Criminality and Sexual Behaviours in Substance Dependents Seeking Treatment

The aim of this study was to investigate the link between violence, crime, and sexual behavior among patients with substance-related disorder admitted to a specialized inpatient care unit. 

This was a cross-sectional study using a questionnaire on socio-demographic characteristics, drug of choice (DOC), questions about sexual behavior, and instruments to evaluate the severity of dependence (SADD, DAST, FTND), level of impulsivity (BIS-11), and a screening sex addiction scale. 

The sample consisted of 587 adult subjects, of which 

• 82.3% were men, 
• 66.4% had used cocaine (sniffed and smoked) as their DOC, 
• 24.4% had a history with the criminal justice system, 
• 26.8% had committed crimes, 
• 19.3% had engaged in violent behavior, and 
• 12.2% had been involved in drug trafficking. 

In this sample, crime was strongly associated with various sexual behaviors and the severity of substance dependence

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By:  Diehl A¹, Pillon SC², Dos Santos MA³, Rassool GH⁴, Laranjeira R⁵.

¹a National Institute of Alcohol and Drugs Policy (INPAD), Psychiatrist, Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) , Psychiatric Department , São Paulo , Brazil.

²b Professor, University of São Paulo (USP) , Psychiatric Nursing and Human Science Department, Faculty of Nursing at Ribeirão Preto, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil; PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing Research Development , Ribeirão Preto , Brazil.

³c Associate Professor, Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto , University of São Paulo, São Paulo , Brazil.

⁴d Professor and Executive Director, Sakina Counselling Institute , Port Louis , Republic of Mauritius.

⁵e Psychiatrist, Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) , Psychiatric Department , São Paulo , Brazil.

J Psychoactive Drugs. 2016 Apr-Jun;48(2):124-134.

  

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Functions of Aggression & Delinquency: The Moderating Role of Parent Criminality & Friends' Gang Membership

This study examined the relationships between two functions of aggression (i.e., reactive and proactive) and delinquency, including the moderating effects of parent criminality and friends' gang membership, in a sample of 1,027 Singaporean adolescents from Grade 7 to Grade 9, with age ranging from 12 to 19 years (M = 14.10, SD = 1.15). 

Findings suggested that both reactive aggression and proactive aggression significantly and positively predicted delinquency (after controlling for proactive aggression and reactive aggression, respectively), with proactive aggression being a stronger predictor. Friends' gang membership was found to moderate the relationship between reactive aggression and delinquency, and proactive aggression and delinquency, with stronger moderator effects for the latter. Those who were aggressive proactively and who had friends in a gang appear to be impacted most negatively with respect to delinquency. Parent criminality did not moderate these relationships. 

These findings highlight the need to effectively address the issues of child and adolescent aggression. Also, developing positive peer relations early is crucial for delinquency prevention.

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By:  Ang RP1, Huan VS2, Li X2, Chan WT2.

• 1National Institue of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore rebecca.ang@nie.edu.sg.
• 2National Institue of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. 
• J Interpers Violence. 2016 Mar 2. pii: 0886260516636066.

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Fanny Hill and the 'Laws of Decency': Investigating Obscenity in the Mid-Eighteenth Century

This essay discusses John Cleland's novel The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1748/9, better known as Fanny Hill), in the context of eighteenth-century obscenity law and the law of search and seizure. 

To explain why obscenity could have been treated as a criminal offense at all, the essay discusses prosecutions against writers and actors from the later seventeenth century through Cleland's time, showing how the criminality of the offense was taken for granted (circa 1670-1700), then rejected (in 1708), and then rationalized (in 1727). Cleland's novel, notable for resorting to metaphorical and euphemistic language so as to avoid "rank words," was nevertheless easily covered by the rationale offered in Curll (1727), but his case was never brought to trial. 

While some have thought that this circumstance is mysterious and requires explanation, in fact obscene works were rarely prosecuted at this time, and the decision even to begin proceedings against Cleland is more notable than the decision not to go to trial. Cleland implied, in some of his letters, that he believed his circumlocutory language should have excused him from prosecution, but his stronger argument would have involved the process that led to his arrest: the investigation proceeded by means of a general warrant, a device that would be criticized in the litigation after the 1763 Wilkes prosecution, which in turn influenced the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures in the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. 

Along the way, the essay discusses several famous but inaccurate claims about the prosecution of Cleland and his publishers (e.g., that Cleland was paid to stop writing obscene novels, and that his publishers made a fortune from the book), and also includes a list of eighteenth-century editions of Fanny Hill.

Full PDF article at:   http://goo.gl/0fuSPH

By:  

Simon Stern 

University of Toronto - Faculty of Law

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Psychopathy in Women: Prediction of Criminality & Violence in UK & USA Psychiatric Patients Resident in the Community

Highlights

• The relationship between psychopathy and subsequent violence and criminality was examined
• Data from two large (each >1000 patients) samples across two countries was examined
• Data from women and men were compared
• The PCL:SV was predictive of violence and criminality and violence in both samples for all time frames considered
• No gender differences were found despite good power.
• Results suggest psychopathy is an important predictor of future problem behaviours for both men and women.

Psychopathy is an important clinical construct often used in the assessment and management of psychiatric patients and offenders. This, in part, is due to the strong association between psychopathy, crime, and particularly violent crime. However, there are few studies of these associations in women. These relationships were examined using information from two large databases. 

The Partnerships in Care database contains data from a sample of forensic psychiatric patients (154 women and 777 men) in the UK that were discharged from secure psychiatric units. Follow-up was via official conviction data within the next 2 years. The MacArthur study examined violence and aggression in a sample of civil psychiatric patients (367 women and 496 men) in the USA following discharge from an acute psychiatric hospital. Follow-up was via a mixture of self-report, informant report and official records. Psychopathy in both samples was measured via the PCL:SV prior to discharge. Psychopathy was a good predictor of target events for the women in both samples and for all time intervals used. No significant gender differences in the PCL:SV’s predictive efficacy were found. 

The results provide a strong evidence-base for the use of psychopathy in women when considering future community behaviour and reoffending.

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By:  

Nicola S. Gray^a, b, 

Robert J. Snowden^c

School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT

snowden@cardiff.ac.uk

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A Total Population‐Based Cohort Study of Female Psychiatric Inpatients Who Have Served a Prison Sentence

Background

Studies of the overlap between severe mental disorder and criminality tend to focus on prison populations rather than psychiatric populations.

Aims

Our aims were to establish the prevalence of previous imprisonment among female psychiatric inpatients and test relationships between diagnoses, mortality and imprisonment.

Methods

A nationwide cohort of 18–65-year-old women who had been hospitalised for psychiatric disorder between January 1983 and March 2008 was identified from a hospital records database and linked to the database of the Prison and Probation Administration of Iceland as well as the National Register of causes of death at Statistics Iceland from January 1985.

Results

Six thousand and ninety-four women had had at least one psychiatric hospitalisation, 102 of them had been imprisoned on 172 occasions between them, giving an imprisonment rate of 118 per 100,000 over the 24 year period of study. The crude imprisonment proportion was 1.7% during a 20-year follow-up period; it was at its peak (5%) among 18–30 year-olds at index admission. Substance use and personality disorders were the most common diagnoses associated with imprisonment. Mortality rates were not statistically different between those imprisoned and not.

Conclusion and implications for practice

Women admitted to a psychiatric hospital have higher rates of imprisonment than the general population. Because admission predated imprisonment in most cases, this may be seen as an opportunity for early intervention to reduce later criminality.

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By:   

Steinn Steingrimsson^1,4,*, 

Martin I. Sigurdsson², 

Hafdis Gudmundsdottir³, 

Thor Aspelund² and

Andres Magnusson¹

1. 1 Department of Psychiatry, Landspitali University Hospital, Reykjavik, Iceland
2. 2 Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
3. 3 Prison and Probation Administration of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
4. 4 Centre of Ethics, Law and Mental Health (CELAM), Sahlgrenska Academy, Univ of Gothenburg, Sweden

 

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Prevalence of Adult ADHD in an All-Female Prison Unit

There is increasing evidence suggesting a link between ADHD and criminality, including a strong association between ADHD symptoms and the likelihood of being on probation or in prison. Most studies investigating the prevalence of ADHD in prison populations have focused on adult male offenders. In the current study, 69 female prisoners were screened for both childhood and adult ADHD symptoms using the Barkley Adult ADHD Rating Scale-IV. 

The results indicate that 41% of the prisoners met the diagnostic criteria for ADHD in childhood and continued to meet criteria for ADHD as adults. More importantly, young female prisoners (aged 18-25) were significantly more likely to report symptoms of ADHD than older prisoners. Prisoners who reported symptoms of ADHD also reported high levels of impairment associated with these symptoms. 

A better understanding of the prevalence of ADHD in female prison units can highlight specific areas for intervention during rehabilitation, as well as the management of serious incidents within prison.

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By:   Farooq R1, Emerson LM2,3, Keoghan S1, Adamou M1.

• 1Manygates Clinic, South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Portobello Road, Wakefield, WF1 5PN, UK.
• 2Manygates Clinic, South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Portobello Road, Wakefield, WF1 5PN, UK. l.emerson@sheffield.ac.uk.
• 3Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. l.emerson@sheffield.ac.uk. 

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'Whiteness,'criminality, and the double standards of deviance/social control

White criminality is increasingly defined and controlled via the medical model. This is made possible by the white racial frame, which constructs ‘whiteness’ as normative and white deviance as individual aberration or mental illness. 

Conversely, the white racial frame constructs Blackness as synonymous with criminality. Media depictions of crime and criminals play a central role in furthering this framing, which provides the underlying legitimation for disparities in social control. The result is double standards of definition and control which medicalize whiteness and criminalize Blackness. This differential framing of whiteness and Blackness provides the foundation for the expansion of both the medical and prison industrial complexes, which are characterized by real racial differences despite comparable patterns of deviance across racial lines.

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By:   Nancy A. Heitzeg^a*

• ^a Sociology and Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity, St Catherine University, St. Paul, MN, USA

 

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'She's White and She's Hot, So She Can't Be Guilty': Female Criminality, Penal Spectatorship, and White Protectionism

Despite mainstream criminology’s burgeoning interest in issues of race, class, and gender, very little scholarship has examined whiteness and its attendant privileges in understanding public discourse on criminal offenders. 

This paper examines the role of penal spectatorship as a discursive mechanism by which white, female offenders are protected in public spaces by virtue of their racial and gender identity. Using a content analysis of comments posted on the mug shot images of white women on a popular ‘mug shot website,’ we find that these women are viewed as victims of circumstance deserving of empathy and redemption rather than as criminals. We offer ‘white protectionism’ as a means by which whites extend privilege and protection to other whites who transverse the boundaries of whiteness through criminality to guard against ‘deviant’ or ‘criminal’ designations. 

These findings add to our understandings of penal spectatorship as yet another tool of white supremacy operating in the Post-Civil Rights era of mass incarceration.

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By:   Danielle Dirks^a**, Caroline Heldman^b & Emma Zack^c

• ^a Department of Sociology, Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road, M-26, Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA
• ^b Department of Politics, Occidental College, 1600 Campus Road, Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA
• ^c Department of Sociology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, USA

 

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Early Detection of Criminality Concerns & the Social Link

In modern societies, rhetoric focused on body and health is common as biomedical sciences have taken a big place in people’s lives. They must enhance the society, health and living conditions of citizens. Solving criminality problems remains a major challenge and the early detection of antisocial children - future offenders - promises to offer a solution to criminality thanks to science and medical advances. But in a democratic society that values ​​solidarism and pluralism and tends to preserve the social link, it is necessary to question the ethical relevance of this method of managing criminality. This paper proposes to analyze these questions in the light of debates that have troubled France for a number of years.

Introduction-the debate

In 2005, the former President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, defended a draft report on “crime prevention” which called for very early detection of behavioral disorders. He referred to a report from theInstitut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (Inserm), entitled “Troubles des conduites chez l’enfant et l’adolescent” or “Conduct disorder in children and adolescents” (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale 2005). That report, published in September, 2005 shows that some early conduct disorders have a marked heritability, are correlated with early aggression and are predictive of future delinquency. Indeed, conduct disorder is primarily defined by the repetition and persistence of behavior patterns which flout societal rules and other people’s fundamental rights. Inserm therefore proposed that risk factors be detected at an early stage, even from early pregnancy, and to organize regular interventions in families at risk, particularly among young mothers with a first pregnancy in a precarious environment. Behavioral disorders in young children would then be recognized as early as the age of 36 months with regular medical checkups and a follow-up in the child’s health booklet.

Following Inserm’s publication, a group of citizens formed a group named Pas de 0 de conduite (1). In March 2006, it sent an open letter, accompanied by a petition, to the General Director of Inserm to denounce an “extreme medicalization of educational, psychological and social phenomena” and “confusion between social disorders and mental suffering, or hereditary disease.” This group also alerted the National Consultative Ethics Committee (Comité consultatif national d’Ethique - CCNE) and called for a critical analysis of the report.

In February 2007, the CCNE published a report on the ethical issues raised by the early detection of behavioral disorders in children (Comité consultatif national d’Ethique 2007). This brief report questions the collective expertise of INSERM and underlines three major issues:

1. On the epistemological problems and semantic ambiguity of “conduct disorder”;
2. On the neglected importance of environmental factors;
3. On the risk of stigmatization.

Can early medical screening of behavioral disorders really prevent crime? Is dealing with suffering children through formal medical diagnosis a civic and societal acceptable initiative? Or is it breaking the social link? These questions raise important and urgent ethical challenges for the citizen. Yet groups of “wise men” are those who make decisions. This debate is exemplary: it is built around two “groups of wise persons”, a group of scientific experts and the group of the Ethics Committee. Is there a real place for the popular voice in this highly elitist dynamic?

In this paper, I propose to analyze and discuss in more details the epistemological and ethical arguments rose by CCNE against the recommendations of the experts of Inserm. We will be then able to analyze the relevance of the proposal of “early detection of future offenders” regarding democratic civic values: solidarism and pluralism.

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By:  Laurence Perbal

Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Bioéthique (CRIB), Philosophy Department, FNRS fellow & Université libre de Bruxelles, 50 av. F.D. Roosevelt, CP 175/01 1050 Brussels, Belgium

Laurence Perbal, Email: eb.ca.blu@labrepl.

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