Innovative international risk assessment service is expanding

Try your hand at answering these questions:

1. When evaluating Aboriginal offenders, how valid are standard risk assessment protocols? 


2. Among Canadian men, how well does the Danger Assessment (DA) predict domestic violence? 


3. For sex offenders in Vermont, what instrument is more accurate than the widely used Static-99 for predicting recidivism? 


4. In screening U.S. soldiers coming back from Afghanistan, is there a valid tool that would help allocate limited therapeutic resources in order to decrease violence risk? 


5. Finally, what the heck are the Y-ARAT, the CuRV, the START, and the VIO-SCAN, and what (if anything) are they good for?

With the frenetic pace of risk assessment research and practice developments, you couldn't be faulted for not knowing the correct answers to all of the above questions. Hardly anyone does.

That’s where the Executive Bulletin comes in.

Back in February, I told you about the launch of this service for clinicians, attorneys and researchers who want to stay abreast of developments in the field of risk assessment. The publishers scour more than 80 professional journals and create a one-page summary for each article relevant to violence and sex offending risk assessment among adults and juveniles. Using an appealing, easy-to-read format, each summary highlights the study's clinical implications and relevant legal questions, while minimizing statistical jargon. 

In the months since my announcement, the Bulletin has been gaining traction around the world. It now reaches more than 11,000 practitioners, researchers, and policymakers in the United States, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Spain, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Israel, the Netherlands, Mexico, Lithuania, Norway and Denmark. Among its largest subscribers are the California Department of State Hospitals -- which requires that its forensic evaluators read each monthly issue in order to stay abreast of peer-reviewed research into evidence-based practice -- and the public-policy oriented Council of State Governments in the United States.

The newly rebranded Global Institute of Forensic Research (GIFR), with the ever-energetic forensic psychologist Jay Singh at its helm, is currently rolling out a new features and services, including a new website, a podcast version of the Bulletin for commuters, and expert risk assessment trainings (free to subscribers) that are eligible for continuing education credits from the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Psychological Association.

The service is subscription-based. At $35 per month (and $350 for group subscriptions) it isn’t cheap, but Dr. Singh points out that the alternatives are also costly. It’s both costly and time consuming to stay abreast of important risk-related articles from more than 80 journals, most of them fee-based. Thus, without a synthesizing service such as the Bulletin, practitioners risk falling behind and inadvertently violating relevant standards of practice.

Among my own main concerns if I am going to allow someone else to find and synthesize research for my consumption is the degree of fidelity and expertise that the reviewer brings to bear. Here, the field is fortunate to have someone upon whom we can confidently rely. What I find most valuable about the Bulletin is the level of critical analysis that the expert reviewers bring to bear on each of the 15 or 20 articles they summarize each month. (Indeed, my confidence is why I accepted an invitation a while back to serve on the Institute’s advisory board.)

Singh, an epidemiology professor at Molde University in Norway, has published more than 40 cutting-edge articles on violence prediction (a few of which I have featured in prior blog posts). Formerly a fellow of the Florida Mental Health Institute and a Senior Researcher in Forensic Psychiatry for the Swiss Department of Corrections in Zurich, he has also trained and lectured widely on mental illness and violence, including at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania.

To date, his Institute has conducted exclusive interviews on tips and tricks in forensic assessment with leading practitioners and scholars including Jodi Viljoen, Nicholas Scurich, Annelies Vredeveldt and -- most recently -- Jennifer Lanterman of the University of Nevada at Reno. Next month’s featured expert is Seena Fazel of Oxford University. You can browse the website and find a sample issue HERE.

If you decide to sign up (or, better yet, get your institution to sign up), Singh is offering my blog readers and subscribers a special 10 percent discount. Just click on THIS LINK, and enter the discount code INTHENEWS.

Film to explore gay-bashing in friendly, liberal community

Lawrence "Mikey" Partida's injuries

It was a tragic end to his 32nd birthday celebration. As Lawrence “Mikey” Partida left his cousin’s house, a young neighbor confronted him, hurling antigay epithets before beating Partida unconscious. The slightly built long-distance runner and grocery clerk was left with a fractured skull and a piece of wooden fence post embedded behind his eye. He underwent months of surgery and rehabilitation.

The event shocked the idyllic university community of Davis, California. Nestled between San Francisco and the state’s capital city of Sacramento, the town of 65,000 is ranked among the best places to live in America, with a reputation as safe, welcoming, liberal, educated and bicycle-friendly.

Perhaps more surprising than the assault itself was the identity of the perpetrator, and his kid-gloves treatment by the criminal justice system.

Clay Garzon

Clayton “Clay” Garzon, then 19, is the son of two well respected physicians, one of them a prominent humanitarian. Yet notwithstanding his privileged and progressive upbringing, this was not his first violent attack; he was awaiting trial on charges stemming from a drunken brawl the year before in which four young men were stabbed. Despite the fact that he was out on bail already when he mercilessly beat Partida, he was approved for bail of only $75,000, allowing his immediate release yet again. He ultimately pled guilty to assault, battery and hate crime charges in exchange for a sentence of five years in the local county jail, under a prison realignment law (AB 109) intended only for non-violent offenses.

Despite having used antigay slurs before, during and after the assault, Garzon and his attorney insisted that the attack was not motivated by antigay animus.

Forensic linguistics

Of potential interest to this blog's audience, the defense called an expert in the new field of forensic linguistics, who opined that Garzon's use of the term faggot was "more consistent with challenging [Partida's] masculinity" than with hatred. William Eggington, a linguistics professor from Brigham Young University, testified at Garzon's preliminary hearing that a tolerant family upbringing in a liberal community "would lower the possibility that this would be a gender- related crime." 

This testimony highlights a vexing problem with so-called “hate crime laws.” Their very name fosters a misimpression that bias crimes are necessarily motivated by hatred. As I found in my research with antigay assailants, this is far from the case. Such crimes are often driven more by instrumental goals such as fitting in with a peer group or demonstrating visible proof of masculinity than by outright animus. As the prosecutor, Jonathan Raven of the Yolo County District Attorney's Office, pointed out, hatred is not a requisite element of a hate crime: “One simply has to be motivated by a bias, in whole or in part.” The idea behind the enhanced penalty is that by attacking a person based even in part on his or her group membership, one is causing fear in the targeted class. As Raven noted in a statement, “certainly the crime in this case caused those in the LGBT community to be fearful.”

Further complicating Garzon's motivations is the fact that he lashed out at Partida when the gay man told him to stop pestering Partida’s female cousin, whom Garzon had been aggressively pursuing all night long.

Unpacking violence

Disentangling the complex and multifaceted roots of violence is the goal of anthropologist and filmmaker Daniel Bruun, who is producing a film, “Davisville 2013,” on the case.

Bruun, a Davis native, closely followed the case for a year as it wended its way through the legal system, recording more than 50 hours of courtroom proceedings and interviews. He even tracked down the victims in Garzon’s other case.

Ironically, while Partida experienced an outpouring of support from the Davis community, including an appeal from Sikh leaders for higher bail, Garzon’s other victims, young working-class white men who were not a member of a protected minority, were not feeling the love. As candlelight vigils were held in Davis for Partida, police in nearby Dixon couldn’t even be bothered to investigate, according to Bruun’s investigation.

“If [Garzon] never would’ve done that [hate crime], he probably never

Candlelight vigil for Partida

would’ve gone to jail -- ever,” lamented one of the forgotten stabbing victims. “It hurts that they didn’t really care for us.” 

In a front-page interview in the Davis Enterprise last week, Bruun said he first started contemplating the causes of seemingly senseless and random violence when he was in junior high school, and a 14-year-old Davis boy was beaten, robbed of two dollars and pushed into a moving train by three local teens. “I was affected by it, but I felt like the story was never told in a complete way,” Bruun told reporter Lauren Keene.

He seized upon the Davis case as a chance to tell a bigger story, about the causes of male youth violence as well as its impact on victims, communities, and even the assailants themselves.

“It seemed like an opportunity to tell a story like that in the best way possible -- to be involved in it as the story is unfolding.”

Filmmaker (right) with Partida

Bruun’s prior documentaries included anthropologically informed explorations of underground cultures in Manchester, England and The Bronx; his short film Temporary Sanity is on the Royal Anthropological Institute's recommended curriculum for anthropology undergraduates in Great Britain.

Bruun is kicking off a month-long fundraising campaign on Indiegogo, a San Francisco-based fundraising website. He hopes to raise $10,000 to complete the project.

Bruun plans to interview me along with prominent hate crime expert Gregory Herek of the University of California at Davis. I realize that I just put the word out about fundraising for another documentary, on violence against transgender women of color (again involving me as an expert), but if you feel so inclined, here’s a link to donate to Bruun’s worthy Davisville 2013 project as well. 

Special journal issue on new HCR-20 V3 risk instrument

The International Journal of Forensic Mental Health has just published a special issue on the HCR-20 Version 3, an update to the most widely used structured professional judgment method for assessing violence risk. Those of you without access to academic databases will be happy to learn that the entire issue is available for free download.

The work covered in the special issue is international in scope, spanning seven countries. Separate articles present the latest data on the instrument’s scientific reliability and validity, with a special focus on the most critical question of how well the HCR-20 does what it is supposed to do – predict risk. The authors represent quite a range, many of whom you will recognize. 

The articles, which can be downloaded directly by clicking on the below links, include the following:

• Introduction to the Special Issue of the HCR-20 Version 3 by Kevin S. Douglas

• Historical-Clinical-Risk Management-20, Version 3 (HCR-20^V3): Development and Overview  by Kevin S. Douglas, Stephen D. Hart, Christopher D. Webster, Henrik Belfrage, Laura S. Guy & Catherine M. Wilson

• The Use of the HCR-20^V3 in Dutch Forensic Psychiatric Practice by Vivienne de Vogel, Ellen van den Broek and Michiel de Vries Robbé

• The HCR-20^V3 in Germany by Sebastian Kötter, Fritjof von Franqué, Manfred Bolzmacher, Sabine Eucker, Barbara Holzinger & Rüdiger Müller-Isberner

• Interrater Reliability and Concurrent Validity of the HCR-20 Version 3 by Kevin S. Douglas & Henrik Belfrage

• Predicting Post-Discharge Community Violence in England and Wales Using the HCR-20^V3 by Michael Doyle, Laura Archer Power, Jeremy Coid, Constantinos Kallis, Simone Ullrich & Jenny Shaw

• The Validity of Version 3 of the HCR-20 Violence Risk Assessment Scheme Amongst Offenders and Civil Psychiatric Patients by Diane S. Strub, Kevin S. Douglas & Tonia L. Nicholls

• Adapting the HCR-20^V3 for Pre-trial Settings by Shannon Toney Smith, Shannon E. Kelley, Allison Rulseh, Karolina Sörman & John F. Edens

• The HCR-20 Version 3: A Case Study in Risk Formulation by Caroline Logan

Of related interest:

Long-awaited HCR-20 update to premiere in Scotland (Oct. 4, 2012)

Film to highlight violence against trans women of color

The pace of social change is sometimes mind-boggling. The cover of next week's issue of Time magazine features actress Laverne Cox on the "transgender tipping point," with transgender rights heralded as the new civil rights movement.

Much of the increasing public awareness can be credited to Laverne herself, a charismatic and inspirational spokeswoman best known for her role as a trans prisoner in the blockbuster Netflix series, Orange is the New Black.

I was honored to meet Laverne earlier this month, when she interviewed me for the film “Free CeCe,” a documentary on violence against trans women of color being co-produced by award-winning filmmaker Jacqueline Gares. (Her first documentary, Unraveled, about Alzheimer's and genetic testing, won a Freddie Award.) 

The levels of anti-trans violence are staggering. Trans women of color make up an estimated 8 percent of the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) community, but nearly half of its murder victims. They are also disproportionately victimized by job discrimination, homelessness, extreme poverty, police harassment, and incarceration; in prison, their victimization is ubiquitous.

Just walking down the street

CeCe McDonald, the focus of the documentary, knows about all of this first-hand. A 23-year-old fashion student, she was walking to the grocery store with some friends when she was accosted by a group of rowdy drunks outside a Minneapolis tavern one night in 2011. The group hurled insults: “Faggots!” “Niggers!” “Chicks with dicks!” One of the drunks slashed CeCe in the face with a cocktail glass. With blood gushing down her cheek, she pulled a pair of scissors and stabbed a man who was advancing on her, killing him.

If she had been George Zimmerman, the legal outcome would most likely have been different. But she was charged with murder, and the judge excluded evidence relating to self defense. She was barred from raising Dean Schmitz’s propensity for violence or racism, as evidenced by his multiple assault convictions and the swastika tattoo on his chest, from his days as a white supremacist in prison. Nor could she mention the methamphetamine found in his system, which might have made him more aggressive that night.

Faced with a stacked deck, CeCe pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter (criminal negligence) in exchange for a 41-month sentence. She was released from men's prison this January.

Rather than going down quietly as just another everyday injustice, the case garnered national attention and CeCe drew widespread support -- culminating in the current film project. I got a chance to meet CeCe at this month's filming at my office. Despite enduring a lifetime of physical and verbal assaults from strangers as well as family members, she told me that she remains haunted by the tavern incident. Growing up in a segregated community in Chicago, she had never before encountered such raw racial hatred, and she never imagined that she would ever have to kill someone or go to prison.

Why such hatred?

Your blogger with Laverne Cox and CeCe McDonald

My role in the film is to explain the basis for the widespread moral outrage and violence directed at transgender people. My dissertation research focused on the motivations of antigay hate crime perpetrators, and I later expanded this work into a broader theory of masculine violence as theater.

Trans women of color are a uniquely perfect storm, producing insecurity by transgressing against dominant notions of gender, race and identity. When dehumanized (as “its”) and hypersexualized, they become an abstract symbol of deviance, a dramatic prop through which young men in particular can prove their masculinity and reinforce their adherence to traditional gender norms.

Ramping up hostility toward transgender people is the notion that they are trying to trick or deceive others, lying to those around them about their "real sex." Indeed, this perception of deception underlies the trans "panic defense" that has been invoked in murder cases such as those of Gwen Araujo and Lawrence King.

Public antagonism toward transgender people emboldens violence-prone individuals such as those who attacked CeCe and her friends at the Schooner Tavern in Minneapolis, who believe that they are not only justified, but righteous in defending societal norms of gender and race. Such ideas run deep in our culture, reinforced through everyday microaggressions like snickering, jokes, hostile stares, and discriminatory treatment.

In a brilliant essay, Koritha Mitchell, an English professor at Ohio State University, draws a comparison between anti-transgender violence today and the early-20th century sexualized lynchings of African American men in the U.S. South. Both forms of brutality, she points out, are aimed at denying citizenship, marking “who belongs and who does not…. Because violence most often plagues those whom society encourages us to abandon, denouncing violence empowers us to embrace them.” 

The good news is, as we have seen with gay men and lesbians, public visibility can dramatically reduce hostility. Humanization as coworkers, neighbors, fellow parents, or family members short-circuits attempts to stereotype sexual minorities as abstract symbols of deviance. The rate of attitudinal change in the United States and around the world, especially among young people, is nothing short of amazing.

The Time magazine cover story illustrates the remarkable speed of change in regard to attitudes toward transgender people. It also illustrates the power of social media. Time's exclusion of Laverne from last year's list of 100 most influential people produced a Twitter backlash, #whereisLaverneCox. And the mood shifted further when Laverne famously stood up to TV personality Katie Couric in January; the video of her shifting the narrative from prurient talk of genitalia to the more pressing topics of violence and social justice went viral. 

Donate to the film

Free CeCe is still in production. The producers have raised more than one-fifth of the $465,000 budget, and are soliciting grant funding and individual donations to complete the project.If you would like to contribute to this important project, the filmmakers will gratefully accept your tax-deductible donation (HERE).

* * * * *

Of related interest: 

Prison pipeline for transgender youth: Poor and minority especially at risk (March 26, 2008)
 

(c) Copyright Karen Franklin 2014 - All rights reserved

Free articles of potential interest

From time to time, publishers alert me to articles and collections that they have made freely available online (sometimes for limited periods of time). Here are a few such offerings that I thought might be of interest to this blog's audience:

TREATMENT OF ADULT AND JUVENILE SEX OFFENDING - CURRENT APPROACHES: The International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy has made an entire special issue, edited by Phil Rich, available freely online. There are some great articles here. 

POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER - article collection: Routledge has made available a collection of 17 articles on PTSD from its various academic journals. Click on the link and then scroll over an article to download it. 

Circles of Support and Accountability: How and Why They Work for Sex Offenders, Mechtild Höing, Stefan Bogaerts, and Bas Vogelvang

Assessing Risk of Violence Using Structured Professional Judgment Guidelines, Laura S. Guy,
Ira K. Packer, and William Warnken

The Criminal Profiling Reality: What is Actually Behind the Smoke and Mirrors?,
Richard N. Kocsis

Service Needs for Incarcerated Adults: Exploring Gender Differences, Gina Fedock, Lauren Fries, and Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak

Reflections on Homelessness, Mental Illness, and Crime, Laura S. Guy, Stacey L. Shipley,
and Teresa C. Tempelmeyer 

Residents’ Perceptions of Procedural Injustice During Encounters With the Police, Amie Schuck
and Christine Martin

Abuse as a Form of Strain Among Native American and White Female Prisoners: Predictors of Substance-Related Offenses and Recidivism, Lindsey E. Vigesaa

Conviction Odds in Chicago Homicide Cases: Does Race/Ethnicity Matter?, Christine Martin

The Impact of Indigenous Status on Adult Sentencing: A Review of the Statistical Research Literature From the United States, Canada, and Australia, Samantha Jeffries and Christine E.W. Bond

The Impact of Population Selection on Examinations of Discretionary Searches in Traffic Stops
Steven J. Briggs and B. Keith Crew

Juvenile Justice Interventions: System Escalation and Effective Alternatives to Residential Placement, Stephanie Bontrager Ryon, Kristin Winokur Early, Gregory Hand, and Steven Chapman

Findings of a Formative Evaluation of a Transitional Housing Program for Forensic Patients Discharged into the Community, Rebecca Cherner, Joan Nandlal, John Ecker, Tim Aubry, and & Donna Pettey

'Babbling idiot' standard: Squeaky Fromme competency tapes unveiled

Who of my generation can forget Lynnette "Squeaky" Fromme, the first woman to attempt to assassinate a U.S. president?

Today, almost 40 years after Fromme donned a flowing red robe, strapped on a Colt .45, and went in search of President Gerald Ford, the Sacramento Bee has unveiled the full audiotapes of her 90-minute competency examination, which the court released in response to a legal request from the Bee.

Fromme's Sept. 5, 1975 mission remains a little fuzzy: Her goal was either to save the coastal redwoods or to call attention to the plight of her messiah, cult leader Charles Manson. Ford wasn't in much danger, as it turned out: There was no bullet in the chamber. She later said she had deliberatedly ejected the round in the chamber before leaving home.* And as soon as she pointed her pistol at Ford's stomach, Secret Service agents easily subdued her.

"I stood up and waved a gun (at Ford) for a reason," Fromme told a reporter a few years later. "I was so relieved not to have to shoot it, but, in truth, I came to get life. Not just my life but clean air, healthy water and respect for creatures and creation."

People who knew Fromme (pronounced Frahm-mee) considered her strange. But she rejected an insanity defense, and sought to represent herself, prompting Judge Tom MacBride to order a competency evaluation. A court-appointed psychiatrist, James Richmond, certified her as competent to stand trial after a 90-minute examination that was tape recorded at her request. 

Under the legal standard at the time, one had to be nearly "a babbling idiot" to be found incompetent, in the words of the prosecuting attorney.  

Fromme subsequently threw an apple at that very same U.S. Attorney, Dwayne Keys, when at her sentencing hearing he called for the severest punishment, saying she was "full of hate and violence."

"Nolan Ryan couldn't have thrown a more perfect strike," John Virga, the attorney ultimately appointed to represent her at trial, told a journalist some 30 years later. "Hit Dwayne right between the eyes. His glasses flew off. After that, guys in (Keyes') office started giving him a box of apples for Christmas." 

Richmond, the court-appointed psychiatrist, had no problem with the "babbling idiot" standard. He said such a low standard was only fair, because "if a person is found unfit to stand trial, he can be committed to an institution for the criminally insane without being found guilty of anything."

The outcome of Fromme's trial, just two months after her arrest, was a foregone conclusion. Fromme boycotted much of the proceedings after the court declined her request to call Manson as a witness.

Looking back, Virga described his former client as "anything but crazy." "She's very bright, an intelligent, pleasant woman.When you talk with her, everything is fine until you mention Manson. Then it's like the guy who is perfectly normal until he hears 'Kokomo, Indiana.' Then he is off and running."

After being convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, Fromme steadfastly declined to apply for parole. She was finally released in 2009, after serving 34 years in prison.

The outcome might have been different, had Fromme gone to trial today. Case law has raised the standards for competency to stand trial, and the standard is higher for defendants seeking to represent themselves. In 2012, following the U.S. Supreme Court's Edwards decision, California's high court ruled that even a defendant who is found competent to stand trial may be barred from self representation if mental illness prevents him or her from putting on a minimally adequate defense.

U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller released the audiotapes of Fromme's competency evaluation in response to a motion filed last November by the Sacramento Bee. Following the reasoning of the Ninth Circuit in a 1998 decision in the case of Ted Kaczysnki, the judge ruled that the public's right to know outweighed the defendant's privacy rights. 

Kudos to the Bee for making this request before it was too late. The audiotape was fast degrading, and the court had to call in a professional media salvaging company to restore it before it could even listen to it and rule on the request.

On the tapes, Dr. Richmond can be heard questioning Fromme about everything from her involvement with the Manson family to her eating habits and her religion, using the slang vernacular of the day:

Richmond: "The press has made a number of comments to the effect that you’re a rather daft broad wandering about in this world, following ill-begotten causes and so forth. How do you feel about that?"

Fromme: "I’m working through it the best way I can. I feel this trial, conducted with a little bit of dignity, would help tremendously."

Fromme sounds matter-of-fact and confident, expressing optimism about her chances of being acquitted:

"Oh, I feel, I feel definitely I have probably a 70 percent chance on the percentage scale. I don’t feel that I’ll be convicted of attempted assassination."

In hindsight, her confidence was obviously misplaced.

* * * * *

The full audiotapes are HERE. Thanks to reporter Sam Stanton for alerting me. For those who don't have time to listen to all 132 minutes, a 19-minute excerpt is HERE. A subsequent media videotape of Fromme discussing her crime is HERE. I have added Fromme's case to my RESOURCE PAGE OF COMPETENCY CASES, which now includes source documents on 10 noteworthy cases ranging from Ted Kaczynski to Mike Tyson.

*Don't confuse this with a second assassination attempt on the president just 17 days later in San Francisco. Sarah Jane Moore managed to squeeze off a wild shot before she was subdued. Another odd duck, she too was found competent to stand trial.