New York Times reports on Czech castration furor

Last month, I reported on the controversy in Europe over Czechoslovakia's castration of convicted sex offenders. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a feature report, excerpted here:

... Whether castration can help rehabilitate violent sex offenders has come under new scrutiny after the Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee last month called surgical castration “invasive, irreversible and mutilating” and demanded that the Czech Republic stop offering the procedure to violent sex offenders. Other critics said that castration threatened to lead society down a dangerous road toward eugenics.

The Czech Republic has allowed at least 94 prisoners over the past decade to be surgically castrated. It is the only country in Europe that uses the procedure for sex offenders. Czech psychiatrists supervising the treatment — a one-hour operation that involves removal of the tissue that produces testosterone — insist that it is the most foolproof way to tame sexual urges in dangerous predators suffering from extreme sexual disorders.

Surgical castration has been a means of social control for centuries. In ancient China, eunuchs were trusted to serve the imperial family inside the palace grounds; in Italy several centuries ago, youthful male choir members were castrated to preserve their high singing voices.

These days it can be used to treat testicular cancer and some advanced cases of prostate cancer.

Now, more countries in Europe are considering requiring or allowing chemical castration for violent sex offenders. There is intense debate over whose rights take precedence: those of sex offenders, who could be subjected to a punishment that many consider cruel, or those of society, which expects protection from sexual predators....

The full article is online HERE. My Feb. 15 coverage of the issue (with links to other related stories) is HERE.

Image: Eunuch, 1749 - Wikimedia Public Domain

Beware "voodoo" brain science

A discussion among colleagues of a brain imaging study purporting to distinguish heterosexual from homosexual men prompted me to write on this topic. Perhaps even more controversial than categorizing sexual orientation, given the current legal climate, was the researchers' claim that their technique holds promise for identifying sexual deviants such as pedophiles and the those with sexual paraphilias.

Brain imaging is all the rage these days. The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in the fMRI, with literally thousands of studies, several new journals, and lavish federal funding and attention in the popular media. But some prominent neuroscientists express concerns about both the science and the ethics of fMRI research. Likening it to the old pseudo-science of phrenology, they caution that the public may be lured by vivid and colorful graphics into a misleading impression of scientific precision.

So, what is the fMRI?

Unlike the more established Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technique, which produces static images of the brain, the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) provides images of the brain in action, or as it functions. The most widely used fMRI technique in cognitive neuroscience research is the BOLD (Blood Oxygen Level Dependent) method. This method is based on the premise that activation of specific brain regions affects blood flow and blood oxygenation, which can then be measured.

What does this have to do with forensics?

In the forensic arena, probably the most widely publicized research application of the fMRI is in the area of lie detection. fMRI data indicate that certain parts of people's brains -- specifically the anterior cingulate cortex and superior frontal gyrus -- are activated when they lie. But other studies show that the anterior cingulate activates during many other cognitive activities as well, indicating a lack of specificity that makes the technique inappropriate in the real world.

Other forensic applications include the hunt for the ever-elusive psychopath (the image at the left purports to show the brain of a psychopath in action). Some criminal defense attorneys also show fMRI images of their clients to jurors in an attempt to prove brain damage and thereby reduce their clients' legal culpability.

And, as I just said, researchers are starting to apply fMRI techniques to the study of human sexuality, including sexual orientation and sexual deviancy.

What are the problems?

Neuroscientist critics are issuing increasingly vocal alarm calls over both the underlying science and the practical applications of neuroimaging. Their central areas of concern include:

• The measurement techniques lack scientific precision
• Claims of scientific reliability and validity are overstated
• The fMRI overemphasizes brain localization when the brain functions more as a whole
• Applying group fMRI to individuals is improper at this stage of the science
• Marketing and forensic applications are ethically and philosophically problematic

Most recently, in a potentially landmark analysis, a group of psychologists based at the University of California at San Diego examined the analytical techniques used in 54 peer-reviewed fMRI brain-scanning studies published in prominent scientific journals. They concluded that the methods used in half the studies were so "seriously defective" that the findings "should not be believed."

Lead researcher Harold Pashler went so far as to call the statistical methods "voodoo" that should be especially shunned in the forensic arena:

"In the law, individual differences are the main focus," the Wall Street Journal quoted Pashler as saying. "And it often could come down to these voodoo statistics."

The article, "Puzzlingly High Correlations in fMRI Studies of Emotion, Personality,
and Social Cognition" (originally titled "Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience") will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Association for Psychological Science's journal Perspectives in Psychological Science. Reports the abstract:

"Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging studies of emotion, personality, and social cognition have drawn much attention in recent years, with high-profile studies frequently reporting extremely high (e.g., >.8) correlations between behavioral and self-report measures of personality or emotion and measures of brain activation. We show that these correlations often exceed what is statistically possible assuming the (evidently rather limited) reliability of both fMRI and personality/emotion measures. The implausibly high correlations are all the more puzzling because method sections rarely contain sufficient detail to ascertain how these correlations were obtained. We surveyed authors of 54 articles that reported findings of this kind to determine a few details on how these correlations were computed. More than half acknowledged using a strategy that computes separate correlations for individual voxels, and reports means of just the subset of voxels exceeding chosen thresholds. We show how this non-independent analysis grossly inflates correlations, while yielding reassuring-looking scattergrams. This analysis technique was used to obtain the vast majority of the implausibly high correlations in our survey sample. In addition, we argue that other analysis problems likely created entirely spurious correlations in some cases. We outline how the data from these studies could be reanalyzed with unbiased methods to provide the field with accurate estimates of the correlations in question. We urge authors to perform such reanalyses and to correct the scientific record."

Be sure to read this article (available HERE, as well as some of the related resources, below) before you get up on the witness stand and wax eloquent about the wonders of brain-scanning technology. Otherwise, on cross-examination you might be in for a nasty surprise.

Related resources:

• Law and Ethics of Brain Scanning, resources from a 2007 conference at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law
• Law and Neuroscience Project, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
• "The Brain, Your Honor, Will Take the Witness Stand: Researchers Probe How the Mind Determines Crime and Punishment, but the Science Isn't Beyond a Reasonable Doubt," Wall Street Journal, Jan. 15, 2009
• "fMRI Beyond the Clinic: Will It Ever Be Ready for Prime Time?" by Richard Robinson, Public Library of Science Biology
• "Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI): Much Ado About What?" by Camilla Culler
• "Fact or Phrenology? The growing controversy over fMRI scans is forcing us to confront whether brain equals mind," by David Dobbs, Scientific American, March 2005
• "Can fMRI Really Tell If You're Lying?" by Gary Stix, Scientific American, August 2008
• "Neuroscience and the Law: If scientists can prove that the brain determines the mind, lawyers could convince juries that defendants may not be responsible for their crimes," By Michael S. Gazzaniga and Megan S. Steven, Scientific American, April 2005
• "The New Phrenology: The Limits of Localizing Cognitive Processes in the Brain,” by William R. Uttal

PS: My followup post on an attempt to get the "No Lie MRI" introduced in a Southern California parental termination case is HERE.

3 decades in the hole, but were they guilty?

NPR's Legal Affairs:
Case Of Angola Inmates Heads To Court

The fate of two men who spent longer in solitary confinement than any other U.S. inmate will be argued in a federal court in Louisiana. The men were convicted 36 years ago of killing a prison guard in a racially charged investigation. After almost four decades in solitary, there are now questions about their guilt.

Audio story available HERE (after 7:00 pm WCT on March 3, 2009)

Today's Times-Picayune coverage is HERE

Last year's Mother Jones interview with the former Black Panthers, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, is HERE

Photo: Replica of prisoner Herman Wallace's solitary confinement cell at Angola (nicknamed “the last slave plantation") by artist Jackie Sumell. Photo credit: hragvartanian (Creative Commons license)

Scotland up, United States down

Nations differ on prosecution of pint-sized lawbreakers

If you took my blog quiz of February 3, you will recall that only eight people in the entire world are serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for crimes committed at age 13, and that all eight are in the Prison Nation (aka the United States).

February was a big month for juvenile crime news. We had the little 4-year-old who shot his babysitter, a plea deal in the case of the Arizona 9-year-old who shot his father and another man to death, and -- most recently -- the 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy who will be prosecuted as an adult in the shooting death of a pregnant woman.

11-year-old Jordan Brown

In Pennsylvania, where kids as young as 10 can be tried as adults and sentenced to life in prison, Jordan Brown was initially locked in an 8-by-10 cell in an adult jail. Swimming in oversized clothes cuffed up around his wrists and ankles, he could not take showers or have visitors because that would have required him mingling with adult prisoners. A judge ordered him moved to a juvenile facility, but he still faces trial as an adult.

Having just conducted two back-to-back competency evaluations of 11-year-olds here in rainy California, I can tell you one thing for certain: They are NOT miniature adults. And except when they commit crimes, no one pretends that they are. After all, they may not drive, vote, buy alcohol, smoke cigarettes, sign contracts, or even decide to skip a day of school.

Not only do 11-year-olds just not get it but, as I have blogged about previously, transferring juveniles to adult courts actually increases rather than reduces recidivism!

While U.S. states engage in a dubious competition over who can try more young children as adults, more civilized Europeans are going in the opposite direction.

In most of Europe, children under 10 cannot even be prosecuted as criminals, much less tried and sentenced as adults. The age of criminal responsibility is as high as 15 in Scandinavian countries. And a British think tank recently recommended raising the age of criminal prosecution even more, to 16 or 18.

Just this week, Scotland announced plans to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 8 to 12 to bring it more in line with other European countries.

"There is no good reason for Scotland to continue to have the lowest age of criminal responsibility in Europe," said Scotland’s Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill. "Most importantly, the evidence shows that prosecution at an early age increases the chance of reoffending – so this change is about preventing crime."

Public policy based on data instead of hysteria? Now, that's positively un-American!

Related resources:

• Juvenile transfer increases recidivism: Department of Justice confirms multiple study findings (Aug. 19, 2008)
• Amnesty International: Children in the US Justice System
• Children serving life without parole: “Cruel and unusual?” (Feb. 3, 2009)
• Move over, Guantanamo - here comes Wisconsin: Lifetime detention for misconduct at age 14? (Dec. 2, 2008)
• Prosecutor will not use 9-year-old's confession (Jan. 6, 2009)
• Prison pipeline for transgender youth: Poor and minority especially at risk (March 26, 2008)
• Wikipedia: International chart, minimum age of criminal responsibility (Aug. 19, 2008)

Upcoming forensic training workshops

Forensic Training Institute - Diagnostic Controversies
April 16 (CA)

Your host (Karen Franklin) and colleague Craig Lareau will present this all-day training at the California Psychological Association convention in Oakland, California. Geared toward advanced-level forensic practitioners, we will focus on current diagnostic controversies in the field including those surrounding Antisocial Personality Disorder, Psychopathy, the sexual disorders as used in Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) proceedings, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Click HERE for more information and online registration.

Assessing Malingering and Miranda Rights Waiver
April 24 (VA)

If you want to get away from the cold and visit a pretty place, you might want to check out this excellent training down in Charlottesville, Virginia. Richard Rogers, whom most of you all know as a leading forensic psychology practitioner and scholar, is presenting this full-day training sponsored by the always-excellent Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy (ILPP) at the University of Virginia. Dr. Rogers will be presenting one-half day on malingering (the topic of his classic reference text) and one-half day on evaluation of Miranda Rights, another of his specialty areas.

Click HERE for more information and to register.

Assessing Violence Risk in Community Settings
May 22 (VA)

This is a chance to hear from John Monahan, probably the foremost expert on this topic. Monahan has authored or edited 15 books and written hundreds of articles; his work on violence risk is frequently cited by courts, including the California Supreme Court in the landmark Tarasoff v. Regents and the United States Supreme Court in Barefoot v. Estelle, in which he was referred to as "the leading thinker on the issue" of violence risk assessment. This training is also sponsored by the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy (ILPP) at the University of Virginia.

Click HERE for information and registration.

Latest on controversial "Fake Bad Scale"

I wanted to alert my psychologist readers to the latest in the controversy over the "Fake Bad Scale" of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a topic I have blogged about previously (HERE). If you are planning to use this Scale, you should be aware of this article and the others on both sides of the controversy.

The Fake Bad Scale (FBS) was developed to identify malingering of emotional distress among claimants in personal injury cases. It was recently added to MMPI-2 scoring materials, resulting in its widespread dissemination to clinicians who conduct psychological evaluations.

The latest article, in the interesting new journal Psychological Injury & Law, summarizes concerns about the Scale's reliability, validity, and potential bias against women, trauma victims, and people with disabilities.

The article concludes that the scale is not sufficiently reliable or valid to be used in court:

"Based on a review and a careful analysis of a large amount of published FBS research, the FBS does not appear to be a sufficiently reliable or valid test for measuring 'faking bad,' nor should it be used to impute the motivation to malinger in those reaching its variable and imprecise cutting scores. We agree with the conclusions of the three judges in Florida that the FBS does not meet the Frye standards of being scientifically sound and generally accepted in the field, and that expert testimony based on the scale should be excluded from consideration in court. The samples used to develop the FBS are not broadly representative of the populations evaluated by the MMPI-2, nor are its criteria used to define malingering objective and replicable. There is insufficient evidence of its psychometric reliability or validity, and there is no consensus about appropriate cut-off scores or use of norms."

The article is "Potential for Bias in MMPI-2 Assessments Using the Fake Bad Scale (FBS)." The Abstract and a "free preview" are online HERE; the full article requires a subscription but can be requested directly from the first author, James Butcher. Butcher and co-authors Carlton Gass, Edward Cumella, Zina Kally and Carolyn Williams present just one side of the heated controversy; a rebuttal is scheduled for publication in an upcoming issue of the journal, followed by other pro and con articles.

Related blog resources:

New MMPI scale invalid as forensic lie detector, courts rule: Injured plaintiffs falsely branded malingerers? (March 5, 2008) – contains links and citations to other sources

"Fake Bad Scale": Lawyers advocate exposing in court (May 20, 2008)

A list of FBS references and statement from the test's publisher is HERE

Hat tip: Ken Pope