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December 2, 2009
Can we tell which juveniles will sexually reoffend?
Juvenile recidivism is a hot topic in the sex offender field these days. It would be great if we could figure out which young sex offenders are at high risk to offend again. After all, the federal SORNA law mandates that certain juvenile sex offenders be listed on public registries and report to law enforcement every 90 days for a full quarter-century.
But predicting which adolescents are at risk to sexually reoffend as adults is no easy task. Perhaps the biggest impediment is the low base rate: The large majority of underage males who commit a sex crime will not be charged for another sex crime as an adult. So, any prediction that a juvenile will sexually reoffend is likely to be wrong -- what we in the field call a "false positive."
Although several new instruments have popped up with the express goal of increasing the accuracy of juvenile sex offender risk prediction, none has the established reliability or validity to be ready for prime time, according to a new article in Behavioral Sciences and the Law.
With that in mind, Michael Vitacco, associate director of research at the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Wisconsin, and his colleagues provide a set of recommendations for forensic psychologists who conduct risk assessments of juvenile sex offenders. These include:
Readers may also be interested in an appellate ruling of first impression on the retroactivity of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) as applied to former juvenile offenders. In the aptly titled case of US v. Juvenile Male, No. 07-30290, the 9th Circuit ruled that the new federal law is unconstitutional as applied to juveniles who committed their crimes before the law was enacted.
But predicting which adolescents are at risk to sexually reoffend as adults is no easy task. Perhaps the biggest impediment is the low base rate: The large majority of underage males who commit a sex crime will not be charged for another sex crime as an adult. So, any prediction that a juvenile will sexually reoffend is likely to be wrong -- what we in the field call a "false positive."
Although several new instruments have popped up with the express goal of increasing the accuracy of juvenile sex offender risk prediction, none has the established reliability or validity to be ready for prime time, according to a new article in Behavioral Sciences and the Law."At this time, research does not support the use of any of the specialized risk assessment instruments for the task of predicting sexual recidivism in adolescents…. Unfortunately, legislatures enacting laws regarding civil detainment and registration of adolescent sexual offenders have not been dissuaded by studies demonstrating an inability to accurately predict which adolescents are most at risk for subsequent sex offenses."Scientifically proven instruments or not, we will still be called upon to conduct such evaluations. And if we refuse, the article's authors point out, courts will just rely upon flawed data or the recommendations of prosecutors.
With that in mind, Michael Vitacco, associate director of research at the Mendota Mental Health Institute in Wisconsin, and his colleagues provide a set of recommendations for forensic psychologists who conduct risk assessments of juvenile sex offenders. These include:
- First and foremost, remember the low base rates and the consequently high risk of false positives, with devastatingly dire consequences to young people's futures.
- Understand adolescent sexual development, including hormonal issues and the brain's structural maturation. Adolescent sexual behavior is fluid, and any risk prediction should be very short-term.
- Be familiar with the literature on treatment efficacy with youth (such as that conducted by Michael Caldwell, Elizabeth Cauffman, and others). Much more so than adults, even the most serious adolescent offenders are amenable to high quality, empirically validated treatments.
- Give proper weight to a youth's social context, including peers, family, community, and school factors. These are enormously influential in youth behavior.
Readers may also be interested in an appellate ruling of first impression on the retroactivity of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) as applied to former juvenile offenders. In the aptly titled case of US v. Juvenile Male, No. 07-30290, the 9th Circuit ruled that the new federal law is unconstitutional as applied to juveniles who committed their crimes before the law was enacted.
November 23, 2009
Asperger's ruling: Judge should have allowed experts
In the latest of several recent forensic cases involving Asperger's, an appellate court has ruled that a judge committed a reversible error in excluding expert evidence on the condition.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned seven counts of arson against a California physicist who with his buddies had vandalized and torched more than 130 vehicles back in 2003.
William "Billy" Cottrell is described in news accounts as a talented young physicist who was diagnosed with Asperger's, a high-functioning form of autism, during his 2004 trial for arson and conspiracy.
In its ruling, the appellate court let stand a conviction for conspiracy. But the court held that aiding and abetting of arson requires a specific intent in that Cottrell must have knowingly participated in the crimes and tried through his actions to make them succeed. Thus, it was reversible error not to allow expert evidence of a mental condition that might have impacted the defendant's subjective judgments.
The defense had proposed a theory in which Asperger's prevented Cottrell from understanding what his friends were up to until it was too late; once he figured it out, he supposedly tried to stop them.
Local mental health professionals quoted in the Pasadena Star-News differed as to whether an Asperger's defense might have succeeded in mitigating Cottrell's culpability.
On the one hand, psychologist Bruce Hirsch said Asperger's could have reduced Cottrell's ability to understand the situation, as people with the condition often cannot tell when they are being lied to.
"What you're really talking about is a social naivete and, yes, people with Asperger's can be very socially naive," Hirsch is quoted as saying. "They are so bound to the truth that the concept of lying doesn't even exist in their mind. Somehow the social reasoning of people with Asperger's is very concrete, very black and white, and they don't get that people tell lies."
On the other hand, marriage and family therapist Amy Keller said the defense theory of Asperger's does not take into account the rigid morality of most Asperger's patients.
"I find that, after working with a lot of Asperger's patients, that they are so stubborn," Keller told the newspaper. "They're not that easily influenced. If anything, they're very clear about right and wrong."
Either way, the appellate reversal will not have a practical import on Cottrell. Prosecutors decided not to retry him, because it would not have impacted his 100-month federal prison term.
Cottrell will soon be taking the bus back to the Arizona federal prison where he teaches physics and cosmology classes to fellow prisoners.
Hat tip: Ken Pope
Further resources:
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned seven counts of arson against a California physicist who with his buddies had vandalized and torched more than 130 vehicles back in 2003.William "Billy" Cottrell is described in news accounts as a talented young physicist who was diagnosed with Asperger's, a high-functioning form of autism, during his 2004 trial for arson and conspiracy.
In its ruling, the appellate court let stand a conviction for conspiracy. But the court held that aiding and abetting of arson requires a specific intent in that Cottrell must have knowingly participated in the crimes and tried through his actions to make them succeed. Thus, it was reversible error not to allow expert evidence of a mental condition that might have impacted the defendant's subjective judgments.
The defense had proposed a theory in which Asperger's prevented Cottrell from understanding what his friends were up to until it was too late; once he figured it out, he supposedly tried to stop them.
Local mental health professionals quoted in the Pasadena Star-News differed as to whether an Asperger's defense might have succeeded in mitigating Cottrell's culpability.
On the one hand, psychologist Bruce Hirsch said Asperger's could have reduced Cottrell's ability to understand the situation, as people with the condition often cannot tell when they are being lied to.
"What you're really talking about is a social naivete and, yes, people with Asperger's can be very socially naive," Hirsch is quoted as saying. "They are so bound to the truth that the concept of lying doesn't even exist in their mind. Somehow the social reasoning of people with Asperger's is very concrete, very black and white, and they don't get that people tell lies."
On the other hand, marriage and family therapist Amy Keller said the defense theory of Asperger's does not take into account the rigid morality of most Asperger's patients.
"I find that, after working with a lot of Asperger's patients, that they are so stubborn," Keller told the newspaper. "They're not that easily influenced. If anything, they're very clear about right and wrong."
Either way, the appellate reversal will not have a practical import on Cottrell. Prosecutors decided not to retry him, because it would not have impacted his 100-month federal prison term.
Cottrell will soon be taking the bus back to the Arizona federal prison where he teaches physics and cosmology classes to fellow prisoners.
The unpublished opinion in U.S. v. William Cottrell is HERE; the most recent Pasadena Star-News story is HERE.
Hat tip: Ken Pope- Asperger’s: Here today, gone tomorrow: Would erasure from DSM impact forensic use? (Nov. 3, 2009 blog post)
- The short life of a diagnosis (Nov. 9, 2009 New York Times op-ed by Simon Baron-Cohen)
- Forensic aspects of Asperger's Syndrome, Barry-Walsh, J.B., & Mullen, P.E., Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 2004, Volume 15, pages 96-107.
November 21, 2009
Wales: Another prime-time automatist
In my last post, I blogged about the Toronto sexual assault case in which a man was acquitted on the grounds that he was asleep. Now, I bring you a second high-profile case of sleep disorder, that of a Welch man acquitted in the killing of his wife because he was dreaming at the time.
Sleep experts for the prosecution and defense agreed that Brian Thomas's behavior was consistent with automatism, meaning at the time he killed his wife, his mind had no control over what his body was doing.
During last week's trial, the jury was instructed that there are two types of automatism: insane automatism and non-insane automatism. Based on which type they chose, Thomas could have either been acquitted or found not guilty by reason of insanity and hospitalized.
But suddenly, in mid-trial, the prosecutor had second thoughts and dropped his effort to obtain an NGI verdict, allowing Thomas to walk free. A prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. Caroline Jacob, had testified that Thomas was not a risk to the public.
Thomas was described as a gentle family man who had been married to his childhood sweetheart for 40 years. He called police to say he had killed his wife because he thought she was an intruder.
Click on above image to see a brief video of Thomas after the acquittal
In an odd coincidence, the Journal of Forensic Sciences had just published an article describing clinical cases with eerie similarity to Thomas's. Carlos Schenck and colleagues at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center found about 40 cases in the literature in which people, mainly men, had engaged in complex and violent behaviors while enacting dreams. The authors found a pattern with clear forensic implications, because dream behaviors could be misinterpreted as suicidal or homicidal. That's what happened in Thomas's case: To his family's dismay, he spent 10 months in jail awaiting trial. The actual cause of such behaviors, according to the article, is not malice but Rapid Eye Movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD), in which the normal muscle atonia present during REM sleep is absent, allowing sleepers to physically enact their dreams.
In a strong similarity to Thomas's case, the majority of cases involved choking and headlocks. Thomas had gotten his wife in a headlock and then strangled her.
In another similarity, in about half the cases the patient either had a neurologic disorder or was taking medication for psychiatric disorders. Thomas had just stopped taking antidepressant medication, and the withdrawal was causing nightmares.
What were the other most common behaviors found in the study?
In second place was jumping off the bed. And in third place, with seven cases, came defenestration. That one might have been difficult here, as Thomas and his wife were vacationing in an RV at the time of the killing.
The BBC has further coverage of the case. The abstract of the Journal of Forensic Sciences article, Potentially Lethal Behaviors Associated With Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder: Review of the Literature and Forensic Implications, is HERE.
Sleep experts for the prosecution and defense agreed that Brian Thomas's behavior was consistent with automatism, meaning at the time he killed his wife, his mind had no control over what his body was doing.
During last week's trial, the jury was instructed that there are two types of automatism: insane automatism and non-insane automatism. Based on which type they chose, Thomas could have either been acquitted or found not guilty by reason of insanity and hospitalized.
But suddenly, in mid-trial, the prosecutor had second thoughts and dropped his effort to obtain an NGI verdict, allowing Thomas to walk free. A prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. Caroline Jacob, had testified that Thomas was not a risk to the public.
Thomas was described as a gentle family man who had been married to his childhood sweetheart for 40 years. He called police to say he had killed his wife because he thought she was an intruder.
Click on above image to see a brief video of Thomas after the acquittal
In an odd coincidence, the Journal of Forensic Sciences had just published an article describing clinical cases with eerie similarity to Thomas's. Carlos Schenck and colleagues at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center found about 40 cases in the literature in which people, mainly men, had engaged in complex and violent behaviors while enacting dreams. The authors found a pattern with clear forensic implications, because dream behaviors could be misinterpreted as suicidal or homicidal. That's what happened in Thomas's case: To his family's dismay, he spent 10 months in jail awaiting trial. The actual cause of such behaviors, according to the article, is not malice but Rapid Eye Movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD), in which the normal muscle atonia present during REM sleep is absent, allowing sleepers to physically enact their dreams.
In a strong similarity to Thomas's case, the majority of cases involved choking and headlocks. Thomas had gotten his wife in a headlock and then strangled her.
In another similarity, in about half the cases the patient either had a neurologic disorder or was taking medication for psychiatric disorders. Thomas had just stopped taking antidepressant medication, and the withdrawal was causing nightmares.
What were the other most common behaviors found in the study?
In second place was jumping off the bed. And in third place, with seven cases, came defenestration. That one might have been difficult here, as Thomas and his wife were vacationing in an RV at the time of the killing.
The BBC has further coverage of the case. The abstract of the Journal of Forensic Sciences article, Potentially Lethal Behaviors Associated With Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder: Review of the Literature and Forensic Implications, is HERE.
November 13, 2009
Unconditional discharge in Canadian "sexsomnia" case
In a fascinating criminal responsibility case, a Toronto man who was reportedly asleep when he sexually assaulted a woman six years ago has been unconditionally discharged as no threat to the public.
A trial judge had acquitted Jan Luedecke on the basis that he could not have formed the criminal intent to commit a sexual assault. The Ontario Court of Appeal quashed that ruling, saying Luedecke should have been found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. The case was then sent to the Ontario Review Board for a determination of Luedecke's dangerousness.
The board relied heavily on risk assessments conducted by forensic psychiatrist Lisa Ramshaw and forensic psychologist Percy Wright. Dr. Ramshaw noted that Luedecke was ashamed and remorseful, making him "less likely to repeat the behaviour." (Although that is popularly believed, I'm not sure it's an empirically supported contention.) Dr. Wright reported that Luedecke had taken steps to control his sexsomnia, including reducing his stress, limiting his alcohol consumption to two drinks a week or less, and sleeping "safely" with no access to women who aren't his partner.
In granting Luedecke a full discharge, the board noted that he had been living free in the community for six years without incident.
I have no problem with the sleep disorder or the role of intoxication. But, oddly enough, Luedecke was reportedly wearing a condom during the assault. How does that little factoid fit in to the somnambulism theory?
I guess anything is possible.
A trial judge had acquitted Jan Luedecke on the basis that he could not have formed the criminal intent to commit a sexual assault. The Ontario Court of Appeal quashed that ruling, saying Luedecke should have been found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. The case was then sent to the Ontario Review Board for a determination of Luedecke's dangerousness.At trial, evidence was presented that a sleep clinic had confirmed Luedecke's sleep disorder, along with a family component (both his mother and brother have sleep disorders). Under the defense theory, his sleep disorder manifested in "sexsomnia," or sexual behavior while asleep. According to trial testimony, he had "sleep sex" with four former girlfriends prior to the assault. The assault took place at a house party after he ingested magic mushrooms and consumed 16 alcoholic drinks; he was also working long hours without sleep.
The woman woke up to find a strange man lying on top of her, engaged in sexual intercourse.Under Canadian law, the options available to the review board included commitment to a hospital, release to the community under specified conditions, or absolute discharge.
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing?" the woman demanded
"Jan," the bewildered-looking man replied.
The board relied heavily on risk assessments conducted by forensic psychiatrist Lisa Ramshaw and forensic psychologist Percy Wright. Dr. Ramshaw noted that Luedecke was ashamed and remorseful, making him "less likely to repeat the behaviour." (Although that is popularly believed, I'm not sure it's an empirically supported contention.) Dr. Wright reported that Luedecke had taken steps to control his sexsomnia, including reducing his stress, limiting his alcohol consumption to two drinks a week or less, and sleeping "safely" with no access to women who aren't his partner.
In granting Luedecke a full discharge, the board noted that he had been living free in the community for six years without incident.
I have no problem with the sleep disorder or the role of intoxication. But, oddly enough, Luedecke was reportedly wearing a condom during the assault. How does that little factoid fit in to the somnambulism theory?
I guess anything is possible.
The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and CBC News have more case coverage.
Salon on "silly" Fort Hood media coverage
Award-winning journalist Mark Benjamin over at Salon has penned a keen analysis of the biased and woefully off-base tenor of media coverage of last week's Ford Hood shooting spree, focusing on incendiary terms like "terrorism" and "political correctness" rather than the real issues:
Mark Benjamin is an award-winning investigative reporter with Salon.com's Washington bureau. Since 2001, Benjamin has focused on national security issues with an emphasis on the plight of returning veterans and detainee abuse. He was hailed for exposing problems caring for veterans at Walter Reed starting in early 2005 and also obtained for Salon the Army's entire Abu Ghraib investigative files.
*Excerpts posted with the written permission of Mark Benjamin
The media's silly Fort Hood coverage*Benjamin's full analysis, well worth reading in its entirety, is HERE.By Mark Benjamin
Everyone wants to debate terrorism and political correctness, but the real story is the failure of Army medicine
The conventional narrative of the Fort Hood shootings, one week later, has been distinguished by the reporting of unconfirmed -- and sometimes incorrect -- details and the drawing of dubious conclusions. The only thing that suggests the current story will withstand the test of time better than the initial Pat Tillman myth (that he died in combat, rather than by friendly fire), or the overheated tale of heroism by Jessica Lynch in 2003 (which Lynch herself protested), is that two basic facts seem clear: The shootings certainly happened, and given the number of eyewitnesses, it's almost certain that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan did it....First, the ongoing factual unraveling of the narrative. As the New York Times reported this Thursday, initial information seized on by talk shows that Sgt. Kimberly Munley, a petite police officer, bravely brought down Hasan in a hail of gunfire in which she was also wounded was, well, also not true. Munley, it seems, just got shot. Senior Sgt. Mark Todd actually shot Hasan to the ground and cuffed him after Munley had already been wounded.
Also on Thursday, the Washington Post raised solid questions about previous reports that Hasan had tried to get out of his military service because of what he saw as a growing schism between his religious and military duties....
Despite some print publications attempting to keep track of these kinds of facts, a lot of media folks continue to ask the wrong questions and/or provide some of their own unlikely, or unsubstantiated, answers.
The Monday after the shootings, I got my first taste of how the story was embarking on a life of its own as I settled into a chair at one of MSNBC's Washington studios to do Dylan Ratigan's "Morning Meeting."
"One question being asked, among many, is whether political correctness stalled the response to possible warning signs from Maj. Hasan," Ratigan said in his introduction....
Too much political correctness in the military? You know, the place where they fire you if you admit you're gay? The Army has its share of challenges, but in a decade of covering the military, I certainly haven’t come across any evidence that the institution is somehow paralyzed by the burden of gratuitous political correctness. And while that might provide a convenient way for Army officials to explain, anonymously, why nobody prevented Hasan from killing 13 people -- "We are just too afraid of criticizing Muslims" -- I haven’t seen a shred of evidence to suggest this might be true.
The cover of Time magazine depicts another befuddling sideshow to the Fort Hood story. The cover is a picture of Hasan with the word "Terrorist?" over his eyes. "It is a story about why Maj. Hasan is a terrorist," Time managing editor Richard Stengel explained on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" one week after the killings.
I'd heard this one before -- the debate about whether we should label Hasan a terrorist, or the shooting as an act of terrorism. Right-wing media host Laura Ingraham railed at me on this subject on her radio show this week after I had referred to Hasan as being partly motivated by a "religious thing," but I had failed to use the word "terrorism." "I say that you won’t call it what it is," she shouted, "which is terrorism!" (I had called it "Muslim extremism" but that wasn't good enough for Ingraham.)
The obsession with that label "terrorist" seems beside the point. The real question is why the shootings were allowed to occur, and who, exactly, dropped the ball -- not what we call it all afterward….
The passionate determination to hang the "terrorist" label on Hasan, or rail against "political correctness" in the military, are just more symptoms of media stars more excited about hot-headed debate than covering the real story. And the real story may be sadly familiar: It looks like Army medicine blew it, once again.
Mark Benjamin is an award-winning investigative reporter with Salon.com's Washington bureau. Since 2001, Benjamin has focused on national security issues with an emphasis on the plight of returning veterans and detainee abuse. He was hailed for exposing problems caring for veterans at Walter Reed starting in early 2005 and also obtained for Salon the Army's entire Abu Ghraib investigative files.
*Excerpts posted with the written permission of Mark Benjamin
Hat tip: Bruce Miller
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