ABA calls for death penalty moratorium

The American Bar Association today released findings of a three-year study on state death penalty systems and called for a nationwide moratorium on executions. Currently, more than 3,000 people are awaiting the needle, the chair, or the gallows.

In its detailed analyses of death penalty systems in eight U.S. states, the report highlights "key problems" that make the current system unfair, including racial disparities (more than 4 out of 10 death row prisoners are black, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics), inadequate defense services for indigent defendants, and irregular processes for clemency review. The report also documents serious problems with evidence collection, preservation, and analyses; state crime laboratories are systematically underfunded and look nothing like those on television's CSI.

Of relevance to forensic psychology, the ABA's investigatory committee found that many states do not ensure that lawyers who represent mentally ill and mentally retarded defendants understand the significance of their clients' mental disabilities. In addition, jury instructions do not always clearly distinguish between the use of insanity as a legal defense and the introduction of mental disability evidence to mitigate capital sentencing.

Prosecutors and death penalty supporters are calling the study biased, saying many of the attorneys on the state investigation teams are death penalty opponents.

The full report is available online through CNN.

Chart: Capital Punishment, 2005, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice.

New articles on sex offenders

The latest issue of Sexual Offender Treatment is now available online, with some interesting articles - all of them free. The journal is an international peer-reviewed journal published by the International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders. Current articles include:

Myths and Facts about Sexual Offenders: Implications for Treatment and Public Policy
by Timothy Fortney, Jill Levenson, Yolanda Brannon & Juanita N. Baker

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent perceptions about sexual offenders are based on empirical evidence or misconceptions…. Results revealed that both sex offenders and the public overestimated the rate by which strangers victimize children, and overestimated the number of sex offenders who were victims of sexual abuse in childhood. Both offenders and the public overestimated the number of sex crimes that come to the attention of authorities. The public more extensively than offenders overestimated the frequency of sexual recidivism rates and underestimated the efficacy of sexual offender treatment in comparison to the literature.

The Logic of Sexually Violent Predator Status in the United States of America
by Daniel F. Montaldi

Abstract: Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) laws have placed great legal weight on psychosexual evaluations of sex offenders by mental health experts. The conclusions of these evaluations are used to civilly commit hundreds of offenders throughout the United States after the completion of their criminal sentences, possibly for life. This paper examines the reasoning used by evaluators and attorneys for the state to justify the claim that someone is SVP. [The article discusses] flaws in this reasoning and show how arguments for SVP status must proceed if the case for civil commitment is to be logically coherent and consistent with constitutional values.

The Therapeutic Challenge of the Learning Impaired Sex Offender
by Ron Langevin & Suzanne Curnoe

Abstract: Learning impairment in childhood and adolescence was examined in a sample of 1915 sex offenders and 279 non-sex offender and community controls. They were compared on school dropouts, grade failures, and placement in special education classes. The sex offenders showed significantly lower education and higher incidences of dropouts than community controls. The offender groups more often had failed grades and had been in special education classes than the population at large. Neurodevelopmental factors such as birth complications and defects, motor and language developmental abnormalities, ADHD, neurological disease and injuries, mental retardation, and learning disorders, all contributed to the educational deficits, but learning disorders diagnosed in childhood contributed most. The importance of assessing learning impairment for treatment compliance and effectiveness is discussed.

Back issues of the Journal are also available online for free, including interesting articles on juvenile offenders, diagnostic accuracy, actuarial assessment, treatment efficacy, incest offenders, phallometric assessment, diagnosing sexual sadism, and public policy issues.

Prison for consensual teen sex "cruel and unusual," Georgia high court rules

In a case that garnered international attention, Georgia's Supreme Court today overturned the conviction of a young African American man serving a 10-year prison sentence for consensual oral sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 17.

The court overturned Genarlow Wilson's conviction on the grounds that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Wilson's 2005 conviction had sparked outrage. In its wake, the Georgia legislature reduced consensual sex between minors from a felony to a misdemeanor punishable by no more than one year in prison. But Genarlow remained in prison because the legislative change did not apply retroactively to him.

Among those who lobbied to free him were an ex-Georgia governor, former President Jimmy Carter, and even some of the jurors who convicted him.

Amazingly, the state high court ruling was a bare majority, with three out of four justices voting to uphold the draconian sentence. Genarlow has already served more than two years in prison.

The court's decision and press release are available online. Wikipedia has lots of additional background information on the case.

Crime rates: Disconnect between perception and reality

U.S. crime rates have leveled off at the lowest rates in recorded history, yet the public continues to think that crime is on the rise. So say the folks at Gallup, reporting on their latest poll. Check out these graphs.

First the public perception:

Now the reality (violent crime and property crime):



What's responsible for the profound disconnect between perception and reality? Over at Grits for Breakfast, they're saying the cause can be summed up in five words: "If it bleeds, it leads."

There's more to it than that, of course. Opportunistic politicians playing on fear of crime as a sure-fire way to get votes comes to mind. But the nightly newscast definitely deserves its share of the blame.

Book Recommendation: The Center Cannot Hold

"The Little Engine that Could"

If you're deciding what to read next, I strongly recommend Elyn R. Saks' The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness. I guarantee you won't forget it soon.

Saks is an acclaimed professor of law and psychiatry. She also struggles with severe symptoms of schizophrenia. She risked her reputation in academia in order to give hope to others like herself, and to counter the negative stereotypes about mental illness held by both the general public and mental health professionals:

"I wanted to dispel the myths ... that people with a significant thought disorder cannot live independently, cannot work at challenging jobs, cannot have true friendships, cannot be in meaningful, sexually satisfying love relationships, cannot lead lives of intellectual, spiritual, or emotional richness."

The topic is inherently compelling, and Saks masterfully describes what it is like to be tormented by inner demons, to be forcibly restrained on a hospital bed, to require medications that alter one's mental state and can cause horrific, irreversible side effects. She articulately describes her years of talk therapy, in which she came to understand the functional underpinnings of her psychotic thoughts, for example in warding off feelings that would have been consciously threatening.

I enjoyed her dry humor in highlighting the condescension and absurdities of the mental health system. In one case she reviewed during a legal internship, the patient was restrained because he refused to get out of bed. In another case, a young man was deemed delusional because he continually spoke with "imaginary lawyers" - who turned out to be none other than Saks and her colleague.

For years, in order to excel, Saks had to lead a double life. Swirling around her, constantly threatening, was the stigma of mental illness. While writing an academic paper on restraints, she asked a professor, "Wouldn't you agree that being restrained is incredibly degrading, not to mention painful and frightening?" With a kind and knowing look, the professor responded: "These people are different from you and me. It doesn't affect them the way it would affect us."

This book is especially important reading for mental health professionals in the United States, where medication reigns supreme (it has become practically taboo to recommend psychotherapy for severe psychosis, despite ongoing research establishing its efficacy) and coercion often trumps choice. Saks contrasts her experience of being hospitalized in the United States with her experience in England, where restraints have not been in widespread use for more than 200 years. In doing so, she gives us a deeper appreciation of the trauma induced by coercive and sometimes brutal treatment.

"The Little Engine that Could" is what her close friend Steve Behnke calls her, referring to her indomitable spirit even in the face of hospital clinicians' dire predictions about her future.

I highly recommend this courageous and brilliant memoir.

A 45-minute video of Saks' talk at this year's American Psychological Association convention is available online at her personal website. Other books by Saks include Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill (2002) and Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and the Criminal Law (1997).

Vigilantes: Coming soon to a community near you

Facing global environmental catastrophe, economic decline, and war without end, who can resist strapping on a nine millimeter and blasting bad guys?

Viewers are flocking to "The Brave One," which remains on the top 10 list with $35 million in gross sales so far. Women, especially, are loving Jodie Foster as Erica Bain, a liberal-turned-vigilante killer on the mean streets of New York.

It's "a pro-lynching movie that even liberals can love," says the New York Times.

Americans have always loved a good vigilante yarn. But the allure increases in times of uncertainty and perceived powerlessness. And people are more fearful of crime than ever, despite dramatic drops in crime since Charles Bronson ("Death Wish") blasted a path through the same city more than 20 years ago. Especially, these days, our collective fear and hatred turns to "terrorists" and criminal predators. (For a great analysis of the history and allure of the vigilante film, see Eric Lichtenfeld's piece in Slate.)

Nothing wrong with letting off a little steam. But recent news events cause me to doubt that the vigilante mood is shut off when people leave the theater.

Last month, two men in a small Tennessee town torched the residence of a man convicted of a child pornography charge. The man's hapless wife died in the fire.

A month earlier, in a scene reminiscent of the Salem witch trial days, a crowd of angry neighbors descended on a New Hampshire home, taunting the woman resident as a "molester" and "skinner" (prison lingo for a child molester) before tossing a burning scarecrow on her front porch.

These incidents are not isolated. Other vigilante attacks on sex offenders, the most vilified pariahs in modern society, include the following:

• A vigilante killed two sex offenders and visited the homes of another four in Maine. He had gotten their addresses from an online sex offender registry. (He then shot himself to death.)

• A vigilante in Bellingham, Washington killed two recently released sex offenders. He too had found their names through an online sex offender registry.

• A drunken father and son broke into the house of a paroled sex offender in New Jersey and began beating another man whom they mistakenly took as the sex offender. Yet again, the vigilantes had found their victim through a "Megan’s Law" community notification law.

• In Bakersfield, California, a knife-wielding vigilante tried to break down the door of a sex offender whose name, photograph and address had been distributed in the neighborhood by police. Police shot the vigilante dead.

Are you picking up on a common theme here? Something to do with community notification laws?

Publishing the names and addresses of people who are villainized as "sex offenders" is almost like handing out murder licenses to violent and unstable people.

As law scholar John LaFond put it: "These [community notification] laws are almost a confession by the state that we have done all that we can, you must now take the defense of your family into your own hands."

Even those who believe all sex offenders deserve to die might not feel so strongly if they knew how some people got onto the sex offender registries, which fail to distinguish based on the severity of the offense.

For example, what about the middle-aged family man convicted of statutory rape at age 16 for his consensual relationship with his 15-year-old girlfriend?

That man is no more of a threat to children than is any other randomly selected man on the street. He is certainly less of a threat to public safety than the vigilantes who are gunning for him.