Forensic evaluators’ opinions on the use of videoconferencing technology for competency to stand trial evaluations after the onset of COVID-19.
We surveyed practicing forensic psychologists (N = 176) in the United States after the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to obtain their opinions about using videoconferencing for competence to stand trial evaluations. The survey included a broad range of questions to identify perceived concerns about, and benefits of, videoconferencing. Many of the evaluators who reported having conducted a competence evaluation using videoconferencing had done so only after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (79.7%). Evaluators expressed concerns that the results of videoconferencing evaluations were slightly less...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - August 26, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Intimate partner violence and family dispute resolution: 1-year follow-up findings from a randomized controlled trial comparing shuttle mediation, videoconferencing mediation, and litigation.
We report 1-year follow-up outcomes from a randomized controlled trial involving parents resolving separation or divorce-related disputes and reporting high levels of intimate partner violence (IPV). We compared traditional litigation to two mediation approaches designed to protect parent safety (i.e., shuttle and videoconferencing) at a court-annexed mediation division. The sample was not nationally representative, limiting generalizability. We found no significant differences across conditions in parent reports of satisfaction with the process, level of continuing IPV or interparental conflict, parenting quality, parent ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - July 22, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
A data-driven classification of outcome behaviors in those who cause concern to British public figures.
Fixated individuals pose a significant threat to public figures. Previous research compares individuals labeled ‘approachers’ to those labeled ‘communicators.’ Typically, such studies compare a number of risk factors among the two groups to identify significant differences. This has impactful implications for the threat assessment and management of the pathologically fixated. The present study builds upon this established body of work by considering if more nuance can be disaggregated from a universe of cases referred to the Fixated Threat Assessment Center (FTAC). FTAC is a joint police and mental health unit in t...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - July 22, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Police interviewing behaviors and commercially sexually exploited adolescents’ reluctance.
This study examined the relation between officers’ use of maximization, (references to) expertise, minimization, and support and adolescent CSEC victims’ reluctance in a small sample of police interviews (n = 2,416 question-answer pairs across 10 interviews). Twenty-six percent of officers’ utterances contained at least one interviewing tactic. When statements were paired with maximization, they were correlated with more reluctance than when they were not paired with an interviewing tactic. Contrary to predictions, support was also related to greater reluctance. Open-ended (recall) questions and statements were assoc...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - July 15, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
What drives a jury’s deliberation? The influence of pretrial publicity and jury composition on deliberation slant and content.
This study explored how pretrial publicity (PTP) exposure and jury composition affect the slant and content of jury deliberations. It compares jury deliberations (N = 63) composed of jurors (N = 333) who are exposed to the same type of PTP (pure juries: all exposed to negative-victim [NV], negative-defendant [ND], or no PTP) with juries composed of jurors exposed to different types of PTP (mixed juries, e.g., half exposed to ND PTP and half to no PTP). Jury composition was found to bias the slant of trial evidence discussion, with pure-NV juries demonstrating a prodefense bias and pure-ND juries a proprosecution bias. This...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 24, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
A meta-analysis of lineup size effects on eyewitness identification.
The inclusion of known-innocent fillers in a lineup is fairer than presenting only the suspect to an eyewitness and offers protection from mistaken identification if the suspect is innocent. This meta-analysis addresses the question of how many fillers should be included in a lineup. Data from 17,088 participants across 14 experiments revealed a trade-off associated with increasing the number of lineup members. Innocent suspects receive better protection from larger lineups than from smaller lineups, but larger lineups also make it harder for eyewitnesses to identify guilty suspects. Expected cost analyses showed that the ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 24, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Identity, legitimacy and cooperation with police: Comparing general-population and street-population samples from London.
Social identity is a core aspect of procedural justice theory, which predicts that fair treatment at the hands of power holders such as police expresses, communicates, and generates feelings of inclusion, status, and belonging within salient social categories. In turn, a sense of shared group membership with power holders, with police officers as powerful symbolic representatives of “law-abiding society,” engenders trust, legitimacy, and cooperation. Yet, this aspect of the theory is rarely explicitly considered in empirical research. Moreover, the theory rests on the underexamined assumption that the police represent ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 17, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Using disclosure, common ground, and verification to build rapport and elicit information.
Rapport-based approaches have become a central tenet of investigative interviewing with suspects and sources. Here we explored the utility of using rapport-building tactics (i.e., self-disclosure and interviewer feedback) to overcome barriers to cooperation in the interviewing domain. Across two experiments using the illegal behaviors paradigm (Dianiska et al., 2019), participants completed a checklist of illegal behaviors and were then interviewed about their background and interests (the interpersonal interview) as well as about their prior participation in an illegal act (the illegal behavior interview). During the inte...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - June 10, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Psychosis and mass shootings: A systematic examination using publicly available data.
This study assesses the role of psychosis in contributing to mass shootings along a continuum. The role of psychosis is compared with other motivations for mass shootings including employment issues, interpersonal conflict, relationship issues, hate, and fame-seeking. Perpetrators motivated by psychosis are also compared with other perpetrators on several well-established risk factors for violence. It is hypothesized that a mental health history is common among mass shooters, but symptoms of psychosis only directly motivate mass shootings for a minority of cases. A dataset of 172 mass shooters was created, coded on 166 lif...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 6, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
To proceed or not proceed: Conducting sanity evaluations of incompetent defendants.
In many jurisdictions, court orders and state policies routinely authorize combined evaluations of competence to stand trial and legal sanity (e.g., Chauhan et al., 2015; Heilbrun & Collins, 1995; Johnson et al., 1990), even though the American Bar Association recommends against doing so (American Bar Association, 2015). For forensic evaluators, there is little formal guidance to address dilemmas that arise when addressing competence and sanity within a single evaluation episode. Specifically, it is not clear whether evaluators should proceed to evaluate the sanity of a defendant whom they have just opined is not competent...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 6, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Evaluators’ experiences with combined competence to proceed and mental state evaluations.
Combined evaluations of competence to proceed (CTP) and mental state at the time of the offense (MSO) are commonplace, yet underexamined in the literature. Given the high stakes faced by defendants and substantial arguments that can be made for and against combined evaluations, it is imperative that we understand how practitioners navigate this process. In this exploratory practitioner study (N = 43), we surveyed professional practices and beliefs concerning combined evaluations as well as how, per practitioners’ self-reports, they were influenced by jurisdictional policy. As is recommended in nascent areas of research, ...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 6, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Jackson-based restorability to competence to stand trial: Critical analysis and recommendations.
It is a well-established principle of U.S. law that criminal proceedings may not be held against a defendant who is not competent to participate in them. Although the vast majority of defendants who are adjudicated incompetent to stand trial (IST) will subsequently regain sufficient capacities to be adjudicated competent to stand trial (CST), there is a subgroup of defendants who do not show sufficient improvement in clinical functioning and functional-legal capacities to regain CST. The present article focuses on individuals who are unrestorably IST. We critically analyze the available scientific evidence on defendants wh...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 6, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Remote forensic evaluations and treatment in the time of COVID-19: An international survey of psychologists and psychiatrists.
This article describes the results of a survey of 295 psychologists and psychiatrists concerning their experiences and opinions of forensic tele-service work. Participants identified a range of benefits to using audiovisual (AV) conferencing technologies, including efficiency, convenience, ease of access, safety, client comfort, and flexibility. However, issues were also reported, including concerns that some aspects of the mental status examination, specifically appearance and behavior and affect, may be difficult to assess. There were also some clinical conditions that were considered by participants to be unsuitable for...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 6, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
What you expect is not what you get: The antitherapeutic impact of sex offender community notification meetings on community members.
In conclusion, this project sheds new light on the antitherapeutic consequences of notification meetings for the community and calls for reconceptualizing their purpose and content and/or adopting other mechanisms to handle sex offenders in the community. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law)
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - May 3, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
Follow-up effects in a parent-training trial for mothers being released from incarceration and their children.
Given the at-risk status of children of incarcerated mothers for behavior problems and later delinquency, and the key role of their mothers’ parenting behaviors, the need for parent training in this population seems obvious. Although short-term effects of parent training for this population seem promising, sustained intervention effects are unknown. Therefore, we examined follow-up effects of Incredible Years Parent Training enhanced with home visits, on parenting behavior (positive parenting and inconsistent discipline), parenting stress, and disruptive child behavior, in families with mothers being released from incarc...
Source: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law - April 22, 2021 Category: Medical Law Source Type: research
