Steffan's Alerts #7: Neuromaging, juveniles, and perceptions of injustice

Click on a title to read the article abstract; click on a highlighted author's name to request the full article.

Perceptions of wrongful convictions by criminal justice personnel

In a new issue of Crime and Delinquency, Brad Smith and colleagues surveyed attitudes of criminal justice participants in Michigan. According to their findings, defense attorneys perceived that wrongful convictions occur more frequently than did police, prosecutors, and judges. Of the professionals surveyed, only defense attorneys viewed this concern as warranting reforms in the justice system.

How important are graduated sanctions in reducing recidivism?

In another article in Crime and Delinquency, Kristin Johnson and coauthors indicate that incorporating graduated sanctions into predictions of recidivism diminishes the predictive utility of waiver to adult court. Their results draw attention to the role of graduated sanctions and treatment programming for juvenile offenders.

What do mock jurors make of neuroimaging evidence?

N.J. Schweitzer and colleagues presented neuroscience-based testimony and neuroimagery to jury-eligible participants in mock court experiments. As reported in a new issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law, participants rendered opinions on criminal culpability and sentencing. Neuroimagery, the authors reported, affected jurors' judgments no more than verbal testimony based on neuroscience.

Is the Adam Walsh Act working with juvenile offenders?

Also in Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law, Ashley Batastini and colleagues report that the Act’s classification system failed to predict sexual or nonsexual reoffending among a small sample of juveniles who were followed over a two-year period. In addition to their exploratory study, they discuss key concerns in the application of the Act to juveniles.

Steffan's alerts are brought to you by Jarrod Steffan, Ph.D., a forensic and clinical psychologist based in Wichita, Kansas. For more information about Dr. Steffan, please visit his website.

Steffan's Alerts #6: Tattoos, bias, homicides and death penalty attitudes

Professional biases in diagnosing child sexual abuse

In a new issue of Child Abuse and Neglect, Mark Everson and Jose Miguel Sandoval surveyed 1,106 child maltreatment professionals in order to explore personal biases and attitudes that might account for how professional judgments of child sexual abuse differ based on the same evidence.

Does information about the death penalty alter attitudes?

In a new issue of Crime and Delinquency, Scott Camp and colleagues report data suggesting that the answer is "yes" but the extent of the effects depends on personal characteristics.

Branding of the criminal lifestyle through tattoos

Alicia Rozycki Lozano and colleagues examine the connection between prison tattoos and criminality in their new article in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. As a group, offenders with prison tattoos are at higher risk for recidivism and incur more institutional infractions than do offenders with non-prison tattoos or no tattoos, the authors report.

Risk assessment among homicide offenders

Several articles in the new issue of Homicide Studies might pique your interest: 

• Amy Nivette reports on the limitations of using cross-national research to identify predictors of homicide.

• Sharon Smith and colleagues of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used qualitative analyses to derive four categories that they hope will improve understanding of sexually motivated homicides.

• Melanie-Angela Neuilly and colleagues present a classification tree analysis, based on  320 homicide offenders in New Jersey, that they contend is useful in predicting recidivism.

• Jeff Gruenewald compared homicides committed by extremists with those perpetrated by other types of persons in the United States. He found both similarities and differences.

    Click on a title to read the article abstract;   
    click on a highlighted author's name to request the full article.   

Steffan's alerts are brought to you by Jarrod Steffan, Ph.D., a forensic and clinical psychologist based in Wichita, Kansas. For more information about Dr. Steffan, please visit his website.

Steffan's Alerts #5: Miranda warnings, child custody, and more

Click on a title to read the article abstract; click on a highlighted author's name to request the full article.

Global prevalence of child sexual abuse

Marije Stoltenborgh and colleagues, in a new issue of Child Maltreatment, report the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse based on over 9 million subjects extracted from 217 publications from various countries.

Public views of child custody arrangements

Using hypothetical cases, Sanford Braver and colleagues examined judgments of various custody arrangements by jury-eligible citizens in Arizona. Reporting their findings in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, the authors suggest that a significant gap exists between the judgments of the public and what occurs in the family law system.

Miranda rights: What don't suspects understand?

In the same issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Richard Rogers and colleagues continue their research on defendants’ comprehension of Miranda warnings. Based on analyses of 416 pretrial defendants’ understanding of current Miranda terminology, the authors offer recommendations to simplify Miranda phrases so that persons with academic and cognitive limitations may more easily understand their rights at the time of interrogation.

Accuracy of methods for diagnosing pedophilia and assessing sexual recidivism

Robin Wilson and colleagues examine the accuracy of four methods for assessing pedophilia and appraising risk of recidivism among a sample of 130 child sexual abusers. They report their findings in a new issue of Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment.

Availability of treatment programs in juvenile justice facilities

In a new issue of Child and Youth Services Review, Rebecca Yazzie analyzes the types of treatment programs available in the United States through a sample of 3,163 juvenile facilities. Compared to public facilities, private facilities appeared better equipped, with more mental health staff and treatment programs. Facilities that offer family counseling reported a lower incidence of suicide.

Steffan's alerts are brought to you by Jarrod Steffan, Ph.D., a forensic and clinical psychologist based in Wichita, Kansas. For more information about Dr. Steffan, please visit his website.

Steffan's Alerts #4: Supermax, school shooters and Asperger's

Click on a title to read the article abstract; click on a highlighted author's name to request the full article.

Ethics of solitary confinement and supermax prisons

The Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice has published online a new issue focusing on ethics in criminal justice settings. Sharon Shalev offers an analysis of ethics in solitary confinement and supermax prisons and calls for more active participation by health professionals in these settings.

Asperger’s Disorder and the criminal justice system

Criminology and Criminal Justice has published Laura Caulfield and Ann Browning’s review of the literature on the connection between Asperger’s Disorder and criminality as well as the criminal justice system’s understanding of the condition.

Serious assaults on prison staff

In the Journal of Criminal Justice, Mark Cunningham and colleagues examine assaults on prison staff occurring over a 14 month period in a state correctional system. They provide data on prevalence of serious assaults and characteristics of inmate perpetrators and staff victims.

Are school shooters and suicide bombers more alike than different?

Adam Lankford and Nayab Hakim posit that they are, based on their review of school shooters in the United States and suicide bombers in the Middle East. Their article appears in Aggression and Violent Behavior.

Assessing intervention targets in sex offender treatment

Melissa Grady and colleagues review the psychometric properties and validation of measures commonly used in sexual offending treatment programs. The authors offer recommendations on measures to assess core treatment areas in their new article in Aggression and Violent Behavior.

Treatment for child sexual abuse victims and their families

In the same issue of Aggression and Violent Behavior, Poonam Tavkar and David Hanson offer information on effective treatment options for victims of child sexual abuse and their non-offending family members.

Steffan's alerts are brought to you by Jarrod Steffan, Ph.D., a forensic and clinical psychologist based in Wichita, Kansas. For more information about Dr. Steffan, please visit his website.

Steffan's Alerts #3: Women, children, fire-setting and the public

Click on a title to read the article abstract; click on a highlighted author's name to request the full article.

JAAPL: Plethora of mental health and law offerings

As always, the new issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law is a goldmine for those interested in law and mental health matters. All articles may be accessed for free online. Topics include use of the DSM in litigation and legislative settings, rational understanding and competency to stand trial, treatment of sexual offenders, hebephilia and the DSM-5, competency of pregnant women with psychosis, diversion of women into substance abuse treatment, and analyses of several recent legal rulings, to name a few.

Sins of the father

In a new issue of the British Journal of Criminology, Sytske Besemer and colleagues examine whether children whose parents have been incarcerated are later involved in the criminal justice system at disproportionate rates compared to children whose parents have been convicted but never imprisoned in the Netherlands and England. After controlling for a number of possible intervening variables in their longitudinal study, the authors provide data showing that children in the latter--but not the former--country are adversely affected by their parents' incarceration.

Advancing understanding and predictive utility of childhood firesetting

Although mental health professionals have long held that deliberate fire setting by children is prognostic of future conduct problems, Ian Lambie and Isabel Randell review how science in this area has progressed -- or not progressed -- in a new issue of Clinical Psychology Review. They call for future research to address the relationship between youth firesetting and future antisocial behavior as well as to update best practices in assessing and intervening with children who set fires.

Factors involved in reporting rapes

Data from a national survey of 3,001 women in 2006 indicated that the rate of reporting rape has not significantly changed since the 1990s. In a new issue of Journal of Interpersonal Violence, lead author Kate Wolitzky-Taylor explores barriers and predictors of reporting sexual assaults to law enforcement.

Criminal justice response to female offenders

In a forthcoming issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Shabnam Javdani, Naomi Sadeh, and Edelyn Verona advance theory on the legal and social policy factors involved in the increasing arrest rates of girls and women.

Public's views on sentencing practices

Does the public really support tougher sentencing of offenders? Preliminary data suggests this is not the case in Australia when members of the public are provided details about the personal lives of offenders. In a new issue of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Austin Lovegrove sampled several hundred participants through their review and discussion of judges' sentences on six offenders in four actual cases.

Steffan's alerts are brought to you by Jarrod Steffan, Ph.D., a forensic and clinical psychologist based in Wichita, Kansas. For more information about Dr. Steffan, please visit his website.

Steffan's Alerts #2: Informants, sex offenders and prisoner reentry

Click on a title to read the article abstract; click on a highlighted author's name to request the full article.

Comparison of online and offline sex offenders

In a meta-analysis of data drawn from nine studies, Kelly Babchishin, Karl Hanson, and Chantal Hermann report on demographic and psychological characteristics of online and offline sexual offenders in a new issue of Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment. The authors suggest that online offenders, although exhibiting more sexual deviancy, may also have more self-control and psychological barriers to contact sexual offending than offline offenders.

Online offenders and contact sex offenses

In the same issue, Michael Seto, Karl Hanson, and Kelly Babchishin detail their findings about online sexual offenders’ past contact sexual offenses and future sexual recidivism from two meta-analyses. Approximately half of online sexual offenders self-reported a prior contact sexual offense, whereas 1 in 8 had an official record of a past contact sexual offense. A small number of online sexual offenders committed some type of sexual recidivism in follow-up periods of up to 6 years.

The world of confidential informants

Ever wonder about the lives of confidential informants? In this issue of Justice Quarterly, Mitchell Miller provides insights from interviews of 84 informants from five southern states. A typology for better understanding the motivations of confidential informants is offered.

• Related post: NPR series on confidential informants

Prisoner reentry

Mark Berg and Beth Huebner, in another Justice Quarterly article, examine family ties and employment—two of the many areas related to recidivism—among offenders who are transitioning from prison to the community. They suggest that familial ties may play an important role in assisting offenders to lead a prosocial lifestyle.

Measuring sexual recidivism following prison-based treatment

Based on a sample of low-risk sexual offenders in New Zealand, Sarah Beggs and Randolph Grace demonstrate that reductions in sexual recidivism following prison-based treatment can be measured successfully through self-report psychometric tests and structured clinical rating scales. Average time at risk for recidivism was 12 years for this cohort. In their article, just published online in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the authors conclude, in part, that amelioration of dynamic risk factors for sexual offending leads to reduced sexual recidivism.

Steffan's alerts are brought to you by Jarrod Steffan, Ph.D., a forensic and clinical psychologist based in Wichita, Kansas. For more information about Dr. Steffan, please visit his website.

Steffan's Alerts: New column features fresh scholarship

In a new column launching today, forensic psychologist Jarrod Steffan scours the academic journals as they roll off the presses and brings you his top choices for articles of interest to forensic practitioners. Just click on a title to go to the journal site and read the full abstract; click on an author's name to request the full article. Feel free to leave comments on this new feature in the comments section of the blog.

Expert testimony in false confession cases

Mock jurors perceive that coercive interrogation tactics elicit confessions from guilty but not innocent suspects. Authors Iris Blandon-Gitlin, Katheryn Sperry, and Richard Leo go on to report the effects of an actual disputed confession case on jurors’ perceptions of false confessions in the current issue of Psychology, Crime and Law.

Meta-analysis of mental health courts

Are mental health courts working? Preliminary analyses point in the direction of success, according to an article by Christine Sarteschi and colleagues published in the Journal of Criminal Justice.

Malleability of juvenile offenders’ risk for recidivism

In the new issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior, Claudia E. Van Der Put and colleagues provide data showing that dynamic risk of adolescents' decreases as they age, thereby affecting the effectiveness of risk assessment and related interventions.

Feigning competence to proceed to trial

Preliminary data, reported by lead author Randy Otto in Assessment, suggest that a new measure called the Inventory of Legal Knowledge may assist evaluators in appraising defendants’ response style in competency to stand trial evaluations.

• A previous blog post on the new instrument is HERE.

Prostitution and serial murderers

Compared to killers of nonprostitutes, serial murderers of prostitutes have killed more and for longer periods of time, according to a study by Kenna Quinet published in Homicide Studies.

The state of the science in stalking

In Aggression and Violent Behavior, Kathleen Fox, Matt Nobles, and Bonnie Fisher take stock of the literature on stalking assessment and, based on their review of 56 studies, recommend guidelines for future research.

Steffan's alerts are brought to you by Jarrod Steffan, Ph.D., a forensic and clinical psychologist whose practice is based out of Wichita, Kansas. For more information about Dr. Steffan, please visit his website.