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Delinquency best treatments: how to divert youths from violence while saving lives and detention costs.
Behav Sci Law. 2013 May;31(3):381-96
Authors: Zagar RJ, Grove WM, Busch KG
Abstract
Youth development and violence prevention are two sides of the same public policy. The focus of much theoretical and empirical effort is identifying delinquency risks and intervening. Given the great costs of homicide and the historically high nationwide prison population, new policies must address increasing violence and rising expenses. Treatments of prenatal care, home visitation, bullying prevention, alcohol-substance abuse education, alternative thinking promotion, mentoring, life skills training, rewards for graduation and employment, functional family and multi-systemic therapy, and multi-dimensional foster care are effective, because they ameliorate age-specific risks for delinquency. At present, these interventions only yield a 10-40% diversion from crime however. Returns on investment (ROIs) vary from $1 to $98. Targeting empirical treatments to those determined to be most at risk, based on statistical models or actuarial testing, and using electronic surveillance for non-violent prisoners significantly diverted youth from violence, improving ROI, while simultaneously saving costs. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Youth development and violence prevention are two sides of the same public policy. The focus of much theoretical and empirical effort is identifying delinquency risks and intervening. Given the great costs of homicide and the historically high nationwide prison population, new policies must address increasing violence and rising expenses. Treatments of prenatal care, home visitation, bullying prevention, alcohol-substance abuse education, alternative thinking promotion, mentoring, life skills training, rewards for graduation and employment, functional family and multi-systemic therapy, and multi-dimensional foster care are effective, because they ameliorate age-specific risks for delinquency. At present, these interventions only yield a 10-40% diversion from crime however. Returns on investment (ROIs) vary from $1 to $98. Targeting empirical treatments to those determined to be most at risk, based on statistical models or actuarial testing, and using electronic surveillance for non-violent prisoners significantly diverted youth from violence, improving ROI, while simultaneously saving costs. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
PMID: 23733324 [PubMed - in process]
The influence of multiple interviews on the verbal markers of children’s deception.by Saykaly, Christine; Talwar, Victoria; Lindsay, R. C. L.; Bala, Nicholas C.; Lee, Kang
This study investigated different verbal expressive markers of children recounting both true and false events. Seventy-eight children (M age = 7.58 years) interacted with a research assistant on 3 consecutive days. All children played a game that included a touching component in which the research assistant placed stickers on the child’s body. Parents were then asked to coach their children to lie during subsequent interviews occurring 1 week later. Children were interviewed over 3 consecutive days. Results indicated that verbal expressive markers (e.g., cognitive operations, spontaneous corrections, admissions of lack of knowledge, temporal markers) of true and intentionally false reports were different in the first interview. However, these differences disappeared over subsequent interviews. Results of the current study highlight the importance of recording the first interview in which children disclose, particularly when using verbal markers as indicators of deception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
Social Bonds Under Supervision: Associating Social Bonds of Probationers With Supervision Failureby Lamet, W., Dirkzwager, A., Denkers, A., Van Der Laan, P.
Little is known about the role of social bonds and criminal bonds in relation to probation supervision failure. This study examined probation supervision failure in a sample of 13,091 discharged adult probationers in the Netherlands. We examined the relationship between supervision failure and probationers’ demographic and criminal history factors, social bonds, and criminal bonds. As was hypothesized, probationers with weak conventional social bonds were more likely to fail their probation supervision program than probationers with strong social bonds. Probationers with strong criminal bonds or weak criminal bonds did not differ significantly with respect to their supervision outcome. However, probationers with weak involvement in conventional ties (e.g., work, school) and with strong criminal ties were particularly at risk of failing their supervision. These findings advance current knowledge on factors associated with probation supervision failure and may have important implications for probation practice.
Male Stranger Rape: A Behavioral Model of Victim-Offender Interaction by Lundrigan, S., Mueller-Johnson, K.
Existing empirical typologies of stranger rape derive almost exclusively from samples involving female victims and male offenders. This study explored the behavioral structure of 209 cases of stranger rape involving male victims and male offenders with the aim of developing an interpersonal model of offender-victim interaction. Multivariate analysis revealed three themes of offender-victim interaction: hostility, involvement intimacy, and involvement exploitation. Of offenders, 80% could be classified to a dominant theme, with almost half of the offenses (49%) classified as involvement intimate. The findings are discussed in relation to existing multivariate models of female victim rape, male rape research, and implications for behavioral investigative advice.
NEW YORK — On the CBS documentary series "Brooklyn DA," the story line is simple: Can prosecutors put the bad guys away?
Behind the scenes, the drama unfolding at one of the nation's largest district attorney's offices is more complex, with an upcoming election and opponents threatening to unseat the longtime leader, a review of dozens of cases and a federal lawsuit by a man who was wrongfully convicted.
"I think there is definitely some damage control going on," said Alex Vitale, a Brooklyn College political sociology and criminology professor. "But it's important to keep in mind it's a huge staff. I don't think it's fair to say there is some kind of crisis in the day-to-day at the DA's office."
In Brooklyn, Charles "Joe" Hynes is a ubiquitous figure with a tough-on-crime persona that has won him diverse fans – and critics – throughout the borough. His office sees more than 1,500 new cases a week and handles more than 80,000 per year.
Hynes has gone further than most prosecutors with community outreach. He's created alternative-to-incarceration programs, a gun buyback program replicated citywide and a family justice center where victims of abuse can seek refuge and get help – in several languages.
"The guy is known nationally for being innovative. He is someone who will work and mentor and help others," said Scott Burns, the president of the National District Attorney's Association. "He is somebody who we think gets the big picture – it's not about convicting someone, it's about serving your community."
Hynes, 78, has been the Brooklyn district attorney for the past 23 years. He ran unopposed in 2009, but is being challenged in this year's Democratic primary on Sept. 10.
The six-part documentary about his office airs nationally on CBS and online, with the next episode airing June 22. It tracks prosecutors and cases that deal with sex trafficking, an art heist sting and the shooting death of New York City police Officer Peter Figoski in a botched robbery in 2010. Hynes rarely appears on air, and his prosecutors don't win every case.
In one episode, a prosecutor frets over whether a trap set for an accused art thief will fall through because the hidden cameras might be visible. In another, a homicide prosecutor frankly discusses a disappointing jury verdict.
Some cases on the documentary are mid-investigation, prompting some criticism by other prosecutors and defense attorneys who say they could be compromised by the undue publicity. But Michael Vecchione, head of the rackets division and a confidant of Hynes, insists the office took great pains not to jeopardize any cases.
"I think it's wonderful because it actually shows what an assistant district attorney goes through and how the job affects our lives," said Vecchione, who figures heavily into the show.
Susan Zirinsky, a senior executive producer at CBS overseeing "Brooklyn DA," said every effort was made not to disrupt the legal process in the cases they featured – and she emphasized that the network had no intention of influencing the local race.
"It wasn't about the election," she said. "We're a national program. I don't think in Des Moines, Iowa, they know that Joe Hynes is running for DA."
The network says it came up with the idea of the show and approached Hynes about it last fall.
Not surprisingly, Hynes' opponents hate the show. An attorney for DA candidate Abe George called it "nothing more than unabashed campaign puff-piece for Hynes, his office, and Michael Vecchione."
George took the network to court to get the show shelved on the grounds it was campaign propaganda that violated state laws on corporate donation limits. A Manhattan judge denied the request after hearing testimony from CBS executives and reviewing copies of emails they exchanged with Hynes' office.
Attorney Joel Rudin now wants to look at those emails in the hope that they may help build a high-stakes civil case for his client, Jabbar Collins, whose murder conviction was overturned in 2010 after he spent 16 years behind bars in the 1994 killing of a rabbi and landlord in Brooklyn.
In a $150 million lawsuit, Collins said the investigation – led by Vecchione – didn't turn over exculpatory documents, coerced witnesses and often held them against their will in hotel rooms. The office denied all wrongdoing.
"They're all allegations; none of them are true," Vecchione said. "The office has said a thousand times, not one single thing they said about me is true."
Hynes was ordered by a judge to give a deposition in the case.
He also recently ordered a review of more than 50 cases handled by a now-retired detective after a conviction was overturned and questions came up about the reliability of a drugged-out witness used in many of the cases. Ken Thompson, a former federal prosecutor who's also running for the office, has asked Gov. Andrew Cuomo to name a special prosecutor to do that review instead.
Thompson represented the maid at the center of the 2011 sex assault scandal involving former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The criminal case against Strauss-Kahn fell apart over questions about the maid's credibility, but a lawsuit was settled privately last year.
"If District Attorney Hynes spent less time worrying about reality TV and more about delivering justice to victims, his office's reputation wouldn't be tarnished by a pattern of wrongful convictions and allegations of prosecutorial misconduct," he said.
But Burns of the district attorneys association, who is unrelated to the campaign, said there has been a national movement to encourage prosecutors to create conviction integrity teams. Some have been reticent to do it, but not Hynes.
"Joe Hynes has been at the forefront of that and for whatever reason they also come under intense criticism. It's kind of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't position," he said.
Vitale said it's unlikely Hynes will be unseated, but there is a growing desire in the borough for fresh blood in the office.
"He can't do the job forever," he said.
___
Associated Press writers Jake Pearson and Tom Hays contributed to this report
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Navy Judge Cmdr. Marcus Fulton ruled that President Barack Obama's comments on military sexual assault could affect the sentencing in two cases, according to Stars and Stripes.
During pretrial hearings in the cases, Fulton said “unlawful command influence” derived from Obama's remarks could influence a potential sentencing in the two cases, according to according to court documents obtained by Stars and Stripes. The judge's ruling could have an impact on other sexual assault cases in the military.
On May 7, Obama said he has “no tolerance” for sexual assault in the military.
"I expect consequences,” Obama said. “So I don’t just want more speeches or awareness programs or training, but ultimately folks look the other way. If we find out somebody’s engaging in this, they’ve got to be held accountable – prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Period.”
The judge’s pretrial ruling means that if either defendant is found guilty, whether by a jury or a military judge, they cannot receive a bad conduct discharge or a dishonorable discharge. Sailors found guilty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s Article 120, which covers several sexual crimes including assault and rape, generally receive punitive discharges.“A member of the public would not hear the President’s statement to be a simple admonition to hold members accountable,” Fulton stated. “A member of the public would draw the connection between the ‘dishonorable discharge’ required by the President and a punitive discharge approved by the convening authority.“The strain on the system created by asking a convening authority to disregard [Obama’s] statement in this environment would be too much to sustain public confidence.”
Obama has made several comments chastising sexual assault in the military, at one point directing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to "step up our game exponentially" to prevent further incidents. Obama has also expressed concern over how military sexual assaults "threaten the trust and discipline that makes our military strong."
"That's why we have to be determined to stop these crimes, because they've got no place in the greatest military on Earth," Obama said in a May address to U.S. Naval Academy graduates.
According to an annual report released by the Department of Defense in May, sexual assaults occurred at an average of more than 70 per day in the United States military during 2012.
Click here for more on Fulton's ruling from Stars and Stripes.
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By Barry Moody
GORGONA ISLAND, Italy, June 14 (Reuters) - High on a hillside overlooking the azure sea on a small Mediterranean island, two brawny men toil under the sun in a vineyard that has just released a 50-euro ($66) wine destined for the tables of top restaurants.
This is not an exclusive wine estate or secluded retreat for the rich, despite the tranquil beauty. It is, rather, the residence of men serving long sentences for some of Italy's most notorious and brutal crimes, on an island named after monstrous sisters in Greek mythology with snakes for hair.
Gorgona, the smallest of the Tuscan archipelago that also includes Elba, where Napoleon was incarcerated, is home to a project to rehabilitate hardened criminals through agriculture.
The island, an isolated refuge for monks for 1,500 years and a penal colony since 1869, has just produced 2,700 bottles of a crisp white wine called Gorgona with the help of a 700-year-old Italian wine dynasty. Among the buyers is a Michelin three-star restaurant in Florence.
Gorgona's 40 inmates, many of them convicted of murder, including a notorious contract killing, also produce high quality pork, vegetables, chickens, olive oil and cheese.
The two men on the hillside are serving long terms for murder and won transfer to Gorgona after years in other jails.
There is a long waiting list for entry to the island, a highly desirable location compared with most of Italy's chronically overcrowded jails. Unlike them, Gorgona is at about half its capacity.
"When I come up here in the morning I am struck by the peace. The time does not weigh on you. It is a different mentality here," said one of them, Brian Baldissin, a tattooed and muscular 30-year-old from the northern Veneto region, whose older brother is also in the jail.
His companion, Francesco Papa, also 30 and from Sicily, agreed: "It is different here. You are outside and free. I drive a tractor. I work. You seem a normal person. Elsewhere you are inside for 23 hours a day."
Escape from Gorgona, 37 kms (23 miles) off the port of Livorno, is considered impossible although one prisoner did disappear and has never been found.
The only boat allowed near the rocky coast is a weekly ferry that brings family members for visits. Even that is not permitted to dock and passengers are taken off on police launches.
Prisoners are only locked up at night.
"OFF YOU GO"
"When I arrived and got off the launch, the first thing I did was to look round for a guard. Then they said to me: 'Off you go'. I was staggered," said Umberto Prinzi, 41, a convicted murderer serving a 22-year sentence.
He came to Gorgona after spending many years in five other prisons, and has three years left to serve.
The island, in an archipelago which includes the setting of Alexandre Dumas's novel "The Count of Monte Cristo", has only one permanent resident, 86-year-old Luisa Citti-Corsini, a tiny woman who lives with a cat called ET in a house above the harbour. Around 50 former residents visit their houses periodically, especially during the summer.
Citti-Corsini spends her time knitting and reading. "I don't feel lonely at all. I always have the cat," she told reporters on a recent visit. She said the inmates were "very polite". Asked if she was scared, she replied: "Scared of what?"
"I am magnificently fine here ... the air is fantastic."
In the 1960s, she escaped suffocation in a mudslide that swept her out of a window and dumped in the harbour.
REHABILITATION
Both prisoners and guards are strong supporters of the rehabilitation regime and say it should be used elsewhere.
"What does prison do? A prison like Gorgona can improve you. But other institutions where you are closed 22 hours in a cell just make you bad, that's it," says Prinzi. "The screams of desperation there will stay in your head forever."
"Work in the fields is an escape valve ... If you are locked up in a cell you just watch TV and become an idiot," he added.
"I am fortunate. But there are thousands and thousands of others who don't have this chance so they get locked up, they don't understand why, and when they get out they offend again."
Higher up the island from the vineyard, Sicilian Benedetto Ceraulo, 55, works among racks of ewes' milk and cow's milk cheeses, including a deliciously light ricotta.
Ceraulo was convicted in 1998 of being the gunman in one of Italy's most sensational crimes, the murder of Maurizio Gucci, last member of the original family to control the fashion empire, on the orders of his former wife.
Ceraulo, who has repeatedly claimed he is innocent, won a transfer to Gorgona a year ago. "It's a good life here. You are free. You have the chance to learn, I feel lucky," he said.
"In other prisons it's horrible. You live in cages like wild dogs. It is not suitable for humans. If you are locked up in a cell, deprived of basic thing like privacy, a person gets worse.
"Here I can see the sea, take a stroll. The time passes."
Not far away, Chinese immigrant Jin Zhaoli works in a large nursery cultivating more than a thousand tomato, courgette, aubergine and pepper plants. He was convicted of murdering his wife 14 years ago and is due to get out in a year. "It's good here," he said.
The vines on Gorgona were first planted in 1999 but later abandoned. They were cleaned up and restored after 2009 by a now-released Sicilian inmate who had his own vineyard at home, helped by Prinzi and Papa.
The Marchesi de'Frescobaldi wine dynasty came on the scene in summer 2012 after prison authorities asked local companies to invest in the agricultural programme. The firm sent experts to improve the care and picking of the vines, harvesting the same year.
Lamberto Frescobaldi, 30th generation of the family, vice president and head of wine making, said that the one hectare (2.5 acre) vineyard was ideally situated, facing east towards the morning sun and planted in mineral rich soil.
The Frescobaldis, who were bankers and then wine suppliers to the English kings in the Middle Ages, pay a wage to the convict workers and then sell the wine.
They should roughly break even from their investment, said Frescobaldi, 49, although, for a company with an annual turnover of 80 million euros, it is not a money spinner.
Asked what he felt when he took his first sip of the wine, Frescobaldi replied: "It brought a tear to my eye. It made me reflect on all the people on this island that don't have the chance I have to come and go."
The governor of Gorgona, Maria Grazia Giampiccolo, is known for her progressive methods and also runs a prison inside a Medici fortress in the Tuscan town of Volterra. Inmates there run "Jailbird Dinners" every year with help from local chefs.
She is a leading advocate of engaging inmates in work by building relationships with outside companies. "We need real possibilities to reinsert inmates into society... If the response is only prison it will always be inadequate," she said. ($1 = 0.7519 euros) (Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
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Psychology, Crime & Law, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-23, Ahead of Print.
Publication date: Available online 16 June 2013
Source:Aggression and Violent Behavior
Author(s): Mark E. Olver , Stephen C.P. Wong
The present manuscript is a review of program and offender characteristics, attrition, treatment change, and recidivism outcomes in programs targeting high risk sexual offenders. We begin by providing an overview of the characteristics of such programs within the lens of the risk, need, responsivity (RNR) model. We then review treatment outcome research from four international high intensity sex offender programs and discuss the methodological, clinical, and practical limitations of this body of work. We proceed to discuss the issue of treatment change in high risk sexual offenders, the broad methods through which change may be evaluated, and review the literature examining within-program change and its relationship to sexual and violent recidivism. A brief review of the sexual offender treatment attrition literature follows, particularly in regards to the RNR issues embedded within this clinical conundrum given that high risk sex offenders pose the greatest risk for non-completion yet also stand to yield the most benefit from services. Finally, we review the research on the therapeutic responses of psychopathic sexual offenders and discuss the clinical implications for treating and managing individuals with substantial psychopathic traits applying the RNR framework. Future clinical and research directions with high risk sexual offenders in terms of treatment, risk reduction, reducing attrition, and attempting to effect positive changes are discussed.
Source:Aggression and Violent Behavior
Author(s): Mark E. Olver , Stephen C.P. Wong
The present manuscript is a review of program and offender characteristics, attrition, treatment change, and recidivism outcomes in programs targeting high risk sexual offenders. We begin by providing an overview of the characteristics of such programs within the lens of the risk, need, responsivity (RNR) model. We then review treatment outcome research from four international high intensity sex offender programs and discuss the methodological, clinical, and practical limitations of this body of work. We proceed to discuss the issue of treatment change in high risk sexual offenders, the broad methods through which change may be evaluated, and review the literature examining within-program change and its relationship to sexual and violent recidivism. A brief review of the sexual offender treatment attrition literature follows, particularly in regards to the RNR issues embedded within this clinical conundrum given that high risk sex offenders pose the greatest risk for non-completion yet also stand to yield the most benefit from services. Finally, we review the research on the therapeutic responses of psychopathic sexual offenders and discuss the clinical implications for treating and managing individuals with substantial psychopathic traits applying the RNR framework. Future clinical and research directions with high risk sexual offenders in terms of treatment, risk reduction, reducing attrition, and attempting to effect positive changes are discussed.
Publication date: Available online 16 June 2013
Source:Aggression and Violent Behavior
Author(s): Devon L.L. Polaschek
Source:Aggression and Violent Behavior
Author(s): Devon L.L. Polaschek
NIJ is currently developing a standard for offender tracking monitoring systems. Offender tracking systems (sometimes referred to as the "ankle bracelet") have been in use for nearly 20 years. Despite their long-time use, there are no standard guidelines for developing the devices or purchasing them. As a result, there is a great deal of variation in the capabilities of the systems being sold to community corrections agencies. Establishing minimum performance requirements for offender tracking systems will help ensure that the equipment meets agencies’ needs.
Community Disorder, Victimization Exposure, and Mental Health in a National Sample of Youthby Turner, H. A., Shattuck, A., Hamby, S., Finkelhor, D.
This study considers whether elevated distress among youth living in more disordered neighborhoods can be explained by personal exposure to violence and victimization, level of non-victimization adversity, and family support. Analyses were based on a sample of 2,039 youth ages 10 to 17 who participated in the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence, a national telephone survey conducted in 2008. Using structural equation modeling, we find no direct effects of community disorder on distress, once the significant mediating effects of victimization, family support, and adversity are taken into account. Using a comprehensive measure of victimization covering several domains of experiences, we show that past-year exposure to child maltreatment, sexual victimization, peer assault and bullying, and property crime each significantly mediate the community disorder–distress association. A measure of the total number of victimization types to which youth were exposed (i.e., level of "poly-victimization") had the strongest mediating effect.
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EXAMINING THE GENERALITY OF THE UNEMPLOYMENT–CRIME ASSOCIATIONby MIKKO AALTONEN, JOHN M. MACDONALD, PEKKA MARTIKAINEN, JANNE KIVIVUORI
This article examines whether the relationship between unemployment and criminal offending depends on the type of crime analyzed. We rely on fixed-effects regression models to assess the association between changes in unemployment status and changes in violent crime, property crime, and driving under the influence (DUI) over a 6-year period. We also examine whether the type of unemployment benefit received moderates the link to criminal behavior. We find significantly positive effects of unemployment on property crime but not on other types of crime. Our estimates also suggest that unemployed young males commit less crime while participating in active labor market programs when compared with periods during which they receive standard unemployment benefits.
