to help systematize the risk assessment of individuals who (allegedly) have committed an act of sexual violence. More important, the concept of risk assessed by SVR–20 is not limited to likelihood of a new offense, as is commonly the case in actuarial (i.e., statistically based) tests. Other aspects of risk, such as level of victim harm, victim specificity, frequency, imminence, and likelihood are also addressable by this instrument.

Development The SVR–20 comprises 20 items or factors considered to be minimally comprehensive in a sexual violence risk assessment. These items were gleaned from a systematic review of the scientific and professional literature in the area of sexual violence, sex offender recidivism, and sexual offender treatment. The guidelines for assessment and treatment of sexual offenders proposed by many different jurisdictions were also examined. The 20 factors selected for inclusion in the SVR–20 are divided into three domains: Psychosocial Adjustment, Sexual Offenses, and Future Plans. The Psychosocial Adjustment section comprises factors that are primarily historical in nature but also relate to current functioning. These factors include sexual deviation, victimization as a child, psychopathy, major mental illness, substance use problems, suicidal/homicidal ideation, relationship problems, employment problems, past nonsexual violent offenses, past nonviolent offenses, and past supervision failures. Clearly, some of these factors are more stable than others (e.g., past offenses), and some of these factors are more related to current functioning (e.g., substance use problems). The Sexual Offenses section comprises items that are all related to the person’s historical and current sexual offenses. These factors include high-density sex offenses, multiple (types of) sex offenses, physical harm to victim(s) in sex offenses, use of weapons or

threats of death in sex offenses, escalation in frequency or severity of sex offenses, extreme minimization or denial of sex offenses, and attitudes that support or condone sex offenses. The Future Plans section comprises 2 items: lacks realistic plans and negative attitude toward intervention. The assessor may also include “other considerations” unique to the individual case that are considered to be important to the determination of risk.

Administration Administration of the SVR–20 begins with a gathering of relevant information. The manual contains recommendations concerning what information to gather and how to gather it. Evaluators then rate the lifetime presence of the 20 standard risk factors as well as any case-specific risk factors identified. A brief definition of each risk factor is included in the manual. Next, evaluators rate recent change in the risk factors to identify whether there has been any increase or decrease over time in the risks associated with each. After rating the presence of individual risk factors, evaluators make an overall judgment of risk that is meant to reflect the level of intervention required to manage risk in the case. For example, people are judged to be “low risk” when evaluators believe they require minimal intervention (e.g., monitoring), “moderate risk” when evaluators believe they require enhanced intervention (e.g., a high-intensity sex offender treatment group, frequent reporting to a probation officer), and “high risk” when evaluators believe the person requires urgent or extreme intervention (e.g., incapacitation, supervised residence, emergency treatment).

Critique Content Validity. The SVR–20 has been criticized because its items vary greatly in terms of the extent to which they are associated with the probability of recidivistic sexual violence, according to meta-analytic research. For example, factors such as high-density sexual offenses, sexual deviation, and attitudes supportive of offending are reasonably well established as predictors of recidivism in sexual offenders, whereas physical harm to victim(s), extreme minimization or denial, and negative attitude toward treatment are not. But the latter factors were included because they can be very important in

744———Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START)

helping professionals to assess aspects of risk other than likelihood (i.e., nature, severity, imminence, frequency) as well as to develop risk management strategies. Interrater Reliability. Research indicates that judgments regarding the lifetime presence of risk factors and overall risk can be made with good interrater reliability. The interrater reliability of judgments regarding recent change has not been evaluated. Predictive Validity. Research has provided good support for the use of the SVR–20 in sexual violence risk assessment. Individual studies and meta-analyses have demonstrated that the SVR–20 predicts sexually violent recidivism about as well as, and in some cases better than, commonly used actuarial tests. In studies that compared evaluators’ overall judgments of risk with simple linear combinations of risk factors, typically, overall judgments have better predictive validity.

Recommendations In the authors’ experience, most assessors find that the inclusion of a locally normed actuarial risk assessment test alongside the SVR–20 allows for a more comprehensive appraisal of risk, and we support this practice. There is no convergence of opinion as to what is the best practice in this area; however, it is clear to most clinicians that the use of a single instrument is not necessarily the best manner in which to protect the public from future offending and that a more comprehensive and conservative approach is warranted. Douglas P. Boer and Stephen D. Hart See also Forensic Assessment; Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (2nd edition) (PCL–R); Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR); Risk Assessment Approaches; Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR); Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG); STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments

Further Readings

Boer, D. P. (2006). Sexual offender risk assessment strategies: Is there a convergence of opinion yet? Sexual Offender Treatment, 1, 1–4. Boer, D. P., Hart, S. D., Kropp, P. R., & Webster, C. D. (1997). Manual for the Sexual Violence Risk–20: Professional guidelines for assessing risk of sexual violence. Vancouver, Canada: The Mental Health, Law, and Policy Institute, Simon Fraser University.

SHORT-TERM ASSESSMENT OF RISK AND TREATABILITY (START) The Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) is a concise clinical guide for the dynamic assessment of short-term (i.e., weeks to months) risk for violence (to self and others) and treatability. START guides the assessor toward an integrated, balanced opinion to evaluate the client’s risk across seven domains: violence to others, suicide, self-harm, selfneglect, unauthorized absence, substance use, and risk of being victimized. This structured professional guide is intended to inform clinical interventions and index therapeutic improvements or relapses. START represents a refinement in the risk assessment field, in that it comprises dynamic variables that are responsive to treatment and management efforts and because each of the 20 items is scored both as a vulnerability and as a strength, from 0 (no evident risk or strength) to 2 (high risk or strength). It also allows for the recording of historical and case-specific factors. Once the 20 items are coded, the assessor completes a summary judgment of risk (low, moderate, or high) on the seven domains (i.e., violence to others, suicide, etc.); other client-specific risks may also be added. A potentially useful aspect of START is that it facilitates the identification, recording, and communication of individually determined “critical” vulnerability items, “key” strengths, and “signature risks” (i.e., early but reliable, unique, and invariant signals of impending relapse and elevation in risk) deemed to be especially relevant to the particular client’s functioning, responsivity to treatment, and the likelihood of adverse outcomes. START is devoted to the systematic assessment of the strengths and vulnerabilities of the individual client with the ultimate goal of enhancing mental health functioning and preventing adverse events. It is intended to assist in day-to-day monitoring, treatment planning, and risk communication. Repeated administrations are a convenient method of tracking changes in mental health status, vulnerabilities, strengths, and violence potential (against self/others). START is anticipated to be an effective means of reducing the cycling of mentally disordered persons through the civil psychiatric and criminal justice systems. It was developed for use with adults with mental, personality, and substancerelated disorders, with relevance to correctional, civil, and forensic clients in the community and institutional settings. This new scheme is particularly applicable to

Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START)———745

forensic assessments requiring a consideration of violence risk. Where possible, START should be completed by multidisciplinary treatment teams.

Reliability The interrater reliability of START has been assessed across multiple mental health disciplines. The interrater reliability for three assessor professions using the intraclass correlation coefficient was ICC2 = .87, p = .001. The internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) of the total START scores for diverse raters is also good (α = .87) and is relatively consistent across disciplines: psychiatrists (α = .80), case managers (α = .88), and social workers (α = .92). Item homogeneity measured using the mean interitem correlation exceeds .20, generally agreed to reflect a unidimensional scale.

Validity Content validity of START is demonstrated by the measure emerging from a perceived need by frontline mental health professionals. The items and content reflect the collaboration of a multidisciplinary group of researchers and mental health professionals. It grew out of repeated consultation with multiple treatment teams and reflects a comprehensive consideration of existing risk assessment devices and the literature. Professionals report that the items are easily applied to their clients’ circumstances, that START provides a comprehensive risk summary, and that signature risk signs are useful when evaluating their patients. It is also noteworthy that assessors identify more strengths than vulnerabilities in their clients, suggesting that the inclusion of strengths in START is an important advance over previous instruments. Construct validity has been demonstrated by prospectively examining the relationship between START item scores and Review Board hearing outcomes; results indicate a weak positive relationship. Further evidence of convergent validity has been demonstrated through an examination of START scores by ward security levels in a forensic psychiatric hospital. Findings demonstrated significantly lower total scores among patients in open units than among patients in closed and locked units (F = 15.64, p < .001). Patients in open units were also found to have lower risk scores and higher strength scores than patients in closed and locked units.

Predictive validity has been examined in prospective research, which demonstrates a moderate association between START total scores and future self-harm, aggression against others, and attempted unauthorized leave, as measured by a modified Overt Aggression Scale (e.g., physical aggression rpb = .23, p < .001; AUC = .65, CI = .57-.72, p < .001). There is substantial overlap between the risk domains evaluated on START. For instance, patients who aggress against others are also significantly more likely to engage in self-harm (ϕ = .37). These findings suggest that joint assessment and treatment of these diverse needs is appropriate.

Future Research Research examining the hierarchical organization and construct validity of START, as well as its utility for monitoring progress and planning for effective interventions, is needed. Prospective studies demonstrating START’s capacity to measure change in offenders, forensic, and civil psychiatric patients are required, as are projects to demonstrate whether that change is reflected in decreased future risk. In particular, future research should examine to what extent START’s dynamic variables add incremental validity to established static (more or less unchanging) risk markers and for what time frames static versus dynamic variables are most relevant. START research should focus on comparing and contrasting the importance of considering clients’ strengths in combination with their vulnerabilities and the relevance of those variables for predicting and reducing risk. START has been translated into several languages, though a pressing need remains for studies demonstrating its utility in English- and nonEnglish-speaking populations and across cultures and settings. Tonia L. Nicholls, Christopher Webster, Johann Brink, and Mary-Lou Martin See also Forensic Assessment; HCR–20 for Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

Webster, C. D., Martin, M. L., Brink, J., Nicholls, T. L., & Middleton, C. (2004). Manual for the Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START) (Version 1.0, Consultation ed.). Hamilton, ON, Canada:

746———Showups

St. Joseph’s Healthcare/Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada: Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission. Webster, C. D., Nicholls, T. L., Martin, M. L., Desmarais, S. L., & Brink, J. (2006). Short-Term Assessment of Risk and Treatability (START): The case for a new violence risk structured professional judgment scheme. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 24, 747–766.

SHOWUPS Showups are an identification technique in which a single individual, the suspect, is presented in a oneon-one confrontation with the victim or other witness of a crime. The witness is asked to indicate whether the suspect is or is not the perpetrator. Showup identifications are very common and even favored by the police as an investigative procedure. They are considered inherently suggestive because the witness views only one person and the identification requires only the assent of the witness. This entry describes the criteria used to justify the use of showups, compares the outcomes of showups and lineups, and reviews some of the dangers presented by the use of showups. Although showup identifications may be viewed with disfavor by the courts, they are not per se considered violations of due process if there was an overriding need in light of the totality of circumstances. Showups may be justified when an immediate identification would facilitate an ongoing police investigation, a quick exoneration of the innocent could be made, the identification is completed in close proximity in time and place to the scene of the crime, and the witness’s memory is strongest or in its freshest state. Whether a crime scene showup is unduly suggestive and results in a misidentification is a mixed question of law and fact. If the prosecution can prove by clear and convincing evidence that the showup identification was reliable enough to be probative despite some suggestiveness, the witness’s identification is admissible. Any suggestiveness in the process would go to the weight of the identification, not its admissibility. In contrast, if the defense can prove that the showup procedure was unduly and unnecessarily suggestive, the identification evidence based on an unfairly conducted showup would be suppressed. Judges typically consider the following factors in determining whether pretrial suggestiveness unduly influenced the identification trial testimony of an eyewitness: (a) the opportunity of the witness to view the

perpetrator at the time of the crime, (b) the witness’s degree of attention at the time of the crime, (c) the accuracy of the witness’s prior description of the perpetrator, (d) the level of certainty demonstrated at the time of the identification, and (e) the lapse of time between the crime and the identification procedure. Scientific research has shown, however, that only the opportunity to observe and the length of the retention interval are related to accuracy of identification. Most eyewitness researchers agree that the use of showups in contrast to many-person lineups increases the risk of misidentification, and the evidence in support of this conclusion is generally reliable. It has been argued that showups, in principle, are less fair than lineups because they fail to protect the innocent suspect. That is, showups cannot distribute the probability of identification of an innocent suspect across lineup fillers, and thus, they increase the risk of an identification error. Also, it is assumed that showup procedures are high-pressure situations in which witnesses are encouraged to make an identification or situations that force witnesses to make an identification. Because a showup involves the single presentation of a suspect, it is hypothesized that a witness’s decision is based on an absolute judgment in which the suspect is compared with his or her memory of the perpetrator. Viewing the showup may be similar to viewing the first person in a sequential lineup, where the witness must make an absolute judgment based on individual presentations of the suspect and a number of fillers. In contrast, simultaneously presented lineups of a suspect and fillers involve witnesses making relative judgments of who in the lineup most closely resembles the perpetrator. Sequential lineups have been shown to increase correct rejections of innocent suspects without significantly affecting the accuracy of identification (hit) rate compared with simultaneously presented lineups of a suspect and fillers. Thus, in theory, showups may be beneficial if they increase correct rejections; however, they may be dangerous if they fail to protect an innocent suspect from false identifications. Furthermore, if the procedure is suggestive, there will be increased pressure to choose, thereby generating an increase in both correct and incorrect selections. Meta-analytic comparisons of showup and lineup presentations reveal that showups generate lower choosing rates than lineups. This suggests that witnesses may be more cautious with their identification in a showup situation. Unlike actual cases where the presence of the guilty suspect cannot be controlled, meta-analysis comparisons indicate that the correct identification (hit) rate is very similar in both conditions (approximately 46%)

Simultaneous and Sequential Lineup Presentation———747

when the target is present; correct rejection rates are significantly higher in showups when the target is absent; false identifications in target-absent conditions are about the same (16%); however, errors in target-absent lineups are spread across fillers rather than focused on the innocent suspect in a showup; and false identifications are particularly high in showups when the innocent suspect resembles the perpetrator, for example, when they wear similar clothing. No significant differences in identification have been found between live and photographic showups. Witnesses are likely to be equally confident in showup identifications in their correct choices of guilty suspects and false selections of innocent suspects. Innocent suspects are at significantly less risk in being falsely identified in lineups than in showups, especially after 2- and 24-hour retention intervals. Comparisons of showups and lineups for voice identifications, either from tape-recordings presented in the field or over the telephone, indicate that lineups are significantly superior to showups in minimizing false identifications of a suspect who sounds very similar to the perpetrator. Research on the effect of alcohol on identification from showups reveals that blood alcohol level is not related to accuracy of identification (hits) when the guilty suspect is present in the confrontation. However, if an innocent suspect is present, the higher the blood alcohol level, the greater the number of false identifications. Dan Yarmey See also Confidence in Identifications; Identification Tests, Best Practices in; Lineup Size and Bias; Simultaneous and Sequential Lineup Presentation; Voice Recognition

Further Readings

Steblay, N., Dysart, J., Fulero, S., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2003). Eyewitness accuracy rates in police showup and lineup presentations: A meta-analytic comparison. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 523–540. Yarmey, A. D., Yarmey, M. J., & Yarmey, A. L. (1996). Accuracy of eyewitness identifications in showups and lineups. Law and Human Behavior, 20, 459–477.

SIMULTANEOUS AND SEQUENTIAL LINEUP PRESENTATION Simultaneous and sequential presentation refers to two styles of presenting a police lineup to witnesses of

a crime. Research shows that patterns in identification decisions differ between these presentation styles. This entry reviews the components of each presentation method and the advantages and disadvantages of their use and mentions some unresolved issues. Some crimes involve perpetrators who are strangers to the victims and to eyewitnesses. When a suspect is identified by a police investigator, the investigator may ask the witness to view that suspect in a lineup or photo array containing the suspect and others who are known to be innocent (referred to as fillers, foils, or distracters). Four outcomes are possible: The witness can select the suspect, select a filler, respond that the suspect is not in the lineup, or give a response of “don’t know.” Obviously, the accuracy of selections and rejections of suspects depends on whether the suspect is actually guilty. Simultaneous presentation of a lineup involves showing a witness all the members of a lineup at once. Thus, witnesses decide whether the criminal is present while looking at the entire lineup. Traditionally, police investigators have used simultaneous lineup presentation. Research suggests that simultaneous presentation encourages witnesses to choose the person in the lineup who looks most like the perpetrator. This comparative approach is referred to as a “relative judgment strategy.” If the guilty person is in the lineup, using relative judgments should lead to correct identification. However, evidence can lead police officers to suspect an innocent person. In some portion of these occasions, the innocent suspect will look more like the criminal than other lineup members. This would make it likely that the innocent suspect would be chosen by witnesses using the relative judgment strategy. As evidence mounted that many innocent people were selected from lineups, the use of a relative judgment strategy was posited as a possible explanation for the frequency of such errors. One way to increase the accuracy of eyewitness decisions was to develop a lineup technique that decreased the likelihood that witnesses would use a relative judgment strategy when viewing the lineup. Sequential presentation of lineups was proposed as a means to elicit fewer false selections than simultaneous lineups by reducing reliance on relative judgments. In its original formulation, sequential presentation involved the following five principles. First, each lineup member is individually shown to the witness. This discourages comparisons among lineup members and encourages witnesses to compare each lineup member only with his or her memory for the criminal (often referred to as an absolute judgment). Second, lineup

748———Source Monitoring and Eyewitness Memory

members are shown only once, discouraging comparisons between lineup members because individual lineup members cannot be viewed repeatedly. Third, witnesses are unaware of how many lineup members they will be shown. This is designed to prevent witnesses from feeling pressure to choose as they get closer to the end of the lineup. Fourth, witnesses are not permitted to change a decision once it has been made. Finally, the person showing the lineup to the witness should not know which lineup member is the suspect (double-blind testing), so that witnesses are not prompted or cued (intentionally or otherwise) to choose suspects for reasons other than recognizing them. There is no doubt that the sequential lineup achieved its primary purpose. Sequential lineups consistently led to fewer false selections than simultaneous lineups. The effect of using sequential lineups on correct selections is less clear. Early studies reported little or no decline in correct selection rates. The pattern of large decreases in false-positive choices combined with relatively small losses of correct selections in comparison with simultaneous lineups has been termed the “sequential superiority effect.” Later research produced mixed results with regard to correct selections, and meta-analyses support the conclusion that a real but smaller decrease occurs for correct selections than for false selections. Several issues remain to be resolved concerning simultaneous versus sequential lineup presentation. The reason for the difference in correct selection rates has been attributed to a criterion shift, a multiple-choice selection strategy (relative judgment), and guessing. Both in the laboratory and in the police station, there is variance in the sequential procedure. Not all features of the sequential lineup have been used in every study or in the field. Sometimes witnesses are permitted to see all lineup members before making a decision. For example, in England, the mandated procedure for the police using a sequential lineup is to have witnesses go through the lineup at least twice before making their decisions known. Not all studies mask the size of the lineup. Practices vary in terms of whether the lineup is terminated after a selection is made. To date, there are insufficient data to determine the degree to which these methodological issues are crucial to the size or existence of the full “sequential superiority effect.” What is clear is that simultaneous presentation, the traditional technique for presenting a police lineup, is not ideal because of high false-positive selection rates. Sequential lineups lead to dramatically fewer false

selections than simultaneous lineups but also lead to somewhat fewer correct selections. Jamal K. Mansour, Jennifer L. Beaudry, Michelle I. Bertrand, and R. C. L. Lindsay See also Double-Blind Lineup Administration; Eyewitness Memory; Identification Tests, Best Practices in; Instructions to the Witness; Lineup Size and Bias

Further Readings

Lindsay, R. C. L., & Wells, G. L. (1985). Improving eyewitness identification from lineups: Simultaneous versus sequential lineup presentations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 556–564. Steblay, N., Dysart, J., Fulero, S., & Lindsay, R. C. L. (2001). Eyewitness accuracy rates in sequential and simultaneous lineup presentations: A meta-analytic comparison. Law and Human Behavior, 25, 459–473.

SOURCE MONITORING AND EYEWITNESS MEMORY The source monitoring (SM) framework is an evolving set of ideas developed by Marcia Johnson and her collaborators regarding the cognitive processes by which individuals attribute mental events (thoughts, images, feelings) to particular origins (e.g., memory, perception, creativity, etc.). Most of the research motivated by the SM framework has had to do with how people identify the specific sources of mental events that they experience as episodic memories (e.g., how a witness differentiates between memories of a crime vs. memories of a cowitness’s descriptions of that crime). “Source” is a multidimensional construct that includes (a) the environmental context in which a past event occurred (e.g., Did X happen at work or at home?), (b) an event’s temporal context (e.g., Did X happen yesterday or last week? Before or after Y? In the morning, midday, or evening? Summer or fall?), (c) the agents involved in an event (e.g., Who said X?), and (d) the sensory modalities and media through which the event was encountered (e.g., Did I read the book or see the film? Did I see a knife or only hear mention of a knife?). People quite often experience difficulty in remembering the sources of their recollections. Moreover, they sometimes misremember aspects of a

Source Monitoring and Eyewitness Memory———749

source. As briefly summarized at the end of this entry, such SM failures are thought to play central roles in a variety of false-memory phenomena. The core assumption underlying the SM framework is that memories do not include abstract tags or labels that identify their origins; rather, accessed memory information is said to be attributed to particular sources of past experience on the basis of its quantitative and qualitative characteristics. That is, the idea is that source is inferred from the content of the accessed memory information. According to the SM framework, dimensions of source are recognized in the course of recollecting a past event much as dimensions of source are recognized in ongoing perceptual experience. When you answer the phone and your friend Yuji says hello, you immediately recognize the voice as Yuji’s even though the sensory signal includes no abstract label designating the speaker’s identity. Cognitive processing of the acoustic properties of the signal interacts with memory, cuing a wealth of information that enables you to recognize the speaker. Likewise, when you recollect something Yuji told you yesterday, the memory records of hearing that utterance likely do not include any abstract symbols naming the speaker (unless you happened to reflect about Yuji’s name as you listened to the utterance), but they may include information about the sound of his voice and/or his appearance, the semantic content of the statement, information pertaining to the environmental and temporal context, and so on, all of which can serve as bases for identifying the speaker of the remembered utterance as Yuji. Just as source attributions in ongoing experience are usually made quickly and without conscious reflection, so too are most memory attributions. But just as a bad cell phone connection can make it difficult to identify a friend’s voice, weak or incomplete memory records may provide insufficient information to specify various aspects of a memory’s source. When this occurs, the rememberer may make conscious, strategic efforts to retrieve more information and/or make deliberative inferences about the source of the recollection. Even if fairly rich and detailed memory information about a past event is accessed, if two or more sources characteristically give rise to memory records highly similar to those accessed, the rememberer may be uncertain as to which of them gave rise to that recollection or may mistake a memory from one source as a memory from the other. Here again, the analogy to perception holds; if Don’s voice is very similar to Yuji’s,

then you may mistake one for the other on the phone or when recalling their utterances. Such source-similarity effects are not limited to perceptual similarity; SM errors are also likely if the semantic content of a remembered event from source X is characteristic of the semantic content from source Y. If Don and Yuji are both psychologists who study eyewitness memory, for example, that may make it difficult to remember which of them made a particular comment on that topic. Yet another parallel with perception is that SM judgments can be biased and distorted by expectations. Rememberers may, for example, be biased to attribute a recollection of a politically conservative utterance to a person who (they know) tends to say such things. As another example, people show systematic biases in the attributions they make when they mistakenly recognize a new foil (foil refers to an innocent person in a police lineup) on a memory test as an item presented earlier in the experiment. If the acquisition phase of the experiment involved participants reading some words aloud and listening to the experimenter say others, for example, then when participants falsely recognize a new test word as one presented in the study phase, they are likely to attribute that word to the experimenter rather than to themselves. This “it had to be you effect” presumably arises because participants expect memories of words the experimenter had said to be weaker and less detailed than memories of words they themselves had said; because “memories” of new words are likely to be weak and vague, participants tend to attribute them to the source of weaker memories. SM confusions are thought to be involved in a wide range of memory errors and memory illusions. Early studies by Sir Frederick Bartlett, for example, demonstrated that individuals’ knowledge and beliefs can bias and distort their reconstructions of past episodes. Bartlett’s ideas were extensively explored and elaborated during the 1970s and 1980s by researchers studying various schema- and script-based memory errors. From an SM perspective, knowledge and beliefs provide a rich source of thoughts and images coming to mind during efforts to recollect past events and hence being mistakenly attributed to memory. Similarly, the last decade yielded a torrent of research on “false memories” for nonstudied words that are highly associated with studied words, and these errors too can be described as SM failures. Additionally, there is a large body of literature demonstrating that misleading suggestions regarding details in a witnessed event can lead

750———Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA)

individuals to believe that they remember witnessing things that they really only read or heard about. These ideas are also relevant to the controversy regarding cases in which adults report “recovered memories” of childhood sexual abuse. Cryptomnesia (aka unconscious plagiarism), in contrast, is the opposite sort of SM confusion; here, individuals experience thoughts that arise from episodic memories of another’s ideas as newly minted ideas of their own. These and other memory errors provide insight into the often unconscious inferential processes by which people attribute mental events to sources. D. Stephen Lindsay See also Detection of Deception: Reality Monitoring; Eyewitness Memory; False Memories; Forced Confabulation; Postevent Information and Eyewitness Memory; Reconstructive Memory; Repressed and Recovered Memories

Further Readings

Johnson, M. K. (2006). Memory and reality. American Psychologist, 61, 760–771. Lindsay, D. S. (in press). Source monitoring. In H. L. Roediger III (Ed.), Learning and memory—A comprehensive reference: Cognitive psychology. Oxford, UK: Elsevier.

SPOUSAL ASSAULT RISK ASSESSMENT (SARA) Given the increasing number of spousal assaulters coming before the justice system, there is a growing need for risk assessment instruments to assist in making appropriate decisions at various stages of the proceedings. The Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA) guide is a manual that presents a set of recommendations for the assessment of spousal assault risk and includes a checklist of risk factors. Adequate reliability and validity for judgments concerning violence risk with adult male offenders has been established; however, there is a continuing need for further research with the SARA to advance knowledge and practice. The SARA is a structured professional approach to risk assessment that bridges the gap between unstructured clinical judgment and actuarial approaches. Its

purpose is to guide and enhance professional judgments about risk, not to provide absolute measures of risk using cutoff scores. It is composed of 20 items that were selected based on a review of empirical research and relevant legal and clinical issues. These items are both static and dynamic in nature. The first 10 items are associated with risk for general violence and include three criminal history factors and 7 factors assessing psychosocial adjustment of the offender. The next 10 items are directly associated with the offender’s history of spousal violence and include 7 factors that relate to the offenders past assaultive behavior and 3 items that relate specifically to the current offense. Additional case-specific factors may also be considered. Each of the 20 items is coded on a 3-point scale (0 = absent, 1 = subthreshold, 2 = present), according to detailed criteria. Each item is then evaluated as to whether it should be considered a critical item, defined as those items which, given the specific circumstances of the case, are considered sufficient on their own to compel the evaluator to conclude that the individual poses an imminent risk of harm. After evaluating the presence of each item, and assessing critical items, the evaluator makes a final risk rating of low, moderate, or high. As indicated above, there is no cutoff score for identifying those individuals considered as low, moderate, or high risk. Rather, these ratings are based on a review of the available information and represent the professional opinion of the evaluator. Assessment procedures for completing the SARA make use of multiple sources of information and use multiple methods. A thorough assessment will include comprehensive interviews with the offender and victim; standardized measures of physical and emotional abuse and drug and alcohol abuse; a review of collateral records, which should include police reports, victim’s statements, and a criminal record; and other psychological tests or procedures. After the SARA is completed using the procedures noted above, overall risk ratings should be communicated in a clear manner with justification accompanying each opinion. Any limitations on the opinions should be included in a report of the findings. Additionally, risk management strategies should be discussed as they relate to the underlying risk factors present for the offender. Although there is a paucity of research examining the SARA, the available evidence suggests that the SARA has demonstrated adequate reliability and validity for judgments concerning violence risk with adult male offenders. Structural analyses of the risk factors

STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 Instruments———751

have yielded moderate levels of internal consistency and item homogeneity. Interrater reliability has been found to be high for judgments regarding the presence of individual risk factors and good for overall summary risk ratings. Research conducted by the instrument’s authors showed that SARA ratings yielded good convergent and discriminant validity when compared with other measures of risk for general and violent criminality, and good concurrent validity when scores were compared with another domestic violence instrument. Evidence of predictive validity with respect to future violence is only modest at present; however, this may be accounted for, in part, by the risk management and violence prevention applications of the instrument. Data concerning the SARA’s ability to discriminate between spousal assaulters who re-offend and those who do not re-offend have been mixed. In some samples, SARA total scores have discriminated between recidivistic and nonrecidivistic spousal assaulters but have failed to distinguish between the groups in others. Current evidence supports the predictive validity of several individual items, and the SARA total score has demonstrated a modest, statistically significant improvement in predicting spousal violence over chance. However, some research has shown that the SARA does not add incrementally to the prediction of wife assault recidivism after controlling for alcohol abuse, severe psychological problems, and childhood abuse or neglect. It should be noted that SARA items were selected on the basis of their established association with interpersonal violence in the empirical literature. Much of the published literature on the SARA has used offender interviews and file review data to make risk judgments, and it is difficult to ascertain the nature and depth of the information included in these ratings. It is possible that the full assessment procedures described earlier and recommended in the SARA manual have not been followed; this could include failure to conduct victim interviews or use standardized measures. As a result, the generalizability of these research studies to general clinical practice may be limited. Future research incorporating these multiple sources of information may prove informative. While prospective research on the SARA is also needed to further advance the use of this instrument in forensic decision making, additional research is required to evaluate the effectiveness of this risk assessment approach in preventing violence. Karen E. Whittemore and Kaitlyn McLachlan

See also Risk Assessment Approaches; Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

Kropp, P. R., & Hart, S. D. (2000). The spousal assault risk assessment (SARA) guide: Reliability and validity in adult male offenders. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 101–118. Kropp, P. R., Hart, S. D., Webster, C. W., & Eaves, D. (1995). Manual for the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment Guide (2nd ed.). Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: B.C. Institute on Family Violence. Kropp, P. R., Hart, S. D., Webster, C. W., & Eaves, D. (1998). Spousal Assault Risk Assessment: User’s guide. Toronto, ON, Canada: Multi-Health Systems. Whittemore, K. E., & Kropp, P. R. (2002). Spousal assault risk assessment: A guide for clinicians. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 2(2), 53–64.

STABLE–2007 AND ACUTE–2007 INSTRUMENTS Sexual offenders do great societal damage that causes justifiable public concern. Over the past 10 years, psychology has developed the ability to reliably classify male sexual offenders as low, moderate, and high risk for sexual recidivism (Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised, Risk Matrix–2000, Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism, and STATIC–99) based on historical, static, nonchangeable risk factors. The “static” structure of these tests effectively precludes their ability to measure changes in risk. The STABLE–2007 and the ACUTE–2007 instruments are specialized tools designed to assess and track changes in risk status over time by assessing changeable “dynamic” risk factors. “Stable” dynamic risk factors are personal skill deficits, predilections, and learned behaviors that correlate with sexual recidivism but that can be changed through a process of “effortful intervention” (i.e., treatment or supervision). Should such intervention take place in such a way as to reduce these risk-relevant factors, there would be a concomitant reduction in the likelihood of sexual recidivism. “Acute” dynamic risk factors are highly transient conditions that only last hours or days. These factors are rapidly changing environmental and intrapersonal stresses, conditions, or events that have been shown by previous research to be related to

752———STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 Instruments

imminent sexual re-offense. These instruments should be used to inform correctional managers as to how much risk they are managing, inform decisions on levels of community treatment and supervision, and estimate changes in risk status pre- and posttreatment or other interventions. In the late 1990s, Karl Hanson and Andrew Harris began to investigate the relationship between sexual recidivism and dynamic, changeable, risk factors that correlated with sexual recidivism. This work produced the Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR) assessment, which demonstrated adequate internal consistency and a moderate ability to differentiate sexual recidivists from nonrecidivists. Extending this work, Hanson and Harris broke the SONAR into two parts, creating a stable measure of dynamic risk, STABLE–2000 (16 items), and an acute measure of dynamic risk, ACUTE–2000 (8 items). To test these new instruments, Hanson and Harris instituted a prospective study, the Dynamic Supervision Project, involving every Canadian province and territory and the states of Alaska and Iowa in a robust test of risk assessment methodologies. A total of 156 parole and probation officers completed repeated three-level (static, stable, and acute) risk assessments on 997 sexual offenders across 16 jurisdictions. All the probation and parole officers scoring risk of re-offense for these community-based sexual offenders were trained in sexual offender risk assessment by attending a 2-day training that focused on scoring actual case examples. Sexual, violent, and “other” recidivism information was gathered from official criminal histories after a median of 41 months of follow-up. Results showed that both STABLE–2000 and ACUTE–2000 added predictive validity above that demonstrated by STATIC–99 alone. The sexual recidivism rate for this widely disparate group of community-based sexual offenders was 7.6% after 3 years (n = 790). Empirically based changes in scoring were recommended, and this research led to the development of two improved dynamic risk measures, the STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 instruments. STABLE–2007 assesses 13 stable risk factors that have been shown to correlate with sexual recidivism: significant social influences, capacity for relationship stability, emotional identification with children, hostility toward women, general social rejection, lack of concern for others, impulsivity, poor problem-solving skills, negative emotionality, sex drive and preoccupations, sex as coping, deviant sexual preference, and cooperation

with supervision. Each of these 13 items are scored on a 3-point scale (0 = no problem evident, 1 = some problem evident, and 2 = significant problem evident) for a total of 26 possible points. Emotional identification with children is not scored for those offenders who do not have a child victim, and the scale is subsequently scored out of 24 points for that group. The offender’s STATIC–99 score is then combined with his STABLE– 2007 score to produce percentage estimates of sexual recidivism, sexual recidivism plus sexual breaches, violent recidivism, any criminal recidivism (breaches excluded), and any criminal recidivism including breaches at 1, 2, 3, and 4 years. ACUTE–2007 assesses seven acute, rapidly changing risk factors that correlate with sexual recidivism. In this scale, there are two factors. The first factor predicts sexual and violent re-offending and uses the following four risk factors: victim access, hostility, sexual preoccupation, and rejection of supervision. The second factor predicts general criminal recidivism using the aforementioned four factors plus emotional collapse, collapse of social supports, and substance abuse for a total of seven items. Each of these seven items is scored on a 4-point scale (0 = no problem evident, 1 = some problem evident, 2 = significant problem evident, and IN = intervene now) for a total of 14 possible points. An “Intervene Now” score calls for immediate intervention to prevent imminent re-offense or supervision catastrophes such as suicide. Once ACUTE–2007 has been scored, this outcome is combined with the offender’s STATIC–99/ STABLE–2007 score to estimate an overall risk priority. The offender is nominally classified as a low, moderate, or high risk for sexual and violent recidivism and as a low, moderate, or high risk for general criminal recidivism. Appropriate, empirically based risk ratios can then be applied to determine intervention priority. The STABLE–2007 and the ACUTE–2007 instruments are easier to score than their predecessors, and combinations of the STATIC–99 and STABLE–2007 instruments produced receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve values for sexual re-offense commonly in the 0.76 range. When used by “conscientious” officers, the STATIC–99/STABLE–2007 combined scores produced an ROC for sexual re-offense of 0.84 and 0.80 for violent recidivism. STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 assessments were found to add predictive power above and beyond that available to assessments of static risk alone. This study provides further evidence that trained community supervision officers can reliably score valid

Stalking———753

and useful sex offender risk assessments. Results of this nature, even taking into account the need for replication and cross-validation, suggest significant policy and practice implications for the community supervision of sexual offenders. The STABLE–2007 and the ACUTE–2007 instruments have demonstrated predictive validity beyond that of the SONAR and the STABLE–2000/ACUTE–2000 packages. STABLE–2007 and ACUTE 2007 are available free of charge from the authors. The authors no longer support or recommend the use of SONAR, STABLE–2000, or ACUTE–2000 but recommend STABLE–2007 and ACUTE–2007 for assessing dynamic changes in risk for sexual offenders. Andrew J. R. Harris See also Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R); Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR); Risk Assessment Approaches; Sex Offender Needs Assessment Rating (SONAR); Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG); STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments; Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)

Further Readings

Hanson, R. K., Harris, A. J. R., Scott, T.-L., & Helmus, L. (2007). Assessing the risk of sexual offenders on community supervision: The Dynamic Supervision Project (User report, Corrections research). Ottawa, ON, Canada: Public Safety Canada. Retrieved from http://www.ps-sp.gc.ca/res/cor/sum/cprs200709-en.asp

STALKING While the legal definition of stalking varies across jurisdictions, behaviorally, it is generally considered to comprise any of a wide range of repeated acts that either threaten the victim, are intended to cause fear or harm, cause distress, or are otherwise unwanted by the victim. Before the proscription of stalking into criminal law, instances of stalking were sometimes addressed by other criminal laws (such as threats) or by the mental health system. Most of the initial research into stalking was conducted with stalkers who had come into contact with the mental health system. As stalking was criminalized, research extended to include the experiences and feelings of stalking victims as well as the examination of a broader range of stalkers. Additional research

has included the manner in which the community perceives stalking behaviors, the factors influencing the occurrence of stalking and stalking violence, and effective strategies for treating stalkers.

Stalking as a Criminal Act Although stalking may appear to be a new phenomenon, stalking behaviors have existed in some form for hundreds of years. It is only in the last 17 years the behaviors that constitute stalking have been recognized as criminal. Before its criminalization, instances of stalking brought to official attention were often dealt with by mental health professionals. In 1990, the first stalking legislation was instituted in California. A number of cases in which celebrities were stalked, and in some cases killed, by obsessed fans are surmised to have provoked the first law in California. However, stalking came to be recognized as occurring in a range of circumstances, including intimate relationships. Subsequently, all other American states introduced stalking laws (or laws proscribing harassment). Stalking laws have also been instituted in other countries such as England and Australia as well as in many Western European countries. Nevertheless, some stalkers are ultimately managed within the mental health system.

The Mental Health System and Stalking Before stalking was recognized as criminal, the official response to those who committed stalking was to address their behavior within the mental health system. Some of the first studies of stalking examined stalkers who came into contact with this system. Such research has produced a number of different classifications or typologies of stalkers aimed at guiding approaches for treating the stalker. An example of a classification system used to categorize stalkers and their behaviors is that devised by Paul Mullen and colleagues. Stalkers are classified as rejected (the stalker engages in actions against the victim at the end of a relationship), intimacy seeking (the stalker tries to establish a romantic relationship with the victim), socially incompetent suitors (the stalker tries to establish a connection with the victim but their lack of social skills ultimately leads to their rejection), resentful (the stalker feels the victim has wronged them and wants the victim to feel afraid), and predatory (the stalker revels in the power they have over the person and may sexually assault the victim).

754———Stalking

Use of this system may permit predictions regarding the likely course of stalking and may lead to suggestions for treatment. However, most typologies are yet to be empirically supported across a sufficient number of studies; therefore, there is a need for ongoing research in this area.

Definitions of Stalking When stalking was criminalized, legal definitions of the behaviors that constituted stalking had to be devised. Previously, legal remedies could be used only when the stalker had escalated to violence against the victim, which left many stalking victims without legal recourse. The behaviors and requirements encompassed in legal definitions of stalking vary across jurisdictions. The key elements of the California stalking legislation are that stalking behaviors are engaged in, that a threat is made to the victim, and that the stalker intends to pursue the victim. Other stalking laws only possess one or some of these elements. One common element to definitions of stalking though is that stalking is a course of conduct engaged in over a period of time. This course of conduct is one that is unwanted by the victim. Definitions vary in how often stalking behaviors must be engaged in and which behaviors must be displayed. Also, there are differences in whether the stalker needs to have intended to cause some type of harm to the victim and whether a reasonable person would experience fear or some other type of harm. Clinical definitions of stalking (or obsessional harassment, as is it also known in this field) tend to focus on the repeated nature of the stalking behavior and the fact that it is unwanted and causes distress to the victim. The element of intent to cause fear or harm is generally absent in such definitions. Therefore, there is dissimilarity between some legal and clinical definitions of stalking. This has led to the development of various methods to reduce the problematic behaviors displayed by stalkers. The disparity has also led to research interest in areas such as profiles of stalkers and victims, community perceptions, risk factors, and effectiveness of treatment approaches.

Stalkers The demographic profile of a stalker is very different from the typical offender profile. Stalkers are generally much older than the typical offender and score higher on intelligence measures than the average offender. Stalkers are usually known to the victim, with a large

percentage being current or former partners of the victim. This is in contrast to the often popular perception that victims of stalking are more likely to be pursued by strangers. Stalkers are also overwhelmingly male, which was demonstrated in a survey by Patricia Tjaden and colleagues of 16,000 respondents in the United States, with around 5% of these respondents having been stalked. They reported that approximately 90% of victims in the sample had been stalked by a male.

Victims of Stalking While men are more likely to be the perpetrators of stalking, women are more likely to be the victims. In the survey by Patricia Tjaden and colleagues, it was found that approximately 80% of the victims were female. This survey also noted that approximately 8% of women had at some stage been stalked, with 2% of men having being stalked during their lifetime. A significant proportion of stalking victims are young adults, with the majority under 30 years. Other studies conducted with stalking victims have investigated the impact of stalking. These consequences have included psychiatric symptoms, as victims have been known to develop a number of different disorders, such as depression and anxiety, after being stalked. There may also be an impact on victims’ social lives, as stalking victims may be less likely to leave home as they are fearful for their safety. Another impact of stalking may be economic, as the victim may have to take time off work to attend medical or psychiatric services or to attend court hearings. Because of injuries suffered during the stalking period, their functioning at work may also be impaired.

Community Perceptions of Stalking In addition to research with victims, studies have been conducted into how the community perceives stalking. If the community perceives stalking in a manner different from the conception embodied in the legislation, then police resources may be misused, with stalking incidents reported that do not fit legislative requirements. Such a disparity might also lead to genuine victims not having recourse to legal action as they are not considered stalking victims according to legislation. Thus, research into community perceptions of stalking may prove useful for examining the potential effectiveness of legislation and for suggesting changes to stalking laws.

Stalking———755

Some vignette research into community perceptions has found that strangers are more likely to be perceived as stalkers, whereas other research has discovered that ex-partners are more likely to be identified as stalkers. Research has demonstrated that community members are more likely to perceive a situation as stalking when the stalker intends to harm or invoke fear in the victim. Also, when stalkers relentlessly engage in behaviors against their victims, the situation is more likely to be construed as stalking. Unless a low level of repetitive behavior is engaged in, intent to harm the victim is not an important requirement for behaviors to be classified as stalking. Some research has also identified that women are more likely to label certain behaviors as stalking and be more frightened than men who judge the same behaviors. The research reveals that men and women may seek legal assistance under different circumstances.

Risk Factors for Stalking In addition to research on the characteristics of stalkers and stalking victims, another important area of research has been the examination of factors that increase the likelihood that a person will engage in stalking. Stalking is more likely to occur if there has been a previous intimate relationship between the victim and the stalker. Certain psychological and social traits of the stalker can also increase the likelihood that the person will stalk, such as having a personality disorder or possessing few social contacts. Such contacts can have an impact on the cessation of stalking as these social contacts can convey disapproval of the stalker’s actions to the stalker, which may influence his future decisions to stalk. It is important for researchers to continue to investigate the factors that influence stalkers to persist in pursuing their victims, as these influencing factors might be altered to reduce the prevalence of stalking.

Violence as an Outcome of Stalking In some cases, stalkers may escalate to violence against their victims. This violence can have a great impact on the victim and can lead to permanent damage or even death. Some research indicates that stalkers who escalate to violent acts have previous criminal convictions, whereas other research has revealed that having a previous criminal history has no relationship with engaging in stalking behaviors. There are some risk factors, however, that appear to consistently indicate that violence may be a likely outcome. Threats appear to be a

precursor to violence in some cases. Some mental illnesses may also lend a person to engaging in violent stalking behaviors, although a psychotic stalker is less likely to engage in violence than a nonpsychotic stalker. The prior relationship between the stalker and the victim can also have an impact on the risk of stalking violence. The presence of a previous intimate relationship is more likely to lead to violence being committed against the victim compared with when the victim is a stranger to the stalker. If the victim’s partner had engaged in substance abuse, this could also likely lead to violence. There needs to be more research conducted in this area to determine what risk factors are the most predictive of a stalker becoming violent.

Treatment of Stalkers Further research is also required to determine the effectiveness of different methods of mental health treatment for stalkers. It must be noted that there is no treatment regime specifically for stalking, as stalking can be related to a number of mental disorders but itself is not a disorder. Furthermore, not all stalking is related to mental health problems. Thus, it may be difficult to determine the most effective type of treatment or management for stalkers. Despite these issues, some treatment methods have been found to be effective, such as attempting to rectify the disorder underlying the stalking behaviors or concentrating on the behaviors themselves. The victim may also undertake actions, such as legal measures, to attempt to arrest the stalking behaviors. Nicola Cheyne and Susan Dennison See also Intimate Partner Violence; Public Opinion About Crime; Risk Assessment Approaches; Violence Risk Assessment

Further Readings

Dennison, S. M., & Thomson, D. M. (2005). Criticisms and plaudits for stalking laws? What psycholegal research tells us about proscribing stalking. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 11(3), 384–406. Rosenfeld, B. (2004). Violence risk factors in stalking and obsessional harassment: A review and preliminary metaanalysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 31(1), 9–36. Spitzberg, B. H., & Cupach, W. R. (2007). The state of the art of stalking: Taking stock of the emerging literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12(1), 64–86.

756———Stanford Prison Experiment

Tjaden, P., & Thoennes, N. (1998). Stalking in America: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) has become a classic in the social sciences for its dramatic demonstration of the power of situational processes over individual dispositions of its participants. It pitted a powerful set of situational variables, which together comprised what is worse in the psychological experience of imprisonment, against the will to resist by a group of normal, healthy young men playing roles of prisoners or guards. The SPE was conducted in 1971 by a group of Stanford research psychologists, led by Professor Phillip Zimbardo, and two of Zimbardo’s graduate students, Curtis Banks and Craig Haney. The experiment was designed to control for the individual personality variables that were often used at that time to explain behavior in prison and other institutional settings. That is, the researchers in the SPE neutralized the explanatory argument that pathological traits alone could account for extreme and abusive behavior by (a) selecting a group of participants who were psychologically healthy and who had scored in the normal range of the numerous personality variables that they measured and selected for, and (b) assigning participants to either the role of prisoner or guard on a completely random basis. The behavior that resulted when these otherwise healthy, normal participants were placed in the extreme environment of a simulated prison would have to be explained largely if not entirely on the basis of the characteristics of the social setting or situation in which they had been placed. The setting itself was designed to be as similar to an actual prison as possible. Constructed in the basement of the Psychology Department at Stanford University, the “Stanford County Prison” had barred doors on the small rooms that served as cells, cots on which the prisoners slept, a hallway area that was converted to a prison “yard” where group activities were conducted, and a small closet that served as a short-term “solitary confinement” cell that could be used for disciplining unruly prisoners. The prisoners wore uniforms that were designed to de-emphasize their individuality and

underscore their powerlessness. Guards, on the other hand, donned military-like garb, complete with reflecting sunglasses and nightsticks. These guards generated a set of rules and regulations that in many ways resembled those in operation in actual prisons, and prisoners were expected to comply with their orders. However, guards were instructed not to resort to physical force to gain prisoner compliance. Despite the lack of any legal mandate for the “incarceration” of the prisoners and despite the fact that both groups were told that they had been randomly assigned to their roles (so that, e.g., guards knew that prisoners had done nothing to “deserve” their degraded prisoner status), the behavior that ensued was remarkably similar to behavior that takes place inside actual prisons and surprisingly extreme in intensity and effect. Thus, initial prisoner resistance and rebellion was met forcibly by guards, who quickly struggled to regain their power and then proceeded to escalate their mistreatment of prisoners throughout the study at the slightest sign of affront or disobedience. In some instances, the guards conspired to physically mistreat prisoners outside the presence of the experimenters and to leave prisoners in the solitary confinement cell beyond the 1-hour limit that the researchers had set. Conversely, prisoners resisted the guards’ orders at first but then succumbed to their superior power and control. Some prisoners had serious emotional breakdowns in the course of the study and had to be released; others became compliant and conforming, rarely if ever challenging the “authority” of the guards. Despite the fact that the researchers could not keep the prisoners in the study against their will (and they had been informed at the outset of the study of their legal right to leave), as the study proceeded, they “petitioned” the prison “administrators” for permission to be “paroled” or returned passively to their cells when their requests were denied. By the end of the study, they had disintegrated as a group. The guards, on the other hand, solidified and intensified their control. Although some of the guards were more extreme and inventive in the degradation they inflicted on the prisoners, and others were more passive and less involved, none of the guards intervened to restrain the behavior of their more abusive colleagues. Although the study was designed to last for two full weeks, the extreme nature of the behavior that occurred led the researchers to terminate it after only 6 days. Controversial from the outset, and widely discussed and cited since it was conducted, the study has come to stand in psychology and related disciplines as a

Statement Validity Assessment (SVA)———757

demonstration of the power of situations—especially extreme institutional settings such as prisons—to shape and control the behavior of the persons placed inside them. Its results give lie to the notion that extreme social behavior can only—or even mostly—be explained by the extreme characteristics of persons who engage in it. The SPE counsels us to look instead to the characteristics of the settings or situations in which the behavior occurs. It also stands as a challenge to what might be termed the “presumption of institutional rationality”—that is, the tendency to assume that institutions operate on the basis of an inherent rationality that should be accepted rather than questioned. Instead, the SPE (itself the most “irrational” of prisons, in the sense that the guards had no legal authority over the prisoners, who in turn, had committed no crimes that warranted their punishment) suggests that a kind of “psycho-logic” may operate in these settings, which controls role-bound behavior, whether or not that behavior actually furthers legitimate goals. A recent detailed chronology of the events that transpired in the SPE from initial city police arrests through final termination is provided in Zimbardo’s book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Bad. The story unfolds in the present tense, first-person narrative for 8 chapters, with subsequent chapters discussing the ethics of such research, presenting its various data sources, and then setting that study in a broader context of other social science research that also demonstrates the power of social situations to influence or dominate individual behavior (additional information is available at www.luciferEffect.com). All original data and forms have been stored at the archives of the History of American Psychology in Akron, Ohio. Craig Haney and Philip G. Zimbardo See also Juvenile Boot Camps; Prison Overcrowding; Supermax Prisons

Further Readings

Haney, C. (1999). Reflections on the Stanford Prison Experiment: Genesis, Transformations, Consequences (“The SPE and the Analysis of Institutions”). In T. Blass (Ed.), Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram paradigm (pp. 221–237). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Haney, C. (2006). Reforming punishment: Psychological limits to the pains of imprisonment. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Books.

Haney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P. (1973). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69–97. Haney, C., & Zimbardo, P. (1977). The socialization into criminality: On becoming a prisoner and a guard. In J. Tapp & F. Levine (Eds.), Law, justice, and the individual in society: Psychological and legal issues (pp. 198–223). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Haney, C., & Zimbardo, P. (1998). The past and future of U.S. prison policy: Twenty-five years after the Stanford prison experiment. American Psychologist, 53, 709–727. Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn bad. New York: Random House.

STATEMENT VALIDITY ASSESSMENT (SVA) Statement Validity Assessment (SVA) is a tool designed to determine the credibility of child witnesses’ testimonies in trials for sexual offenses. SVA assessments are accepted as evidence in some North American courts and in criminal courts in several West European countries. The tool originated in Sweden and Germany and consists of four stages. Much of the SVA research is concerned with the ability of Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA), one of the four SVA stages, to discriminate between truth tellers and liars. The Validity Checklist, another stage of the SVA procedure, has also attracted attention from researchers. That a technique has been developed to verify whether a child has been sexually abused is not surprising. It is often difficult to determine the facts in an allegation of sexual abuse, since often there is no medical or physical evidence. Frequently, the alleged victim and the defendant give contradictory testimony, and often, there are no independent witnesses to give an objective version of events. This makes the perceived credibility of the defendant and alleged victim important. The alleged victim is in a disadvantageous position if he or she is a child, as adults have a tendency to mistrust statements made by children. SVA consists of four stages: (1) a case-file analysis; (2) a semistructured interview; (3) a CBCA that systematically assesses the quality of a statement; and (4) an evaluation of the CBCA outcome via a set of questions (Validity Checklist).

758———Statement Validity Assessment (SVA)

Case-File Analysis The SVA procedure starts with the analysis of the case file. A case file should include information about the child witness (e.g., his or her age, cognitive abilities, relationship to the accused person); the nature of the event in question, and previous statements of the child and other parties involved. The case-file analysis gives the SVA expert insight into what may have happened and the issues that are disputed. The SVA analysis focuses on these disputed elements in the subsequent three stages.

A Semistructured Interview The second stage of SVA is a semistructured interview where the child provides his or her own account of the allegation. Conducting a proper interview is never an easy task, but interviewing young children is particularly difficult because their descriptions of past events are notably incomplete. Therefore, interviewers routinely want more information than is initially provided, and they have to ask further, specific questions to learn more about an event. The danger interviewers face is that their questioning may become suggestive—that is, that the question suggests to the child what the answer should be and subsequently leads the child to providing that answer. Special interview techniques based on psychological principles have been designed to obtain as much information as possible from interviewees in a free narrative style, without inappropriate prompts or suggestions.

Criteria-Based Content Analysis The interviews with the child are audiotaped and transcribed, and the transcripts are used for the third part of SVA: the CBCA. In this third part, SVA evaluators look for the presence in the transcripts of 19 criteria. The hypothesis is that truthful statements contain more of these criteria than do fabricated statements. Examples of these CBCA criteria are unstructured production (whether the information is not provided in a chronological time sequence), contextual embeddings (references to time and space: “He approached me for the first time in the garden during the summer holidays”), descriptions of interactions (statements that interlink at least two actors with each other: “The moment my mother came into the room, he stopped smiling”), and reproduction of speech (speech in its original form:

“And then he asked: ‘Is that your coat?’”). These criteria are more likely to occur in truthful statements than in fabricated statements because it is thought to be cognitively too difficult for liars to fabricate them. Other criteria are more likely to occur in truthful statements than in fabricated statements for motivational reasons. Truthful persons will not be as concerned with making a credible impression on the interviewer as deceivers, because truth tellers often believe that their honesty will shine through. Therefore, liars will be keener to try to construct a report that they believe will make a credible impression on others and will leave out information that, in their view, will damage their image of being a sincere person. As a result, a truthful statement is more likely to contain information that is inconsistent with people’s stereotypes of truthfulness. Examples of these so-called “contrary-to-truthfulness-stereotype” criteria are spontaneous corrections (corrections made without prompting from the interviewer: “He wore a black jacket, no sorry, it was blue”) and raising doubts about one’s own testimony (anticipated objections against the veracity of one’s own testimony: “I know this all sounds really odd”).

The Validity Checklist A CBCA evaluation itself is not sufficient to draw conclusions about the truthfulness of a statement, because CBCA scores may be affected by factors other than the veracity of the statement. For example, older children produce statements that typically contain more CBCA criteria than younger children, and statements are unlikely to contain many CBCA criteria if the interviewer did not give the child enough opportunity to tell the whole story. The fourth and final phase of the SVA method is to examine whether any of these alternative explanations might have affected the presence of the CBCA criteria in the transcripts. For this purpose a checklist, the Validity Checklist, has been compiled, which consists of 11 issues that are thought to possibly affect CBCA scores. By systematically addressing each of the issues addressed in the Validity Checklist, the evaluator explores and considers alternative interpretations of the CBCA outcomes. Each affirmative response that the evaluator gives to an issue raises a question about the validity of the CBCA outcome. One issue mentioned in the Validity Checklist is inappropriateness of affect. This refers to whether the affect displayed by the child when being interviewed (usually via nonverbal behavior) is inappropriate for

Statement Validity Assessment (SVA)———759

the child’s alleged experiences. For example, sexual offenses are emotionally disturbing and likely to upset victims. One could, therefore, usually expect a clear display of emotions from a truthful victim when being interviewed. Absence of these emotions may indicate that the story has been fabricated. A second issue mentioned in the Validity Checklist is appropriateness of language and knowledge. This issue refers to whether the child’s use of language and display of knowledge was beyond the normal capacity of a person of his or her age and beyond the scope of what the child may have learned from the incident. When this occurs, it may indicate the influence of other people in preparing the statement. For example, to obtain custody, a woman may encourage her child to falsely accuse her ex-husband of having had an abusive relationship with the child. In an attempt to make a convincing case, the woman may have prepared the statement together with the child and may have coached the child in what to say. A third issue on the Validity Checklist is examining whether the child demonstrates any susceptibility to suggestion during the interview. Statements of suggestible children could be problematic to interpret because suggestible children may be inclined to provide information that confirms the interviewer’s expectations but is, in fact, inaccurate.

Research and Evaluation Despite the fact that SVA assessments are used as evidence in court in several countries, it is unclear how accurate these assessments are because no reliable data regarding the accuracy of SVA assessments in real-life cases are currently available. To examine the accuracy of SVA assessments in such cases, it is necessary to know what truly happened in the disputed event. Obtaining this so-called ground truth is difficult because it can only be determined via case facts, such as medical evidence or other evidence, which indisputably links, or does not link, the alleged perpetrator to the crime. Such case facts are often not present in sexual abuse cases. Research has been carried out in the form of laboratory studies, but it has mainly been focused on the third phase of SVA: the accuracy of CBCA assessments. In those studies, either children, but more often undergraduate students, told the truth or lied for the sake of the experiment. Such studies showed similar results for adults and children. In alignment with the CBCA assumption, many CBCA criteria were more

often present in truthful statements than in fabricated reports. Overall, 73% of the truths and 72% of the lies were correctly classified by using CBCA assessments. Whether this reflects the accuracy of CBCA assessments in real-life criminal investigations is unknown. Students or children who tell lies and truths in an experiment are different from children who tell truths and lies in criminal investigations, and the accuracy scores therefore do not necessarily reflect the accuracy scores in criminal investigations. There are reasons to believe that applying the Validity Checklist is sometimes problematic. It is possible to question the justification of some of the issues listed on the Validity Checklist, for example, whether the child displayed an absence of affect or inappropriate affect during the interview. This issue implies that the notion of appropriate affect displayed by victims of sexual abuse exists, whereas it does not. That is, in interviews, some sexually abused victims express distress that is clearly visible to outsiders, whereas others appear numbed and cues of distress are not clearly visible. The communication styles represent a personality factor and are not related to deceit. Some other issues, such as susceptibility to suggestion, are difficult to measure. To examine a child’s susceptibility to suggestion, the interviewer is recommended to ask the witness a few leading questions at the end of the interview. Interviewers should only ask questions about irrelevant peripheral information, because asking questions about central information could damage the quality of the statement. Being allowed only to ask questions about peripheral information is problematic, as it may say little about the witness’s suggestibility regarding core issues of his or her statement. Children show more resistance to suggestibility for central parts than for peripheral parts of an event. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the exact impact that many issues have on CBCA scores. For example, in one study, SVA raters were instructed to take the age of the child into account when calculating CBCA scores. Nevertheless, several criteria positively correlated with age. In other words, even after being instructed to correct the CBCA scores for age, the results still showed age-related effects, with older children obtaining higher CBCA scores than younger children. Given these difficulties in measuring the issues and in examining the exact impact of these issues on CBCA scores, it is clear that the Validity Checklist procedure is more subjective and less formalized than the CBCA

760———STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments

procedure. It is, therefore, not surprising that if two experts disagree about the truthfulness of a statement in a German criminal case, they are likely to disagree about the likely impact of Validity Checklist issues on that statement. One study revealed that Swedish experts sometimes use the Validity Checklist incorrectly, and this could be due to difficulties with applying it. First, although SVA experts sometimes highlight the influence of Validity Checklist issues on children’s statements in general, they do not always discuss how these issues might influence the statement of the particular child they are asked to assess. Second, although experts sometimes indicate possible external influence on statements, they are inclined to rely on the CBCA outcome and tend to judge high-quality statements as truthful and low-quality statements as fabricated. In sum, although SVA assessments are used as evidence in (criminal) courts to evaluate the veracity of child witnesses’ testimonies in trials for sexual offenses, the accuracy of these assessments is unknown. However, research has shown that CBCA-trained evaluators make mistakes in classifying truth tellers and liars and that the use of the Validity Checklist is problematic for a variety of reasons. Aldert Vrij See also Children’s Testimony; Child Sexual Abuse; Detection of Deception in Children; False Memories

Further Readings

Goodman, G. S., & Melinder, A. (2007). Child witness research and forensic interviews of young children: A review. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 12, 1–19. Gumpert, C. H., & Lindblad, F. (1999). Expert testimony on child sexual abuse: A qualitative study of the Swedish approach to statement analysis. Expert Evidence, 7, 279–314. Köhnken, G. (2004). Statement validity analysis and the “detection of the truth.” In P. A. Granhag & L. A. Strömwall (Eds.), Deception detection in forensic contexts (pp. 41–63). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Steller, M., & Boychuk, T. (1992). Children as witnesses in sexual abuse cases: Investigative interview and assessment techniques. In H. Dent & R. Flin (Eds.), Children as witnesses (pp. 47–73). New York: Wiley. Vrij, A. (2005). Criteria-based content analysis: A qualitative review of the first 37 studies. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 3–41.

STATIC–99 AND STATIC–2002 INSTRUMENTS The STATIC–99 and the STATIC–2002 are actuarial instruments that predict sex offender recidivism. They were designed to be widely applicable risk scales for the prediction of sexual recidivism that could be scored using commonly available file information from forensic settings such as prisons and forensic hospitals. Actuarial instruments for sex offender reoffense categorize sexual offenders into distinct risk levels such as low, moderate, and high risk to reoffend. Identifying the level of risk for sexual offenders improves the management of sexual offenders in the criminal justice system by allowing for appropriate level of supervision and treatment depending on risk level. Lower-risk sexual offenders may be placed on probation and participate in outpatient short-term treatment programs. A high degree of control supervision and intensive treatment can be allocated to sexual offenders identified as being higher risk to sexually re-offend. In more extreme cases, actuarial instruments can assist the evaluator in making decisions for the civil commitment of sexual offenders deemed to have a mental disorder that causes them to be too dangerous for release from custody and in need of inpatient treatment and custody.

The STATIC–99 The STATIC–99 was developed by R. Karl Hanson and David Thornton in 1999 to measure the prediction of violent and sexual recidivism. It is designed to be used for adult males who have already been charged with or convicted of at least one sexual offense against a child or a nonconsenting adult. The instrument is not appropriate for females or juvenile sexual offenders. The STATIC–99 is a combination of two existing actuarial scales for sexual recidivism: the Rapid Risk Assessment for Sex Offender Recidivism (RRASOR) and the Structured Anchored Clinical Judgment (SAC–J–MIN). As the name implies the scale contains only static risk factors, or historical risk factors, that have been found in research to predict sexual re-offense. The STATIC–99 was developed on three Canadian samples of sexual offenders from mental health and correctional facilities. Institut Philippe Pinel (n = 344) in Montreal provided long-term (1–3 years) treatment for sex offenders referred from both the mental health and correctional systems. Millbrook Correctional

STATIC–99 and STATIC–2002 Instruments———761

Centre (n = 191) is a maximum security provincial correctional facility located in Ontario, Canada. The Oak Ridge Division of the Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre (n = 142) in Ontario is a maximum security mental health center. The STATIC–99 was subsequently cross-validated on 563 sex offenders released from Her Majesty’s Prison Service (England and Wales) in 1979 and followed for 16 years. The predictive validity of the instrument was measured by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The STATIC–99 showed moderate predictive accuracy for both sexual recidivism (r = 0.33; ROC area = 0.71) and violent recidivism (r = 0.32; ROC area = 0.69). The STATIC–99 includes 10 items that are scored as a 0 if not present and a 1 if present, except for the item prior sex offenses, which is scored 0 to 3. The items on the STATIC–99 include young age, single (ever lived with a lover for at least 2 years), index nonsexual violence (conviction), prior nonsexual violence (conviction), prior sex offenses, prior sentencing dates, any convictions for noncontact sex offenses, unrelated victims, stranger victims, and male victims. The score on the STATIC–99 can range from 0 to 12 and risk classifications include low, medium-low, medium-high, and high risk. Each risk level is associated with a probability of sexual re-offense for the study sample for 5, 10, and 15 years. Since the development of the STATIC–99, it has been repeatedly cross-validated in multiple jurisdictions and countries.

The STATIC–2002 In 2002, R. Karl Hanson and David Thornton revised the STATIC–99 in an effort to make the instrument simpler, more clinically applicable, and easier to score. The scale construction was designed to maximize the prediction of sexual recidivism. The selection of variables for the STATIC–2002 was guided by established research on factors that predict sexual recidivism as well as other empirically developed sex offender risk scales. The authors also included a number of exploratory variables that were supported by the constructs they were attempting to assess. Twenty-two individual variables with a simple bivariate relationship to sexual recidivism were organized into five content areas, including age at release, persistence of sex offending, deviant sexual interests, range of available victims, and general criminality. Multivariate analyses were used to determine whether the subscale added incrementally beyond the

subscales already considered. Using Cox regression, each subscale was statistically weighted for its contribution to sexual recidivism. The resulting scale was developed on a more diverse group of samples than the STATIC–99 and included two of the three developmental samples of the STATIC–99— Institut Philippe Pinel (n = 363) and Millbrook Correctional Centre (n = 186)—as well as three Canadian Federal Samples (n = 1229)—the California Sex Offender Treatment and Evaluation Project sample (n = 1137), the Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative (SSOSA) sample from Washington (n = 587), and the Manitoba Probation sample (n = 202). The STATIC–99/STATIC–2002 (ROC area = .71) showed levels of predictive accuracy for sexual recidivism similar to the STATIC–99 (ROC area = .69) for the prediction of sexual recidivism. The potential advantages of the STATIC–2002 over the STATIC–99 include improved prediction of violent recidivism over the STATIC–99, less variability than the STATIC–99 across settings, and more meaningful content areas when applied to clinical cases. Replication studies need to be conducted on large samples before it is possible to associate specific risk levels to specific ranges of scores as provided by the STATIC–99. The STATIC–2002 is a new instrument that needs to be replicated with independent data sets before it is appropriate for wide clinical use. The items in the STATIC–2002 include the following: age at release; the persistence of sexual offending cluster with subsections including (a) prior sentencing occasions for sexual offenses, (b) arrests for sexual offenses as both an adult and a juvenile, and (c) rate of sexual offenses; the deviant sexual interests cluster with subsections including (a) any convictions for noncontact sexual offenses, (b) any male victims, and (c) two or more victims below the age of 12 with one victim unrelated; the relationship to victims of sexual offenses cluster including subsections (a) any unrelated victims and (b) any stranger victims; the general criminality cluster including subsections (a) any arrest/sentencing occasions, (b) any breach of conditional release, (c) years free prior to index offense, and (d) any prior conviction for nonsexual violence. Amy Phenix See also Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool–Revised (MnSOST–R); Rapid Risk Assessment for Sexual Offense Recidivism (RRASOR); Risk Assessment Approaches; Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide (SORAG); Sexual Violence Risk–20 (SVR–20)

762———Statistical Information, Impact on Juries

Further Readings

Hanson, R. K., & Thornton, D. (2000). STATIC–99: Improving risk assessments for sex offenders: A comparison of three actuarial scales. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 119–136. Hanson, R. K., & Thornton, D. (2003). Notes on the development of STATIC–2002. User Report 2003–01. Ottawa, ON, Canada: Department of the Solicitor General of Canada.

STATISTICAL INFORMATION, IMPACT ON JURIES Statistical information is increasingly likely to be presented in court. It may appear in civil cases (e.g., percentages of men and women employees in a gender discrimination case) or criminal cases (e.g., the defendant’s blood type matches that of a sample found at the crime scene and that blood type is found in only 20% of the population). Can jurors understand that information on their own, or must they rely on experts to explain its meaning? Even if jurors correctly understand statistical evidence, how do they combine that evidence with other, nonquantitative evidence? In contrast to other areas of juror understanding (e.g., juror beliefs about factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness identification), there is relatively little research directly answering these questions. Those studies can be broken into two broad categories. The first focuses primarily on understanding of the statistical evidence. The second asks how statistical evidence is combined with other nonstatistical evidence. Considered together, jurors have some difficulty understanding even a single piece of statistical evidence. That difficulty increases when faced with two pieces of statistical evidence. Jurors also tend to underuse statistical evidence, when compared with a Bayesian norm, even when provided with instructions on how to use such evidence. That underuse, however, conceals considerable variation.

Juror Understanding of Statistical Evidence “Naked statistics” (sometimes referred to as base rates) are data that are true, regardless of what happened in a particular case. Mock jurors are not persuaded by naked

statistics compared with mathematically equivalent evidence that is contingent on some ultimate fact (i.e., a fact essential to resolution of the case). For example, in the Blue Bus problem, a bus runs over a color-blind woman’s dog. The defendant, Company A, owns 80% of the buses in the area, and all of Company A’s buses are blue. Company B owns 20% of the buses, and its buses are gray. The color-blind woman cannot tell a blue bus from a gray bus, so she does not know which company’s bus ran over her dog. She sues Company A on the theory that, because Company A owns 80% of the buses in the area, there is an 80% chance that a Company A bus killed her dog. In experiments, jurors in one condition hear that the defendant owns 80% of the buses in the area, while those in another condition hear an 80%accurate weigh-station attendant’s identification of the defendant bus company. Both sets of jurors believe it equally probable that the defendant’s blue bus, rather than Company B’s gray bus, killed the dog. But only jurors who heard the attendant’s testimony are willing to find against the bus company. Jurors who simply heard the naked statistics (Company A owns 80% of the buses) do not find Company A responsible. Similarly, although learning that the defendant is responsible for 80% of the accidents in the county leads to high probability estimates that the defendant’s bus killed the dog, jurors are unwilling to find the defendant responsible. Most research has examined “nonnaked” statistical information—information in which one’s belief about the ultimate fact (in the example above, whether or not a blue bus hit the dog) is linked to one’s belief about the evidence (the weigh-station attendant’s accuracy). Some research finds that the manner in which statistical information is presented may affect mock jurors’ use of the information. For example, incidence rate information presented in the form of a conditional probability (there is only a 2% probability that the defendant’s hair would match the perpetrator’s if the defendant were innocent) may encourage some jurors to commit the prosecutor’s fallacy. These jurors believe that there is a 98% chance that the defendant is guilty. If the same information is presented as a percentage and number (a 2% match in a city of 1,000,000 people, meaning 20,000 people share that characteristic), some others may commit the defense attorney’s fallacy. They believe the evidence shows only a 1 in 20,000 chance that the defendant is the culprit. These errors may be more likely when an expert, rather than an attorney, offers the fallacious argument. An attorney who makes such an argument in the face of expert testimony (e.g., when the expert explains

Statistical Information, Impact on Juries———763

Bayes’s theorem) runs the risk of backlash; the defense attorney’s fallacy combined with expert Bayesian instruction may increase guilty verdicts. Even nonfallacious presentations of statistical evidence pose challenges for jurors, particularly when they are evaluating low-probability events. Compare DNA incidence rates presented as 0.1 out of 10,000, 1 out of 100,000, or 2 out of 200,000. Mathematically, these rates are identical, but psychologically, they differ; jurors are more likely to find for the defendant in the latter two cases. Why? The first, fractional incidence rate contains no cues that people other than the defendant might match the DNA. Each of the other rates contains at least one exemplar within it, which encourages jurors to think about other people who might match. This effect may rest in part on the size of a broader reference group; it is easier to generate exemplars with an incidence rate of 1 in 100,000 when considering a city of 500,000 people than when considering a town of 500. Jurors’ task becomes more difficult when they face both a random match probability (RMP) (e.g., there is a 1 in 1 million chance that the defendant’s DNA sample would match that of the perpetrator if the defendant is innocent) and a laboratory error rate (LE) (e.g., the laboratory makes a mistake in 2 of every 100 cases). The probability that a match occurred due either to chance or to lab error is roughly 2 in 100. Yet jurors who hear the separate RMP and LE (as recommended by the National Research Council) convict the defendant as often as those who hear only the much more incriminating RMP. Why do jurors fail in combining an RMP and an LE? Traditional explanations point to various logical or mathematical errors. Another explanation suggests that jurors’ interpretation of statistical evidence necessarily reflects their expectancies about such data. Consider jurors who receive extremely small RMP estimates (1 in a billion) and comparatively large LE estimates (2 in 100), compared with those who receive comparatively large RMP estimates (2 in 100) and extremely small LE estimates (1 in a billion). Logical (e.g., we are more convinced by more vivid evidence, like 1 in a billion) or mathematical (e.g., we average probabilities) explanations for juror errors make identical predictions in the two cases. But instead, mock jurors are more likely to convict in the large RMP paired with small LE condition. Similarly, they are more likely to convict when presented with extremely small LE estimates and no RMP estimate than when presented with only an extremely small RMP estimate and no LE estimate. This difference may reflect

jurors’ preexisting expectancies that the likelihood of a random match is extremely small and that of laboratory error is relatively large. Some forms of statistical evidence (e.g., bullet lead analysis) illustrate that jurors must consider not just the reliability of statistical evidence but also its diagnosticity (usefulness). The value of a forensic match (e.g., the defendant’s DNA profile is the same as that of blood found at the crime scene) depends on reliability of the evidence (did the laboratory correctly perform the test?) and also its diagnosticity (could the match be a coincidence?). One study gave the same information about hit rate and false-positive rate to all jurors. It varied a third statistical piece of information: the diagnostic value of the evidence. Some jurors learned that all sample bullets taken from the defendant matched the composition of the murder bullet, while no bullets taken from a community sample matched (strong diagnostic evidence). Others learned that the matching rate for the defendant’s bullets was the same as that for bullets taken from a community sample (worthless diagnostic evidence). Jurors who received the strong diagnostic evidence were more likely to believe the defendant guilty. However, this effect held only for mock jurors who were relatively confident in their ability to draw conclusions from numerical data. Jurors who were less confident did not differ across conditions. Furthermore, jurors who heard the worthless diagnostic evidence tended to give it some weight before they deliberated; deliberation eliminated the effect.

How Jurors Combine Statistical Evidence With Nonstatistical Evidence How do jurors combine numerous pieces of evidence (not necessarily statistical) to make decisions? Both mathematical (e.g., probability theory) and explanation-based (e.g., story model) approaches have been proposed. Research specifically examining the use of statistical evidence has generally followed a mathematical approach and has compared jurors’ probabilities (typically the probability that the defendant committed the crime) with probabilities calculated using Bayes’s theorem. Bayes’s theorem prescribes how a decision maker should combine statistical evidence with prior evidence. Prior odds (the defendant’s odds of guilt, based on all previously presented evidence) are multiplied by the likelihood ratio (the probability that the new

764———“Stealing Thunder”

evidence would match the defendant if he or she is guilty, divided by the probability that the new evidence would match an innocent person). The product is the posterior odds. For example, after opening statements and eyewitness testimony, a juror might believe that there is a 25% chance that the defendant is guilty. The prior odds are 25:(100−25) = .33:1. If the defendant and the perpetrator share a blood type found in only 5% of the population, the likelihood ratio is 1:.05 = 20. The posterior odds, then, are .33:1 × 20 = 6.67:1. The probability of guilt is 6.67/(6.67 + 1) or .87. In short, for this juror, Bayes’s theorem states that the probability of guilt should increase from .25 to .87. Only a handful of studies have compared jurors’ decisions with Bayesian norms, and the comparisons sometimes are difficult to make. Some studies have not asked for a prior probability, while others have requested beliefs that the evidence matched (instead of beliefs about guilt). Most have assumed that jurors accepted the statistical evidence at face value. Given these caveats, in general, jurors underuse statistical evidence, compared with a Bayesian norm. This general finding, however, masks underlying complexity. In many of these studies, the prior evidence, the statistical evidence, or both are relatively strong. In such cases, it is difficult to exceed Bayesian posterior probabilities (which are often .90 or greater). Also, there tends to be great variability in how jurors use the statistical evidence. That is, two jurors with identical prior probabilities may hear the same statistical evidence and arrive at very different posterior probabilities. These disparities may rest in part on differing expectancies about LEs (which typically have not been presented) or about other factors (e.g., potential investigator misconduct) affecting the value of the statistical evidence. But studies (reviewed above) of how jurors respond to statistical information by itself provide ample reason to suspect wide variation in jurors’ understanding. For example, jurors who claim to be comfortable with mathematics are more likely to be affected by statistical information than those who express discomfort. To further complicate matters, at least one study has found that later, nonprobabilistic evidence leads to a reevaluation of the quantitative evidence presented earlier. Does instruction help jurors combine the statistical evidence with nonstatistical evidence? Studies have provided simple instructions. Typically, they have included a statistician’s testimony about how Bayes’s theorem works. The expert displays a table or a graph showing some sample prior probabilities and, given the statistical evidence, corresponding posterior

probabilities. These relatively unsophisticated means of instruction, generally, have not affected jurors’ use of the evidence; jurors who receive the instruction come no closer to Bayesian norms than those who do not. Brian C. Smith See also Complex Evidence in Litigation; Expert Psychological Testimony; Jury Competence; Jury Deliberation; Story Model for Juror Decision Making

Further Readings

Koehler, J. J., & Macchi, L. (2004). Thinking about lowprobability events: An exemplar-cuing theory. Psychological Science, 15, 540–546. Levett, L. M., Danielsen, E. M., Kovera, M. B., & Cutler, B. L. (2005). The psychology of jury and juror decision making. In N. Brewer & K. D. Williams (Eds.), Psychology and law: An empirical perspective (pp. 365–406). New York: Guilford Press. Niedermeier, K. E., Kerr, N. L., & Messe, L. A. (1999). Jurors’ use of naked statistical evidence: Exploring bases and implications of the Wells effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 533–542. Schklar, J., & Diamond, S. S. (1999). Juror reactions to DNA evidence: Errors and expectancies. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 159–184.

“STEALING THUNDER” In the context of the courtroom, “stealing thunder” refers to revealing damaging information first so as to diffuse its impact. If damaging evidence is going to be brought out by one’s adversary, an attorney may choose to reveal this information first to the judge and/or jury, thereby stealing the adversary’s thunder. This entry describes research on the effectiveness of stealing thunder and also explores why stealing thunder works. Trial lawyers have concerned themselves with several questions related to stealing thunder, and the answers are usually a matter of conjecture based on learned opinion and experience. First, do attorneys use this tactic? The answer, based on interviews, informal surveys, trial advocacy books, and observations of courtroom trials, is that they do. In fact, stealing thunder appears to be used unquestioningly in criminal and civil trials, by defense, prosecution, and plaintiff’s attorneys.

“Stealing Thunder”———765

A second question might be, “Why do attorneys use it?” Again, based more on trial advocacy books and interviews than actual research (of which there appears to be none by trial lawyers themselves), the answer appears to be that it works for two reasons: (1) to give the appearance of honesty and being “up front” with the triers of fact and (2) to allow the attorney who steals thunder to frame the evidence in such a manner that it diminishes its importance. In other words, attorneys can put their own spin on the potentially damaging information. A third question that attorneys may ask is, “What can be done to counteract the stealing thunder tactic?” Little or no information appears on this topic when reading trial advocacy books. Note that none of the questions asks whether stealing thunder works. The empirical research started with this particular question.

Research Evidence Effectiveness

Research has demonstrated that stealing thunder is an effective way to minimize or eliminate the impact of incriminating information in many legal contexts. Most legal experts are already aware of its benefits, even if they are not aware of the reasons why it works, and use it regularly in court. In mock trial studies, researchers have found that attorneys can benefit by stealing thunder. The benefit is that stealing thunder diminishes the impact (usually measured by percentage of guilty verdicts or probability of guilt ratings) when compared with a “thunder” condition in which the attorney’s adversary brings out the information as evidence. Sometimes, the tactic works so well that it brings verdicts to the same level as that with no thunder at all, but effectiveness is usually simply defined in terms of observing less damage than the comparable thunder condition. Stealing thunder has been found to be successful with U.S. populations for criminal and civil trials and in Australia with criminal trials, suggesting that stealing thunder enjoys generality across trial type and across at least two (albeit Western) cultures. The timing of stealing thunder has not been shown to be pivotal; that is, it can occur at the beginning of the trial or later on, as long as it precedes the adversary’s revelation. Also, the adversary does not need to reveal the damaging information at all for stealing thunder to work. There have

been no differences between stealing thunder with and without the opposition’s discussion of it. Finally, the “thunder” can range from something rather minor to something seemingly integral and damning. Thus far, there has been no research setting an upper limit on how damaging the thunder can be for it to be successfully stolen. In a mock court case involving homicide resulting from reckless driving, stealing thunder was effective at reducing the damaging information even when the defendant admitted to drinking alcohol and veering into the oncoming traffic lane. It should also be noted that stealing thunder works in other nonlegal domains too, such as in politics (with mock voters and journalists) and interpersonal impression formation. Counteracting the Stealing Thunder Tactic

So far, the only successful attempt to counteract the stealing thunder tactic is to, post hoc, reveal the tactic’s use on the jury. If mock jurors were told during closing arguments that the other attorney manipulated their opinions through the use of the stealing thunder tactic, stealing the thunder no longer dissuaded them from its damaging implications.

Why Does Stealing Thunder Work? Recent research suggests that there are several paths by which stealing thunder operates. First, in line with trial attorney intuition, research supports that the thunder stealer enjoys heightened impressions of honesty and credibility. The reasoning would go like this: If the attorney is willing to admit such damaging information without being forced into it, then surely the attorney can be trusted to present an objective and honest case. Are attorneys also correct in assuming that stealing thunder works because it allows the revealer to put his or her own spin on the information, lessening its importance? To this question, the answer from available research is no; self-favorably framing the information is not necessary for it to be an effective tactic. It may help, but the available evidence is not even supportive of this notion. It appears that simply stating the incriminating information bluntly, without any spin or admonishment, is sufficient for the tactic to do its work on (mock) jurors. What apparently happens is that the mock jurors, without encouragement by the revealing attorney, put a diminishing spin on the information themselves when

766———Story Model for Juror Decision Making

the attorney does not. Here, the reasoning goes like this: What I just heard surprises me because it appears to hurt the attorney’s case. But this doesn’t make sense, so it must not really be all that bad after all. Thus, the research suggests that mock jurors work on the meaning of the “thunderous evidence,” so that it is not so thunderous. Thus, two very different processes appear to be involved, both of which assist in making stealing thunder an effective strategy. One is the relatively heuristic form of processing that involves simply the impression of truthfulness that then casts a positive glow on the attorney, the client, and the attorney’s case. The other process is a rather effortful and creative process of twisting the negative information, such that it takes on a meaning that renders it harmless. This process, presumably, takes effort and thought. Kipling D. Williams See also Inadmissible Evidence, Impact on Juries; Jury Competence

Further Readings

Dolnik, L., Case, T. I., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Stealing thunder as a courtroom tactic revisited: Processes and boundaries. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 265–285. Howard, M. V. A., Brewer, N., & Williams, K. D. (2006). How processing resources shape the influence of stealing thunder on mock-juror verdicts. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 13, 60–66. Williams, K. D., Bourgeois, M., & Croyle, R. T. (1993). The effects of stealing thunder in criminal and civil trials. Law and Human Behavior, 17, 597–609. Williams, K. D., & Dolnik, L. (2001). Revealing the worst first: Stealing thunder as a social influence strategy. In J. Forgas & K. D. Williams (Eds.), Social influence processes: Direct and indirect influences (pp. 213–231). New York: The Psychology Press. (See also V. Hale Starr interviewing Kipling D. Williams and Lara Dolnik in “Trial strategy—‘Stealing Thunder’: When it works and when it doesn’t,” The Trial Lawyer, 23(6), 425–429.)

STORY MODEL FOR JUROR DECISION MAKING To better explain how jurors make decisions in trial, psychologists have proposed a variety of decision-making

models. Some research has examined the decisionmaking process at the jury level, but the majority of research has examined juror decision-making processes at the individual level. These models are typically grouped into two categories: explanation-based models and mathematical models. The story model is the most popular explanation-based model and was developed by Nancy Pennington and Reid Hastie. The story model rests on the assumption that jurors organize evidence they hear during trial in a narrative, storylike format. According to the story model, the process of decision making takes place in three steps: story construction, learning verdict alternatives, and rendering a verdict. The story model not only describes the process the juror undergoes when making a decision in a trial but claims that the story constructed by the juror ultimately determines the verdict chosen by the juror.

Story Construction In a typical trial, the evidence is presented to jurors in a disconnected format over several days. Not only are witnesses often not presented in a logical, temporally relevant order, but the actual content of the witnesses’ testimonies is also disconnected, in that witnesses are providing information in reaction to attorney questions rather than narrating the sequence of events. According to the story model, jurors play an active role during the trial by gathering the evidentiary information and organizing it into a comprehensive narrative with a causal structure, describing the sequence of events under question. That is, they actively place the evidence gathered at the trial into a “story” to account for what actually occurred. In constructing the story, they use three things: the evidence presented at trial (e.g., the information gained from witnesses), their personal knowledge of similar events (e.g., knowledge gained from personal experiences, media portrayals, or secondhand accounts of a particular crime), and their expectations for what makes a complete story (e.g., knowing that actions are usually preceded by intentions or goals). In addition to describing how the jurors construct their stories, the story model describes the structure of those stories. Specifically, stories are made up of units called episodes. An episode is made up of a series of events that are paired with intentions or motivations to result in an action. Events, intentions, and motivations can be taken either from trial or from a juror’s personal

Story Model for Juror Decision Making———767

knowledge. For example, an episode may consist of initiating events that led the defendant to a certain mental state, which then led the defendant to create goals or to have certain motivations, which then resulted in the defendant acting in a particular way. Jurors may get some of the information to complete the episode from trial evidence and may have to infer some of the episode elements based on their knowledge of the world. Episodes are hierarchically organized, in that each component of any given episode may be broken down into its own individual episode. The highest level episodes are the most important in explaining the actions that occurred; thus, the story model accounts for the weight jurors assign to different pieces of evidence. One of the greatest strengths of the story model is that it accounts for jurors’ unique experiences and indicates when they add those unique experiences and pieces of knowledge into the decision-making process. Witnesses do not often have the opportunity to explain why particular events happened or how they personally reacted to a particular sequence of events. So, jurors fill in those blanks with inferences based on their own personal knowledge of similar events. In addition, jurors’ expectations about what makes a complete story are important to help them determine when important pieces of information are missing or when an inference about human behavior or how someone might act in a particular situation needs to be made. Jurors then can make this inference based on their personal knowledge. The story model accounts for differences in stories between jurors by accounting for the different world experiences and expectations jurors bring to the story construction process. Certainty Principles

Three certainty principles govern whether a juror will find a particular story acceptable, and following acceptability, how much confidence a juror will have in a particular story. The first two—coverage and coherence—contribute to whether a story will be accepted and, if accepted, how much confidence the juror will have in the story. The third principle, uniqueness, contributes solely to the juror’s confidence in the story. Coverage refers to the amount of evidence accounted for by a particular story. The more coverage a story has, the more likely the juror is to deem the story acceptable and, if accepted, the more confidence the juror will have in that story. Conversely, the less evidence the story accounts for, the less likely it is to be

accepted by jurors. If accepted, jurors are likely to have less confidence in the story compared with if the story had a high level of coverage. If a story has low coverage and, therefore, the juror has a low amount of confidence in the story, the juror would also have a low level of confidence in the final decision based on that story. The second principle is coherence. A story’s coherence is determined by a combination of three variables: consistency, plausibility, and completeness. To be consistent, a story must contain no internal contradictions or contradictions with pieces of evidence the juror believes are true. To be plausible, the story constructed must be similar to the juror’s knowledge of what typically happens in these situations. That is, a story must not contradict the juror’s knowledge about the world in general. Last, to be complete, the story must contain all the parts of what a juror believes makes up a story. The more consistent, plausible, and complete the story, the higher the coherence of the story. If a story is deemed coherent, the juror is more likely to think that the story is an acceptable account of the events in question and the more likely the juror is to be confident in the story. The story model posits that jurors can construct more than one story, but one story usually emerges as the best explanation of events. However, what happens when jurors create more than one story and each of the stories is high in both coverage and coherence? According to the story model, this compromises the last certainty principle, the uniqueness of the story. If jurors construct more than one acceptable story, they are less likely to believe either story, and the confidence in both stories goes down.

Learning Verdict Options In the second stage of the story model, jurors learn which verdict options are available to them. Generally, the different verdict options along with the definition of what constitutes each verdict option are given to the jurors in the judicial instructions at the end of the trial. The combination of this one-trial learning task with the difficulty of legal language makes this task difficult for jurors. In fact, research has demonstrated that jurors generally do not comprehend the majority of judicial instructions presented to them. In addition, jurors also have preconceived notions of what constitutes various crimes. Those preconceived notions, accurate or inaccurate, may interfere with jurors’ understandings of the verdict options in the case.

768———Story Model for Juror Decision Making

Rendering a Verdict In this last stage of the story model, jurors map their accepted story onto each of the verdict categories to determine which verdict category best matches the accepted story. This mapping sequence is intentional on the part of jurors and is difficult because they are mapping their accepted story onto unfamiliar, newly learned concepts. However, jurors are somewhat aided in this process by the structure of the verdict options. Typically, verdict options consist of elements that closely mimic the episodic structure that jurors used when creating the story. For example, the verdict definition of first-degree murder includes an element of identification (identifying the person who committed the crime), mental state (that person intentionally killed the victim), circumstances (the victim gave no provocation and the murder was premeditated), and actions (the killing was intentional and unlawful). These correspond to the elements that make up an episode in a story. Once the jurors have chosen which verdict category best matches the story, jurors apply the judge’s procedural instructions to make a decision in the case. For example, in a criminal case, if the best-fit verdict option exceeds the jurors’ threshold for reasonable doubt on each of the elements of that verdict option, then the juror is likely to choose that verdict. If not, the juror does not choose that verdict option. If no match of verdict option and story exceeds this threshold, then the juror defaults to a verdict of not guilty. In addition, the goodness of fit, or the jurors’ confidence in a verdict category-story match, will affect whether the juror is likely to choose that verdict. If the goodness of fit is low, the juror is less likely to be confident in that verdict than if the goodness of fit is high.

compared with more traditional models of decision making. Other researchers have also applied the story model of juror decision making to successfully explain jurors’ decisions in rape trials, civil cases, and sexual harassment cases. In sum, the story model of juror decision making is an explanatory model of decision making that asserts that jurors actively create a narrative (in the form of multiple episodes) to organize trial evidence. In creating the story, jurors use evidence presented at trial and their own knowledge of both real-world events and the elements that make up a story. To determine whether a story is acceptable, jurors use the certainty principles of coverage and coherence. Coverage and coherence, combined with the story’s uniqueness, also contribute to the juror’s subsequent confidence in a story. The second stage of the story model is the stage in which jurors learn the verdict options available to them, and this happens during judicial instructions at the end the trial. Jurors’ preconceived notions about certain crimes may also affect the way in which they perceive the verdict categories. In the last stage, jurors map their chosen stories onto the various verdict categories and apply the standard of proof given to them by the judge. If the match exceeds the standard of proof, then the juror chooses that verdict. If not, the juror defaults to a not-guilty verdict. Last, research has generally demonstrated support for the story model of juror decision making in a variety of cases. Lora M. Levett See also Juries and Judges’ Instructions; Jury Deliberation; Pretrial Publicity, Impact on Juries; Sexual Harassment, Jury Evaluation of

Further Readings

Research Investigating the Story Model The initial study in the development of the story model was designed to provide a picture of how jurors processed evidence and established that jurors created narrative structures to explain and account for evidence. Further research demonstrated that the actual creation of the narrative was a spontaneous act of the juror and that the story is actually a mediator in the verdict decision. That is, jurors heard the evidence, created a story, and then the story caused the jurors to choose a particular verdict. Last, the researchers also conducted a study demonstrating that the story model was a more complete and accurate explanation of juror decisions

Huntley, J. E., & Costanzo, M. (2003). Sexual harassment stories: Testing a story-mediated model of juror decision-making in civil litigation. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 29–51. Olsen-Fulero, L., & Fulero, S. M. (1997). Commonsense rape judgments: An empathy-complexity theory of rape juror story making. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 3, 402–427. Pennington, N., & Hastie, R. (1992). Explaining the evidence: Tests of the story model for juror decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62,189–206. Pennington, N., & Hastie, R. (1993). The story model for juror decision making. In R. Hastie (Ed.), Inside the juror: The psychology of juror decision making (pp. 192–221). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Stress and Eyewitness Memory———769

STRESS AND EYEWITNESS MEMORY Stress exerts complex effects on eyewitness memory. On the whole, it has a negative effect, but this can be quite variable depending on the level of stress and the aspect of the witnessed event that one is trying to remember. Stress operates similarly in affecting person recognition (i.e., lineup performance) and recall of event details. The effects of stress on eyewitness memory and identification are of interest because of the fact that persons witnessing a crime, especially a violent crime, commonly (though not always) experience stress. “Stress” is itself a rather vague term that has been interpreted differently by various commentators, but generally, it can be taken to denote a negative emotional state associated with both physiological changes and a subjective set of cognitions. The physiological experience of stress is associated with increased arousal, marked by increases in heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tone. The subjective experience typically includes some perception of threat and feelings of anxiety. People often assume that a high level of emotion, positive or negative, will facilitate memory; however, it is also possible that intense emotion, especially the high level of stress associated with witnessing a crime, would lead to decrements in memory for details of the crime itself and for the ability to recognize the persons involved. Early studies investigating the effects of stress on memory yielded inconsistent findings. Some researchers found that accuracy suffered when witnesses were under stress, others found that it was unaffected, and a minority of researchers reported improvements in accuracy. This ambiguity can be explained, in part, by variations in the degree of stress. The Yerkes-Dodson law proposes that the relationship between arousal and performance can be plotted as an inverted U, where with moderate increases in arousal, performance is improved but with too much arousal performance declines. This theory was subscribed to by many researchers, and initially, it was thought to provide an explanation for the seemingly contradictory pattern of research findings. The studies that found improvements may have elicited an optimal level of stress or arousal, whereas those studies that had found decrements had exceeded that optimal level of stress. However, this explanation proved inadequate as the body of research grew because of the difficulty in comparing degrees of

stress and also because of findings indicating that stress is not a unidimensional construct, as proposed by the Yerkes-Dodson law, but instead has multiple components (e.g., physiological, affective, cognitive, behavioral, etc.). An alternative explanation is that with higher levels of emotional stress, the observer’s attention becomes narrower and more focused. As a result, memory for central and closely attended-to details improves, while memory for more peripheral details declines. This distinction between central and peripheral details also helps explain some of the inconsistent findings, where stress sometimes helps but at other times impairs memory. Research reviews and meta-analyses of the topic reveal that, taken as a whole, stress has more of a negative than a positive impact on eyewitness memory in terms of both identification of the perpetrator and recall of event details. Eyewitnesses in highstress situations are less likely to be able to correctly identify a perpetrator from a lineup, and recall of details associated with the witnessed crime is less likely to be accurate. The type of lineup administered and the type of recall appear to moderate the effect of stress on accuracy. High-stress situations disproportionately affect eyewitness identification accuracy, such that the likelihood of an accurate identification is reduced when the target person (i.e., perpetrator) is present in the lineup, but the effect on target-absent lineups is negligible. In other words, when the target person is present in the lineup, witnesses are more likely to select someone other than the target (i.e., a foil—namely, an innocent person in a police lineup) or incorrectly report that the target is not present in the lineup, thus rejecting the lineup. In contrast, when the target is absent, the likelihood that a witness will correctly reject the lineup is virtually unaffected. In eyewitness studies, witnesses are typically asked to report information in one of two ways: narrative or interrogative. With narrative or free recall, witnesses are asked to report what they recall and can choose what information to report. The interrogative type of recall requires a witness to answer specific questions about various details of the witnessed event. Highstress situations produce a greater decline in accuracy for interrogative recall than for narrative recall. One possible explanation for this difference is that with narrative recall, witnesses are free to choose what information to report and may opt not to report details of which they are not certain.

770———Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY)

These findings extend partly to children as well. Child eyewitnesses perform worse when under stress, but it is unclear whether stress has a disproportionately negative effect on children. Stress effects can also be complicated by the presence of a particularly arousing, eye-catching aspect of the event, such as gore or a weapon. Research on stress and memory also suffers from methodological complications. There are limits to the amount of stress that one can ethically induce in an experimental situation, and even with highly arousing materials, research participants are usually not personally threatened by the witnessed event; that is, they are bystanders rather than victims or potential victims, which is likely to influence not only their stress level but also their behavior, degree of attention, and so forth. Some innovative research designs have attempted to overcome this limitation by studying victims/witnesses of real crimes or individuals undergoing stressful medical procedures. In conclusion, it is hard to generalize about the effects of stress on eyewitness memory. The findings are somewhat mixed, and the explanation for stress effects on memory is far from clear, making generalization difficult. More research is necessary to resolve this uncertainty. However, it is clear that, overall, high levels of stress harm eyewitness memory in more ways than they help it. Ani A. Aharonian and Brian H. Bornstein See also Children’s Testimony; Lineup Size and Bias; Weapon Focus

Further Readings

Deffenbacher, K. A., Bornstein, B. H., Penrod, S. D., & McGorty, E. K. (2004). A meta-analytic review of the effects of high stress on eyewitness memory. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 687–706. Peters, D. P. (1997). Stress, arousal, and children’s eyewitness memory. In N. L. Stein, P. A. Ornstein, B. Tversky, & C. Brainerd (Eds.), Memory for everyday and emotional events (pp. 351–370). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Reisberg, D., & Heuer, F. (2006). The influence of emotion on memory in forensic settings. In M. Toglia, J. D. Read, D. F. Ross, & R. C. L. Lindsay (Eds.), Handbook of eyewitness psychology: Vol. 1. Memory for events (pp. 81–116). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

STRUCTURED ASSESSMENT OF VIOLENCE RISK IN YOUTH (SAVRY) The Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY), developed by Randy Borum, Patrick Bartel, and Adelle Forth, is a risk assessment instrument designed to structure appraisals of violence risk and risk management plans for adolescents. Such assessments are routinely required by juvenile and criminal courts and at nearly every juncture of the juvenile justice system. In the SAVRY, one’s risk for serious violence is viewed as the result of dynamic and reciprocal interplay between factors that increase and factors that decrease the likelihood of violence in the developing juvenile over time. Its central objective is to facilitate assessments that are systematic, empirically grounded, developmentally informed, treatment oriented, flexible, and practical. The SAVRY is based on the “structured professional judgment” (SPJ) risk assessment framework, and is designed for use with adolescents between the approximate ages of 12 and 18 who have been detained or referred for an assessment of violence risk. Evaluators systematically assess predetermined risk factors that are empirically associated with violence, consider the applicability of each risk factor to a particular examinee, and classify each factor’s severity. The ultimate determination of an examinee’s overall level of violence risk is based on the examiner’s professional judgment as informed by a systematic appraisal of relevant factors. In this way, the SPJ model draws on the strengths of both the clinical and actuarial (formuladriven) approaches to decision making and attempts to minimize their respective drawbacks. The SAVRY protocol is composed of 6 items defining protective factors and 24 items defining risk factors. Items are coded on the basis of reliable, available information. Information should be obtained from multiple sources, including an interview with the youth and a review of records (e.g., police or probation reports and mental health and social service records). Risk items are divided into three categories: historical, individual, and social/contextual, and each is coded for severity according to a three-level coding structure (high, moderate, or low). Protective factors are coded as present or

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absent. The coding form also includes a section for listing “additional risk factors” and “additional protective factors” because the SAVRY is not exhaustive in identifying all potential risk and protective factors for any given individual. If these additional factors are present, they should be documented and weighed in final decisions of risk. Though the SAVRY is sufficiently flexible to accommodate varying styles of risk communication, the coding form prompts evaluators to make a final summary risk rating of low, moderate, or high. The ultimate risk rating is not based on cutting scores (SAVRY items are not assigned numeric values) or a specific formula. Evaluators exercise their professional judgment to determine the nature and degree of the juvenile’s risk for violence after carefully weighing the relevant risk and protective factors.

Psychometric Properties One of the primary indices used in SAVRY research (not in practice) is the “SAVRY Risk Total.” This is calculated by transposing item ratings of low, moderate, and high to numerical values of 0, 1, and 2, respectively, and summing the values. The summary risk rating is similarly transposed for statistical analysis. Reliability and Internal Consistency. The internal consistency (alpha coefficient) of the SAVRY Risk Total has been shown to fall in the range of .82 to .84. Interrater reliability for the SAVRY Risk Total has ranged between .74 and .97, with an unweighted average of .84. Interrater reliability coefficients for the Summary Risk Rating have ranged between .72 and .85, with an unweighted average of .78. Validity. The concurrent validity of the SAVRY has been examined in relation to the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) and the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV). In the initial validation study, the SAVRY Risk Total correlated significantly with both instruments among offenders and in community samples (e.g., .89 with YLS/CMI and .78 with PCL:YV among offenders). The SAVRY protective domain was negatively correlated with both the other measures. Across five studies, correlations between the SAVRY Risk Total and the PCL:YV Total Score have ranged from

.48 to .74, with an unweighted average of .67. Although the correlations are significant, indicating that the SAVRY shares variance with other measures, it also possesses independent predictive power. With regard to criterion validity, studies have found significant correlations between SAVRY scores and various measures of violence in juvenile justice and highrisk community-dwelling populations. In the initial validation sample, SAVRY Total Risk scores were all significantly related to behavioral measures of institutional aggressive behavior (.40) and aggressive conduct disorder symptoms (.52). The SAVRY has also demonstrated incremental (criterion) validity (or predictive power) beyond the YLSI and the PCL:YV. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that adding the SAVRY improved the power of the YLSI and the PCL:YV in predicting both institutional aggressive behavior and serious aggressive conduct disorder symptoms. The SAVRY also accounted for a large proportion of the explained variance in each type of violence. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, which measures predictive accuracy in terms of relative improvement over chance, we found that areas under the curve (AUCs) for the total score average about .74 to .80 across studies. Interestingly, the examiner judgments (summary risk rating), not made on the basis of any cutting score, consistently perform as well as, and often better than, the linear combination of the scores themselves. For example, using ROC analysis, an unpublished master’s thesis at Simon Fraser University reported an AUC of .70 for the SAVRY total score, but the AUC for the SAVRY Summary Risk Rating was .89. This finding has been evident in research on other SPJ tools as well and provides some of the first empirical evidence that clinical judgments—properly structured and based on sound assessments—can achieve levels of accuracy that rival that of any other known predictors, while maintaining latitude for case-specific analysis. Additional research is needed and is under way to clarify the SAVRY’s applicability in different countries, across genders, and with various ethnic groups. Randy Borum, Patrick Bartel, and Adelle Forth See also Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV); Juvenile Offenders, Risk Factors; Risk Assessment Approaches

772———Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS)

Further Readings

Borum, R., Bartel, P., & Forth, A. (2006). Manual for the Structured Assessment for Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Borum, R., & Douglas, K. (2003). New directions in violence risk assessment. Psychiatric Times, 20(3), 102–103. Borum, R., & Verhaagen, D. (2006). A practical guide to assessing and managing violence risk in juveniles. New York: Guilford Press.

STRUCTURED INTERVIEW OF REPORTED SYMPTOMS (SIRS) The Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) is a fully structured interview that is designed to assess feigned mental disorders and related response styles. Each of its eight primary scales was constructed to evaluate well-established detection strategies for differentiating between malingered and genuine psychopathology. These primary scales consist of Rare Symptoms (RS), Symptom Combinations (SC), Improbable and Absurd Symptoms (IA), Blatant Symptoms (BL), Subtle Symptoms (SU), Selectivity of Symptoms (SEL), Severity of Symptoms (SEV), and Reported Versus Observed Symptoms (RO).

Description and Development The initial development of the SIRS was based on an exhaustive review of potential detection strategies for feigned mental disorders. SIRS scales were developed based on the likely effectiveness of the underlying detection strategy and the adaptability of each strategy to interview-based assessments. Final item selection was based on independent judgments by eight experts in malingering and was subsequently refined to improve scale homogeneity. The SIRS is composed of 173 items that are organized by eight primary and five supplementary scales. The original validation of the SIRS combined samples from multiple studies to form four groups: 100 inpatients and outpatients, 97 controls from community, correctional, and college settings, 170 simulators including coached and uncoached participants, and 36 likely malingerers from forensic settings. Subsequent validation research has included clinical and correctional samples with an additional 255 participants.

Reliability Internal consistencies (alpha coefficients) for SIRS primary scales were excellent: They ranged from .77 to .92, with a mean alpha of .86. The reliability of individual scores was examined via standard errors of measurement (SEM). The SEMs were low for both clinical and control samples, indicating high reliability for individual scores. A central issue for the SIRS was its interrater reliability. These estimates were impressive, ranging from .89 to 1.00. The median reliability was .99, which represents almost perfect agreement.

Validity SIRS validation relied on a combination of simulation designs and known-group comparisons. The simulation design capitalizes on internal validity in its use of analog research with clinical comparison samples. In contrast, known-group comparisons provide unmatched external validity in their use of individuals from actual clinical-forensic settings who were independently evaluated as malingering by established experts. For the assessment of malingering, convergent results from simulation and known-group studies provided the strongest evidence of SIRS validity. A major focal point of the SIRS is its discriminant validity. The critical issue is whether each of the primary scales systematically differentiates between genuine and feigned psychopathology. Combining across studies, effect sizes can be computed for the critical distinctions (a) simulators versus clinical honest and (b) suspected malingerers versus clinical honest. For simulators, Cohen’s d’s were very large: They ranged from 1.40 (SU) to 2.31 (RS) with an average d of 1.74. Cohen’s d’s were also very large for suspected malingerers but showed less variability: 1.20 (IA) to 1.98 (SEL). The average effect size for malingerers was identical to that of simulators (d = 1.74). These combined data provide very strong evidence of discriminant validity. Convergent validity was evaluated by comparing the SIRS with other measures of feigned mental disorders. The SIRS evidenced robust correlations with MMPI–2 validity scales. For example, the SIRS primary scales are strongly correlated with Scale F (r’s from .71 to .80). As also expected, they are negatively correlated with Scale K (Mr = −.35), a measure of defensiveness. Construct validity was examined via discriminant analysis and factor analysis. A two-stage, stepwise discriminant analysis with a canonical correlation of

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.79 demonstrated the usefulness of SIRS primary scales for the accurate differentiation of feigned from clinical honest profiles. A high level of accuracy was maintained across calibration and cross-validation samples. Recently, a confirmatory factor analysis yielded strong support for a two-factor model of the SIRS (i.e., spurious presentations and plausible presentations) that was theoretically relevant to the assessment of malingering.

Forensic Applications The SIRS is widely accepted as one of the best-validated measures of feigned mental disorders in clinical and forensic settings. Its classification of malingering in forensic settings is highly accurate. These classifications are based on either (a) three or more primary scales in the probable feigning range or (b) one or more primary scales in the definite feigning range. The probable feigning range was established so that it would include most feigners (typically >75%) but very few genuine patients (3 scales in the probable feigning range), very few genuine patients were misclassified as feigners (i.e., 2.1% at 3 scales; 0.0% at > 4 scales). Scales in the definite feigning range are set very high to minimize false positives. Research by other investigators generally confirms the accuracy of the SIRS and its low false-positive rates. Ongoing research suggests that the SIRS provides useful data for civil-forensic applications such as disability evaluations. As a caution, the initial data indicate that its cut scores may not be useful for a subset of inpatients with dissociative disorders and multiple traumas beginning before adulthood.

Future Directions Research is currently under way for validating a Spanish-language SIRS. The SIRS was independently translated by three bilingual psychologists. The composite translation was back-translated by an independent bilingual psychologist; minor discrepancies were found for only 11.0% of the SIRS items. A revised Spanish SIRS was subjected to further translations and reviews. With the Spanish SIRS established, the comparability of the Spanish and English SIRS is currently being tested with bilingual Hispanic patients. Richard Rogers See also Forensic Assessment; Malingering

Further Readings

Rogers, R. (Ed.). (1997). Clinical assessment of malingering and deception (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Rogers, R., Bagby, R. M., & Dickens, S. E. (1992). Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS) and professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Rogers, R., Jackson, R. L., Sewell, K. W., & Salekin, K. L. (2005). Detection strategies for malingering: A confirmatory factor analysis of the SIRS. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 32, 511–525. Rogers, R., & Shuman, D. W. (2005). Fundamentals of forensic practice: Mental health and criminal law. New York: Springer.

SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE Research indicates that substance abuse is a risk marker for intimate partner violence (IPV). This entry reviews the evidence for this association, possible explanations for it, and implications for theory and practice for professionals who work in this area.

Substance Abuse as a Risk Marker for IPV Studies using a variety of passive-observational research designs have established that substance abuse is a risk indicator for IPV. For example, population-based studies as well as studies of clinic- or court-referred groups, have examined rates of substance abuse in people with and without a history of IPV victimization, IPV perpetration, or IPV recidivism (i.e., repeated IPV following an initial incident). According to narrative and meta-analytic reviews of these studies, the association between substance abuse and IPV is moderate or even moderate-to-large in magnitude. About 20% to 50% of all incidents of IPV occur when one or both partners have consumed and are under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs. Substance abuse increases the odds of IPV perpetration or victimization by a factor of about 2 to 4. The association tends to be strongest when (a) the substances of abuse are alcohol, cocaine (in various forms), or heroin; (b) substance abuse is defined in terms of problematic patterns of use, rather than frequency of use or amount consumed; (c) IPV is defined

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in terms of moderate or severe violence, rather than minor violence; and (d) substance abuse and IPV are defined in terms of a broad time frame (e.g., lifetime) rather than a narrow time frame (e.g., past year). The association does not appear to be influenced by the legal status of the intimate relationship (married vs. cohabiting vs. dating), the sexual orientation of the intimate partners (heterosexual vs. same sex), or the gender of the perpetrator and victim.

Explanations for the Association Between Substance Abuse and IPV There are several possible explanations for the observed association between substance abuse and IPV. First, the association may be false—the result of perpetrators attempting to avoid moral and legal culpability by claiming that they were intoxicated at the time they committed IPV. But the substance abuse/IPV association is observed even in studies that relied solely on victims to provide information and even in studies where substance abuse was measured months or even years prior to the first occurrence of IPV. Second, the association may be artifactual—the result of some third factor that is causally related to both substance abuse and IPV. Potential third factors could include mental disorder in the perpetrator (e.g., antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy) or severe conflict in the victim-perpetrator relationship (e.g., recent separation or divorce). But studies that attempted to control for potential third factors have found that they accounted for only a small part of the association. Third, IPV may be a cause of (i.e., have a causal influence on) substance abuse. Longitudinal research supports this view, at least in part. People who experience IPV increase their use of alcohol or illegal drugs, which in turn leads to increased risk for (repeated) IPV. Fourth, substance abuse may be a cause of IPV. The same longitudinal research that found that IPV increases substance abuse has also found that substance abuse increases risk for IPV, even when the substance abuse came months or years before the IPV. For example, substance abuse as a young adolescent predicts IPV as a young adult, and premarital substance abuse predicts IPV after marriage. In addition, treatment outcome research has found that reductions in substance abuse are associated with subsequent reductions in risk for IPV. In summary, the association between substance abuse and IPV appears to be bidirectional in nature: Substance abuse is both a cause and a consequence of IPV. With

respect to substance abuse as a cause of IPV, theory and research suggest that several direct or proximal and indirect or distal causal mechanisms may exist. Putative direct mechanisms focus on the psychopharmacological or psychological effects of substance abuse. Intoxication and withdrawal may impair cognitive functions, leading to reduced inhibitions against violence (e.g., underestimation of negative consequences, overestimation of positive consequences, failure to consider alternatives to violence) or misperception of social cues (e.g., misattribution of hostile intent in others). Putative indirect mechanisms focus on the destabilizing effects of substance abuse on social adjustment. For example, the short- and long-term consequences of substance abuse—such as problems with employment, finances, health, and family arguments about drinking patterns or the consequence of drinking on employment, finances, and relationships with family or friends—cause conflict between partners in intimate relationships, which in turn increases the risk that IPV will occur. Similarly, the consequence of substance abuse may impair one partner’s ability to cope with conflictual or aggressive behavior by the other partner (through the use of strategies such as de-escalation, deterrence, or escape), thus increasing vulnerability to victimization and, ultimately, the risk that IPV will occur.

Implications for Research and Practice It is clear that substance abuse is neither a necessary nor a sufficient causal factor for IPV but rather one of many contributory causal factors. Currently, researchers are trying to further understand the various causal mechanisms that may exist and how substance abuse interacts with other causal risk factors to cause IPV. Professionals who work in the field of IPV need to be aware that substance abuse increases risk for IPV, and treating substance abuse mitigates risk. For these reasons, substance abuse is included as a risk factor in several IPV risk assessment procedures, including the Danger Assessment Instrument (DA) and the Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA) Guide, and many intervention programs for perpetrators and victims of IPV focus in part on decreasing substance abuse. The challenge for professionals is to determine what role substance abuse plays (i.e., which causal mechanisms are relevant) in a given case and then deliver appropriate services. Stephen D. Hart

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See also Danger Assessment Instrument (DA); Intimate Partner Violence; Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA); Substance Use Disorders

Further Readings

Klostermann, K. C., & Fals-Stewart, W. (2006). Intimate partner violence and alcohol use: Exploring the role of drinking in partner violence and its implications for intervention. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 11, 587–597. Stith, S. M., & Smith, D. B., Penna, C. E., Ward, D. B., & Tritt, D. (2004). Intimate partner physical abuse perpetration and victimization risk factors: A meta-analytic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 10, 65–98.

SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT A number of different methods are used to treat substance abuse. The most common method often used by treatment facilities is 12-step counseling, although little is known about its effectiveness. Treatment modalities include inpatient, day treatment, and outpatient care, usually followed by aftercare. Twelve Step Facilitation Therapy has been scientifically validated but is rarely adopted for use in 12-step treatment facilities. Motivational interviewing has been determined to be an effective means to motivate clients to seek therapy and change substance use and can be particularly effective with unmotivated clients. Numerous cognitivebehavioral therapies have been effective as interventions in substance use disorders. Relapse prevention therapy is the most widely used cognitive-behavioral approach. Twelve-step counseling, cognitive-behavioral therapy, therapeutic communities, and even Vipassana meditation have been used in jails and prisons to intervene in substance use disorders and recidivism.

Substance Abuse Treatment and the Criminal Justice System Evidence exists that quality substance abuse treatment can lead to lower recidivism and relapse rates among substance users in the criminal justice system. In addition, court-ordered treatment has been found to be extremely cost-effective when compared with incarceration as an alternative. Many jurisdictions now have drug courts that generally offer treatment as an alternative to imprisonment, but the type of treatment available

to participants varies widely across the country. Traffic courts often include mandated treatment courses for DUI offenders, but the evidence that these programs change drinking and driving behavior is inconsistent, perhaps because the content of these courses vary widely across jurisdictions. Treatment outcomes are often used by mental health courts, probation officers, and parole boards as evidence to determine the success of rehabilitation efforts.

Typical Care at Treatment Facilities The prevailing model of treatment in the United States uses 12-step counseling (often referred to as the Minnesota Model). Although many of these programs have abstinence as a requirement for entry into the facility and as a goal for treatment, researchers find that many clients do not remain abstinent but will reduce their substance use. Although most treatment centers use a similar model, the quality and content of the 12step counseling across treatment facilities is not consistent. In addition, the 12-step counseling provided by many treatment centers has not been tested under controlled conditions to determine if it is in fact effective. Addiction counselors are certified by state boards. The process often requires documentation of counselor education in Minnesota Model principles and an examination of counseling skills by peers. Although some addiction counselors have undergraduate and graduate degrees, many states do not require these credentials for a counselor to be certified. Addiction counselors often have personal experiences in 12-step recovery. Treatment Modalities

Treatment modalities vary. Treatment can be conducted in inpatient or outpatient settings. In the past, most treatment was provided in 28-day inpatient stays, until research showed that outpatient care is just as effective as inpatient care for most clients. Since those findings, the insurance industry has pushed the treatment toward a predominantly outpatient model. People with substance use disorders and co-occurring severe mental disorders (such a debilitating depression or psychoses) may benefit more from the structured environment of an inpatient stay. Day treatment also is available in some communities to provide structured treatment and care during business hours (clients return home during the evening). Many treatment facilities provide medical care, family programs, and sometimes nutrition and fitness programs. Counseling format varies between

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individual sessions with a primary counselor to group sessions with peers and counselors. In addition to inpatient and outpatient services, treatment centers generally provide aftercare to provide ongoing support to clients who have completed treatment. Support Groups

Treatment providers generally encourage support group participation as an adjunct to therapy. Support groups vary in terms of philosophies. Twelve-step groups operate under the assumption that substance use disorders are chronic incurable diseases that require a lifetime of working the 12 steps to facilitate abstinence. Other groups such as Rational Recovery understand substance use disorders as a problem of disordered thinking and behavior that can be changed permanently with aid of the group and the Rational Recovery Program (based on the work of Albert Ellis). Moderation Management is an example of a support group that works with individuals who do not necessarily have abstinence as a goal but, instead, want to reduce substance use. Each program seems to be successful for participants when program philosophies closely match the values and worldview of the participants.

Evidence-Based Treatment Researchers have developed and tested a great variety of therapies that have proved effective as interventions in substance use disorders. To provide quality and consistent care for psychological disorders, including substance use, the therapy used has to have two characteristics. The first is demonstration that the treatment has worked better than nothing at all by comparing outcomes in a particular therapy with a notherapy or care-as-usual control group. The second important characteristic is conducting therapy using a manual. Manualized therapy promotes adherence to the scientifically validated treatment protocol to prevent drift. The following sections review therapies that have been tested under controlled conditions or have manuals or guidelines available for use by physicians/therapists to provide best practices to clients. Biopsychosocial Model

Research supports a biopsychosocial model for addictive behaviors. Successful models of treatment incorporate biological (physiological), psychological,

and social (environmental) interventions to modify biopsychosocial processes associated with substance misuse. For example, physiological (biological) treatment methods typically involve pharmacological means. There is evidence that certain medications may be helpful to promote treatment success among clients with alcohol use disorders. Disulfiram (Antabuse) has been used as a disincentive to alcohol use among people at high risk for relapse but with mixed results. Disulfiram blocks metabolism of alcohol and causes clients to become violently ill when they drink, which sometimes persuades clients to remain abstinent when they are tempted to drink. However, clients have been known to drink when on disulfiram, and client compliance for taking the medication is a problem. Naltrexone and acamprosate have been shown in some studies to help reduce cravings and improve treatment outcomes. Methadone has been used as a safe substitute for heroin. For clients with co-occurring mental disorders, such as depression, bipolar disorders, and schizophrenia, psychiatric medications can help reduce substance use. Many clients believe that substance use helps with psychiatric symptoms. When prescribed medications function to control psychiatric symptoms, it may reduce the desire to self-medicate with illicit substances. Psychological Therapies

Several types of psychological therapies have been found to be efficacious for the treatment of substance use disorders. Twelve Step Facilitation Therapy has been found to be efficacious in treating substance use disorders. This is a 12-session therapy that includes a manual to promote consistency in the delivery of the treatment. The therapy incorporates principles from 12-step programs (such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous). Although Twelve Step Facilitation Therapy has been found to be an effective treatment under controlled conditions, many treatment centers across the country do not use this therapy, even though the manual is readily available from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Use of this therapy manual would likely increase quality and consistency of care in treatment centers dedicated to the 12-step model. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, which involves the use of scientifically developed and tested cognitive and behavioral modification methods to change behavior, has been found to be an effective means to intervene in substance use disorders. Many psychologists use

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cognitive-behavioral therapy in individual psychotherapy with clients who have substance use disorders. As its name would suggest, cognitive-behavioral therapy includes change strategies described subsequently that target cognitions and behavior chains associated with substance use patterns in clients. Cognitive change strategies challenge and modify beliefs about substance use behavior. For example, beliefs about substance use influence motivation to change behavior, which in turn predicts whether a client will take steps to change behavior. Client motivation levels vary widely in treatment; so assuming that a client is ready to change is unreasonable. In addition, client motivation changes over time so that one minute he or she can appear committed and then uncommitted the next. Ambivalence about change is normal, especially early in therapy, and reflects the reality that clients are weighing beliefs about the pros of substance use against the cons. The Transtheoretical Stages of Change Model, a widely used model to understand addictive behavior change, indicates that commitment to change will occur when clients resolve their ambivalence in favor of resolve to take action. Motivational interviewing and motivational enhancement therapy have been found to be very helpful to enhance motivation to change among clients. Motivational interviewing is a scientifically validated therapy that uses strategic methods to help clients to explore and resolve their ambivalence about continued substance use and that enhances motivation to change. Research has found that use of motivational interviewing can be very effective to encourage reductions in substance use and can be used effectively in conjunction with other therapies. Motivational enhancement therapy is a scientifically tested therapy conducted over four sessions and includes the use of motivational interviewing along with other change strategies. Motivational interviewing seems to be especially effective with clients uncommitted to therapy. Other beliefs associated with substance use include expectancies and self-efficacy. Expectancies are beliefs that people have about the expected outcomes of substance use, and they have been found to be a good predictor of substance use pre- and posttreatment. The research suggests that interventions that increase negative expectancies and decrease positive expectancies may be helpful to improve treatment outcomes. Therapists use various cognitive strategies to accomplish this goal. Self-efficacy, or confidence and competence in being able to negotiate particular situations

without substance use, is another consistent predictor of treatment outcome. Therapists teach, rehearse, and reinforce new skills to cope effectively with high-risk situations to establish competence and to develop confidence in appropriately using the skills to enhance selfefficacy so as to avoid substance use in those situations. Several behavior modification strategies have been found to be effective to foster change. Aversion therapy pairs substance use with aversive agents to discourage the use of the substance. Typical methods are pairing the smell or taste of the substance with electric shock or an emetic agent to condition avoidance of substance use. Studies have found that aversion therapy can result in successful outcomes initially, but those posttreatment gains may be lost over the long term without concurrent use of relapse prevention (see below). Contingency management strategies have been used successfully to encourage positive outcomes in treatment. Contingency management modifies client behavior by providing incentives to successfully engage and complete targeted tasks in therapy. Incentives have been used to increase attendance and participation in sessions as well as promote reduction targets or cessation of substance use. However, contingency management is not widely used, perhaps because of the costs involved with incentive-based care. Coping skills therapy has been supported by science as well. New skills are taught to aid clients to cope effectively and solve problems without the use of substances. Therapists may also teach anger management, daily life management, assertiveness training, and relaxation methods (including meditation) to increase the repertoire of skills available to clients. Relapse prevention methods developed in the cognitive-behavioral model have been shown to be highly successful to reduce the severity and duration of relapse events when they occur. Relapse prevention teaches clients that relapse is normative rather than a failure and can be used to identify and correct problems in posttreatment behavior. Relapse prevention also teaches substance refusal skills, develops and rehearses plans to cope with relapses, and uses cognitive and behavioral modifications previously mentioned in this section. In addition to one-on-one methods with clients, cognitive-behavioral interventions that target couples, family relationships, schools, and other peer groups have been associated with changes in substance use. Arthur W. Blume

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See also Drug Courts; Substance Use Disorders; Therapeutic Communities for Treatment of Substance Abuse

Further Readings

Blume, A. W. (2005). Treating drug problems (Treating Addictions Series, Vol. 1, R. H. Coombs & W. A. Howatt, Eds.). New York: Wiley. Kadden, R., Carroll, K., Donovan, D., Cooney, N., Monti, P., Abrams, D., et al. (1999). Cognitive-behavioral coping skills therapy manual (Project MATCH Monograph Series, Vol. 3, M. E. Mattson, Ed.). Rockville, MD: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Marlatt, G. A., & Donovan, D. M. (Eds.). (2005). Relapse prevention: Maintenance strategies in the treatment of addictive behaviors (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2002). Motivational interviewing (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Nowinski, J., Baker, S., & Carroll, K. (1995). Twelve Step Facilitation Therapy manual (Project MATCH Monograph Series, Vol. 2, M. E. Mattson, Ed.). Rockville, MD: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS Substance use disorders are defined as the use of a substance that results in persistent and sometimes pervasive aversive consequences. Substance use disorders have profound economic and public health impacts in the United States. Researchers have identified important biological, psychological, and social factors that predict the development and resolution of substance use disorders. Biological processes related to substance use include physiological reactivity, changes, and adaptations. Psychological processes associated with substance use include conditioning, observational learning, beliefs about substance use, and emotions that cue substance use. Social relationships and environmental stressors also have been found to influence the course of substance use. Diagnostic criteria have been established to define severity and to specify the course of the disorder. Substance use disorders are thought by some to be chronic and progressive, but research on the natural course of these disorders disputes those beliefs.

been estimated by the federal government to be more than $400 billion annually. The two most common substances of abuse are tobacco and alcohol. Conservative estimates indicate that about 20% of the population in the United States abuses tobacco, and between 8% and 13% of the population abuses alcohol. Men are more likely to abuse substances than women. Treatment often results in positive outcomes. Substance abuse has been associated with the five leading causes of death in the United States in 2004: heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic lower respiratory illnesses, and unintentional injuries. Some ethnic minority groups may be at high risk for substance use problems. For example, liver diseases often associated with alcohol abuse were the sixth leading cause of death for Hispanics and Native Americans. In contrast, liver diseases are not in the 10 leading causes of death for either Whites or Blacks. However, it is also worth noting that there is often wide variation in substance use within demographic groups. Interestingly, Native Americans also have the highest abstention rate from alcohol when compared with any other ethnic group. In the United States, the recent trend is greater abuse of prescription medications and methamphetamines. Abuse of substances not traditionally classified as psychoactive, such as steroids and erectile dysfunction medications, has been commonly seen over the recent years. Although these substances often are not listed among traditional drugs of abuse, they can become problematic for users. Substance abuse is strongly associated with legal consequences. In addition to violation of controlled substance statutes, substance abuse has been associated with domestic violence and other violent crimes such as suicide, property damage, vehicular offenses, and sexual perpetration. In the United States, crime-related costs of substance abuse have been projected to be around $100 billion annually, and conservative estimates have indicated that at least 1 million people have substance abuse problems. Substance abuse is also a major contributing factor to traffic and workplace accidents. Extreme substance-related toxicity can contribute to psychotic symptoms, although sometimes those symptoms preceded the substance use and were masked.

Biopsychosocial Model Impact of Substance Use Disorders The total costs of abuse of alcohol and abuse of other drugs including tobacco to the American economy has

Researchers use a biopsychosocial model to understand addictive processes. Biological processes that have been identified include physiological reactivity to the

Substance Use Disorders———779

ingestion of substances, physiological changes due to acute or chronic use of substances, and physiological adaptations to the level of exposure to the substances. Physiological reactivity occurs in response to the substance and results in metabolic changes in the body. Substances activate the pleasure-reward system in the brain, which often results in euphoria. Acute or chronic substance abuse can cause neurotoxicity and damage to vital organs. Commonly experienced cognitive impairments include difficulties with short-term and working memory; problems with executive cognitive functions related to decision making, problem solving, impulse control, and abstraction; and, in some cases, difficulties with balance and motor functions. Existing evidence suggests that some physiological changes are reversible, including cognitive impairment, after a period of abstinence. Psychological processes include behavioral, cognitive, and emotional responses to substance use. Behavioral processes operate according to learning principles. Classical conditioning in substance abuse occurs when particular stimuli are paired or associated with substance use. In substance abuse research, these stimuli are often referred to as cues or triggers. Substance use may occur at an automatic level when cues trigger substance use so quickly that the individual may be momentarily unaware of actions. Common triggers or cues include places, situations, things, physical senses (sensations, sights, sounds, smells, and tastes), emotions, or events that become paired with substance use and may trigger cravings or desires to use. Operant conditioning operates when substance use is reinforced or punished. Positive reinforcement is conceptualized as a consequence following a behavior that is rewarding or pleasurable and makes it likely that the behavior will be repeated. Substance use can have rewarding properties that positively reinforce the behaviors related to substance use. In addition, substance use can be negatively reinforced. Negative reinforcement occurs when an aversive consequence is lifted or withdrawn, which in effect reduces an aversive experience. Because the aversive consequence is withdrawn or reduced, it makes it more likely that the behavior will be repeated. An example of this process is when someone uses substances because it has reduced pain or discomfort previously (negatively reinforced) as opposed to using substances because it has caused euphoria in the past (positive reinforcement). An excellent and common example of substance use being negatively reinforced among users is when they described using substances to “self-medicate” symptoms. The behavior described as self-medication alludes to a

history where the substance use may have caused aversive symptoms to subside. Research has demonstrated that punishment can effectively stop or reduce substance use over the short term but that for long-term changes to occur punishment must be followed by learning new behavior and having that reinforced. Substance abuse is difficult to change because it is reinforced on a variable schedule. Since substances are sometimes reinforcing and sometimes not, the user cannot predict when substance use will be reinforcing and continues using substances in the hope that the next event will be reinforcing. Variable reinforcement is one process that contributes to the transition from recreational use to substance abuse. Observational learning also is a powerful predictor of substance use. Youths and young adults are very much influenced by observing and then modeling the behaviors of significant others in their lives. Before adolescence, youths tend to model the substance use behavior of their parents. Researchers have noted that substance abuse tends to be intergenerational in family systems. The assumption for many years was that this intergeneration “transmission” of substance abuse must be genetic. However, recent research has identified that at least part of the intergenerational phenomenon in family systems appears to be learned behavior, principally from observing and modeling parents who misuse substances. As youths move into the teen years and early adulthood, peer groups tend to influence substance use more than parents. In addition, researchers have found that adolescents and young adults tend to overestimate the substance use of peers and at the same time underestimate their own substance use. Cognitive factors related to addictive processes include expectancies about substance use, motivation to change, and self-efficacy. Expectancies are beliefs about the expected effects of substance use. Expectancies can develop through personal experience or observational learning. As an example of the latter, to sell their products advertisers of alcohol beverages often advertise that alcohol makes people sexy or socially attractive, beliefs that are assumed by youths who observe the advertisements. Positive expectancies refer to beliefs that substance use will provide a desirable outcome, whereas negative expectancies refer to beliefs that substance use will lead to an undesirable outcome. Positive expectancies have been found to predict continued and sometimes increased substance use, whereas negative expectancies have been linked to reductions. Motivation to change determines whether a user will consider and ultimately change substance use.

780———Substance Use Disorders

Decisions to change often follow a process known as the decisional balance, where a user considers the pros and cons for change. Ambivalence is quite normal for someone contemplating change. If a user decides that the pros for change outweigh the cons, then she or he likely will be more committed to changing behavior and seeking help. Self-efficacy also has been found to predict substance abuse. Self-efficacy is a term from social learning theory that describes, in the case of substance abuse, whether a person has competence and confidence to negotiate a specific situation without use of substances. Lower self-efficacy in a situation predicts poorer substance use outcomes in that situation. Cognitive impairment is of concern when a user has engaged in extreme or chronic substance abuse. Perceptual problems result from acute intoxication. One phenomenon, substance use myopia, refers to how cognitive processes become impaired as intoxication increases, literally narrowing a person’s ability to see or accurately perceive events occurring around him or her. During substance use myopia, clients are vulnerable to impulsive, disinhibited, and risky behavior because perception of risk is impaired. As an example, substanceinduced myopia leads to poor judgment, such as believing that it is safe to drive under the influence of substances. Emotions and moods also have been associated with substance abuse. Many users report links between emotional events and substance use behavior, and relapses have been linked to extreme emotions (positive or negative). Users often use substances to manage emotions and moods but also report that substance use contributes to loss of emotional control. Research has established that chronic substance use may disrupt emotional expression and contribute to substance induced dysphoria. Social and environmental factors linked to addictive processes may include relationship stressors and environmental stressors such as unemployment and poverty. Some researchers believe that a major function of substance misuse is in tension reduction. Changes in relationship interactions and environmental conditions have been linked to changes in substance use. Youths are especially vulnerable to changes in the environment and substance abuse in that age group can be influenced heavily (both positively and negatively) by such changes.

Diagnosis of Substance Use Disorders Misuse of substances can be diagnosed by means of structured clinical interviews that assess for criteria

specified by the American Psychiatric Association in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV). The most commonly used interviews are the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) and the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). Substance misuse is classified as either substance abuse or dependence for a single substance or for multiple substances. DSM-IV diagnostic categories also include “specifiers” that denote abuse with or without physiological dependence and “course specifiers” that define the course of the disorder, including early full remission, early partial remission, sustained full remission, sustained partial remission, on agonist therapy (such as methadone), or in a controlled environment (where access is restricted). DSM-IV diagnoses conceptualize substance abuse as a chronic condition subject to periods of remission. However, researchers have found evidence that a subgroup of people diagnosed with alcohol dependence, for example, show evidence of controlled moderate drinking without problems later in life. In addition, other research shows that the course of substance abuse does not necessarily worsen with time nor do users need to hit the bottom to want help. Substance use diagnoses for adolescents have been found to be very unstable. Many adolescents meeting DSM-IV criteria for substance abuse or dependence experience a “maturing out” process as they age and go on to adult lives free of substance-related problems. Therefore, substance use diagnoses for adolescents should be interpreted with caution. Arthur W. Blume See also Substance Abuse Treatment; Therapeutic Communities for Treatment of Substance Abuse

Further Readings

DiClemente, C. C. (2003). Addiction and change: How addictions develop and addicted people recover. New York: Guilford Press. Donovan, D. M., & Alan Marlatt, G. (Eds.). (2005). Assessment of addictive behaviors (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. McCrady, B. S., & Epstein, E. E. (Eds.). (1999). Addictions: A comprehensive guidebook. New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, W. R., & Carroll, K. M. (2006). Rethinking substance abuse: What the science shows, and what we should do about it. New York: Guilford Press.

Suicide Assessment and Prevention in Prisons———781

SUICIDE ASSESSMENT AND PREVENTION IN PRISONS Prisoner suicide assessment and prevention is an area of active research and clinical involvement. Indeed, it is an important component of the forensic psychologist’s clinical responsibilities due to the disproportionately high incidence of prison suicide as compared with the general population. This high incidence is a consistent phenomenon across countries. In some countries, this translates into suicide being a major cause of death among prisoners. To address the topic of suicide assessment and prevention, first the research challenges in conducting prisoner suicide research and the relevant theory in conceptualizing the process of prisoner suicidality are briefly summarized. A review of relevant risk factors as evidenced by research are categorized into several domains and described. These domains include demographic factors, historical factors, criminality factors, and clinical factors. Following a review of risk factors, suicide prevention within the prison setting is summarized.

Research and Theory In an effort to better understand and assess (i.e., predict) prisoner suicide, a large body of research has investigated the risk factors related to prisoner suicide. However, there are some intrinsic challenges in the prediction of suicide generally, and there are some methodological weaknesses in prisoner suicide research specifically. The major challenge in predicting suicide is that it is a relatively rare event (i.e., has a low base rate). Statistically, it is more difficult to predict a rare event than a frequent event. This creates significant challenges for researchers in designing good-quality predictive studies. For example, because suicide is a relatively infrequent event, a researcher would need to have a very large number of subjects at the beginning of a study for there to be a sufficient sample size of eventual suicides for analyses. For individual clinicians, this difficulty in predicting rare events creates the higher risk of false positives (i.e., predicting suicide where none occurs). False negatives (a suicide occurs when it was predicted that no suicide would occur) literally have life and death implications and represent what most clinicians and staff members want to avoid. Some particular methodological weaknesses in prisoner suicide research include samples consisting of mixed populations of prisoners (e.g., remanded and

sentenced prisoners), lack of control or comparison groups of nonsuicide or nonattempter prisoners, and reliance on descriptive studies, which generates difficulties in establishing a causal relationship between risk factors and outcome. Of note is that, in recent years, researchers have made efforts to address these methodological problems. There have been efforts to design more comparative studies, to use more sophisticated statistical analyses (e.g., logistic regression), and to even undertake matched control studies. This is a welcome shift in the research approach to prisoner suicide. Indeed, given the plethora of descriptive studies generated over the last 25 to 30 years, there are limitations in the value added by purely descriptive studies of prisoner suicide at this time. Designing more methodologically sound studies will more meaningfully build on current knowledge. Overall, despite the challenges presented by researching prisoner suicidality, identifying relevant risk factors has facilitated the development of suicide assessment protocols and scales. Prior to reviewing relevant risk factors, it is important to note that, as useful as individual risk factors are, there has been a major contribution by researchers who have offered valuable conceptualizations of the suicidal process as one that occurs over time and is affected by multiple factors. In particular, Marti Heikkinen and colleagues have provided one of the most well-developed models. Their process model of suicide consists of risk factors, precipitating factors, vulnerability factors, and protective factors that contribute to the process of suicidality. In this model, the suicidal process is viewed as dynamic and affected by several categories of risk factors (i.e., biological, psychological, social, cultural). At the same time, the individual’s vulnerability and protective factors affect risk. For instance, a prisoner who has difficulty in coping with various areas of his life will likely experience greater risk. A prisoner with a strong social support system would likely experience some protection against risk. Finally, the model includes precipitating factors such as stressors and external events that contribute to triggering suicidality (e.g., loss of support, negative decision regarding release).

Risk Factors Research on prisoner suicidality reveals several domains of risk factors that are relevant to suicide assessment. These general domains include demographic factors, historical factors, criminality factors, and clinical factors.

782———Suicide Assessment and Prevention in Prisons

Demographic Factors

During the last couple of decades, predominantly descriptive research has linked prisoner’s age with suicidal risk. Generally, the research has suggested that younger age groups (e.g., approximately under the age of 30 years) are overrepresented in suicide completer samples. However, a couple of recent and more methodologically sound research studies have challenged this conclusion, suggesting that either no relationship exists or that older age (i.e., 40 years and above) is predictive of prisoner suicide. More research will be required to clarify predictive relationships between age and prisoner suicide. A relatively new result provided by one of these recent studies was identifying homelessness as a predictive factor. It is worth mentioning that many descriptive studies have examined marital status as a correlate of prisoner suicide. These results have been equivocal and not uniformly supported by the recent better-quality research. Historical Factors

The research has been fairly convincing that both the presence of a psychiatric history (typically broadly defined in prisoner suicide research) and a history of substance abuse are connected to an increased risk of prisoner suicidality. Recent research using the matched control methodology and/or logistic regression analyses has supported these predictive relationships. Some research suggests that recent psychiatric contact or intervention may possess additional predictive power. Results from the larger body of suicide research have revealed the increased risk generated by a family history of suicide. In particular, a genetic component has been attributed as partly responsible for the relationship. Individuals with first-degree relatives (i.e., parents, siblings) who committed suicide are at greater risk for committing suicide. This risk becomes more elevated if the relative suffered from a mood disorder (i.e., depression, bipolar disorder). Given this research, it is important to consider this factor in assessing prisoner suicidality. Criminality Factors

Several criminality factors are linked with greater risk of prisoner suicidality. These include sentence length, time served in sentence, security level, criminal history, and institutional adjustment. In terms of a

prisoner’s sentence length, generally prisoners with lengthier sentences are disproportionately represented among prisoner suicides. In particular, those prisoners with life or indefinite sentences may be at higher risk. The amount of time served in one’s sentence is also linked to prisoner suicide but not as definitively as sentence length. Generally, prisoners who commit suicide do so earlier in their sentences (within approximately the first 2 years of being sentenced). A prisoner’s security level appears to be relevant to suicidal risk. A limited amount of recent research, some of which has used logistic regression, has revealed an overrepresentation of higher security prisoners (i.e., maximum security level) among suicide completers and attempters. Recent more methodologically sound research has indicated that several characteristics of prisoner criminal history are linked with suicidal risk. In one study, suicide attempters were more likely to have current convictions for homicide, break and enter, or robbery. Consistent with that result were two studies that found having a current violent offense was more predictive of suicide completers. In addition, prisoners with a history of prior criminal involvement (variously defined as prior offense[s], prior incarceration) were more likely to attempt or commit suicide. One study found that suicide completers and attempts were more likely to have had breach of trust offenses (i.e., escapes, violations of parole or probation). Finally, limited recent research using comparison groups and logistic regression found that both suicide completers and attempters had demonstrated negative institutional adjustment (e.g., institutional violence, contraband violations, substance abuse incidents, escape, requests for protective custody). Prisoners with a history of contraband-related incidents were three times more likely to attempt suicide. Those with a disciplinary history were 19 times more likely to engage in a suicide attempt. Both suicide completers and attempters participated in correctional programs less than nonattempters. Clinical Factors

In addition to assessing the risk factors characteristic of suicidal prisoners, there is a fundamental role for the assessment of relevant generic clinical factors as part of the suicide assessment. In other words, a good assessment of prisoner suicidality is predicated on conducting a competent clinical assessment. In fact, there are several salient clinical factors that require particular attention. Clinical domains and factors important to the

Suicide Assessment and Prevention in Prisons———783

suicide assessment are described. The work of John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan has been used to lend some structure to the description of clinical factors. In addition, where relevant, prisoner suicide research related to that factor is summarized. The overarching clinical factors include the presenting problem, depression, suicidal ideation suicidal intent, suicidal plan, self-control, vulnerability, and coping. Presenting Problem Similar to a suicide assessment with a nonforensic client, the initial goal is to attempt to establish rapport and determine the nature of the presenting problem. Determining the prisoner’s level of distress and coping efforts will provide some indication of how to pace the remainder of the assessment. Identifying the precipitating factors and current stressor(s) provides some contextual and situational information. Depression There is a strong relationship between depression and suicidality as well as between depression and hopelessness. If a user combines alcohol and depression, then risk will further elevate. Therefore, it is important to determine the presence of depressive symptomatology. The diagnostic criteria and symptomatology of depression are not detailed here. Rather, relevant domains of functioning are reviewed as a means of suggesting some structure for the assessment process. These include emotional, physical, cognitive, behavioral, and social domains. The emotional domain primarily refers to determining the presence of depressed mood and related factors such as frequency, intensity, and duration. Of particular concern is the presence of hopelessness. Research has established hopelessness as a strong predictive factor of suicide generally. Available research investigating this factor in prison populations has confirmed the predictive relevance of hopelessness. An additional emotional factor that warrants attention is the occurrence of a sudden and unexplained change in the individual’s mood and/or functioning. This is a salient clinical sign that has traditionally been interpreted as an indication of increased risk. Experts in suicide assessment suggest that the improvement may result from the individual making a decision about ending his or her emotional pain or result from an alleviation of mental illness. The suggested dynamic is that either of these occurrences

reduces ambivalence, brightens moods, and frees up energy to act (and possibly carry out a plan for suicide). The physical domain refers to determining the presence of physical symptomatology indicative of depression. Relevant factors include appetite, weight, sleep, energy level, concentration, psychomotor functioning, and self-care. The cognitive domain involves assessing whether cognitive functioning is intact. For example, there may be the presence of thought distortions, disorganized thought, impaired judgment, or event psychotic symptoms. Research has also pointed to the relationship between depression and the presence of negative thinking about oneself, the world, and the future (referred to as the cognitive triad). The behavioral domain refers to behavioral symptoms of depression that can be observed. These may include decreased pleasure in one’s usual activities, decreased physical activity, restlessness, poor concentration, and poor problem solving. Changes in selfcare and other negative behavior may be present. The social domain refers to interpersonal and social functioning. Some examples can include social withdrawal, rejecting support, interpersonal conflict, and decline in social skills. Suicide Ideation and Suicidal Intent Suicidal ideation and suicidal intent are related to increased risk for suicide. Ideation does not necessarily result in high risk. Expressing suicidal intent generally presents a greater risk than ideation. Inquiring directly about ideation and intent is important. Questions regarding frequency, duration, and intensity can provide additional information. In addition, collateral information and/or behavioral observations can be useful. If the prisoner commits or contracts, it is suggested that the commitment be made for both selfharm and suicide rather than assuming the commitment for one act will generalize to the other. Suicide Plan Having a suicide plan can present a serious level of risk. Determining the details is crucial. Relevant domains of functioning to assess include prior suicide attempts, specificity, lethality, availability, and proximity. A history of prior suicide attempts increases the risk for suicide. A suicide attempt within the past year elevates risk even further. Obtaining details about the prior

784———Suicide Assessment and Prevention in Prisons

attempts can help identify any patterns or past precipitants that may be relevant to the current situation. Specificity of the suicide plan needs to be determined. Generally, the more detailed (i.e., high specificity) a plan, the greater the risk of suicide. Lethality of a suicide plan is defined as the amount of time that passes between initiating the suicidal act and dying. High lethality is a plan that results in a quick death (e.g., hanging) and translates into high risk. In addition to the lethality presented by a specific method, there is also an impact resulting from how the method will be used. Research on prison suicide has revealed that hanging, a very lethal method, is the primary method of committing suicide. Self-Control By examining a prisoner’s behavioral history (e.g., history of impulse control difficulties) and obtaining information about previous suicide attempts, the prisoner’s degree of self-control can be assessed. Another factor affecting self-control is the use of alcohol or substances. Coping and Vulnerability A prisoner’s poor ability to cope is a risk factor of suicide. Research has identified a component of the prison population that is particularly vulnerable and poor copers. These individuals tend to have difficulty coping across time and situations. Psychosocial isolation (e.g., emotional and social support) increases the likelihood of suicide. The prisoner’s access to emotional and social support resources should be assessed. Physical isolation of suicidal prisoners can have a detrimental effect. Research addressing this issue had revealed that placing suicidal prisoners in some form of isolation (e.g., constant observation) is quite detrimental and can actually contribute to increased suicidal risk.

Suicide Prevention Suicide prevention is typically conceptualized as an institutional or organizational approach to preventing prisoner suicides. Among the preventive strategies, there can be policies and procedures that specify the management of identified suicidal prisoners (e.g., type, frequency, and/or location of observations; mental health

referrals). More broadly, there can be policies, procedures, and programs designed to improve identification of suicidal prisoners. Screening for suicidal risk at intake can be a valuable preventive strategy. During the last decade, there has been an appreciable amount of research directed toward developing effective screening instruments. Some scales are designed to be administered by nonclinical frontline staff at intake (e.g., correctional staff), while other scales require mental health training to administer. Some screening instruments have been designed for specific settings (e.g., remand centers vs. prisons), while other scales have been designed for use across a variety of settings. Implementing a screening instrument can be influenced by human resource and cost factors. A brief scale that requires no mental health training to administer is typically less resource intensive than a scale that may require clinically trained staff (e.g., nurse) to administer. However, the administrative costs must be weighed against the effectiveness of the scale to accurately identify prisoners as potential suicide risks. An important component of suicide prevention programs includes training programs for prison staff. These programs can vary in scope. Some training programs target improved knowledge about the indicators of suicidality, while others target skill building in detection and basic intervention. Indeed, some institutions or jurisdictions have developed programs that provide training to prisoners in an effort to improve knowledge and/or provide skills that facilitate detection and peer support. Yet another suicide prevention strategy can involve changes to the physical environment that essentially decrease opportunity for a suicidal prisoner. For example, changes in cell location (e.g., observation cell) may improve visibility of a suicidal prisoner. Improvements to the physical structure of a cell may include installing tamper-proof fixtures and eliminating structures that provide opportunities to implement a suicide plan (e.g., a noose attached to a pipe). Overall, research supports the conclusion that suicide prevention programs can reduce the incidence of prisoner suicides. Wider implementation of suicide prevention policies, procedures, and programs is necessary to further advance prevention efforts. Indeed, more comprehensive suicide prevention programs would also be beneficial. Natalie H. Polvi See also Critical Incidents; Extreme Emotional Disturbance; Forensic Assessment; Jail Screening Assessment Tool

Suicide Assessment Manual for Inmates (SAMI)———785

(JSAT); Mood Disorders; Personality Disorders; Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Substance Use Disorders

Further Readings

Bonner, R. L. (2000). Correctional suicide prevention in the year 2000 and beyond. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 30, 370–376. Daigle, M., Labelle, R., & Cote, G. (2006). Further evidence of the validity of the Suicide Risk Assessment Scale for prisoners. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 29, 343–354. Hayes, L. M. (2007). Jail suicide/mental health update. National Institute of Corrections. Retrieved April 12, 2007, from http://www.nicic.org/Library/000001 Heikkinen, M., Aro., H., & Lonnqvist, J. (1993). Life events and social support in suicide. Suicide and LifeThreatening Behavior, 23, 343–358. Liebling, A. (1995). Vulnerability and prison suicide. British Journal of Criminology, 35, 73–187. Polvi, N. H. (1997). Assessing risk of suicide in correctional settings. In C. D. Webster & M. A. Jackson (Eds.), Impulsivity: Theory, assessment, and treatment (pp. 278–301). New York: Guilford Press. Sommers-Flanagan, J., & Sommers-Flanagan, R. (1995). Intake interviewing with suicidal patients: A systematic approach. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 26, 41–47.

SUICIDE ASSESSMENT MANUAL FOR INMATES (SAMI) The Suicide Assessment Manual for Inmates (SAMI) is a new instrument designed to assess risk for suicide attempts among individuals admitted to a pretrial remand center or jail. The SAMI is a 20-item clinical checklist of risk factors derived from the suicide research literature. Initial research on the SAMI has focused on its factor structure and predictive validity. Suicide is the leading cause of death of inmates in jail facilities. Research on suicide prevalence rates indicates that the rate of suicide in an incarcerated population is higher than that in the general population, with some estimates indicating the prevalence to be as much as nine times higher in incarcerated populations. In addition, the prevalence of suicide may be higher in a population of remanded (pretrial) offenders than in a

population of sentenced offenders. Suicide is a low base rate behavior; therefore, it is difficult to predict which individuals will attempt to commit suicide. It is, however, important to be able to identify those inmates who are at an increased risk for suicide on admission to a correctional facility so that they may be classified and housed accordingly. Structured clinical guidelines are useful in attempting to determine which individuals are at an increased risk for suicide. The SAMI was developed to provide a framework of important variables that should be assessed for each individual admitted to a pretrial remand center or jail to determine that individual’s risk for suicide within the next 24 hours. The SAMI is a clinical checklist of risk factors for institutional suicide attempts. It consists of 20 items that were identified by a review of the literature on suicide in general as well as suicide in jails and prisons. The purpose of the SAMI is to guide evaluators through important information and variables that should be assessed to determine an inmate’s risk for institutional suicide. The SAMI was developed for use as a way to structure professional judgment in the assessment of institutional suicide risk. Each of the 20 items contained in the SAMI can be rated on a 3-point scale, with a score of 0 being associated with low risk, a score of 1 being associated with moderate risk, and a score of 2 being associated with high risk with respect to the particular item. It is important to note, however, that like many instruments developed to structure professional judgment, the item scores on the SAMI are not to be added but, rather, are to be considered within the full context of the individual, the institution, and the circumstances. Both the self-report of the inmate as well as the observations and professional judgment of the evaluator are to be considered for each item. Extensive and thorough literature reviews have identified numerous variables that are associated with risk for suicide in general as well as in jails and prisons, including age; sex; marital status; history of drug or alcohol abuse; psychiatric history; history of suicide attempts; history of institutional suicide attempts; family history of suicide; arrest history; history of impulsive behavior; high-profile crime or position of respect within the community; current intoxication; concern about major life problems; feelings of hopelessness or excessive guilt; presence of psychotic symptoms or thought disorder; symptoms of depression,

786———Suicide by Cop

stress, and coping; social support; recent significant loss; suicidal ideation; suicidal intent; and suicide plan. The SAMI includes an assessment of each of these variables, with the exception of age and sex given the low variability on these factors since the vast majority of jail inmates are males in their 20s and 30s. The SAMI is a new instrument, and research examining its reliability and validity is limited. Results of a preliminary study in which the SAMI was administered to 138 pretrial defendants indicate acceptable levels of interrater reliability. In addition, this research indicates that scores on the SAMI items are related to institutional category of risk for suicide (low, medium, high), need for mental health services, and need for monitoring within the pretrial facility. Factor analysis of the SAMI items identifies six factors: affective disturbance, suicide history, current cognitive state, current situational variables, impulsivity, and support and coping. The first three factors (affective disturbance, suicide history, and current cognitive state) are strongly associated with institutional category of risk for suicide, need for mental health services, and need for monitoring within the institution. The sixth factor, support and coping, is also strongly associated with need for mental health services. Regression analyses with the SAMI have indicated that Factors 1 and 2 (affective disturbance and suicide history) are predictive of referral to mental health services within the institution, whereas Factors 2 and 3 (suicide history and current cognitive state) are predictive of category of institutional suicide risk. Further research investigating the predictive utility of the SAMI is currently underway. Patricia A. Zapf See also Suicide Assessment and Prevention in Prisons

Further Readings

Zapf, P. A. (2006). Suicide assessment manual for inmates. Burnaby, BC: Mental Health, Law, and Policy Institute.

SUICIDE

BY

COP

Suicide by cop (SbC) is a phenomenon confronted by police officers in which suicidal individuals behave in such a way as to force officers to use lethal force against them. Research findings have found common

characteristics and behaviors among SbC subjects. The phenomenon is recognized sufficiently that there are a number of court decisions that are relevant to incidents that are defined as SbC. Finally, police officers often suffer psychologically after their involvement in SbC incidents. Their suffering must be addressed if they are not to have long-term effects. Suicide requires an active decision to kill oneself. Such action may conflict with religious ideology, or the subject may fear societal stigma. Suicidal individuals also may fear pain and believe that the police officers’ training in lethal force will ensure their instant death. Some of these individuals have a desire to die in a highprofile “blaze of glory.” Often, the decision of individuals to induce the police to use lethal force against them is impulsive. Emotionally distraught and under the influence of alcohol, many individuals form a cloudy decision to die only when the police arrive in response to a precipitating event such as a domestic dispute. Due to some of these conditions, suicidal subjects may become SbC subjects, inducing officers to kill them. As with other suicidal behavior, the subject frequently is ambivalent about death. If the police can delay a confrontation, SbC subjects often are open to negotiation, especially if they become sober. Unfortunately, as found by studies conducted by the author, SbC subjects often place officers in situations in which they cannot get themselves or the victims in a safe place, so must shoot the SbC subjects. Also similar to other forms of suicide attempts, the behavior that often accompanies an SbC incident is an endeavor to cope with stressful life events by selfdestructive behaviors. SbC subjects primarily are male, White, and more than 25 years old. They often have a mental illness history, including mood and personality disorders. Alcohol is used in a majority of the recorded SbC incidents, with a number of the individuals having a history of alcohol abuse. Subjects under the influence of alcohol overcome their inhibitions and are more impulsive and lethal. Often, anger and aggression are indicated by a number of past assault or domestic violence complaints, homicidal pre-incident conversations, and negotiation conversations that include injury to others. Precipitating events to the SbC incidents often include the termination of a relationship and/or other family problems. SbC subjects have been known to attempt to use the incident as a means to coerce a significant other to remain in a relationship or for revenge against a significant other. Unlike other suicide victims,

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SbC subjects usually have significant others in their lives, although these others are often part of the problem. Outstanding criminal warrants on the SbC subject also are prevalent. They may state that they would rather die than return to prison. Although early research in SbC focused on preparation by SbC subjects, more recent research done by the author has found that about half of the SbC incidents are impulsive rather than planned. About half of the SbC subjects, who she studied, had made some sort of statement or had a change in behavior that could be interpreted as presuicidal. These behaviors included writing and leaving a note, telling a therapist or significant other of what they were considering, and giving away possessions. Prior suicide attempts overall were not very prevalent; however, those who had attempted suicide in the past were more likely to be successful in their attempts in inducing police officers to shoot them. The courts have not decided predominantly in favor or against police officers in all SbC cases; however, the courts have agreed that only the facts known by the officers at the time of the incident are relevant to the case. Intentions or motives of the SbC subjects discovered later are not directly related. The degree of danger that the officer or another person is in is judged at what is known by the officer at the time of the incident. Officers are granted qualified immunity unless they violate established law. The plaintiff has the burden to prove that the officers committed a constitutional violation. Although the courts should consider only what the officer would have known at the time of the incident, it is useful to conduct a psychological autopsy to investigate what the individual’s state of mind was at the time of the SbC incident. Such information will give officers a better understanding of the subject’s motivation, plan, and pathology. It can help also in officers’ psychological debriefings. Information for a psychological autopsy often is obtained from the subject’s friends, family, and co-workers, as well as from any notes left by the subject, recent high-risk behavior, the giving away of personal property, and actions or statements that suggest preoccupation with death and/or suicide. Officers who are involved in the SbC incident, especially the officer(s) who actually shoot the subject, are quite likely to suffer psychological traumatic stress disorder. Often, the subject does not actually have a loaded or real gun, although it appears real at the time of the incident. The officer may feel manipulated by the

subject and is unprepared for the emotional and physiological reactions that follow the shooting. The officer also is often not given the opportunity to verbalize or emotionally ventilate his or her emotions. It is critical that police agencies require officers to see a therapist if they are involved in shootings or other violent incidents. Vivian B. Lord See also Critical Incidents; Police Psychology; Psychological Autopsies

Further Readings

Hutson, H. R., Anglin, D., Yarbrough, J., Hardaway, K., Russell, M., Strote, J., et al. (1998). Suicide by cop. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 32, 665–669. Lord, V. B. (2004). Suicide by cop: Inducing officers to shoot. Flushing, NY: Looseleaf Law. Parent, R. B., & Verdun-Jones, S. (1998). Victim precipitated homicide: Police use of deadly force in British Columbia. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 21, 432–448.

SUPERMAX PRISONS Super-maximum secure or “supermax” prisons are used to hold those prisoners whom prison authorities regard as the most problematic in the prison system. These facilities merge the 19th-century practice of long-term solitary confinement with 21st-century technology in ways that subject prisoners to unparalleled levels of isolation, surveillance, and control, usually for long duration, with the potential to inflict significant amounts of psychological harm. Despite a range of academic studies documenting the serious and potentially long-lasting psychological harm it may inflict, and several judicial opinions criticizing the risks it entails and significantly limiting its use, the supermax prison form persists. This entry describes the conditions in which prisoners in supermax confinement are held, characteristics of the supermax population, effects on prisoners of supermax confinement, and the current legal status of supermax prisons. Although different prison systems employ different terminology to refer to supermax-like conditions (e.g., “control unit,” “special management unit,” “security housing unit,” or “close management”), these units have enough distinctive features in common to be analyzed as

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a separate penal form. Their use has continued to increase over the past several decades, and there are now tens of thousands of prisoners in supermax-type confinement throughout the United States.

Conditions of Supermax Confinement Conditions in supermax confinement are marked by the totality of the isolation, the intended duration of the confinement, the reasons for which it is imposed, and the technological sophistication with which it is achieved. Supermax facilities house prisoners in virtual isolation and subject them to almost complete idleness for extremely long periods of time. These prisoners rarely leave their cells and are typically given at most 1 hour a day of out-of-cell time. They eat all their meals alone in the cells, and typically, no group or social activity of any kind is permitted. In most of these units, prisoners are escorted outside their cells or beyond their housing units only after they first have been placed in restraints—chained while still inside their cells (through a food port or tray slot on the cell door)—and sometimes tethered to a leash that is held by an escort officer. Prisoners in supermax confinement are rarely if ever in the presence of another person (including physicians and psychotherapists) without being in some form of physical restraints (e.g., ankle chains, belly or waist chains, handcuffs). They also often incur severe restrictions on the nature and amounts of personal property they may possess and have limited access to the prison library, legal materials, and canteen. Their brief periods of outdoor exercise or “yard time” typically take place in caged-in or cementwalled areas that are so constraining they are often referred to as “dog runs.” In some units, prisoners get no more than a glimpse of overhead sky or whatever terrain can be seen through the tight security screens that surround their exercise pens. Supermax prisoners often are monitored by camera and converse with staff through intercoms rather than through more direct and routine interactions. In newer facilities, computerized locking and tracking systems allow most of their movement to be regulated with a minimum of human contact (or none at all). Some supermax units conduct visits through videoconferencing equipment rather than in person, which means that prisoners are denied immediate face-to-face interaction (let alone physical contact), even with loved ones who may

have traveled great distances to see them. In addition to “video visits,” some facilities employ “telemedicine” and “telepsychiatry” procedures in which prisoners’ medical and psychological needs are addressed by staff members who “examine” and “interact” with them over television screens from locations many miles away. As noted, supermax prisons routinely keep prisoners in this near-total isolation and restraint for extremely long periods of time. Unlike punitive segregation in which prisoners typically are isolated for relatively brief periods of time for specific disciplinary infractions, supermax prisoners may be kept under these conditions for years on end. In addition, many correctional systems impose supermax confinement as part of a long-term strategy of correctional management and control rather than as an immediate sanction for discrete rule violations.

Population of Supermax Prisons Supermax prisons are usually justified by reference to the alleged dangerousness of the prisoners who are housed there—the “worst of the worst,” as correctional administrators often characterize them. Thus, the increased use of this distinctive prison form is linked to the contention that an especially dangerous or “new breed” of disruptive prisoner now inhabits the modern maximum security prison. In fact, there is little or no empirical support for these contentions. Instead, many prisoners appear to be placed in supermax less for what they have done than who they are judged to be (e.g., “dangerous,” “a threat,” or, especially, a member of a “disruptive” group). In many states, a large group (sometimes the majority) of supermax prisoners has been given “indeterminate” terms, usually on the basis of having been officially labeled by prison officials as gang members. An indeterminate supermax term often means that these prisoners will serve their entire prison sentences in isolation unless they “debrief” by providing incriminating information about other alleged gang members. These practices have resulted in a significant overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in supermax prisons and what analysts have described as an “overclassification” of the prisoners who end up in these units. In addition, the percentage of mentally ill prisoners in supermax appears to be much higher than in the general prison population. Thus, researchers estimate that approximately 30% of supermax prisoners suffer from “severe mental disorders.” This overrepresentation of the

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mentally ill likely results from the fact that some mentally disturbed prisoners engage in disruptive behavior that prison officials punish rather than treat. It also may indicate that supermax conditions themselves are severe enough to exacerbate and perhaps even create psychological disturbances in persons subjected to them.

Effects of Supermax Confinement Numerous empirical studies have documented the harmful psychological consequences of living in supermax facilities. The evidence is substantial and comes from personal accounts, descriptive studies, and systematic research on solitary and supermaxtype confinement conducted over a period of many decades by researchers from several different continents with diverse backgrounds and a wide range of professional expertise. Direct studies of prison isolation have documented an extremely broad range of harmful psychological reactions, including potentially damaging symptoms and problematic behaviors such as negative attitudes and affect; insomnia, anxiety, withdrawal, hypersensitivity, ruminations, cognitive dysfunction, hallucinations, loss of control, irritability, aggression; and rage, paranoia, feelings of hopelessness, lethargy, depression, a sense of impending emotional breakdown, selfmutilation, and suicidal ideation and behavior. Selfmutilation and suicide are also more prevalent in isolated prison housing—the hallmark of supermax confinement, as are deteriorating mental and physical health (beyond self-injury); other-directed violence, such as stabbings, attacks on staff, and property destruction; and collective violence. In fact, many of the negative effects of solitary confinement are analogous to the acute reactions suffered by torture and trauma victims, including posttraumatic stress disorder. Some researchers have estimated the prevalence rates of these adverse symptoms among prisoners who are confined in supermax-type conditions. One study found that three-fourths or more of a representative sample of supermax prisoners reported suffering from ruminations or intrusive thoughts; an oversensitivity to external stimuli; irrational anger and irritability; confused thought processes; difficulties with attention and often with memory; and a tendency to withdraw socially, to become introspective, and to avoid social contact. An only slightly lower percentage of prisoners in the same study reported a constellation of symptoms that appeared to be related to developing mood or emotional

disorders—concerns over emotional flatness or losing the ability to feel, swings in emotional responding, and feelings of depression or sadness that did not go away. Finally, sizable minorities of supermax prisoners reported symptoms that are typically only associated with more extreme forms of psychopathology—hallucinations, perceptual distortions, and thoughts of suicide. In addition to these specific symptoms, many supermax prisoners undergo other kinds of significant and potentially damaging transformations during their isolated confinement. Because they are so tightly and completely controlled, they may lose the ability to initiate or to control their own behavior or to organize their personal lives. Because individual identity is socially constructed and maintained, the virtually complete loss of genuine forms of social contact and the absence of any routine and recurring opportunities to ground thoughts and feelings in a recognizable human context leads to an undermining of the sense of self. For other prisoners, total social isolation leads, paradoxically, to social withdrawal. That is, some prisoners recede even more deeply into themselves than the sheer physical isolation of supermax requires.

Legal Regulation Because supermax prisons are of relatively recent origin, their constitutionality—the question of whether the conditions of confinement in this new prison form represent “cruel and unusual punishment”—has been tested in only a few important legal cases. The first of these cases, Madrid v. Gomez (1995), addressed conditions of confinement in California’s Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit. Although the judge found that overall conditions in the supermax units were harsher than they needed to be, he concluded that he lacked any constitutional basis to close the prison or even to require significant modifications in many of its general conditions. Instead, he barred certain categories of prisoners from being sent there because of the tendency of the facility to literally make them mentally ill or to significantly exacerbate preexisting mental illness. However, he also emphasized that the record before him had pertained to prisoners who had been in supermax for no more than a few years and that longer-term exposure might lead to a different result. The constitutionality of supermax confinement has been tested in federal courts in several other states (notably in Texas and Wisconsin), with largely similar results—a strongly worded condemnation of the

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harshness of the conditions, exclusionary orders that exempted certain categories of prisoners from such confinement, but a concession that there was no legal basis to order that the supermax prisons be closed. The legal threshold for finding conditions of confinement unconstitutional has been set especially high in the United States over the past several decades. Supermax prisons per se continue to come very close to this threshold and, in the case of mentally ill prisoners, were found to have crossed it. As the empirical record about the psychological effects of this kind of confinement continues to be augmented, and the consequences of long-term confinement in these units becomes clearer, other courts may reach different and perhaps even more sweeping conclusions about the legality of supermax. Craig Haney See also Prison Overcrowding

Further Readings

Haney, C. (2003). Mental health issues in long-term solitary and “supermax” confinement. Crime & Delinquency, 49, 124–156. Haney, C., & Lynch, M. (1997). Regulating prisons of the future: The psychological consequences of solitary and supermax confinement. New York University Review of Law and Social Change, 23, 477–570. King, R. (2000). The rise and rise of supermax: An American solution in search of a problem? Punishment and Society, 1, 163–186. Kurki, L., & Morris, N. (2001). The purposes, practices, and problems of supermax prisons. Crime and Justice, 28, 385–424. Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F. Supp. 1146 (1995). Riveland, C. (1999). Supermax prisons: Overview and general considerations. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.

T mothers’ biological superiority as a parent and gave a legal preference to mothers in custody matters. In the past few decades, most states have replaced the tender years doctrine with a best interests of the child doctrine, under which both mothers and fathers are considered equally. This shift in custody law reflected more widespread changes to gender-neutral legal language. For example, in Watts v. Watts (1973), a New York family court stated that “application of the ‘tender years presumption’ would deprive [the father] of his right to equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” Adopting the “best interests” standard also coincided with increasing public acceptance of the notion that fathers are able to care for children as well as mothers. In 1986, in Pusey v. Pusey, a Utah appeals court held that a maternal preference “lacks validity because it is unnecessary and perpetuates outdated stereotypes.” At the same time, psychological research was used in legal proceedings to bolster the idea that mothers or fathers could be good caregivers to young children. Research on father-child interactions supported this idea, as did studies claiming that preserving the child’s relationship to its “psychological parent”—the adult most responsible for and connected to the child—was paramount. This psychological research was used to discredit the tender years doctrine and to endorse the best interests of the child policy.

TENDER YEARS DOCTRINE The tender years doctrine, or the practice of awarding infants and young children to mothers in custody disputes, was employed in most state courts from the late 19th century until the 1960s. The tender years doctrine is based on the idea that mothers have superior, “natural” nurturing abilities and a biological connection to their infants. In the 1970s, most states abolished the tender years doctrine and replaced it with a genderneutral “best interests of the child” standard. However, some current research claims that a maternal preference, especially in custody disputes over infants, continues to exist in practice in lower-level courts.

History of Child Custody Law Historically, fluctuations in child custody law have reflected societal changes in beliefs about parenthood. Until the mid- to late 1800s, fathers had sole rights to custody, reflecting the notion that women and children were considered the property of the male head of the household. The father’s absolute claim to custody also reflected the view of children at the time: In the primarily agrarian economy of the early 19th century, children were seen as economic assets. This agrarian economy shifted to an industrial one in the mid- to late 19th century, which made children less economically valuable and also necessitated the separation of home and work. With the emergence of separate spheres, men worked outside of the home, and women had responsibility for the home. At this time, the law shifted to a “tender years” doctrine. The tender years doctrine emphasized

Current Research on the Tender Years Doctrine Despite the shift to a more gender-neutral custody standard, the consideration of tender years is not a relic 791

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of the past. As recently as 1989, a Florida appeals court, in DeCamp v. Hein, applied a maternal preference in the case of a child of tender years. And until 1997, the Tennessee child custody statute allowed judges to consider the sex of the parents in the case of a child of tender years. Thus, some scholars argue that judges in the lower courts have not “caught up” with this change in the law. Even if the tender years doctrine is not endorsed in statutory or case law, trial court judges may subscribe to it. A recent study examined both judges’ views of the tender years doctrine and whether their views were consistent with contested custody rulings. In face-to-face interviews, judges were asked directly about the tender years doctrine and also asked to assess a hypothetical custody case involving an infant. Despite the current gender-neutral custody policy, over half the judges interviewed expressed some support for the tender years doctrine. These views of the tender years doctrine were explained, in large part, by the gender of the judges and, relatedly, by their gender role attitudes; female judges reported more egalitarian views and were less likely to support the tender years doctrine than male judges. When comparing judges’ views of the tender years doctrine with their decisions in custody disputes, judges’ accounts were generally consistent with their rulings in contested custody disputes. Judges who endorsed the tender years doctrine were more likely to award custody of infants and young children to mothers than judges who did not endorse the tender years doctrine. This research suggests that although state appellate courts and legislatures have abolished the tender years doctrine, practice in lower courts may continue to perpetuate some vestiges of the tender years doctrine. So despite greater legal and cultural acceptance of the idea that fathers and mothers are equally qualified to raise children, there are complex processes at work in the legal system that may perpetuate traditional notions of motherhood and fatherhood. Julie E. Artis See also Child Custody Evaluations; Divorce and Child Custody

Further Readings

Artis, J. E. (2004). Judging the best interests of the child: Judges’ accounts of the tender years doctrine. Law & Society Review, 38, 769–786. DeCamp v. Hein, 541 So.2d 708, 710 (Fla. App. 1989).

Mason, M. A. (1994). From fathers’ property to children’s rights: The history of child custody in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press. Pusey v. Pusey, 728 P.2d 117 (Utah 1986). Watts v. Watts, 77 Misc.2d 178, 350 N.Y.S.2d 285 (1973).

TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS When families fail to care for and protect children, states have the authority, when granted legal jurisdiction by the court, to initiate family services and to provide substitute care for the children. The prevailing legal standard for the care and protection of children is the best interest standard. The state is expected to act in the best interest of the child. Termination of parental rights is a legal action initiated in state family or juvenile court by the state’s child protective services department. It typically follows a series of care and protection hearings and interventions designed to protect children within the confines of child welfare laws and regulations promoting child safety, family life, and parental rights. Cases of severe maltreatment, defined by statute, may move immediately to termination of parental rights without the provision of family services. Less serious care and protection cases are resolved without a termination hearing. When the conditions for family reunification remain unsuitable, a termination hearing is initiated according to state statutes, child protective service regulations, and codified timelines. The content of termination statutes varies across state jurisdictions (in some instances, federal statutes apply). Common thresholds for state jurisdiction and subsequent termination of parental rights include serious harm or the threat of serious harm to a child due to a caregiver’s physical abuse, sexual abuse, or physical and emotional neglect of the child. Some statutes contain other criteria, such as the amount of time the child has been in substitute placement and the child’s attachment to substitute caregivers after a defined period of time in their custody. Termination of parental rights is a legal action and a subsection of child and family law and psychology. In termination proceedings, the attorney’s role depends on whom the attorney represents. The child protective services agency’s attorney, employed by the state, represents the interests of the state in the care and protection of children. When facing a termination hearing, parents in states allowing indigent funding are

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provided with attorneys. In other states, parents must hire attorneys privately. Usually, each caregiver has his or her own attorney. Children may be provided their own attorneys to represent their expressed interests and guardians ad litem to represent their best interests as determined by substituted judgment. The role of the psychologist, as a forensic evaluator or consultant, depends on the referral source and the referral question(s). The psychologist is retained by the court, the state, or one of the attorneys for the parent(s) or child. Evaluations are requested for five main reasons: (1) to assess the caregiver’s need for interventions after the state assumes jurisdiction; (2) to evaluate the risk of harm, if any, the caregiver poses to the child; (3) to assess the child’s level of functioning and intervention needs; (4) to assess the caregiver’s amenability to interventions; and (5) to determine the caregiver’s participation and progress in recommended interventions. Referral questions may be comprehensive, involving the evaluation of multiple family members; or they may be limited to a specific feature of the case. A properly qualified forensic psychologist has knowledge of jurisdictional legal and regulatory care and protection standards. The acceptance of a referral takes place within the legal context. The referral question is framed in a manner that respects parents’ rights, the rights of children, the socioeconomic and cultural dynamics of the case, and the role and purview of the judicial finder of fact. Psychologists consult ethical standards and guidelines for practice, and they have a strong foundation in theories and research relevant to child maltreatment, parenting, child development, parental risk of harm through violence and neglect, parental mental illness and substance abuse, parental intellectual functioning, and parental poverty. They use the forensic assessment report and court testimony as communication mechanisms addressed to all parties relevant to the case.

privacy, parental rights, and children’s rights. Federal regulations influence developments and changes in state statutes, with the most recent guidance found in the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. Childabuse-reporting requirements and statutes influence the frequency and nature of cases entering the child protective services system. Procedural laws and regulations govern the sequence of hearings and the structure and process of service provision as cases move through the system. The confluence of these sources of laws and procedures provides a framework for the relative judicial weight given to state jurisdiction, family privacy, parental rights, and children’s interests in their protection from harm or the threat of harm. From a legal perspective, children are neither fully independent nor fully dependent legal actors in actions taken by the state over the competence of their caregivers. A typical case in which a termination hearing is eventuated moves through the following phases: an anonymous report of maltreatment by a mandated or a nonmandated reporter; an initial screening of the complaint by the local or regional child protective services agency representatives; an investigation of the allegations in the complaint; an emergency evidentiary hearing and removal of the children from the custody of the caregivers; an evidentiary hearing over whether the emergency removal will stand or will be overturned; placement of the children in substitute care; provision of relevant services to the caregivers and the children; periodic reviews and hearings relevant to the continued need for state intervention and service provision; and a final evidentiary hearing that leads to an outcome of a reunification plan, permanent substitute care, or termination of parental rights. Only the most serious and protracted cases reach termination. If their rights are terminated, parents occasionally are allowed posttermination contact with their children under carefully specified and limited circumstances. More commonly, ties are severed, and posttermination contact is disallowed.

Legal and Regulatory Standards Societal responses to child maltreatment take many shapes, with the legal system representing the most formal mechanism of response. The nature and breadth of state jurisdiction in child care and protection matters are found in legal definitions of child maltreatment and in legal and regulatory procedures for identifying, investigating, intervening in, and making judicial decisions about family reunification or separation. Broad constitutional rights serve as the legal basis for family

Forensic Assessment in Context Referrals for forensic assessment in the context of care and protection matters are made to assist the court in gathering data relevant to the case. Referrals may originate directly from the court by prior agreement of all involved parties, through an ex parte motion by the attorney for one parent or a joint motion by the attorneys for both parents, from a representative or an attorney for the child protective services agency, through

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a regional child protection agency’s contracted relationship with specific consultants/evaluators, or through an ex parte motion by the attorney for the child. Ex parte motions are those that occur in front of the judge without the knowledge of the other parties to the case. They preserve attorney–client privilege until the report is introduced into evidence. Motions may or may not be requested in this private fashion. The use of exparte motions gives the attorney the option of quashing results unfavorable to the client’s case. The disadvantage is the difficulty of retaining attorney–client confidentiality and protecting the evaluation results under the attorney work product rule because of the eventual need for the evaluator to contact multiple parties to conduct a thorough evaluation that would typify most referral questions in care and protection matters. Referral questions cover a range of topics. The evaluator might be asked to assess the child’s psychological well-being in the aftermath of maltreatment or threats of maltreatment, to determine what services should be offered to the child and/or the caregiver to promote child well-being and safety, the amenability of the caregiver to interventions designed to reduce the risk of harm to the child, the psychological impact on the child of a return to the custody of the caregiver, the psychological impact on the child of permanent substitute care or parental rights termination, and the child’s attachment to substitute caregivers.

Ethical Standards and Guidelines for Practice Psychologists and other mental health professionals seek the relevant education, professional training, postdoctoral training, and continuing education. They turn to ethical standards and principles to guide their practice. Professional organizations develop guidelines for practice. Guidelines have been written specifically for the subspecialty of forensic assessment and consultation in care and protection matters. Guidelines relevant to cultural competence are particularly important because of the broad diversity of families that come to the attention of the care and protection system. Advocacy organizations for child welfare sometimes develop their own suggested practice guidelines.

Child Maltreatment Legal definitions of child maltreatment are drawn from statutes, child protective service regulations, and case

law. Social science definitions and nosologies of child maltreatment may not be fully consistent with the legal standards because of differing classification schemes and thresholds for maltreatment. Research on the etiology and impact of child maltreatment is complicated by differences in the definitions of maltreatment, differing standards for quantifying the scope and impact of maltreatment, and differing classification and diagnostic schemes. Theories of child maltreatment are drawn from sociobiology, the emerging field of genetics and human behavior, the psychology of human attachment, and the psychology of the inner life of the individual. Such theories may also take into account violence in the individual and society, parental attribution style, parental intellectual and social support resources, the impact of mental illness and substance abuse on parenting, intergenerational transmission or desistance of child maltreatment (i.e., whether parents who were victimized by child abuse become abusers or set about making sure they do not become abusers), social isolation, youthful parenting, and macrosocial issues such as neighborhood quality or the stress of parental impoverishment. Scholars are careful to point out that parents may parent competently even when they face multiple challenges. Parental factors such as mental illness, parental substance abuse, or intellectual limitations must be linked directly to the maltreatment to be considered legally relevant. Parental violence and neglect involve multiple complex factors that result in child maltreatment by some but not all parents. Research usefully illustrates the features that are common in cases of child maltreatment, but none of the features or combinations of features is isomorphic with maltreatment per se. Although much is known about the factors that predict child maltreatment, the relative weight of individual factors is less clear. Cumulative risk and chronicity of risk are not well researched, in part because of the inherent ethical and methodological challenges of conducting relevant empirical research in applied settings.

Parenting and Child Development Theories of parenting and child development provide a framework for considering multiple styles of parenting, multiple forms of family structure, and child development trajectories. Theory serves as an organizing framework for understanding the inner life of individuals, family dynamics, the social biological

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context, and the cultural context of cases. It facilitates the use of logic and reasoning in the integration of evaluation data. Research provides a basis for understanding family relationships, understanding the family system from the child’s perspective, recommending relevant interventions, understanding and interpreting parental risk of harm, and placing parameters around interpretations and recommendations based on limitations in the state of the science. A forensic assessment report with legal utility has probative value based on the science of psychology as it is applied to and interpreted within specific legal standards.

Forensic Assessment in Care and Protection Matters Evaluation methodology and forensic assessment reports in care and protection matters vary with the breadth and comprehensiveness of the referral questions(s). A typical evaluation involves an interview with the caregiver(s), an interview with the child, caregiverchild observations, collateral information, relevant records, and psychological assessment and/or risk assessment measures when indicated. Multimodal assessment is the most optimal approach. Focus is placed on hypothesized factors that potentiated family distress and child maltreatment, the viability and treatment utility of the service plan, whether conditions have changed or have been adequately addressed, and whether positive changes might be stable over time. Evaluation methodology might alternatively focus on the child’s attachment to substitute caregivers and the child’s readiness for adoption. Depending on the referral question, the interpretation section of a report might address the parent’s level of functioning; the strength and quality of the parent-child relationship; child maltreatment risk and the mediators of risk; parental amenability to treatment; accommodations that might contribute to parental amenability to treatment; the expected intervention outcome for a parent or a child; specific changes (or lack thereof) in a parental condition, such as mental illness or substance abuse; support services that would allow a parent with intellectual limitations to parent adequately; the description of a particular child’s special needs and their bearing on the child’s parenting needs; and the matter of whether a positive intervention outcome might be expected within statutory time limits. Meaningful reports and testimony answer the referral question(s) with scientific integrity,

within the parameters of the legal standards and context, in a tone respectful of all parties to the case and the judiciary, and with appropriate caveats. Lois Oberlander Condie See also Child Maltreatment; Children’s Testimony, Evaluation by Juries; Child Sexual Abuse; Sex Offender Assessment; Sex Offender Treatment; Substance Abuse Treatment; Substance Use Disorders

Further Readings

American Psychological Association, Committee on Professional Practice and Standards. (1988). Guidelines for psychological evaluations in child protection matters. Washington, DC: Author. Belsky, J. (1993). Etiology of child maltreatment: A developmental-ecological analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 413–434. Condie, L. (2003). Parenting evaluations for the court (Perspectives in Law and Psychology, Vol. 18, R. Roesch, Ed.). New York: Kluwer-Plenum. Dubowitz, H. (1999). The families of neglected children. In M. E. Lamb (Ed.), Parenting and child development in “nontraditional” families (pp. 327–345). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Goldstein, R. D. (1999). Child abuse and neglect: Cases and materials. St. Paul, MN: West.

TERRORISM Terrorism, like many other horrific types of violence, has begged in the minds of many for a psychological explanation. The research and systematic analysis that has been done on the topic, however, show that neither mental illness nor a simple “lack of conscience” are significant primary causes of terrorism. There is no known “terrorist personality.” The pathways and influences that lead certain individuals to become terrorists are quite diverse. Psychological research and systematic analysis, however, can help illuminate the processes by which people and groups come to adopt extremist ideologies and subsequently use those ideas to justify violent actions. Since the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, leaders in the U.S. intelligence, diplomatic, and law enforcement communities have concurred that terrorism currently poses the most serious threat

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to American national security. Understanding the causes, motivations, and determinants of terrorist behavior poses an enormous challenge in countering that threat, leading to a heightened interest in the “psychology of terrorism.” This entry focuses on the psychological dimensions of terrorist behavior, deemphasizes the analysis of sociologically based explanations (sometimes referred to as root causes) or macrolevel economic and political theories, and does not address the psychological effects of terrorism. After decades of social science research, no single theory of aggression has gained ascendance as an explanatory model for all types of violence. Terrorism is a distinct form of violence, although the basic question of how best to define terrorism has itself been a vexing problem. For heuristic purposes, though, most agree that terrorism would include acts of violence (as opposed to threats or more general coercion) intentionally perpetrated on civilian noncombatants with the goal of furthering some ideological, religious, or political objective. Issues of intent, tactics, motive, ideology, and legitimacy of targets all add complexity and plurality to the construction of terrorism as a form of violence and challenge the emergence of a unifying explanatory theory. Commenting on the search for a master explanation of terrorism generally, Walter Laqueur has insightfully observed that there exist “many terrorisms” and that the factors that cause, sustain, or weaken them may vary greatly for different groups in different contexts at different points in time. From a psychological perspective, the psychiatrist Jerrold Post believes that there is not one terrorist psychology, but multiple terrorist psychologies. Psychological theory and research on terrorism has evolved considerably since the 1960s. The earliest line of work was drawn principally from psychoanalytic theory and tended to focus on narcissism and hostility toward parents as explanatory variables. More recent explanations have moved away from this approach. A summary of the more contemporary body of professional literature on the psychology of terrorism is outlined below and framed around a series of functional questions. How and why do people enter, remain in, and leave terrorist organizations? Research on terrorists and violent extremists who adhere to a broad range of ideologies shows that the pathways to, and motives for, terrorism are quite varied and diverse. Among the key psychological factors in understanding whether, how, and which

individuals in a given environment enter the process of becoming a terrorist are motive and vulnerability. By definition, motive is an emotion, desire, physiological need, or similar impulse that acts as an incitement to action, and vulnerability refers to susceptibility or liability to succumb, as to persuasion or temptation. Regarding motive, researchers have begun to distinguish between the reasons for joining, remaining in, and leaving terrorist organizations, finding that motivations may be different at each stage and not even necessarily related to each other. Regarding vulnerability, there do appear to be some common vulnerabilities and perceptions among those who turn to terrorism—perceived injustice, need for identity, and need for belonging, though certainly there are persons who share these perceptions but do not become terrorists. In 2006, at Pennsylvania State University, an Advanced Research Workshop was convened of professionals who study the psychology of terrorism. The common “risk factors” for terrorism identified by the participants of the workshop included the following: • Perceptions of isolation or alienation from general society • Perceptions of individual or group humiliation, injustice, shame, or dishonor • Social isolation • Need for identity and desire to belong • Sense of disillusionment with the available alternatives • Ideology that legitimizes terrorism • Role models and heroes • Sense of being or identifying with victims

Promising areas of inquiry have focused on common stages and processes in adopting extremist ideologies rather than on the content of the motive or justification per se. Three contemporary theories describing the adoption of extremist ideologies include Randy Borum’s generic four-stage terrorist mindset model, which attempts to explain how grievances and vulnerabilities are transformed into hatred of a target group and how hatred is transformed—for some—into a justification or impetus for violence. Also recently introduced is Ali Moghaddam’s staircase to terrorism model, in which he describes a convergent (i.e., fewer people proceed to each successive stage), five-step progression that transforms the personal experience of adversity into violent terrorist action. Using a more socially based framework in a study of people affiliating with Al-Muhajiroun in the

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United Kingdom, Quintan Wiktorowicz outlines a four-part, developmental process based on social movement theory. Although each model was developed independently, and almost contemporaneously, the consistency of the major themes across the three models is quite striking. To what extent is psychopathology relevant for understanding or preventing terrorism? Research on the psychology of terrorism has been nearly unanimous in its conclusion that mental illness and abnormality are typically not critical factors in explaining terrorist behavior. Studies have found that the prevalence of mental illness among samples of incarcerated terrorists is as low as or lower than in the general population. Moreover, although terrorists often commit heinous acts, they would rarely be considered classic psychopaths. Terrorists typically have some connection to principles or ideology as well as to other people (including other terrorists) who share them. Psychopaths, however, do not form such connections, nor would they be likely to sacrifice themselves (including dying) for a cause. To what extent is individual personality relevant for understanding or preventing terrorism? There is no terrorist personality “type,” nor is there any accurate profile—psychologically or otherwise—of the terrorist. Moreover, personality traits alone tend not to be very good predictors of behavior. Becoming a terrorist is probably best regarded as a process rather than as a single decision. That process is affected not only by the individual psychological characteristics, but also by situational factors, recent experiences, associations with others, and the ambient political environment and influence of people’s constituencies. The quest to understand terrorism principally by studying the personality traits of terrorists is likely to be an unproductive area for further investigation and inquiry. To what extent are an individual’s life experiences relevant for understanding or preventing terrorism? Certain life experiences tend to be commonly found among terrorists. Histories of childhood abuse and trauma appear to be widespread. In addition, themes of perceived injustice and humiliation often are prominent in terrorist biographies and personal histories. None of these contribute much to a causal explanation of terrorism but may be seen as markers of vulnerability, possible sources of motivation, or mechanisms for acquiring or hardening one’s militant ideology.

What is the role of ideology in terrorist behavior? Ideology is often defined as a common and broadly agreed on set of rules to which an individual subscribes, which help regulate and determine behavior. Ideologies that support terrorism, while quite diverse, appear to have three common structural characteristics: They provide a set of beliefs that guide and justify a series of behavioral mandates; those beliefs are inviolable and must be neither questionable nor questioned; and the behaviors are goal directed and seen as serving some cause or meaningful objective. Culture is a critical factor in the development of ideology, but its impact on terrorist ideologies specifically has not been extensively studied. Ideology guides and controls behavior, perhaps by providing a set of behavioral contingencies that link immediate behavior and actions to long-term positive outcomes and rewards, or it may best be viewed as a form of rule-following behavior. What distinguishes extremists who act violently from those who do not? Not all extremist ideologies facilitate violence, nor are all extremists violent. One potentially useful distinction to consider is the direction of activity—that is, whether the focus is more on promotion of a cause or destruction of those who oppose it. Even within destruction-oriented extremism, it usually takes more than ideology to compel violent action. Psychological and social influences must erode the powerful, naturally occurring barriers that inhibit widespread human killing. The two main avenues of assault on those barriers are outside-in (i.e., effects of the group or social environment) and inside-out (i.e., making an internal cognitive adjustment about how to perceive the environment or situation). What are the vulnerabilities of terrorist groups? Terrorist groups, like all social collectives, have certain vulnerabilities in their existence. Some come from within the organization, and some operate from outside. Internal vulnerabilities include internal mistrust, boredom/inactivity, competition for power, and major disagreements. Some of the more common external vulnerabilities include external support, constituencies, and intergroup conflict. How do terrorist organizations form, function, and fail? Surprisingly little research or analysis has been conducted on the stages and cycles of terrorist groups’ organizational development and functioning. In particular, there has been little systematic inquiry on the process of terrorist recruitment, despite the fact that

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thwarting tomorrow’s terrorists is at least as critical as understanding extremists of the past and the present. There are three tentative conclusions on extremist recruitment: (1) terrorists focus their recruitment where sentiments about perceived deprivation are deepest and most pervasive, (2) social networks and interpersonal relationships provide critical connections for recruitment into terrorist organizations, and (3) effective terrorist recruiters either identify in or impart on the prospect a sense of urgency and imminence in “closing the deal.” Though some anecdotal reports exist on how some specific individuals came to join a terrorist group, there has been little serious scientific or systematic study of recruitment and radicalization processes. From extremist group research based on organizational behavior principles, it does seem clear that the group must be able to maintain both cohesion and loyalty. Effective leaders of terrorist organizations must be able to maintain a collective belief system, establish and maintain organizational routines, control the flow of communication, manipulate incentives (and purposive goals) for followers, deflect conflict to external targets, and keep the action going.

Furthering psychological and other behavioral science research on terrorism will, it is hoped, enhance international security and prevent acts of violence toward innocent civilians. Randy Borum See also Criminal Behavior, Theories of

Further Readings

Borum, R. (2003). Understanding the terrorist mindset [Electronic version]. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 72(7), 7–10. Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/ publications/leb/2003/july03leb.pdf Borum, R. (2004). Psychology of terrorism. Tampa: University of South Florida. Retrieved from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/208552.pdf Borum, R. (2004). Psychology of terrorism: Annotated bibliography. Tampa: University of South Florida. Retrieved from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/ grants/208551.pdf Moghaddam, F. (2005). The staircase to terrorism: Psychological exploration. American Psychologist, 60, 161–170.

The State of Research Social science researchers in the field of terrorism studies are nearly unanimous in their conclusion that its research largely lacks substance and rigor. Several fundamental problems remain unresolved: There still is no agreed-on definition of terrorism, most of the existing research is not empirical or based on any data, and the existing research is largely inapplicable to operational considerations. Future endeavors designed to inform counterterrorism operations should be operationally informed, maintain a behavior-based focus, and derive interpretations from analyses of incident-related behaviors. In addition, to further the basic social science of terrorist behavior, NATO’s Advanced Research Workshop posed the following as “high-priority” research objectives for the future: • A more rigorous, specific understanding of social and political movements that are not involved in violence, in order to understand what leads some organizations toward violence • More primary research—better access to and more interviews with activists and terrorists • Better triangulation of data obtained from these sources

TESTAMENTARY CAPACITY Under Anglo-American law, the right of testation refers to the freedom to choose how one’s property and other possessions will be disposed of following one’s death. For a will to be valid, the testator (the person making the will) must have testamentary capacity (TC) at the time that the will is executed. TC is thus a legal construct that represents the level of mental capacity necessary to execute a valid will. If TC is absent, then the will is void and fails. For reasons of public policy, courts have traditionally applied a low legal threshold for finding TC. Conceptually, TC falls within the broader concept of financial capacity, but for reasons of history and tradition, TC continues to receive distinct attention within the legal system. Each state jurisdiction, through its statutes and case law, sets forth the legal elements or criteria for TC. The absence of one or more of these elements of TC can serve as grounds for a court to invalidate a will. A will can also fail if the testator has an insane delusion that specifically and materially affects the testator’s creation or amendment of a will. Finally, a will is often challenged on the conceptually separate

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ground that it was the product of undue influence on the testator exerted by a family member or a third party. As TC represents a legal construct closely associated with the testator’s mental status, clinicians are often asked to evaluate TC and offer clinical testimony in legal proceedings. Such evaluations are sometimes conducted contemporaneously with a will’s execution but more often occur retrospectively following the incapacity or death of a testator and probating of the will. In recent years, there has been an increase in will contests in the probate courts, with associated claims of impaired TC and also undue influence. There is currently relatively little literature on TC. Several papers addressing the general clinical guidelines for assessing TC and undue influence exist. However, there is a great need for conceptual and empirical work in this area.

Legal Elements of TC Although the requirements for TC vary across states, four criteria must generally be met. A testator must have (a) knowledge of what a will is, (b) knowledge of the class of individuals that represents the testator’s potential heirs (“natural objects of one’s bounty”), (c) knowledge of the nature and extent of his or her assets, and (d) a general plan of distribution of assets to his or her heirs. The absence of one or more of these elements can serve as grounds for a court to invalidate a will due to lack of TC. However, the way in which courts weigh the legal elements of TC in determining the validity of a will varies across states. Some states require that the testator meet only one of the criteria for a will to be valid. Other states require that the testator not only must understand a will and demonstrate memory of all property and potential heirs but also must hold this information in mind while developing a plan for disposition of assets. Accordingly, the reader is strongly encouraged to review the relevant law on TC specific to his or her state jurisdiction.

Insane Delusion and TC Even when the legal elements of TC are present, a will can fail due to an insane delusion. Specifically, some states require that the testator be free of delusions and hallucinations that result in the testator devising property in a way that he or she would not have done in the absence of the delusions and hallucinations. A psychiatric disorder with delusions and other symptomatology

is not by itself sufficient to invalidate the will. It must be shown that the delusion specifically and materially affected the testator’s creation or amendment of a will. In other words, the will must be the direct product of the insane delusion.

Undue Influence A will can also fail on the separate ground that it was the product of undue influence. Although undue influence is conceptually distinct from TC, these two legal issues very often co-occur and intertwine when wills are contested. Under the law, undue influence exists in those situations where the will is the product of manipulation, persuasion, or coercion exerted by the “influencer” (e.g., family member, friend, neighbor, caregiver) and is not truly the volitional act of the testator. It commonly occurs in relationships where the testator has a special trust in or reliance on the influencer and where dependency has been increased through the influencer’s use of isolation and manipulation. In some instances, the testator may be subjected to explicit threats and intimidation by the influencer. Conceptually, undue influence assumes some preserved level of TC in the testator, which, however, is supplanted by the wishes and actions of the influencer. For this reason, undue influence should be considered conceptually distinct from TC, albeit closely linked to it. Clinicians need to understand both TC and undue influence when conducting evaluations in this area.

Attorney Observations of TC Typically, issues of TC may first arise in the context of a testator’s interactions with his or her attorney. During the course of the client interview, an attorney may observe signs of diminished TC, such as an inability to recall the names of family members or to appreciate the full value of different assets. Variability in a client’s state of mind and a lack of consistency between the client’s current choices and his or her long-term values and previously stated wishes can also raise red flags. From a professional standpoint, attorneys must be sensitive to indicators of diminished TC in their clients and, where necessary, take steps to protect their client’s best interests. In many instances, this may involve seeking consultation from a clinician. Clinical consultation regarding TC can substantially inform the way in which attorneys and judges understand and determine the legal issues of TC. The role of clinicians in cases of TC includes informal

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consulting with attorneys about clients with questionable capacity, contemporaneous clinical evaluations of TC prior to will execution, and retrospective evaluations of TC in cases involving a now-deceased or incompetent testator.

Consultation Regarding TC An attorney may choose to consult with a clinician prior to, or instead of, seeking a formal clinical assessment. In this situation, the clinician provides an informal opinion regarding TC based solely on client observation and the information provided by the attorney. The clinician may also identify concerns or issues that the attorney may have overlooked, as well as suggest strategies for enhancing TC. Clinical consultation may assuage an attorney’s concern regarding a client’s TC or justify pursuing a formal clinical evaluation of TC.

Contemporaneous Clinical Evaluation of TC In certain circumstances, the testator, a family member, or his or her attorney may request that a clinician assess the testator’s TC prior to will execution. Two scenarios are common in such a referral. The attorney may have concerns about TC and desire clinical expertise and input on the issue before proceeding further. Alternatively, in cases of ongoing or anticipated family conflict, the attorney may seek to preempt a future will contest by having an assessment of TC conducted as part of the will execution. Contemporaneous evaluations of TC are multifaceted and involve (a) collecting relevant data regarding the testator’s assets, potential heirs, and general cognitive and everyday functioning from collateral sources (i.e., a spouse, other family members, and friends); (b) conducting a comprehensive mental status examination of the testator to identify cognitive and psychiatric impairments that may interfere with TC; and (c) completing a thorough clinical interview of the testator to assess TC according to the above legal criteria. Spar and Garb have proposed a valuable semistructured interview approach that clinicians can use to assess TC. Because the validity of a will is dependent on the testator’s TC at the specific time that the will is executed, clinicians should conduct evaluations of TC as close to the time of will execution as possible.

Retrospective Evaluation of TC Although contemporaneous assessment of TC is highly desirable, retrospective evaluations probably represent the majority of these forensic assessments. Retrospective evaluations arise after the death or incompetency of a testator, when potential heirs or other parties contest a will on the grounds that the testator lacked TC at the time the will was executed. Retrospective evaluations of TC are based on a thorough record review and information obtained from the testator’s family, friends, business associates, and other involved professionals (often through deposition testimony). Primary attention is given to gathering evidence of mental status and neurobehavioral and everyday functional skills as close as possible to the date the will was executed. Relevant personal records include the testator’s business records, checkbook and other financial documents, and personal documents (e.g., letters, diaries, family films, or videos). Medical records can yield particularly useful information, including mental status, behavioral observations, diagnosis, level of impairment, dementia stage (if applicable), and psychological test results. Clinicians may also find it beneficial to interview the testator’s surviving family, friends, business associates, and other involved professionals regarding the testator’s cognitive and functional abilities at the time the will was executed. Ultimately, the clinician must assemble all of this information and retrospectively determine whether or not the testator clinically had TC at the prior relevant legal time point(s). In some cases, it may not be possible to render such a judgment if there is insufficient evidence of the testator’s cognitive, emotional, and functional abilities contemporaneous with the prior will execution. With respect to both contemporaneous and retrospective forensic evaluations of TC, it is important to emphasize that the clinician’s opinions regarding TC represent clinical judgments that the court may consider and weigh in arriving at a dispositive legal judgment of TC.

Research on TC TC as a civil competency represents a key knowledge gap in forensic science. There is relatively little published research on TC. Several good articles exist that provide general clinical guidelines and tips for assessment of TC and undue influence. However, there has

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been an absence of conceptual and empirical research in this area. Specifically, there is a need for cognitive and neuropsychological models of TC, assessment instrument development, and empirical clinical studies. Daniel C. Marson and Katina R. Hebert See also Competency, Foundational and Decisional; Financial Capacity; Financial Capacity Instrument (FCI); Forensic Assessment; Guardianship; Psychological Autopsies

Further Readings

American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging & American Psychological Association. (2005). Assessment of older adults with diminished capacity: A handbook for lawyers. Washington, DC: Authors. Greiffenstein, M. F. (1996, May). The neuropsychological autopsy. Michigan Bar Journal, 424–425. Marson, D. C., Huthwaite, J., & Hebert, K. (2004). Testamentary capacity and undue influence in the elderly: A jurisprudent therapy perspective. Law and Psychology Review, 28, 1–96. Spar, J. E., & Garb, A. (1992). Assessing competency to make a will. American Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 169–174. Spar, J. E., Hankin, M., & Stodden, A. (1995). Assessing mental capacity and susceptibility to undue influence. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 13, 391–403. Walsh, A. C., Brown, B. B., Kaye, K., & Grigsby, J. (1997). Mental capacity: Legal and medical aspects of assessment and treatment (2nd ed.). Deerfield, IL: Clark, Boardman, & Callaghan.

TEST OF MEMORY MALINGERING (TOMM) The issue of malingering is becoming increasingly important in the field of forensic psychology, particularly in cases involving traumatic brain injury, where alleged memory impairment is often used to seek personal compensation or as a defense against prosecution for various types of crimes. The Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) was developed by the author to provide an objective, criterion-based test that is able to discriminate between individuals with bona fide

memory impairment and those with feigned symptoms of impaired memory. The acronym TOMM was selected to emphasize that the test was developed with a definite, preconceived notion—to determine whether or not an individual is feigning or malingering a memory impairment. Thus, the TOMM should not be viewed as a malingering test per se. The TOMM consists of two learning trials and a retention trial. The learning trials consist of a learning phase and a test phase. The study portion of each learning trial contains 50 line-drawn pictures (targets), each presented for 3 seconds with a 1-second interval between pictures. The same 50 pictures are used on each learning trial. However, they are presented in a different order on the second trial. During the test phase, each target is paired with a new line drawing (distractor). The position of the target is counterbalanced for the top and bottom positions. The person is required to select the correct picture (i.e., target) from each panel. For each answer, the examiner provides feedback about the correctness of the response. A delayed retention trial, consisting only of the test phase, is administered approximately 15 to 20 minutes after completion of the two learning trials. The TOMM is available in a computerized as well as a paper-and-pencil format.

Development and Validation The TOMM was initially validated with 475 communitydwelling adults ranging in age from 17 to 84 years and 187 neuropsychological assessments from patients classified as follows: no cognitive impairment (n = 13), cognitive impairment (n = 42), aphasia (n = 21), traumatic brain injury (TBI) (n = 45), depression (n = 26), and dementia (n = 40). Inspection of the distribution of correct responses for the cognitively intact participants and the clinical patients showed that most nondemented individuals achieved a perfect score on Trial 2 and the retention trial. Moreover, rarely did a nondemented patient obtain a score lower than 45. In view of these results, the criterion score of 45 on Trial 2 or on the retention trial was selected. That is, any score lower than 45 should raise concern that an individual is not putting forth the maximum effort and is likely malingering. The criterion score correctly classified 100% of the communitydwelling participants and 95% of the nondemented clinical patients (cognitively impaired = 90%; aphasia = 95%; TBI = 98%; depressed = 100%; and dementia = 73%). Thus, the only clinical sample with a relatively

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low sensitivity score was the dementia group. Even these individuals still obtained a score of greater than 92% on Trial 2. The finding that the scores on the TOMM were less than 95% for the dementia group is not particularly negative since it is unlikely that feigning memory impairment is a major issue when dementia patients undergo neuropsychological assessment. It should be noted that “below-chance” performance (