More research debunking Internet predator myth

American Psychologist, the flagship journal of the 150,000-strong American Psychological Association, is tackling the hysteria surrounding sexual predation on the Internet.

This week's issue highlights new research showing that the risk to children - especially young children - of surfing online is greatly exaggerated. Those adults who do interact sexually with minors online generally target adolescents who are confused about their sexuality and interested in sex. In general, the adults are frank with the teens about both their own age and their sexual intentions.

In other words, most adult-child sexual encounters initiated online are consensual interactions and are illegal solely due to the minor's age. Youths with histories of sexual abuse, concerns about their sexual orientation, and patterns of risk-taking are especially vulnerable.

The data come from national surveys of children ages 10 to 17 augmented by hundreds of interviews with Internet sex crimes investigators.

The latest findings echo research presented last year by a panel of leading experts to the Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus. See my blog post of June 27, 2007; that research is also available online (here), as is a video of the panel's presentation.

"There's been some overreaction to the new technology, especially when it comes to the danger that strangers represent," said lead researcher Janis Wolak, a sociologist at the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

The full article, "Online 'Predators' and Their Victims," is available here. An APA press release summarizing the research is here. More information on the research project is available at the Crimes against Children Research Center website.

Houston's embattled DA finally steps down

Allegations of racism in prosecutions

If Houston was a state, it would rank second only to the rest of Texas in the number of executions carried out in the past three decades. And behind this unprecedented juggernaut stands one man - Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal.

Rosenthal resigned from office Friday amid a high-profile scandal involving the release of dozens of pornographic, racist and political e-mails on his office computer.

Of potential interest to my readers, the scandal almost coincidentally brought out allegations of racism in the prosecution of crimes: Black potential jurors were allegedly struck because they were perceived as soft on crime; code names for blacks were bandied about in e-mails, and black leaders believed that prosecutors worked to punish blacks more harshly than whites.

The Houston Chronicle has the complete story, along with a timeline of events and links to other coverage. For more on capital punishment, including in Harris County, check out the amazing set of links at the prosecutor’s office of Clark County, Illinois.

Looking everywhere but straight ahead

The Kazmierczak school rampage and toxic culture

Pundits commenting on yesterday's Northern Illinois University shooting are doing the usual – feverishly searching everywhere but at the immediate environment for the causes. Was it a "copycat" crime or was Steven Kazmierczak mentally ill? Next, we'll likely hear about gun control, Hollywood movies, the Internet, and video games. (Perhaps it's the pundits who are the real copycats!)

It's hard to vilify Kazmierczak. He wasn't a neo-Nazi or a Trenchcoat Mafioso. As his photo hints at, he was a thoughtful, studious, respectful, and award-winning young man.

Coincidentally, I just today finishing reading expatriate journalist Mark Ames' masterful analyses of such rampages, "Going Postal." Rather than blaming all of the usual external and individual suspects, Ames points straight at the institutional environments in which these crimes occur. The killings are doomed rebellions by normal people stressed and bullied until they break, he argues.

Yesterday's case is unusual in that we have a more direct document we can examine – a scholarly article co-authored by the killer himself. Kazmierczak was, after all, a would-be scholar with interests in corrections, political violence, and peace and social justice.

The prophetic 2006 article, "Self-Injury in Correctional Settings: 'Pathology' of Prisons or of Prisoners," strikingly parallels Ames' thesis.

"When conditions of existence become overwhelming, people may either acquiesce or resist," wrote Kazmierczak and colleagues. "Rather than see SIB (self-injurious behavior) as only the acting-out of aggressive prisoners or simply as an attention-seeking activity, we should examine the debilitating conditions of prison existence and culture as contributing factors. In this view, SIB becomes symptomatic not only of individual mental health, but of the pathology of prisons as well."

Replace the word "prison" with "school" or "workplace" and, voila, you have the answer.

I recommend Ames' original and provocative analysis of the "toxic culture" that produces these doomed rebellions. My review is on the Amazon page for "Going Postal." See also my related post about the Virginia Tech shooting massacre. Kazmierczak's article was published in the February 2006 issue of Criminology & Public Policy; a subscription is required to view it.

Happy Valentine's Day

It's been a busy week, with little time for blogging. So, without further ado, I present a few highlights from the news media and blogosphere:

Of apes and jurors

You may have heard about this new study; researcher Jennifer Eberhardt and colleagues were shocked to find people subconsciously associated black faces with apes. (It's in the current issue of the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology.) Jury consultant Anne Reed (of the Deliberations blog) has some astute thoughts on how this unconscious bias factors into jury deliberations, and what can be done to combat it. She's also collected some additional resources on the topic; see also my earlier posts and resources on race and juries, here and here.

Trolls evicted

I wrote awhile back about the sex offenders in Florida who had set up an exile community under a freeway overpass because they weren't allowed to live anywhere else. Now, those men are being evicted from their open-air tents. Some men evicted from under another overpass have set up camp in the remote Everglades; maybe the latest evictees will join them.

Religion and child custody

Remember the circumcision battle I blogged about a few months ago, in which one parent characterized the Judaic practice as religious freedom and the other called it sexual abuse? In recent decades, child custody disputes pitting different faiths and religious practices are on the rise due to an increase in interfaith marriages and a broader rise in custody conflicts. Although family court judges try to avoid rulings that favor one faith over another, it doesn't always work. New York Times reporter Neela Banerjee chronicled the complex dilemma yesterday in "Religion Joins Custody Cases, to Judges' Unease."

Bounty hunting: A corrupt American institution

Speaking of religion, have you heard of "Dog the Bounty Hunter"? I happened to catch it on cable TV when I was channel-surfing at a hotel recently. The show glorifies born-again Christian bail bondsman Duane "Dog" Chapman, a foul-mouthed religious convert who brags of capturing 6,000 runaway felons.

But from another perspective, Adam Liptak of the New York Times has written an expose on the bail bonds industry which, as it turns out, is a corrupt and uniquely U.S. institution. "In England, Canada and other countries, agreeing to pay a defendant's bond in exchange for money is a crime akin to witness tampering or bribing a juror - a form of obstruction of justice. Courts in Australia, India and South Africa [have] disciplined lawyers for professional misconduct for setting up commercial bail arrangements," writes Liptak in "American Exception: Illegal Globally, Bail for Profit Remains in U.S."

As Liptak chronicles, bounty hunters have enormous extrajudicial power. In many states, they can legally break into people's homes without warrants, temporarily imprison them, and force them across state lines without an extradition process.

"Most of the legal establishment, including the American Bar Association and the National District Attorneys Association, hates the bail bond business, saying it discriminates against poor and middle-class defendants, does nothing for public safety, and usurps decisions that ought to be made by the justice system," writes Liptak.

The full story is here, along with a short video.

Yet another call for juvenile justice reform

Last but not least, An Illinois group has called for an end of life-without-parole sentences of juveniles, based on interviews with 100-plus prisoners who received such sentences when they were ages 14 to 17. The oldest of the men is now 47. The report, entitled "Categorically less culpable: Children sentenced to life without possibility of parole in Illinois," is here. A press release is here, and The Northwestern Law School website has more resources.

Competency hearing exposes clinical feud

Competency to stand trial: Flip of the coin?

Whether a defendant is found incompetent to stand trial is based mainly on "luck of the draw," that is, which psychologist or psychiatrist happens to be assigned by the court.

That's the controversial thesis of law professor Michael Perlin, who's written an excellent book on competency that's due out this spring. As evidence, Perlin cites a study in which forensic evaluators split almost evenly in their opinions about a hypothetical vignette. Perlin lambasts the current system as a "fraudulent" one in which the courts abrogate their decision-making responsibilities to "imperial experts" who decide competency based largely on idiosyncratic approaches and moral stances.

While many might argue with this rather extreme position, proponents could point to the unfolding murder trial of Thomas Shane O'Hagan as a perfect example.

O'Hagan allegedly stabbed his girlfriend to death while she was taking a shower and then put her body in a small plastic box.

In the 3 ½ years since then, the Pierce County (Washington) Superior Court has issued nine orders for competency evaluation and treatment. But the experts can't seem to agree on whether he is competent to stand trial.

"First doctors said he was competent to stand trial and could understand what was going on and help his attorneys defend him. Then they said they weren't sure. Then they said he wasn't competent anymore," according to news coverage a year ago.

The saga has grown to farcical proportions, with a dispute between opposing experts spilling into court and forcing the judge to remove herself from the case.

In an unusual twist, two opposing experts, one a psychologist and the other a psychiatrist, both work for the same state hospital that has repeatedly evaluated and treated O'Hagan.

Psychologist Barry Ward, who has evaluated O'Hagan at least three times, testified at a hearing last September that the defendant was not competent to stand trial. Psychiatrist William Ritchie took the opposite position.

Further muddying the issue, the judge invited a third doctor from Western State Hospital who was observing the proceedings, psychiatrist Margaret Dean, into her chambers to view some artwork. Ward, the psychologist who testified that O'Hagan was incompetent, emailed attorneys and told them that Dean was a member of O'Hagan's hospital treatment team, something the judge says she didn't realize when she issued her invitation. When Dean found out about Ward's email, she called the judge to complain.

Thrust into the middle of this feud among clinicians, Superior Court Judge Beverly Grant Ward was forced to remove herself from the case. The state hospital, meanwhile, is reportedly conducting an internal review.

Washington is among a decreasing number of states with a centralized competency evaluation system in which defendants are evaluated while hospitalized in state facilities. O'Hagan's attorneys are now arguing that their client cannot receive an unbiased evaluation at the hospital, and so should be evaluated at a "nonstate-run facility."

Of course, if Professor Perlin's controversial thesis is correct, a change of setting won't make any difference: Luck of the draw will still decide whether O'Hagan is found competent or incompetent to stand trial.

Sources:

Morris, G.H., Haroun, A.M., & Naimark, D. (2004). Health Law in the Criminal Justice System Symposium: Competency To Stand Trial on Trial. Houston Journal of Health Law and Policy, Vol. 4, p. 193

Perlin, M.L. (2004). Health Law in the Criminal Justice System Symposium: "Everything's a Little Upside Down, As a Matter of Fact the Wheels Have Stopped": The Fraudulence of the Incompetency Evaluation Process. Houston Journal of Health Law and Policy, Vol. 4, p. 239

Lynn, Adam, “Feud makes a mess of murder case," News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington), Feb. 10, 2008

Hucks, Karen, “Judge keeps suspect on drugs for disorder; Attorneys argue whether a man charged with killing his girlfriend must continue to take anti-psychotic drugs. A judge says yes,” News Tribune, May 27, 2006

Can insane killer inherit mother's estate?

Under most circumstances, killing your mother is a sure-fire way to lose out on the inheritance. But what if you were legally insane at the time of the killing?

That's the issue in a case that may set legal precedent in Washington.

Joshua Hoge, a 37-year-old man with schizophrenia, has been locked up on the forensic unit at Western State Hospital (where I happened to do my forensic postdoctoral fellowship) since being found not guilty by reason of insanity in the stabbing death of his mother and half-brother in 1999. Hoge was experiencing a so-called Capgras delusion at the time, believing identical-looking impostors had replaced his family members.

We're not talking chump change.

After the death of Hoge's mother, her family won $800,000 because two days before the killings a public health clinic had refused to give Hoge his antipsychotic medication. The family wants the money to go to the deceased woman's third son, who is also mentally ill and in need of lifelong care.

In some U.S. states, the question of whether someone found not guilty by reason of insanity can inherit from the estate of his or her victim has been decided by case law. Not so in Washington.

The legal issue here is whether the killings were "willful" and "unlawful," which would preclude Hoge from getting the money under Washington's "Slayer Statute." Hoge's attorney is arguing that the killings were not "unlawful" because Hoge was found not guilty. In a preliminary ruling, an appellate court held that while Hoge's mental illness absolved him of criminal responsibility, the killing was still unlawful. Whether the killing was "willful" remains to be decided.

The case has been remanded to the trial court in King County for a determination of "the degree to which Hoge's delusion prevented him from forming the intent to kill." A court date has not been set.

The opinion in Estate Of Pamela L. Kissinger v. Joshua Hoge is here. The Seattle Times has news coverage.

Hat tip: Andrew Scarpetta