PSYC 2400: Risk Assessment

Contents

1. 1. Why Should We Care?
2. 2. Risk Assessment
   1. 2.1 When are they conducted?
   2. 2.2 Goals of Risk Assessment (ACT)
   3. 2.3 Predicting Risk
      1. 3 Major Approaches to Risk Assessment
      2. Categorizing Assessment Tools
      3. Evaluating Risk Assessment Tools

1. Why Should We Care?

• The public cares.
• The media cares: recent news items.
• Risk assessment informs: sentencing (especially dangerous offender hearings), security classification, treatment needs, treatment intensity, parole decisions, level of supervision in the community, notification decisions, release conditions, etc.

2. Risk Assessment

Nowadays, we asses both risk prediction and management – prediction and management are correlated. Before, we used to stop at prediction (people were either dangerous or not). We have also expanded on our assessment instruments: different types of risks, how risks change in different circumstances etc. Risk potential can change over time.

Risk Prediction: assess the risk that people will commit violence in the future.
Risk Management: develop effective intervention strategies to manage that risk (prevention).

Example: comparison of two individuals...

• John: lack of social support, lower education, history of antisocial behaviour, substance abuse, didn’t respond well to prison (carbon copy of Jeffry Dahmer) etc: has not re-offended.
• Henry: no real danger to society, repeated hospitalizations regardless of him taking his medication, paranoid schizophrenia, poor hygiene and diet (which suggests he may not keep taking his medication): has re-offended – he killed his neighbour.
• Results: informal perusals of files are probably not good indicators of whether or not a person will re-offend because regardless of your experience, most people would finish not knowing the answer.

2.1 When are they conducted?

They can be conducted in both civil and criminal settings:

Civil Settings:

• Civil Commitment: if you have a mental illness and you pose a danger to yourself or others.
• Child Protection: protecting children from abuse (and potentially removing them from the home).
• Immigration: prohibiting people from entering the country if they may pose a threat to society.
• School and Labour Regulations: preventing acts that may endanger others.

Criminal Settings: this includes pre-trial, sentencing, release, etc. Public safety outweighs solicitor-client priviledge.

2.2 Goals of Risk Assessment (ACT)

The following is a partial list of the goals of risk assessment in a parole board (in addition to treating offenders as individuals):

1. Improve Accuracy: want to be confident that the person they’re releasing is a low risk and the person they’re not releasing is a high risk.
2. Improve Consistency: risk assessors should come up with the same decision looking at the same sorts of cases. This is a legally, ethically important variable.
3. Improve Transparency: their procedures must be as transparent as possible (to the victim, public, federal government, CJS, etc). Describing why you used the procedure you did is the toughest question to answer; it’s much easier to explain how and what procedures you used.

In Canada, we use the follow 2 types of risk factors to assess risk:

1. Dynamic Risk Factors: variables that are related to recidivism (dynamic, criminogenic needs). These change with time, less convenient and less reliable, less frequently used but they are sensitive to change (with a level of intervention we can change the level of risk).
   1. Acute Factors: change very rapidly, such as current level of substance abuse; your social group; getting divorced; losing your job.
   2. Stable Variables: they change slowly over time, such as levels of impulsivity; attitude towards violence; anything related to inherent dispositions, traits and attitudes.
2. Static Risk Factors: these are variables that are fixed and unchanged (they simply exist in the offenders lives), not hard to measure (convenient), frequently used in risk assessment, can be reliably measure and are very predictive.
   1. Examples of static variables: three categories – demographic variables, history of criminal behaviour, history of mental disorder. The presence of these doesn’t necessarily increase the risk of re-offence. (Examples: The time at which you first offended, family history of alcohol abuse, gender of the offender.)

There are also 4 types of risk factors:

1. Historical: static risk factors that relate to the events that happen in the persons past.
   1. Past criminal behaviour.
   2. Age of onset of antisocial behaviour.
   3. Childhood history of abuse increases risk of violence, especially physical abuse.
   4. Past supervision failure, escape or institution maladjustment.
2. Dispositional: risk factors that reflect the individual’s traits, tendencies or styles.
   1. Demographics: being arrested before 14, males.
   2. Personality: impulsiveness and psychopathy; psychopathy combined with deviant sexual arousal predicts sexual recidivism.
3. Clinical: types and symptoms of disorders.
   1. Substance Use: drug and alcohol abuse is moderately related to recidivism rates.
   2. Mental Disorder: affective disorder with schizophrenia indicates higher rates of violence. TCO (threat/control override) describes symptoms where the person feels they can’t control their environment and they fear people will hurt them; TCO symptoms can predict violence in men (not women).
4. Contextual: risk factors that refer to aspects of the current environment (situational).
   1. Lack of social support: instrumental (necessities of life), emotional, appraisal (give help or courage) and information (new facts).
   2. Access to weapons or victims.

Strongest predictors of general recidivism: first police contact, non-severe pathology (stress or anxiety), family problems, conduct problems, ineffective use of leisure time and delinquent peers.

Big 4 Risk Factors:

1. Criminal History: static
2. Pro-criminal Personality: impulsivity, aggression
3. Pro-criminal attitudes: dynamic, stable
4. Pro-criminal associates: dynamic acute and dynamic stable

Not Risk Factors:

• Low SES (socio-economic status)
• Personal distress/psychopathology (low self-esteem and depression)
• Fear of punishment
• Verbal intelligence
• Remorse/empathy
• Offence severity

2.4 Predicting Risk

There are four possible outcomes when predicting risk:

1. True Positive: correct prediction of re-offending.
2. True Negative: correct prediction of not re-offending.
3. False Positive: offender was predicted to re-offend but did not.
4. False Negative: offender was predicted not to re-offend but did.

Base Rates: the percentage of people within a given population who engage in a specific behaviour or have a mental disorder; it tends to be easier to predict frequent events than non-frequent events.

Methodological Issues in Predicting Risk: three main issues have been identified...

• Limited number of risk factors being studied
• (How the variable is measured) Official records underestimate the number of crimes actually committed (undiscovered true positives).
• (How the variable is defined) In addition to whether or not they committed a violent act, we need to include the type, severity and motivation for violence.

3 Major Approaches to Risk Assessment

1. Unstructured clinical judgment: this is still sometimes used; where clinicians assess the offender with variables they think are important – subjectively selecting, analyzing and interpreting risk factors. Illusionary correlation – where the clinician interprets two variables as correlated but they’re not.
   AUC = 0.55
   1. Advantages: flexible (variables can be adjusted to the offender, the context, etc) and idiographic (case-by-case – personalized rather than generalized).
   2. Disadvantages: inconsistent (different variables might be used and analyzed in different ways) and has low accuracy (cognitively, we can’t process and identify risk predictors in a sensible way, beliefs, schemas about offenders).
2. Actuarial (statistical) tools: where we collect pre-specified risk factors and enter them into a statistical model that combines and weights them (the opposite of unstructured clinical judgment).
   AUC = 0.68 to 0.80
   1. Advantages: consistent (everyone is assessed exactly the same way) and highly accurate.
   2. Disadvantages: nomothetic (generalized – not taking into account the individual... especially does not include uncommon, rare events) and validity across different samples (sometimes people don’t do cross-evaluations so they don’t know if the tool is valid and sometimes the tool isn’t valid at all).
3. Structured professional judgment: where we collect pre-specified risk factors while adding in any case specific details (a hybrid of the previous two approaches); the final assessment is a clinical judgment that’s informed by empirical risk factors.
   AUC = 0.62 to 0.75
   1. Advantages: flexible (allows individual factors to be important) and nomothetic-idiographic.
   2. Disadvantages: moderate accuracy (clinical judgment) and less consistent than actuarial (because it’s idiographic).

Categorizing Assessment Tools

• General Offending:
  • LSI-R (Level of Service Inventory, Revised): static and dynamic risk factors, actuarial.
  • HCR-20: static and dynamic risk factors, SPJ.
  • PCL-R: static and dynamic risk factors, actuarial (not actually a risk assessment)
• Violent Offending:
  • Measures for general offending work well.
  • VRAG: static factors, actuarial.
• Sexual Offending:
  • Static-99: static factors, actuarial.
  • Stable-2007: stable dynamic factors, actuarial.
• Domestic Violence:
  • SARA (Spousal Assault Risk Assessment): stable and dynamic, SPJ
  • ODARA (Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Appraisal guide): stable, incorporates victim assessment, actuarial.

Issue: because there are so many tools, we don’t know which to choose from.

Evaluating Risk Assessment Tools

Short answer: yes, we’re pretty good at it. We are primarily interested in accuracy (do they re-offend and do higher risk offenders re-offend more than low-risk offenders) but it has to be easy-to-use, consistent and gives us a good, fuzzy feeling.
ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) Analysis: gives you a particular accuracy measure (AUC – area under the curve) – the probability that an outcome (re-offence) will occur.

3 Actuarial Instruments

1. General Statistical Information on Recidivism (GSIR): instrument with 15 assessment items that are used to generate a % based on how much of a risk the person poses based on past criminal involvement.
   Results: strong predictor of general recidivism but weak predictor of violent recidivism and less predictive with female offenders.
2. Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG): instrument with 12 items designed to assess the long-term risk for violent recidivism in offenders with mental disorders by examining certain static risk factors (Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised score, elementary school maladjustment, personality disorder, etc).
   Disadvantage: not transparent or idiographic.
3. Iterative Classification Tree (ICT): designed to assess the risk for violence in psychiatric patients, classifying patients in low or high risk categories.
   Results: moderately predicts violence

Limitations of Actuarial Instruments: primarily rely on static factors, provide little practical information about what risk factors need to be targeted, don’t allow for the incorporation of treatment gain into the prediction (or indicate when they might fail), and they’re not theoretically derived.

3 Structured Professional Judgment Schemes

1. Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R): an instrument with 10 subscales that highlight the areas that should be targeted for intervention and helps identify their level of supervision needed based on the likelihood of recidivism. These subscales include both static and dynamic risk factors.
   Results: good for predicting general recidivism, not sexual recidivism.
2. HCR-20: designed to predict violent behaviour with 10 historical factors, 5 clinical factors and 5 risk management factors. The presence of the risk factors is calculated and then we subjectively decide on the level of risk based on case-specific risk factors.
   Risk Ratings:
   • Low Risk: monitor and intervene with low priority and intensity.
   • Mid Risk: monitor and intervene with some priority and intensity.
   • High Risk: monitor and intervene with high priority and intensity.
   Results: moderate to strong prediction of violent recidivism.
3. Violence Risk Scale (VRS): designed to assess the risk of re-offence and treatment goals needed to reduce the risk. Uses some static but mostly dynamic risk factors. It aims to integrate four goal into one risk assessment tool:
1. Assess risk to re-offend;
2. Identify which aspects of an offender need to be targeted in treatment to reduce that risk;
3. Determine whether the offender is in denial about or receptive to changing the aspects that lead him into crime; and
4. Measure whether the changes have occurred once treatment is completed.
Results: moderate prediction of violent and nonviolent recidivism.

PSYC 2400: Psychopathy

Contents

1. 1. Defining Psychopathy
2. 2. Assessing Psychopaths
   1. 2.1 PCL-R: Psychopathy-Checklist Revised
3. 3. Psychopaths… (and why it’s important)
   1. 3.1 And Violence
   2. 3.2 In Youth
4. 4. Treating Psychopaths
5. 5. What Makes a Psychopath?
   1. 5.1 Nature vs. Nurture?
   2. 5.2 Does Family Matter?
   3. 5.3 Cognitive and Affective Models of Psychopathy

Recommended books to read:

• Without Conscience — by Robert Hare
  This is a great, quick read. I read this in between taking PSYC2400 and PSYC3402 (also taught by Craig Bennell) and when the psychopathy lecture came up again, I remembered everything from the book.
• Snakes in Suits — by Paul Babiak and Robert Hare
  If you read this and Without Conscience, you'll notice that the introductions are quite similar. The rest of this book is very different though. They've split up the sections with narrative acts (i.e., a mini-play) to help humanize the examples. Aside from the anecdotal evidence of psychopaths found in the workplace, I thought this was a good book for dealing with particularly troublesome coworkers - psychopathic or not.
• In the Belly of the Beast — by Jack Henry Abbottt
  This book depresses me when I read it (I haven't finished it yet). It's a mash-up of the correspondance between a journalist and Jack Henry Abbott. Read it, if only to get a better understanding of a psychopaths ability to rationalize and justify (there's no judgment in that comment either - we all reationalize and justify our actions, regardless of their effect on others).
• The Mask of Sanity (PDF) — by Hervey Cleckley
  Haven't read it yet…

And for more information on Hare: www.hare.org.

1. Defining Psychopathy

Psychopath: a person with a collection of interpersonal, affective and behavioural characteristics including Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle and Antisocial deficits (manipulation, lack of remorse or empathy, impulsivity and antisocial behaviours). These do not necessarily have to be criminals – can be politicians, judges, etc and they may not even be committing any crimes.

Base Rate: indication of the prevalence of a specific problem (psychopathy) within a specific population (serial killers):

• 90% of serial killers are psychopathic (study: overestimate because he applied the tools to people described in the media – proxy methodology).
• 1% of the general population are psychopaths (reliable estimate).
• 10-25% of the prison population are psychopaths.
• 44% of cop killers are psychopaths.
• 20% of male prisoners score above 30 (mean=22).
• 14% of female prisoners score above 30 (mean=19).

Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD): (suffers from the lifestyle deficits) characterized by a history of behaviour in which the rights of others are violated; they have demonstrated conduct disorder by age 15 and display at least 3 of the following symptoms after 15:

• Repeat criminal acts;
• Deceitfulness;
• Impulsivity ;
• Irritability;
• Reckless behaviours;
• Irresponsibility, and
• Lack of remorse.

APD places more emphasis on antisocial behaviours than the PCL-R. Nearly all psychopathic offenders meet the criteria for APD but most offenders diagnosed with APD are not psychopaths. 60-80% of prisoners have APD.

2. Assessing Psychopaths

There are a few:

• Experience Impressions “In my clinical opinion”: based on their experience, training, case-by-case.
  Though used, it’s frowned upon mostly because clinicians are inaccurate.
• Self-Report Inventories: MMPI, MCI, PPI.
  Psychopaths can lie on self-report inventories so they’re not great.
• Informant Rating: ASPD. Where you get information about the person via other sources. (Resolves the self-report problems).
• Structured Clinical: DSM-IV (equated to antisocial personality disorder, though psychopathy and APD are different), PCL-R, PCL:YV (youth version).
  Best approach.

2.1 PCL-R: Psychopathy-Checklist Revised

PCL-R: the most popular method of assessing psychopathy in adults (Dr. Hare); the assessment instrument is as follows...

• 20 items scored using a semi-structured interview and a review of file information to assess the following three features:
• Interpersonal Features: glib/superficially charming, grandiose/inflated self-worth, manipulative.
• Affective Features: shallow emotions, lack of guilty, callous.
• Behavioural (Lifestyle) Features: impulsivity, antisocial acts, poor anger control, criminal behaviours.
• 3-point scale to measure psychopaths (2, scoring over 30 to 40), mixed – most criminals (1, scoring between 20 and 30) and non-psychopaths (0, scoring between 0 and 20).

3. Psychopaths... (and why it’s important)

3.1 And Violence

Motives for Murder study: examining the relationship between psychopathy and how murders are committed by dividing them into Reactive (unplanned, crimes of passion, extreme provocation) and Instrumental (planned, settle a score).

• Results: of the people exhibiting Low PCL-R scores, Reactive murders were more likely; of the people exhibiting High PCL-R scores, Instrumental murders are more likely.

Re-offender study: retrospective assessment of male offenders; they examined the release decision without knowing what the PCL-R score; they looked at parole releases and mandatory supervision (statutory – after serving ⅔ of sentence) releases.

• Results: people re-offend as PCL-R score increases; statutory releases increase the likelihood of re-offending.

3.2 In Youth

Juvenile Death Penalty study: hypothesis – if the person is labelled a psychopath, how does it affect the jury? Two cases were presented: psychopathic and non-psychopathic.

• Result: Psychopathic condition – more likely to select death penalty and less likely to support rehabilitation.

4. Treating Psychopaths

Most clinicians believe psychopaths are not treatable, so what do we treat? (Biological deficits? Personality deficits? Behavioural deficits?)

Failure Following Treatment Study (Rice, Harris, and Cormier – 1992): examined the effects of intensive therapeutic treatment on violent psychopaths and non-psychopathic forensic psychiatric patients.
Results:

• Untreated Non-Psychopaths – recidivism rate was 39%;
• Treated Non-Psychopaths – recidivism rate was 22%;
• Untreated Psychopaths – recidivism rate was 55%;
• Treated Psychopaths – recidivism rate was 77%.

Take-away point: meaning that treatment increased recidivism in psychopaths and psychopaths re-offend at a higher rate.

5. What Makes a Psychopath?

Short Answer: we don’t know. Most of the brain-imaging scans are used to examine emotional deficits.

5.1 Nature vs. Nurture

Few longitudinal studies have examined the psychopathic differences between identical twins (same genes and environment), fraternal twins (50% same genes and same environment), biological siblings (similar genes and same environment) and adoptive siblings (different genes and same environment).

Results from available studies: identical twins had similar PPI (Psychopathic Personality Inventory) results than fraternal twins; genetic influences accounted for 29% and 59% of the variances for the different PPI subscales.

Take-away point: genetics may play an influence but environment may influence how these traits are expressed.

5.2 Does Family Matter?

• Abused Children: after a 20-year longitudinal study, abused children had a slightly higher PCR-R score.
• Best Predictors: having a criminal parent, a son with a father who is uninvolved, low family income, disrupted family and experiencing physical neglect.

Take-away point: we are still not certain which environmental factors conclusively contribute to psychopathy.

5.3 Cognitive and Affective Models of Psychopathy

Cognitive Model: theorizes that psychopaths have a response modulation deficit, in that they fail to use contextual cues that are peripheral to a dominant response in order to regulate their behaviour – which may be why they don’t learn to avoid punishment.

Affective Model: theorizes that psychopaths have a deficit in the experience of certain critical emotions that guide prosocial behaviour and inhibit deviance.

• Lexicon Decision Task study: an experiment designed to examine the disconnect between emotional and neutral words (neutral, nonsense, positive and negative); you answer the question “Was what you saw a word?”
• Results: Non-psychopaths: significantly quicker reaction times to emotional content; Psychopaths: statistically, no difference in reaction times.
  In a similar experiment with substance abusers, when reviewing brain scans, we can determine that psychopathic brain activity was localized to the posterior regions, suggesting that they are performing the task in a superficial manner – very little high-level processing.

Take-away point: suggests a definite biological deficit exist in psychopaths.

• Startle Blink: an experiment designed to examine the reflexes when something unexpected occurs in three separate cases – the magnitude of the blink (how hard it is), the startle blink is stronger with a negative emotional state and weaker with a positive emotional state.
• positive emotional state (babies, pets, erotic), negative emotional state (snake, weapons, mutilation) and neutral emotional state (objects).
• Result: Non-psychopaths showed increased blinks to unpleasant – pleasant (low), neutral (middle) and unpleasant (high) whereas psychopaths showed increased reaction to neutral – unpleasant (low), pleasant (middle), and neutral (high).

Take-away point: emotions play little role in a psychopath’s thinking, language and behaviours.

PSYC 2400: Offender Treatment

Contents

1. 1. Offender Treatment
   1. 1.1 Historical Background
   2. 1.2 Why Meta-Analysis?
      1. Development of the Meta-Analysis
      2. What Works: Carleton University Meta-Analysis
      3. Empirical Evidence for RNR Principles

1. Offender Treatment

1.1 Historical Background

• Extensive debate over “what works” in offender rehabilitation
• Early literature reviews did not present favourable conclusions regarding the effectiveness of correctional interventions
• Martinson presented the “nothing works” conclusion in his paper that evaluated 231 primary research studies

In Summary: since the 70s, the meta-analytic approach has become more common.

1.2 Why Meta-Analysis?

• Meta-Analysis: statistical aggregation of the results derived from many independent studies in order to integrate the findings
• Effect Size: (the primary unit) this reflects the degree to which the comparison and treatment groups differ on a particular measure – the size of the effect.
  

Development of the Meta-Analysis

• First meta-analysis: found cognitive-behavioural/family treatment was the best (still used today)
• Whitehead and Lab (1998): did not find promising evidence from their meta-analysis.
• Andrews and colleagues: meta-analysis on a broad sample of offender treatment studies, they developed principles of ECT (Effective Correctional Treatment) which incorporates Human Service, Risk, Need and Responsivity (RNR Strategy).

RNR Strategy

1. Risk Principle:  correctional interventions should target offenders who are at high risk to reoffend (not low risk offenders).
2. Need Principle: interventions should target criminogenic needs (dynamic attributes, when changed, are associated with changes in the probability of recidivism)
1. Criminogenic Needs: can be changed through intervention – the Big Four...
   Antisocial attitudes;
   Antisocial personality;
   History of antisocial behaviour; and
   Antisocial peers – targeting these needs will have a great impact on the probability of recidivism.
2. Non-Criminogenic Needs: though the offender needs to improve in these areas, they do not affect the probability of recidivism.
   Increasing self-esteem;
   Focusing on vague emotional/personal problems;
   Increasing cohesiveness of antisocial peer groups; and
   Neighbourhood-wide improvements without touching the needs to higher risk individuals, etc.
3. Responsivity Principle: refers to delivering treatment programs in a style and mode that is matched to the ability and learning style of the offender and their personality.
   • General Responsivity: (learning) we have to deliver the intervention in a way that we know the offender will respond to.
   • Specific Responsivity: (personality) we have to deliver the intervention in a way that acknowledges the individual differences that exist in an individual.

What Works: Carleton University Meta-Analysis

The CU Meta-Analysis database can make 374 comparisons.
Major Findings:

• Processing Increases Recidivism: More processing through the CJS is associated with a slightly increased recidivism rate;
• Positive Programs: Only 2 comparisons produced a positive effect of .20 and .22 (i.e. the recidivism rates from these treatment programs was lower than the comparison program)
• Ignore the study in the book that deals with Effect Sizes.
• We’re Making Things Worse: Mean effect size was minimal -.03, as in, the programs we’ve developed make recidivism rates slightly worse.
• Less is Better than More: If you can give less and maintain public safety, less is better than more.
• RNRs: In addition, they also examined the principles of RNR by creating an appropriate treatment variable (0-3); in other words, if the treatment program was characterized with a 3, it incorporated all three RNRs.
• Explored their utility with specific populations as well and explored the impact of staff characteristics on program effectiveness.

Empirical Evidence for RNR Principles

The following summarizes the empirical evidence we’ve collected:

• Responsivity: results show that meeting responsivity in your treatment program is the most effective way to reduce rates of recidivism (with need and risk following shortly after).
• RNRs: incorporating more of a combination of the RNRs increases the success of the treatment program; not including the RNRs results in an increase in recidivism rates.
• Setting: programs offered in the community are better than in residential areas (i.e. offender facility).
• Targets: targeting criminogenic has better results than targeting non-criminogenic needs.
• Women Offenders: some criminologists don’t believe in gender-neutral treatment programs.

PSYC 2400: Sentencing

Contents

1. 1. The Structure of the Canadian Court System
2. 2. Sentencing
   1. 2.1 A Definition
   2. 2.2 6 Goals of Sentencing (DDARRS)
   3. 2.3 5 Principles of Sentencing (GLASC)
   4. 2.4 7 Sentencing Options
   5. 2.5 Factors that Affect Sentencing Decisions
      1. Sentencing Disparity
      2. Reducing Sentencing Disparity
   6. 2.6 Are the Goals of Sentencing Achieved?
3. 3. Parole
   1. 3.1 Parole Decision-Making
   2. 3.2 4 Types of Parole
   3. 3.3 Effectiveness of Parole
   4. 3.4 Truths about Parole
4. 4. Attitudes Towards Sentencing

Exam Note: Don’t confuse goals and principles – this will be a question on the exam.

Please Note: This lecture contains a relevant summary of the book mixed in with what was discussed in the lecture.

1. The Structure of the Canadian Court System

The Canadian court system is a hierarchy of courts:

• Supreme Court: 8 judges plus chief judge who are appointed by the federal government; final court of appeal.
• Appellate Courts: includes federal and provincial appeal courts that review superior court decisions (no trial or witnesses).
• Superior Provincial/Territorial and Federal Courts: act as courts of appeal for inferior courts; provincial courts deal with more serious criminal and civil cases that often involve juries; federal courts review administrative decisions made by federal tribunals.
• Inferior Provincial/Territorial Courts: deal with criminal offences and civil issues; these courts sometimes specialize (youth, drugs, domestic violence, etc).
• Administrative Tribunals: not officially part of the court system – they are responsible for resolving disputes (provincial or federal) that involve disability benefits, refugee claims, EI, etc. (This includes the National Parole Board)

2. Sentencing

2.1 A Definition

Sentencing: an imposition of a legal sanction on persons convicted of an offence (essentially, the consequences you face as a result of a crime committed)

2.2 6 Goals of Sentencing (DDARRS)

Here are 6 common goals of sentencing:

1. Deter:
   • Specific Deterrence: reducing the probability that an offender will reoffend in the future.
   • General Deterrence: reducing the probability that members of society will reoffend in the future.
2. Denounce: to say that we don’t approve of a specific behaviour.
3. Assist: to assist the offender with rehabilitation.
4. Reparations: to pay back the money or society.
5. Responsibility: to help promote responsibility in the accused.
6. Separate: remove this person from society to protect them and society.

Issues: sentences can conflict with many goals and judges may give different sentences for different reasons.

Canada is moving towards a more restorative justice system to get more offenders back in the community – research suggests this is better than sending them to prison.

2.2 5 Principles of Sentencing (GLASC)

These 5 principles are meant to guide the sentencing decisions:

1. Gravity: a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence.
2. Liberty: a sentence should not deprive the offender of liberty if less restrictive sanctions are appropriate.
3. Adjusted: mitigating and aggravating factors should be taken into account.
4. Similarity: sentences should be similar for similar offenders, offences and under similar circumstances.
5. Consecutive: combined consecutive sentences should not be too harsh.

2.3 7 Sentencing Options

In order of least restrictive to most restrictive, here are some sentencing options (these are punishment strategies):

• Discharge: despite being guilty, the accused is not convicted of the offence.
  • Absolute: where the court releases the accused with no conditions and no record.
  • Conditional: must follow certain rules in the community for a specific period of time for the discharge to be absolute.
• Probation: offenders released into the community with restrictions.
• Reparation: where accused pays the victim back.
• Fines (to the court): where the accused pays the court back (most common in Canada); if you fail to pay, you go to jail (this accounts for the disproportionately high number of aboriginal people that are in jail for not paying for fines).
• Community Service
• Conditional Sentences: a prison sentence served in the community (ex. on the weekends).
• Imprisonment: last resort.
  

Research: research suggests that punishment strategies generally result in higher rates of recidivism; if the purpose of our justice system is to reduce crime, then we are not succeeding. The longer the sentence, the higher likelihood the offender will repeat the crime (with exceptions of course).

Dangerous Offender: an offender who is proven to be a significant danger to others; must meet the following criteria…

• Pattern of unrestrained behaviour that’s likely to cause danger;
• Pattern of aggressive behaviour that’s likely to cause danger;
• Brutal nature of behaviour that ordinary standards of restraint cannot control;
• Failure to control sexual impulses that are likely to harm others.

Long-Term Offender: an offender who is proven to be at a high-risk for reoffending; must meet following criteria…

• Imposing a sentence of two years or more would be appropriate;
• Substantial risk that offender will reoffend.
• Reasonable possibility of eventual control of risk in the community.

2.4 Factors that Affect Sentencing Decisions

Sentencing Disparity

This is currently the most important part of the Justice System, in terms of the court side of things.

Sentencing Disparity: variations in sentencing severity for similar crimes committed under similar circumstances.

There are two major types of disparity:

1. Warranted Sentence Disparity: disparities that result based on warranted differences between crimes.
2. Unwarranted Sentence Disparity: disparities based on factors outside of our control; there are 2 types
   • Systematic Disparity: predictable, stable, sustained differences between say, judges, such as a pre-existing bias, philosophy on crime, experience of judges, etc.
   • Unsystematic Disparity: unpredictable (random) factors that affect sentences, such as a judge having a bad day, personal issues, and priming circumstances.

In order to study these, we can use two types of studies:

1. Simulations: (lab studies) ex. easy to control variables but not high in external validity.
   • Example: Judges were given different crime circumstances and asked to decide what sentence to give: Fight after a car accident, grabbed a bag from an old lady, murdered and rape an 11-year old girl.
   • Results: minor and major crimes have very little variation but the mid-range crimes have a huge range of variation. The sentences varied over time and between judges and were mostly due to unsystematic disparities.
2. Sentencing Statistics: (field studies) ex. a researcher examined the sentencing differences between Ontario and BC; has high external validity but lower internal validity – hard to pinpoint why the variation exists.      

Reducing Sentencing Disparity

Sentencing Guidelines: guidelines intended to reduce the degree of discretion that judges have when handing down sentences. There are 3 types of guidelines:

1. Advisory Guidelines: suggestive and have no force in the law.
2. Presumptive Guidelines: force a judge to make specific sentencing decisions unless there are important reasons for departing from the recommendation.
3. Mandatory Sentencing Laws: laws that require the judge to make specific sentencing decisions regardless of case-specific circumstances.

MMS (Mandatory Minimum Sentences): no Canadian empirical research to confirm if this is effective in reducing disparity; US research suggests that judicial discretion is reduced but sentencing disparity is not (the discretion is shifted to other parts of the court – prosecutors and police officers).

Death Penalty

In Canada, the death penalty was abolished in 1976. In the 90s, we almost reinstated it, which is why it’s still a good topic for discussion.

In the USA, 38 States permit the death penalty but most death penalty sentences are issued by the state of California and Texas.

5 Reasons against the Death Penalty:

1. Attorneys: especially in the USA, often these attorneys will be shitty and get paid nothing.
2. Wrongful Convictions: we know that the death penalty can be handed down to the innocent (Innocence Project).
3. Bias: it’s biased against black people and French Canadians (when it was in Canada).
4. Cost: it’s less expensive than life sentences (contrary to popular belief) because of the number of appeal processes that need to be conducted.
5. Deterrent:
• Assumption: offenders think about consequences of crimes before they commit them – they don’t (many crimes are committed in the heat of passion or under the influence of drugs or alcohol).
• Assumption: if it were a deterrent, we’d expect to see a rise in murder rates – we don’t.
• Assumption: murderers will reoffend once released – they don’t.

2.5 Are the Goals of Sentencing Achieved?

The Answer: Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Research: the purpose was to determine the recidivism rates of community-based sanctions compared to regular probation using meta-analysis.

Results:

• Little evidence to suggest that community-based sanctions decrease rates of recidivism (most slightly increased recidivism rates);
• Prison, as compared to community-based sanctions, and longer prison sentences slightly increased recidivism rates.

3. Parole

Parole: the act of releasing offenders into the community before their sentence term is complete; this includes

• The conditional release of offenders into a community so they can serve the remainder of their sentence outside an institution.
• An attempt to rehabilitate offenders so they can become productive contributors to society.
• High degree of community supervision to ensure the parolee is abiding by certain rules.
• A clause that if the conditions of parole aren’t met, they can be sent back to prison.

3.1 Parole Decision-Making

National Parole Board conducts the meeting to determine if an offender will receive parole.
First, we begin with risk assessment, where we assess the following issues:

• Current offence
• Criminal history
• Social problems experience by the offender
• Mental Status
• Information from victims, etc

Then they assess specific risk factors:

• Institutional behaviour
• Evidence of change and insight into the offender’s own behaviour
• Benefits derived from treatment that may reduce the risk posed by the offender
• Feasibility of the offender’s release plans.

3.2 4 Types of Parole

1. Temporary Absence: allows the offender to enter the community on a temporary basis (escorted or not) in order to attend correctional programs.
2. Day Parole: allows the offender to enter the community for up to a day (ex. to hold down a job) and then return to the institution/half-way house at night.
3. Full Parole: allows the offender to serve the remainder of their sentence under supervision by the community (they normally need to have been first successfully granted temporary absences and day parole). Offenders must complete 7 years or 1/3 of their sentence before being eligible for full parole.
4. Statutory Release: allows the offender to be released after serving 2/3 of their sentence (except lifers).

3.3 Effectiveness of Parole

• Offenders on day and full parole are more successful than those released under the statutory release.
• Offenders who are granted parole based on an assessment of their risk of re-offending are more likely to complete their supervision period in the community compared to offenders released by statute-based system.

3.4 Truths about Parole

1. Parole changes the way a sentence is served; it doesn’t reduce the sentence.
2. Parole isn’t automatically granted when they become eligible.
3. Though remorse for the offence is considered, it’s not the only consideration.
4. Most offenders released on parole don’t commit new crimes or breach the conditions of their parole.
5. Victims do play a role in the parole process.

4. Attitudes Towards Sentencing

You can get society’s attitudes towards sentencing in 3 different ways:

• Public Opinion Polls: this is the most common way to assess public opinion; it’s an easy way to get a representative view but it’s not very detailed.
  Results from the Polls:
  • Canadians feel that offenders are sentenced too leniently – they actually under-estimate the actual number of sentences given out.
  • Canadians do not have a lot of confidence in our CJS – the level of confidence varies by agency (reserved to aspects of sentencing – but we have more confidence in RCMP and police).
  • Canadians support a range of alternative sentencing practices, such as conditional or community sentences.
• Focus Groups: where a small group of people to discuss their views on sentencing; it’s a very good way to get good information from the group.
  Issue: highly likely that the attitudes are not representative of the entire population.
• Experimental Research.

Factors that affect opinions:

• Media portrays CJS poorly which is reflected in public opinion;
• As level of fear increases in an individual, so does their perception of leniency in sentencing, dissatisfaction with police and courts.

PSYC 2400: Fitness to Stand Trial and Criminal Responsibility

Contents

1. 1. Fitness to Stand Trial
   1. 1.1 Assessment Instruments
   2. 1.2 Treatment Issues
   3. 1.3 Example: Ted Kaczynski - Unabomber
   4. 1.4 After You're Found Unfit
2. 2. Criminal Responsibility
   1. 2.1 Assessment of Responsibility
   2. 2.2 Treatment Issues
   3. 2.3 Example – Jeffry Dahmer
   4. 2.4 True or False?

Please Note: This lecture contains a summary of the book mixed in with what was discussed in the lecture.

Fitness to Stand Trial or Criminal Responsibility (Insanity) only happens in certain cases – lawyers will be the ones to suggest these to the judge.

1. Fitness to Stand Trial

Definitions of Fitness: an assessment of the current mental condition of the accused. In order to be found guilty, prosecutors must establish actus Reus (a wrongful deed) and mens rea (criminal intent).

Goal: to determine whether it interferes with your ability to perform legal tasks.

• R v Pritchard: to determine whether you currently suffer from a deficit:
  • Can you assist in their defence?
  • Do you understand their role in the proceedings?
  • Do you understand the nature of the proceedings?
• Section 2 of Criminal Code: where a person is not fit because they…
  • Don’t understand the nature of the proceedings…
  • Don’t understand the consequences of the proceedings…
  • Can’t communicate with counsel…
• Because of a current mental disorder.

To be found unfit, you must suffer from a mental disorder of some kind but having a mental disorder does not automatically make you unfit to stand trial (ex. depression wouldn’t make you unfit).

1.2 Assessment Instruments

Assessment Instruments: if fit, the trial will continue; if unfit, a formal assessment will take place (this can take between 5 to 30 days) and will typically be conducted by a psychiatrist (except in Canada, where you have to be a medical practitioner but a psychologist can assist). Two common procedures to test fitness:

1. FIT-R (Fitness Interview Test Revised): (Canada) a semi-structured interview to determine if you suffer from a mental disorder.
   • It assesses 3 psychological abilities:
     • Understanding of proceedings (i.e. factual knowledge about the proceedings like the severity of the charges)
     • Understanding of consequences (i.e. appreciation of the role you play)
     • Communicative with counsel (i.e. the ability to participate in your defence)
   • Results: does seem to distinguish between those that have mental disorders that would render them unfit to stand trial than those that do not.
2. MacCAT-CA: (USA) a structured interview to determine if you’re fit to stand trial and plead guilty.
   • Questions are grouped into 3 categories:
     • Understanding of legal system
     • Reasoning ability
     • Understanding of own legal situation

Other procedures to test fitness:

• CST (Competency Screening Test): distinguishes between competent people and those who should undergo a more rigorous evaluation by completing uncomplicated sentences; these sentences cover 3 constructs:
  • Potential for a constructive relationship between the defendant and his lawyer;
  • The defendant’s understanding of the court process; and
  • The ability of the defendant to emotionally cope with the criminal process.
• CAI (Competency to Stand Trial Assessment Instrument): a semi-structured question/answer interview designed to accompany the CST; determines if the defendant is able to participate in the criminal process on behalf of their best interests.
• IFI (Interdisciplinary Fitness Interview): a semi-structured interview designed to test 3 areas of competencies:
  • Functional memory;
  • Appropriate relationship with lawyer; and
  • Understanding of the justice system.

Meta-Analysis Results of a Typical Unfit Person

Typically, people who are referred and found unfit tend to be: single, unemployed, living alone, older females belonging to a minority group and four times more likely to have met criteria for a psychotic disorder. Note that there was no difference between fit and unfit people in the frequency of violent, property and miscellaneous crimes; they had a similar criminal history and just as likely to have been in prison.

1.3 Treatment Issues

• Individuals found unfit are typically held in hospital prior to trial
• Goal: restore individual to fitness with as little delay as possible, typically with medication (sometimes requiring a treatment order).
  • Treatment Orders: where medication is forced upon the person.
• If individual remains unfit they are either detained in a hospital or conditionally discharged

1.4 After You’re Found Unfit

Jackson v Indiana: US Supreme Court determined a defendant should not be held for an unreasonable amount of time to determine fitness. In Canada, it’s 45 days.

• So long as you are deemed unfit, your case is reviewed on an annual basis by the review board.
• Crown must make prima facie case – they need to prove there’s enough evidence to bring the case to trial every 2 years (or 1 for youth) and whenever the defendant requests it.
• Absolute Discharge: a defendant may be given an absolute discharge if they meet 3 criteria:
  • Unlikely to ever become fit.
  • Does not pose a significant threat to society.
  • A stay of proceedings is in the interest of the proper administration of justice.

1.5 Example: Ted Kaczynski - Unabomber

He targeted universities and airliners; he was found fit, pled guilty and went to jail. (Wikipedia).

2. Criminal Responsibility

Definitions of Criminal Responsibility (Insanity): insanity is a legal concept not a medical or psychological one; definition of insanity may vary by jurisdiction – not being of sound mind, mentally deranged and irrational; retrospective assessment has to be conducted of the state of mind when the crime happened.

1. N’Naghten Standard (Cognitive): (USA) at the time of the crime, you must suffer from a defect of reason and you must not know the nature of the act or understand that it was wrong.
2. Irresistible Impulse Test (Volitional): (USA) accused could have the cognitive knowledge of what is right or wrong if their illness results in an inability to control behaviour.
3. ALI Standard (Cognitive/Volitional): (USA) not responsible if the accused lacks the capacity to appreciate the criminality of the act or to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law.
4. Guilty But Mentally Ill (GBMI): (USA) mentally ill but also guilty of the crime; accused are provided treatment until they are declared sane – prison for same term as other offenders.
5. NCRMD (Not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder) (R v. Swain):
   • (Canada) not legally responsible while suffering a disorder that renders you incapable of appreciating the nature of the act or incapable of knowing that the act was wrong (similar to M’Naghten Standard)
   • A defendant should only be found NCRMD if they pose a criminal threat to the public; otherwise, they should be granted an absolute discharge.

2.1 Assessment of Responsibility

Review Boards: legal bodies mandated to oversee the case and disposition of defendants found unfit and/or NCRMD. (Must review once a year). Assessment of Responsibility: only the defence can raise the issue, unless the verdict of guilty has been handed down. Responsibility is assessed using an assessment instrument; can take between 30 and 60 days for assessment orders. We assess responsibility with two tests:

1. R-CRAS (Rogers Criminal Assessment Scales): a clinician uses information from this assessment to identify insanity through 5 scales:
   1. Organicity (brain issues);
   2. Psychopathology;
   3. Cognitive control;
   4. Behavioural control; and
   5. Reliability of the report (ex. lying or malingering).
2. MSE: (USA) identifies non-insanity through 3 key issues:
   1. General psychological history;
   2. Mental state at the time of offence; and
   3. Current mental status.

2.2 Treatment Issues

Once found NCRMD, three things can happen:

1. If the defendant does not pose a threat to society, they must be given an absolute discharge.
2. If the defendant may post a threat to society, they can be given a conditional discharge.
3. Or they review boards or courts may determine that the defendant be sent to a psychiatric facility.
   • Capping: max period of time a person in a psychiatric facility may be imprisoned; after serving their time, they may be released or, if a dangerous/violent offender, they must stay longer.
   • Four Criteria Considered: public safety, mental state, reintegration of defendant into society and other needs of the defendant.

2.3 Example – Jeffry Dahmer

Milwaukee serial killer: ALI standard used to determine if he was fit to stand trial – said he was sane and convicted him on 15 counts of murder and was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences. (Wikipedia)

2.4 True or False?

Answers:

• Slightly lower rates of recidivism of NGRI (not guilty by reason of insanity) acquittees compared to matched felons.
• Beyond found NGRI results in more detainment time than if you were found guilty.
• Most crimes committed by NGRI are normally drug offences.
• The use of different insanity standards does not have an effect on the verdicts of jurors.