Blogger wins scientific achievement award

Accepting the award. Photo credit: Michael Donner

I am pleased to report that I have been awarded the 2012 Distinguished Scientific Contribution in Psychology award. It struck like a thunderbolt in a clear blue sky; I had no idea I had even been nominated for an award until I got a phone call notifying me I had won. 

It was especially meaningful to come from the California Psychology Association. The only voice for California’s 18,000 licensed psychologists, the CPA tirelessly advocates for the profession as well as for the mental health needs of the general public in California.

For those of you who only know me as a blogger and/or a forensic psychology practitioner, I conducted pioneering research in the late 1990s into the motivations of hate crime perpetrators. I later extended that work to group rape, likening both forms of violence to cultural theater in which the actors publicly demonstrate masculinity, with their victims as dramatic props. (I'm excited about a forthcoming chapter in a cutting-edge text on multiple-perpetrator rape, due out next year.) I have also conducted historical research and published on the ethics of forensic diagnosis, and especially the contested sexual paraphilia of "hebephilia." More information on my research is available on my website and on Wikipedia.

The location of the awards ceremony could not have been more idyllic -- the gorgeous Monterey coast on a balmy weekend. The 270-degree view of the Monterey Bay and the surrounding hills from the 10th floor of the Marriott Hotel was breathtaking; unfortunately, a photo just can't capture it.

CPA President Craig Lareau presents award.
Photo credit: Patricia VanWoerkom

The quality of this year's convention trainings was impressive. Perhaps because the current president, Craig Lareau, is a forensic psychologist and attorney, there was a good deal of forensic programming. Alan Goldstein presented the latest on Miranda waiver evaluations (including the new instrument), Professor Gail Goodman gave an overview of the research on child witness accuracy, and there were workshops on forensic neuropsychology.

I especially enjoyed a presentation by Keely Kolmes of San Francisco and Heather Wittenberg of Maui designed to help psychologists step up their online presence. For anyone interested, Dr. Kolmes has some nice resources (HERE) for psychologists on the ethics of social media and on managing one's online reputation.

By the way, if you practice in California and don't belong to the CPA, I encourage you to join. The reconfigured CPA has a forward-looking leadership team headed by the dynamic Jo Linder-Crow and is doing essential advocacy work on behalf of psychologists and the public. It appears to have defeated (at least for the time being) an effort to axe our regulatory agency, the Board of Psychology, which would have left psychologists at the mercy of other professions. It's working hard to promote parity for mental health consumers. And it's tangibly supporting legislators who will lobby for progressive causes, for example prisoner rehabilitation instead of endless warehousing. So do your share, whether it's just paying dues or volunteering, so that all of the heavy lifting does not fall on just a few shoulders.

Sea Otter, Monterey Bay

Whether or not you belong to the CPA, if you are in California you might also consider donating to its Political Action Committee, which funds progressive politicians and reforms. The unfortunate reality is, politics is money-driven.

And now, sadly, it's back to the grindstone.

Related news: Your blogger profiled in the 2012 edition of advanced high school textbook, Forensic Science: Advanced Investigations.

New competency resources

Case report added to resources page

Thanks to colleague Denis Zavodny, who found this report on the web, I have added another competency case to the rogue's gallery. For those of you who don't know, this is a collection of publicly accessible resources on legal competencies that I put together some time back. For training purposes, I have found that it's hard to beat real-life reports and videos, especially from high-profile or otherwise fascinating cases.

 

The newest report is on Thomas A. Shay (bottom right photo, above), arrested in 1991 for a bomb blast that killed one Boston police officer and maimed another.  A Bridgeport State Hospital psychologist found nothing wrong with him other than a bad case of immaturity and self-centeredness.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE COMPETENCY RESOURCES PAGE 

New review of competency assessment tests

Marvin Acklin

The Journal of Personality Assessment has just published a handy overview of three competency assessment instruments. The report, by Hawaii forensic psychologist (and forensic psychology blogger!) Marvin Acklin, focuses on the psychometric properties of two tests that are fast becoming standards, as well as a newer test of response style that’s still on shakier ground.

Acklin describes the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA) and the Evaluation of Competency to Stand Trial–Revised (ECST-R) as indispensable to the forensic clinician's toolbox, a statement with which we would all likely agree. 

He especially lauds the MacCAT-CA, "the queen of CST instruments," because its vignette method enables us to drill down into the defendant's core reasoning skills, essential to decisional competency. The ECST-R, meanwhile, is most useful when the issue is psychosis and malingered psychosis. On the negative side, he points out, neither instrument provides sufficient sampling of basic legal knowledge, which must be ascertained through a detailed interview.

Acklin is less sanguine about the new Inventory of Legal Knowledge (ILK), developed to assess for malingered incompetency. Echoing Steve Rubenzer's astute critique in the Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology, he notes concern about the its potentially high rate of false positives, or people falsely labeled as malingerers. This has been a concern of mine, too; the recommended cut score of 47 lends itself to overdiagnosis of malingering in adversarial settings.

The article, The Forensic Clinician's Toolbox I: A Review of Competency to Stand Trial (CST) Instruments, may be requested directly from the author (HERE).

"Mental Competency: Best Practices Model"

And since we're on the topic of competency resources, don't forget to check out the National Judicial College's newly launched website. It's got a lot to offer. My previous blog post on the site, with links to it, is HERE.

Tearing the child apart: Free training in San Francisco

What motivates parents to -- either consciously or unconsciously -- damage or destroy their own children?

We know the complex psychological effects of high-conflict divorce, but how do we understand the contribution of narcissism, envy and perverse thinking?

This Saturday, Jan. 21, forensic psychologist Michael Donner, a psychoanalyst, child custody evaluator and ethicist, will take an analytic approach to questions usually considered part of the family court system.

Sponsored by the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, Saturday's event features H. Spencer Bloch, MD,  author of Adolescent Development, Psychopathology, and Treatment, as discussant.

The event runs from 10:00 a.m. to noon and is free. To register, call Aaron Chow at (415) 563-5815 or email him HERE. More information and online registration is HERE.

Donner authored an excellent article by the same title in Psychoanalytic Psychology. Contact him (HERE) to request a copy of "Tearing Children Apart: The Contribution of Narcissism, Envy and Perverse Modes of Thought to Child Custody Wars."

Our broken family court system: Free training in Arizona

Another free training geared toward child custody evaluators is coming up March 16-17 in Phoenix, Arizona. Co-sponsored by the National Alliance of Professional Psychology Providers and the Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Foundation, it features a cast of well-known experts, including:

• Dr. Lenore Walker (author of the classic, The Battered Woman’s Syndrome)
• David L. Shapiro, PhD
• G. Andrew H. Benjamin, JD, PhD, ABPP
• Judge Marjory Fields 
• John Caccavale, PhD (speaking on Business Ethics for Custody Evaluators)

More information and online registration is available HERE.

First joint psychology-law program with disability focus

New York Law School and John Jay College of Criminal Justice have announced a new joint degree program in forensic psychology and law that will launch in Fall 2012 and focus on disability law.

New York Law School already offers 13 courses on mental disability law, while John Jay already offers an M.A. in forensic psychology. But this will be the first program of its kind, according to New York Law School professor Michael Perlin, who is also the director of he law school's Mental Disability Law Program.

"I'm very excited about the joint program because it highlights the interdisciplinary nature of what we are trying to do through our mental disability law program," Perlin told the National Law Journal. "We created courses specifically to appeal to both lawyers and mental health professionals. This program helps create a synergy that ensures, as best we can, that graduates will have a deep understanding of the other discipline."

"Our graduates will be well-trained lawyers for people with mental disabilities issues and have the potential to become legal advocates, work on public policy or become law professors in this unique niche," said James Wulach, the director of the M.A. Program in Forensic Mental Health Counseling at John Jay College.

Students must apply and be accepted to both schools separately and will finish with a Master of Arts in forensic psychology from John Jay and a Juris Doctor from New York Law School. Perlin expects an initial enrollment of about 25 students.

The National Law Journal story is HERE.

Backlash against penal excess hits New Zealand this weekend

When I was in Australia over the summer, giving a keynote at their national forensic psychology conference, I got the distinct impression that Aussie practitioners were a wee bit savvier about criminal justice excesses than the average American.

Now comes evidence that neighboring New Zealanders are equally astute: A joint conference this weekend of Australian and New Zealanders is entitled: Crime and Punishment: The Rising Punitiveness.


The Wellington conference, co-hosted by the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, features intriguing keynotes on:

• Law and psychiatry, from cooperation to contamination (my favorite title in a great lineup) -- Law and Ethics Professor Nigel Eastman, St George’s University of London

• New Zealand's three strikes legislation: Sound policy or penal excess -- Law Professor Warren Brookbanks, Auckland University Law School

• Off with their heads…said the Queen (runner-up for best title) -- Forensic Psychiatry Professor Emeritus Paul Mullen, Monash University

• While it may not be criminalisation, it is criminal: The plight of people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system -- Forensic Psychology Professor James Ogloff, Monash University and Director of the Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science and Director of Psychological Services at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health

• Contrasts in punishment: An examination of Anglophone excess and Nordic exceptionalism (one I would especially like to hear) -- Criminology Professor John Pratt, Institute of Criminology, Victoria University

• Reconceptualizing psychopathy to promote effective intervention -- Psychology and Social Behavior Professor Jennifer Skeem, Centers for Psychology and Law and Evidence-based Corrections at the University of California

• Politics and punitiveness – Limiting the rush to punish -- Kim Workman, retired public servant with the New Zealand Department of Maori Affairs and Ministry of Health

 If you happen to be in or near Wellington this weekend, check it out. I am excited to see this growing backlash against penal excesses, and I sure wish I could be there!

Forensic trainings on the Eastern Seaboard

Oct. 2: Fun-filled training in New York

Stephen Morse

The New York State Psychological Association's Forensic Division is holding a one-day conference that some are billing as the best single-day conference this year. Keynote speaker Stephen J. Morse JD, PhD will open the day with a talk on “Folk Psychology: The Key to Legally Relevant Forensic Communication.” The day will end with a 2-hour moot court and then a wine social. Sandwiched in between are presentations by:

• William Barr, PhD on “Evaluating Competency: A Neuropsychological Perspective”
• Michael Perlin, JD on “ There Must be Some Way Out of Here: Why The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is Potentially the Best Weapon in the Fight Against Sanism in Forensic Facilities”
• Joseph Plaud, PhD on “Psychological Assessment of Sexual Offenders: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going”
• David Martindale, PhD on “A Reviewer’s Take on Custody Evaluations”

Michael Perlin

The conference is being held at the Faculty House at Columbia University in New York City, which I am told is a great venue. The full conference program is HERE. Registration is HERE. Get it while it's hot.

Oct. 14: Risk management in the community

Well-known forensic psychologist Kirk Heilbrun of Drexel University is the featured presenter at this Forensic Mental Health Symposium sponsored by the Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. The event will be held at the Crowne Plaza Richmond West in Richmond, Virginia. More information is available at the ILPPP website. To register, click HERE.

Nov. 4: Police custody and the interrogation of youth

Kirk Heilbrun

This Advanced Seminar in Juvenile Forensic Practice, also sponsored by the ILPPP, features several interesting speakers, including:

• Lawrence Fitch, Esq on The Rights of Juveniles in Delinquency Cases: Understanding the Principles of Miranda Waiver and the Admissibility of Confessions in Juvenile Court
• Dick Reppucci, PhD on Research on the Police Interrogation of Juveniles
• Gregg McCrary (FBI, Retired) on Controversial Juvenile Cases: Evidence, Testimony and Outcomes

The event will be held at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. To register, click HERE.

Next semester, the ILPPP is planning an advanced workshop on evaluating sanity with Ira Packer, and a workshop on Motivational Interviewing with David Prescott. Check back with their website for updates on those, and more.

Wallowa Lake diagnostic training

Sculpture on Main Street of Joseph, Oregon
with Eagle Cap Wilderness Area in background
(K Franklin)

On the day that the world didn't end, I found it fitting to be literally at the end of the road, giving a training on controversies in psychiatric diagnosis. The setting was Oregon’s picturesque Wallowa Lake, where for 26 years the Eastern Oregon Psychological Association has sponsored an annual retreat.


The mental health professionals at the retreat were a bright and independent bunch whose practices take them across scenic mountainous terrain to far-flung rural communities, Indian reservations, jails and psychiatric facilities in eastern Oregon, Washington and Idaho.


Since Oregon has avoided the Sexually Violent Predator quagmire, the practitioners – as well as the psychologists from Eastern Oregon University in La Grande in attendance -- were both amused and appalled to learn about the pseudoscientific constructs of hebephilia and paraphilic coercive disorder for which the sex offender industry is lobbying. Other controversial diagnoses and proposed diagnoses covered in the daylong workshop included:

• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
• Antisocial Personality Disorder and Psychopathy
• Parental Alienation Syndrome
• Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome
• Mild Neurocognitive Disorder
• Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
• Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
• Traumatic Grief Disorder
• Gambling Disorder

Wallowa River as seen from Chief Joseph
Trail (K Franklin)

If you ever get a chance to attend this annual retreat, which is not well advertised but always takes place the weekend before Memorial Day Weekend, I recommend it highly. Not only is the crowd an enjoyable and intellectual one, but the setting is amazing. It's not for no reason that the Nez Perce consider sacred this valley butting up against the mountains of the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area.

The legendary Chief Joseph is buried on a glacial moraine overlooking the lake. The town named in his honor, Joseph, was a dying old ranching and mining community when it was discovered by artists who have reinvigorated the main drag, opening shuttered storefronts and installing amazing sculptures on every corner. Summer vacationers can now rub shoulders with cowboys and Indians in gourmet restaurants featuring local micro-brews and wines.

It's not an easy place to get to (one must catch a puddle jumper to Walla Walla, Washington or Pendleton, Oregon and then drive for several hours), but its breathtaking beauty and unique character make it well worth a visit.

Special thanks to David Starr, Dwight Mowry, Marianne Weaver, Terry Templeman, Charles Lyons, and Stephen and Beth Condon for all of your work and your kindness in arranging and facilitating this event.

Oregon training on forensic work with immigrants

           "But they don’t speak

English!": The assessment of

immigrants in forensic and administrative contexts

April 18 at Portland State University, Oregon

We’ve always been a land of immigrants, but now more than ever issues of language and acculturation are at the forefront of many forensic evaluations. Never fear, our colleagues at the Northwest Forensic Institute in Portland, Oregon have set up a training to help you maneuver in these challenging contexts.

Tedd Judd, the presenter, is a Certified Hispanic Mental Health Specialist and Past President of the Hispanic Neuropsychological Society who has taught neuropsychology in 21 countries on 5 continents.

The all-day training workshop will address practicalities, skills, ethics, and resources for such evaluations in order to provide equitable services. The objective is to teach skills so participants are able to choose and refer cases appropriately and increase the range of cases they can deal with confidently and ethically. The workshop will include case presentations.

The early-bird registration fee of $175 is good until Monday, April 11; after that, the fee is $190. What a deal for six hours of Continuing Education credits.

More information is available HERE.

Also in Oregon: May 21 training on forensic diagnosis

For those of you planning to be up in the Pacific Northwest the following month, I am going to be giving an all-day training up in Oregon. My workshop, “Psychiatric Diagnoses in Court: Current Controversies and Future Directions,” will be May 21 at picturesque Wallowa Lake in eastern Oregon.

More information is available HERE (or visit my website).

Group rape: Spotlight on shadowy terrain

Seminar series, online forum kick off international initiative

Scene from Casualties of War, based on a true story
about U.S. soldiers in Vietnam

Sexual violence is a hot topic, with myriad books, articles, and even entire journals devoted to its study. But despite their frequency, there is very little study of rapes committed by multiple offenders. Group rapists are often lumped together with other types of offenders, including solo rapists and pedophiles. This is unfortunate, because multi-offender rape is a different beast, often less about sex than about male peer group dynamics. I think of it as a form of cultural theater, in which the victim becomes a dramatic prop through which men publicly demonstrate their heterosexual masculinity to each other.


Two British researchers aim to change the current climate of neglect. Jessica Woodhams of the University of Birmingham and Miranda Horvath or Middlesex University have an ambitious goal of developing an international network and research agenda focused on understanding and preventing multiple-perpetrator rape.

They have secured funding from the British Psychological Society for a seminar series at Middlesex University in London this fall. Gearing up, they have just launched a month-long public forum at the international Sexual Violence Research Institute’s site.

To kick off the discussion, they tossed out the following intriguing questions:

1. Are all perpetrators of multiple perpetrator rape equally responsible for their actions?
2. Is multiple perpetrator rape only a significant problem in certain populations/social groups?
3. How can we best tackle multiple perpetrator rape in terms of prevention, interventions with perpetrators, supporting victims, and improving investigation and prosecution?

I'm sure many of you who have done treatment, evaluation, and/or research with violent offenders have some thoughts on these questions. If so, join the online discussion. You do have to register (giving yourself a screen name and a password), but that is quick and easy (and free). Check it out HERE.

Of related interest:

Dr. L'Heureux Dumi Lewis, a professor of sociology and Black studies at the City College of New York, talks about race and community reactions to the high-profile multiple-perpetrator rape in Cleveland, Texas at his blog, Uptown Notes.

Additional resources are listed on my web page on multiple-perpetrator rape, HERE. 

New site features competency rogues' gallery

At long last, I have completed a WordPress redesign of my decrepit old website. The new site features a compilation of publicly accessible resources on legal competencies, including reports, videos, and court transcripts on cases ranging from Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) To boxer Mike Tyson to suspected "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla. These resources, most free and online, are available for instructors, students, practitioners, and anyone else who is interested. For training purposes, it’s hard to beat real-life reports and videos, especially from high-profile or otherwise fascinating cases. To see the full gallery, go to my new website -- HERE -- and click on the Resources tab. Have fun exploring. And please submit a comment on this page if you know of any other resources that I didn't list.

Thanks to all of you who helped with this project by giving me leads -- Denis, Steve, Frank, Eileen, Christina, Ronna, and others.

This blogger to give keynotes in Australia, UK

I am excited to announce that I will be delivering keynote addresses at forensic conferences in Australia and the United Kingdom later this year. I hope to be able to meet some of you in person at one or the other.

After the floods and cyclone -- join me on the Sunshine Coast

I will be giving both a keynote address and an all-day training at Australia's national forensic psychology conference, taking place from August 4-6 in Noosa, in the state of Queensland. Other keynote speakers are Australian forensic psychologists Paul Wilson, Don Thomson and Alfred Allan, and fellow Americans Tom Grisso and Leslie Morey.

This year's theme is "Diversity and Specialism in Forensic Psychology." If you think you have a good idea for a forensic talk or workshop, I would encourage you to submit a proposal. Be quick about it, though, as the deadline is the end of February.

Along with an exciting scientific program, the organizers are promising fun social functions and a chance to network "in a friendly and relaxed environment." Noosa is not too far away from the recent catastrophic flooding and Cyclone Yasi, but I'm sure flood waters will have receded by August. I'll be sharing more details in coming months.

Next up: Sexual violence conference in London

On September 8, I will be delivering another keynote at a Sexual Violence conference sponsored by the Forensic Psychological Services program at Middlesex University in London. My focus will be the role of culture and masculinity in multiple-perpetrator rape (the topic of my 2004 theoretical article). Again, stay tuned for more details.

I am excited to be a part of this program because of the organizers' cutting-edge efforts toward preventing sexual violence, especially rape by multiple perpetrators. The Forensic Psychological Services Program at Middlesex University sponsored similar conferences on hate crimes in 2008 and 2010, with an innovative focus on offender motivations and prevention.

You can get involved in this one, too. The organizers are inviting proposals for papers and debate panels pertaining to sexual violence, especially those based on empirical research and/or involving new and emerging topics. One of their major goals is to foster more exchange of ideas among practitioners, academics and policy makers. The deadline for submissions is April 15 (Tax Day, here on the other side of the Atlantic).

California training to feature confession expert

Dr. Richard Leo, Associate Law Professor at USF and a leading scholar in the area of false confessions, will be the keynote speaker at next month's conference of the Forensic Mental Health Association of California. His presentation is titled False Confessions: Causes, Characteristics and Solutions.*

The conference, "Mental Health and the Law: An In-Depth Look at the Evidence," will be March 23-25 in Seaside (just outside of picturesque Monterey).

The FMHAC has scored some other big names, too, including Richard Rogers and Robert Hare. Topics of interest include the effect of high-profile crimes on SVP laws in California, competency restoration treatment in county jails, malingering assessment, and lots more.

*My review of Dr. Leo's book, Police Interrogation and American Justice, is HERE.

Domestic violence risk training in Oregon

On October 15, Northwest Forensic Institute is presenting the latest in its series of high-quality forensic continuing education programs. It features Tonia Nicholls, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia and co-author of several violence risk assessment and prevention guides. Dr. Nicholls has provided dozens of violence risk trainings around the world. This one is titled, "An introduction to domestic violence risk assessment: Evidence to inform your practice."

Despite our preoccupation with 'stranger danger' (e.g., child abductions, stranger-rapes) it is a well-established fact that we are more likely to be assaulted or killed by a family member than by anyone else. Violence in families is so common as to be considered ubiquitous. Canadian and American data reveal similar rates of violence against women: around 1 in 5 women have ever experienced intimate partner violence and 2 to 4 percent of women suffered severe violence in the past year. The lifetime incidence rate for any form of domestic violence is approximately 19 percent. The lifetime incidence for severe or injurious domestic violence is about 8 percent.

Accurate risk assessments with perpetrators of intimate partner abuse are important for a variety of diverse reasons. A proper assessment should lead to informed safety planning for the victim(s) and case management for the perpetrator. Good risk evaluations can help to ensure the appropriate division of scarce resources to those individuals and families in greatest need and prevent the disruption of intact families who might actually suffer unnecessarily as a result of intrusive interventions. The information gleaned from a good evaluation can also be essential for assisting victims and their advocates in relevant civil (e.g., divorce or custody disputes) and criminal proceedings.

The training is co-sponsored by the Portland State University and will earn mental health professionals 6 hours of CE credits; accreditation for 6 hours of CLE for attorneys is pending. The fee is $175 for professionals and $75 for students. For more information and to register, visit the Institute's WEBSITE or call (503) 413-0685.

APA 2010: Exciting forensic programming

I was vacillating about whether to attend the upcoming American Psychological Association convention in San Diego, but browsing through the schedule sold me. The American Psychology-Law Society (Division 41) is sponsoring almost two dozen top-notch sessions featuring timely topics and appearances by many forensic psychology luminaries. Especially timely is the focus on juvenile justice issues. Here's a sampling of the great offerings:

Juvenile justice track

• "Life Without Parole for Juvenile Offenders: Current Legal, Developmental, and Psychological Issues" features Thomas Grisso, Bryan Stevenson, Barry Feld, and Chrisopher Slobogin, dissecting the recent Sullivan and Graham cases and discussing the role of forensic examiners.

• Judicial Panel on Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disproportionality, hosted by forensic psychology scholar Richard Wiener, features three juvenile court judges and an attorney from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

• "Juvenile Offenders Are Ineligible for Civil Commitment As Sexual Predators," looks to be a great presentation on a topic I have blogged about recently, that of predicting sex offender recidivism among kids; moderated by Richard Wollert, the panel includes Michael Caldwell telling us "Why Evaluators Can't Identify Sexual Recidivists When They Assess Juveniles."

• "The Construct of Empathy in the Treatment of Adolescents in the Juvenile Justice System," moderated by Lois Condie of Harvard Medical School, will include a presentation by forensic psychologist and professor Frank DiCataldo, whose outstanding book The Perversion of Youth I reviewed here.

Other Div. 41 hot picks

• "Forensic Assessment": Scholars Daniel Murrie, Richard Rogers, and others will discuss the reliability of forensic evaluations in sanity evaluations, misassumptions regarding Miranda waivers, evaluating the competence of violence risk assessors, and other timely forensic assessment issues.

• "Mental Health Courts -- The MacArthur Research" features stalwarts John Monahan, Hank Steadman, and others.

• "Long-Term Solitary Confinement's Impact on Psychological Well-Being -- The Colorado Study" looks to be an especially powerful panel including presentations by Stuart Grassian, an early scholar of segregation psychosis, AP-LS fellow Joel Dvoskin, and Jamie Fellner, an attorney with Human Rights Watch, talking about "Supermax Confinement and the Mind."

• "Juror Decision Making": Margaret Bull Kovera and other scholars will present recent empirical findings in jury research.

• "Social Cognition in Court -- Understanding Laypersons' Interrogation Schemas and Prototypes" features false confession scholars Saul Kassin, Solomon M. Fulero, and others.

Early registration ends Wednesday (after which the price goes up), so register now if you plan to attend. Now that you know which panels I am attending, I hope to see many of y'all down in sunny San Diego in just a couple of months.

Oodles of free criminology articles

Sage journals wants you … and they are offering a wide array of taste treats from more than a dozen different journals, in the hopes of luring you in. Just click on any of the below links to download the free article(s) of your choice:

Journal: Youth Justice
Criminalizing Sociability through Anti-social Behaviour Legislation: Dispersal Powers, Young People and the Police

Journal: Sex Abuse
Psychological Profiles of Internet Sexual Offenders: Comparisons With Contact Sexual Offenders

Journal: Police Quarterly
The Effect of Higher Education on Police Behavior

Journal: European Journal of Criminology
Girls, gangs and violence: Assessing the evidence

Journal: Punishment Society
The relevance of inmate race/ethnicity versus population composition for understanding prison rule violations

Journal: Homicide Studies
A Multidimensional Analysis of Criminal Specialization Among Single-Victim and Serial Homicide Offenders

Journal: Feminist Criminology

• Long-Term Patterns of Offending in Women
• Understanding Identity Theft: Offenders' Accounts of Their Lives and Crimes
• Genocide: The Criminal Law between Truth and Justice

Journal: Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
Internet Development, Censorship, and Cyber Crimes in China

Journal: Trauma Violence and Abuse
Understanding Human Trafficking in the United States

Journal: Criminal Justice and Behavior
Violent Video Games and Aggression: Causal Relationship or Byproduct of Family Violence and Intrinsic Violence Motivation?

Journal: Crime Delinquency
Opportunities, Rational Choice, and Self-Control: On the Interaction of Person and Situation in a General Theory of Crime

Journal: Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
Youthful Suicide and Social Support: Exploring the Social Dynamics of Suicide-Related Behavior and Attitudes Within a National Sample of US Adolescents

Thanks to Jarrod Steffan, a forensic and clinical psychologist in Wichita, Kansas who specializes in criminal forensic psychology, for sharing this special offer with us.

CCOSO offering innovative workshops in May

The California Coalition on Sex Offending has posted the details for this year's conference, taking place from May 12-14 in San Diego. Along with the usual topics one hears about at sex offender conferences, I noticed a couple of workshops on subjects that get too little attention.

Racial patterns in sex offending

Stroll through a hospital of civilly detained sex offenders and the racial patterns will jump out at you. But few in the field talk about them. Benjamin Bowser, chair of the sociology department at the California State University in Hayward, is an exception. Bowser's research on African American male sexuality is critical to a culturally nuanced understanding of sex offending. Here, in a workshop entitled "How race impacts on sex offender research, assessment and treatment," he and co-presenters Jay Adams, Ph.D. and Baltazar Villareal Jr., a therapist at Coalinga State Hospital, will discuss this topic and "offer suggestions to make treatment more meaningful and effective for minority clients." Significantly, the presenters propose that for African American and Latino men, much sex offending is NOT driven by sexually deviant paraphilias.

Vicarious traumatization and burnout

Working with child molesters can cause psychological harm. That is the conclusion of Robert Emerick, Ph.D., based on a survey of about a thousand professionals. The greater one's exposure to child molesters, the more stress a professional experiences, Emerick has concluded from professionals' scores on the "Silent Injury Questionnaire." (The anonymous questionnaire is online HERE.) At the workshop, Emerick will discuss ways to reduce the risk of these "silent injuries."

Sex Offender Management Board report

CCOSO leaders Tom Tobin and Gerry Blasingame are presenting a report on the progress of, and challenges facing, California's Sex Offender Management Board, created by the legislature in 2006 to systematize oversight of the state's sex offenders. This is an extremely timely topic, especially in the wake of the brouhaha over the Chelsea King case in San Diego.

The conference, cosponsored Alliant International University's Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, will be held at the Marriott Mission Valley Hotel in San Diego; the deadline for early registration is Tax Day (April 15). Continuing Education credits are available for psychologists, attorneys, social workers, nurses, MFT's, and other licensed professionals. The complete conference brochure and registration info are online HERE.

Excellent overview of insanity evaluations

I just finished Ira Packer's new book, Evaluation of Criminal Responsibility, from the Best Practices in Forensic Mental Health Assessment series. I found it to be an excellent summary manual, and affordably priced to boot. Here is the start of my review; click HERE for the full review:

This crisply written manual provides a balanced summary of the case law, empirical research, and developing practice standards for conducting insanity evaluations. Ira Packer, an award-winning scholar and long-time leader in the field of forensic psychology, brings a wealth of wisdom and experience to this topic. His discussions of controversial topics, such as whether to provide an “ultimate issue” opinion and how to approach the possibility of malingering, are especially balanced and nuanced.

Criminal responsibility evaluations are difficult endeavors both because of their retrospective nature, and also because we can never know for sure what was going on in someone else’s head, especially when that person may have understandable reasons to distort....

My full review is HERE. (Please be sure to click on "yes" if you find the review helpful; that boosts my Amazon ranking.)

Training update: March 25 in Seaside, California

Ethics and forensic diagnosis

For you Californians, I’ve got some good news on the training that I am giving at the Forensic Mental Health Association conference March 24-26 in Seaside. The organizers have just doubled my time slot: I will now be presenting for the entire afternoon of Thursday, March 25. If you are free that day, there is still time to sign up. Registration information is online HERE.

My topic is Ethical Considerations in Psychiatric Diagnoses in Forensic and Correctional Settings. I will give an overview of ethics issues in the use of diagnostic labels in court and in correctional settings before focusing specifically on controversial diagnoses that are often invoked in adversarial legal contexts. Diagnoses of focus will include Antisocial Personality Disorder and the sexual paraphilias, including pedophilia and the novel diagnoses being proposed for the upcoming DSM-5 (e.g., "Paraphilic Coercive Disorder" and "Pedohebephilia").

Please note that the time listed in the program brochure for my training is incorrect. My new, expanded time slot is from 1:30 to 5:00 p.m.

This year's legal track, focusing on competency to stand trial in California (see my previous blog post), has also been expanded and will include some exciting new presenters.

All types of continuing education credits are being offered for professionals in the fields of mental health, law, and law enforcement.

Calif.: Legal training on competency assessment

March 24-26 conference to offer MCLE credits

I've gotten a surge in queries from psychologists interested in being supervised as they embark into the tricky area of court-ordered competency-to-stand-trial assessments. With that need in mind, I'm excited that the Forensic Mental Health Association is featuring a special "legal track" on competency at next month's conference. It won't adequately train folks in the nuts and bolts, but they can get the lay of the land and become aware of some of the pitfalls and controversies.

One of the sessions that looks is especially interesting is on "Expert Qualifications and the Adequacy of Court-Ordered Evaluations." Having seen plenty of deficient, drive-by evaluations caused by a combination of the courts' low standards and low pay, I am happy to see this area getting some much-needed attention. The co-presenters are Judge Kurt Kumli of Santa Clara County, a nationally recognized expert in juvenile law and policy, and attorney David Meyer of USC's Institute of Psychiatry and Law.

The opening session of the legal track will address practical issues of enforcing court orders for competency restoration in state hospitals, jails, and conditional release programs. Again, this is a topic ripe for attention, as many competency restoration programs are sorely deficient.

Other sessions of the competency track will focus on juvenile competency, procedural changes in assessing trial competence in California, and the assessment of malingering. In addition to the usual continuing education credits for mental health practitioners, the track will offer MCLE credits to attorneys.

In addition to this special legal track on competency to stand trial, the March 24-26 conference features other high-caliber offerings:

• Judge Stephen Manley of Santa Clara County will present a keynote address on collaborative courts in California

• Stephen Behnke, JD, PhD and director of the APA Ethics Office, will review evolving conceptions of clinicians' duty to protect under Tarasoff

• Stephen Miles, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, will muse on lessons prison clinicians can learn from the involvement of psychologists and physicians in abusive interrogations in war-on-terror prisons

Your faithful blogger, Karen Franklin, is also presenting at the conference, on one of my favorite topics, "Ethical Considerations in Psychiatric Diagnoses in Forensic and Correctional Settings."

Finally, I just have to mention the most bizarre session I came across: "A psychiatric-legal analysis of a case of lycanthropy in a 19th-century serial killer" (presented by doctors J. Arturo Silva and Douglas Tucker). Yee-gads! With pop culture's current fascination with all things supernatural, that's one session I just must attend!

Registration is still open for the March 24-26 conference, although the "early-bird rate" ends March 1. Joining the FMHA earns you an additional $25 discount off the cost of registration. The conference is down in Seaside, California (by Monterey), so it's a scenic venue for those of you who might want to bring family. More information and the registration form are HERE.

Illustration: 18th century engraving, courtesy Wikipedia

Skeem to give psychopathy training in Oregon

Save the date: Friday, April 9

On the heels of a hugely successful training featuring Stephen Hart of Simon Fraser University on sex offender risk assessment, Alexander Millkey and Michelle Guyton at Northwest Forensic Institute in Portland are doing it again. This time, they've scored Jennifer Skeem of the University of California at Irvine, who will provide advanced training on the controversial construct of psychopathy.

As many of you know, Dr. Skeem is an eminent scholar who has received the prestigious Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence from the American Psychology-Law Society (APA Div 41) and the Distinguished Assistant Professor Award for Research at UC Irvine. She has published more than 70 scientific articles, chapters, and books, and is co-editor and an author of the excellent new book, Psychological Science in the Courtroom: Consensus and Controversy. Her research areas include psychopathy, violence risk assessment, and effective supervision strategies for individuals mandated for psychiatric care.

In this training, she will challenge prevailing assumptions that psychopathy is a unitary and homogeneous construct or something that can be reduced to a score on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). She will also present data challenging the deeply entrenched idea that people with psychopathic traits are incurable cases that should be diverted from treatment settings to environments where their behavior can merely be monitored and controlled.

The all-day training is on Friday, April 9 at Portland State University, and is followed by a networking reception with Dr. Skeem. Registrants will receive six hours of continuing education credits. The cost is only $175, or $75 for students.

For more information and to register, go to the Institute's website.