EXAM 3 Flashcards
In what case did the Supreme Court rule on the use of expert testimony on the issue of dangerousness?
Barefoot v. Estelle
(The Supreme Court still allowed it saying that banning expert testimony on future dangerousness is like asking the court to “disinvent the wheel”)
Barefoot was found guilty of capital murder because he had intentionally shot and killed a police officer
Two psychiatrists who had never interviewed Barefoot testified that there was 100% absolute chance that he would continue to be a danger to society. (hence the case and huge ruling)
In the APA’s amicus curiae brief how often were mental health professionals correct in their estimate of dangerousness?
1 in 3 times
Define “involuntary civil commitment”
to place someone in a psychiatric facility against their will
What two factors must mental health experts demonstrate before involuntarily committing a patient?
- They are gravely disabled
2. They are a danger to themselves or others
What famous case resulted in the “duty to protect” ruling?
Tarasoff v. Regents of U.C
What 3 criterion for involuntary civil commitment under the law were identified in Kansas v. Crane in regard to SVP laws?
- Must suffer from a mental illness
- Pose a future danger to society
- Serious difficulty controlling urged
What are SVP laws?
Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment Laws. They allow for states indefinite civil commitment of unstable sexual predators that pose a future threat to society
Define “double jeopardy”
Criminal procedural defense that prevents a criminal defendant from being tried twice for the same act after conviction or acquittal
Define “future dangerousness standard”
Important for the death sentence and terms of imprisonment
Is there a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society?
Basis of SVP Laws
- States authority to protect its citizens from dangerous individuals (police power)
- States duty to protect those citizens who can’t care for themselves (Parens Patriae power)
How many states have SVP laws?
20
Define “Base Rate”
Overall likelihood of an event or behavior in a given population.
Ignored by psychologists when making risk predictions
Clinicians, when unaware of how rare a certain thing is, are prone to…
over-predicting violent behavior
What is Megan’s Law?
Megan Kanka was kidnapped, raped and murdered at age 7 by her neighbor
Due to this, the law requires states to make personal and private info about known sex offenders available to the public (aka community notification)
List types of violence risk assessments
- Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG)
- HCR 20 (takes all three markers into context)
- Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R)
The final equation in the VRAG reached approximately…
75% accuracy
List all three risk factors used to predict risk
- Historic (or static) markers
- Dynamic markers
- Risk Management markers
What happens when you raise the base rate when predicting violent behaviors for a given population?
It decreases false positives
It increases false negatives
Which violence prediction instrument includes all three categories of risk?
HCR-20
Is a form of guided professional judgement instruments
20 item checklist (10 historical, 5 clinical, and 5 for assessing future risk)
Not based on populations
Decisions about appropriate punishment for a particular crime depend on the __________ of the and also _________ about the criminal
- seriousness
2. attributions
Crimes associated with what key 3 causes evoke the strongest punitive responses?
- Stable
- Internal
- Controllable
What is it called when a judge is required to hand down a sentence within a specific range for specific crimes?
Determinate sentencing
What is the purpose of sentencing guidelines?
To restrain the discretion of judges in order to attempt to decrease sentencing inequality
How many USA states had prisons between 1790-1800?
8 states (9 by 1820)
How many states currently have the death penalty?
31
Constitutional challenges have been bases upon the Eighth Amendment’s _________________________ clause.
Cruel and unusual punishment
Between 1930 and 1967, 455 men were executed for the crime of rape. Of those, _______ were black.
89%
List 5 factors that have contributed to the stunning rise in the rates of imprisonment in America.
- 3-strike laws
- Increase imprisonment of youth
- Longer sentences
- Mandatory sentencing
- Reductions in parole
What percentage of prisoners in state and federal prisons are male?
93%
Which demographic group has the highest incarceration rate?
Black males 20-34 years old (one out of nine)
What are the percentages of prisoners abuse drugs or are mentally ill?
80% have one
40% have both
Leibman, Fagan, & West found that ______ of death penalties were reversed because of serious errors at trial.
68%
37% incompetent attorney
20% mislead jury
- Wolfgang and Reidel found that Black men convicted of raping white women were ___ times more likely to be sentenced to death than any other racial combination.
18X
In McCleskey v Kemp, the supreme court ruled that general statistics regarding racial discrimination in the application of the death sentence were insufficient for an appeal. Rather the defense would have to prove that the jurors acted with ________________________.
discriminatory purpose
Which supreme court case lead to the ruling that a jury must have acted with discriminatory purpose in order for racial discrimination to be proven?
McCleskey v Kemp
Which court case led to death penalty cases requiring a bifurcated proceeding?
Gregg v. Georgia (made death penalty legal again)
Which case made it illegal to execute a minor?
Roper v. Simmons
What case determined that only a jury can sentence death?
Ring v. Arizona
What case made it illegal to execute the mentally retarded?
Atkins v. Virginia
How many stages are there in the bifurcated proceeding and what are they?
Two
- Guilt Phase
- Sentencing Phase
What types of jurors don’t pass death qualification during voir dire? What does this leave us with?
30-40%
Female
Black
Liberal
A jury that is more conviction-prone.
Which psychological factor greatly influences recidivism? What influences this factor?
Inmate optimism about reentry into society.
Two factors play into the formation of this:
- Rehabilitative treatment in prison
- The belief that family will be supportive
Name 2 ways in which probation is superior to imprisonment:
- 1/3 the cost
2. Lowers recidivism rate
The use of CBT….
reduces recidivism by more than 1/3!
How many former inmates will be sent back to prison?
67%
50% in the first 3 years
Has the American incarceration rate increased since 1930? By how much?
Yes, by 8-fold
By 1900, prisons felt the growing influence of medical and social science as a new ___________________ model bolstered the commitment to rehabilitation and indeterminate sentencing.
Medical Model
By 1866 prisons had become ________________________ and inmates were managed by brutal forms of discipline.
over-crowded
Because of the work of reformers like Dorothea Dix, New York and Pennsylvania put the new ______________________________ model into practice.
Rehabilitative
During the first half of the nineteenth century, a fundamental shift in thinking about crime occurred. Previously viewed as the product of sin, people began to realize that ________________________ was also to blame.
Societal disorganization
The concept of imprisonment as punishment for crime was a new idea. However, by 1820 most public officials had come to believe that prisons ________________ instead of suppressing it.
spawned
________________ refers to releasing inmates from before their entire sentence has been served.
Parole
____________________________ of prediction require that relevant risk factors be systematically combined (using statistical equations) to calculate an estimate of future violence.
Actuarial method
Actuarial Techniques
Empirical research factors shown to be predictive in the population on which it’s based. They focus on statistics.
Strengths
-based on large amounts of data collected over extended periods and statistics, eliminating subjective biases
Weaknesses
- nomothetic: may not generalize to the individual being evaluated
- may rely too heavily on static factors
- do not account for rare, dynamic, or risk management factors
What factored into the deinstitutionalization of asylums?
- Partly motivated by a humanitarian urge to help mentally-ill patients live fuller lives beyond confines of hospital
- Partly motivated by financial budget cuts
- Legislative reforms, legal challenges to hospitalization, and the advent of antipsychotic medications gave momentum to this and allowed for patients to exist safely without daily supervision at times
When were opinions on the death penalty split?
The 1960’s
What contributed massively to the widened gap in opinions on the death penalty after 1960?
- The civil rights movement
What is the vocabulary word that means “increased likelihood of crime after a period of imprisonment”?
Criminogenic Effect
Two processes - ________________________ and ______________________________________________ combine to produce an especially brutal environment.
- Prisonization
2. Importation of violent street culture
Name the primary factor that facilitates continued criminal behavior within the prison.
Prison gangs, the presence of which flourishes due to the fact that inmates outnumber guards
Prisons are incubators for at least two virulent diseases; _____________ and ________________________.
- Tuberculosis
2. STDS: HIV, hep. B and C, gonorrhea, and chlamydia
Baxston v. Herald
Violent assault criminal was certified insane, held indefinitely without choice after serving sentence, case went to supreme court and this lead to many similar inmates being released
5 years after Baxston v. Herald 480 criminals who were predicted to be dangerous were released from hospitals. How many were reconvicted and how many were hospitalized?
2 committed crimes
3% were hospitalized
Who filed the amicus brief that claimed that psychologists were awful (1 in 3) at predicting dangerousness?
Monohan (1981)
Dangerousness is…
categorical
Who identified 20 factors that predicted dangerousness?
Douglas and Webster
What do we call predictors of dangerousness?
Pointer variables
List 4 pointer variables
- History of previous violence
- Command hallucinations
- Psychopathy
- Neighborhood of residence
The best predictor of risk is…
…psychopathy
What did Quinsey study?
Recidivism of sexual offenders
What is the re-offense rate for
- Rapists
- Pedophiles
- Incest
- 22.8%
- 20.4
- 8.5
How much more likely is white on black murder to be ruled justified compared to black on white murder?
354% more likely
What percentage of killings are reported to be justified:
Hispanic
White
78% of Hispanic victims
54% of white victims
A California study on the death penalty found that…
the cost of state executions would be 137 million annually, but life sentences would cost 11.5 million per year
What percentage of criminologists think that the death penalty doesn’t deter murder?
88%
What percentage of criminologists think that abolishing the death penalty won’t change anything
87%
Murder and executions are highest in the South T/F
True
Why doesn’t the death penalty deter murder?
- Murder is a crime of passion
- Many are drunk or high
- Most think they won’t be caught
- It is hard to say if life in prison or death is worse
Which case made it illegal to execute for child rape?
Kennedy v. Louisiana
During retrials for those who were sentenced to death, what happened?
80% were given lesser charges
7% were found innocent
According to Reuters Health, what percentage of youth have been arrested by 23?
1/3 (more likely to be pulled over and arrested)
What prison movement happened in PA in 1787?
The penitentiary movement-prisoners were confined in aggregate living
List, in three points, a brief history of American attitudes toward corrections.
- Rehabilitation
- Containment
- Profit
How is the sentencing phase unique?
- The facts of the case don’t help when considering death
- Jurors rarely understand instructions
- They fall back on prejudice
In Furman v. GA what clause was the issue?
Equal protection clause (14th amendment)
What are the 3 forms of prediction?
- Unstructured clinical prediction (professional opinion)
- Actuarial prediction (statistics)
- Structured professional prediction (a combination)
The re-arrest rate for prisoners who have completed drug rehabilitation are about __________ than the re-arrest rates for those who have not received treatment.
1/3 of the recidivism rate
