Search

Incarcerated offenders are more likely to experience Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and associated symptoms than the general population. PTSD may develop from a variety of events, inc...

Based on the past three decades of diverse and extensive research on eyewitness memory issues, the courts are increasingly being asked to accept psychologists as experts on eyewitness performance. This article examines a sample of this body of research and questions its helpfulness to triers of fact. The majority of eyewitness research has been conducted in the laboratory rather than in the field, thereby examining laboratory witnesses, not actual eyewitnesses. Although there is some consensus among some eyewitness experts that certain factors related to laboratory witness performance are robust enough to be discussed in court or applied to the criminal justice system, we suggest that much more research needs to be conducted to assess the generalizability of laboratory witness research to most realms of the eyewitness context. As some research demonstrates that actual eyewitnesses behave differently than laboratory eyewitnesses, we suggest that psychologists who are required to consider eyewitness issues ...

There is widespread concern that deviant sexual fantasies promote corresponding behaviors. The authors investigated whether that concern is valid in nonoffender samples. Self-reports of nine deviant sexual fantasies and behaviors were compared in two samples of male undergraduates. In Study 1, 95% of respondents reported experiencing at least one sexually deviant fantasy, and 74% reported engaging in at least one sexually deviant behavior. The correlations were all positive and averaged .44. However, only 38% of the high-fantasy group reported acting out fantasies. The effect of pornography use on deviant behaviors was partially mediated by increases in deviant fantasies. Study 2 investigated possible moderators, including eight personality variables. The fantasy-behavior association held only for those high in self-reported psychopathy. In addition, the association between pornography use and deviant sexual behavior held only for participants high in psychopathy. Overall, theoretically relevant individual difference variables moderated the relation between sexually deviant fantasies and behaviors and between pornography use and deviant behaviors.

Assessing risk for recidivism in forensic populations is a complex task to be mastered by forensic mental health professionals. The results of such assessments have extensive implications for both the criminal and civil justice systems and society at large. This paper provides an overview of the past and current state of affairs of clinical-forensic risk assessment. It begins with a review of the modern history of violence risk assessment and includes a summary of landmark legal cases that have affected the field of risk assessment. A review of the ‘first and second generation’ research, including their associated approaches and assessment tools, and a description of the latest developments in the area is put forward. Suggestions to promote the ‘state of the art’ in risk assessment are explored. It is concluded that, although there have been great advancements in the field of risk assessment during the last decade, current assessments are limited due to insufficient training of the assessors and ...

Much of the research on prostitution to date has focused on the risks of working on the streets. However, no research has described the recruitment process for street prostitution. This exploratory study describes some of the main techniques that pimps use to recruit children and women into the trade, including the pretense of love, threats of indebtedness, drug addiction, manipulation, and violence. In addition, social situations that leave women feeling that they have few alternatives to working on the streets are described.

Despite theoretical speculation suggesting psychopaths have superior memory for their autobiographical experiences in comparison to nonpsychopaths, little published research has directly assessed this issue. This lack of research formed the impetus for the present investigation. As part of a larger study investigating variables associated with episodic memory in adult male offenders, 150 violent crime perpetrators were interviewed at two federal penitentiaries in British Columbia, Canada. The participants' memories for three different acts of perpetrated violence were elicited (i.e., acts of instrumental and reactive violence and a poorly remembered act of violence) and exhausted for detail. The sample was dichotomized by psychopathy status via the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991, 2003). Consistent with certain assumptions of Herve, Cooper, and Yuille's (2007) biopsychosocial model of eyewitness memory, the pattern which emerged indicated that psychopathic participants reportedly had bett...

Given their particular constellation of interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial features, we hypothesized that psychopaths would be more likely than other offenders to unlawfully confine another person. The present archival study investigated victim and offence characteristics, and the p

Research investigating trauma's ensuing psychological sequels has flourished in recent years. Unfortunately, no direct research has focused on disentangling the relative severity of PTSD symptoms across divergent types of traumatic experiences. The present study was undertaken for such a purpose. As part of a larger study investigating the impact of trauma on eyewitness memory, 36 prostitutes were interviewed regarding past autobiographical traumatic experiences (both sexual and non-sexual traumas). The participants' self-reported PTSD symptoms for each type of trauma were elicited and compared indicating significantly higher total, avoidance, and intrusion symptoms for sexual traumas than for non-sexual traumas. Implications for the assessment and treatment of trauma victims are discussed.

An intriguing aspect of cognition is the perspective one takes when perceiving and/or remembering an event (i.e., field vs. observer perspectives/memories). Although explored from a cognitive viewpoint in terms of remembering, no research has examined this phenomenon from a forensic viewpoint in terms of the original experienced perspective. The objective of the present study was to test the utility of the field vs. observer distinction. Thirty-six prostitutes were interviewed and asked to recall three different autobiographical memories. Peri-traumatic dissociative symptoms, trait dissociation levels, current PTSD symptomatology, the perspective taken, and the quantity of detail were coded for each memory and compared. Extreme memorial variability was found both within and across the types of memories/perspectives reported. Among other findings, the results suggest significantly higher levels of state dissociation in memories originally perceived from an observer perspective than from a field pe...

OBJECTIVE:To examine the utility of the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI) as a complementary tool to the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI) for the evaluation of patients with chronic pain. It was hypothesized that patients labelled 'dysfunctional' on the MPI would exhibit the highest levels of psychological distress as indicated by scores on BPI, followed in order by those labelled 'interpersonally distressed', and those described as 'adaptive copers'. It was anticipated that this pattern would be independent of sex. In addition, validity of the BPI as a measure of psychological distress among patients with pain was examined using psychiatric diagnostic ratings as independent criteria.METHODS:Three hundred and twenty-six patients with non-malignant chronic pain seeking admission to a private pain clinic, an inpatient treatment program or a short term, multidisciplinary outpatient chronic pain program completed both the MPI and the BPI at a single sitting as part of a routine assessment procedure. The majority of patients underwent psychiatric assessment which specified Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-R (DSM-III-R) or DSM-IV diagnosis. Psychiatric diagnosis was determined for a subsample of 110 patients in the present investigation by conducting a random chart review.RESULTS:The MPI patients classified as 'dysfunctional' manifested significantly higher levels of BPI measured psychopathology than both 'interpersonally distressed' and 'adaptive coper' groups. 'Adaptive copers' reported the lowest levels of psychological dysfunction while those labelled 'interpersonally distressed' exhibited intermediate levels of dysfunction. Individuals with high levels of emotional distress as determined from the BPI were more likely to have an axis 1 disorder.CONCLUSIONS:The BPI is an accepted valid and reliable generic measure of emotional well-being and may be used as a complementary index to the disease-specific MPI in assessing chronic pain patients. A psychometric assessment battery consisting of the MPI and BPI can assist both clinicians and researchers in identifying problem areas that may impede treatment of patients with chronic pain and in assessing treatment outcomes.

Statement validity analysis (SVA) was developed during the 1960s and 1970s in the context of evaluating child witness statements of sexual abuse (e.g., Undeutsch, 1967, 1989). Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) is one component of SVA used to distinguish between event-based and intentionally fabricated statements of child and adult witnesses concerning sexual interactions and other topics (Vrij, 2005). It has become a widely accepted method of credibility assessment in many European courts (see Kohnken, 2004). The last author of the present chapter (JY) was instrumental in bringing this procedure to North America in the late 1980s (e.g., Yuille, 1988) and research conducted by him and other coauthors (DG, MT, BC) is presented in this chapter. Two of the authors (DG, DS) serve as expert witnesses who provide testimony on statement credibility in German courts. This chapter, thus, offers insights from both researchers’ and practitioners’ points of view, as well as from European and North-American perspectives.

Eyewitness memory has evolved into an umbrella term to account for the memory of criminal actions witnessed by victims, bystanders, and committed by perpetrators. Encompassed by the narrative memory of a crime as well as recognition memory for the perpetrator, eyewitness memory plays an important role in the criminal justice process—from the initial investigative interview by law enforcement to the assessment of credibility by the triers of fact. In an effort to assist criminal justice system professionals, researchers—mostly psychologists—have empirically investigated the variables associated with eyewitness memory for over 100 years (e.g., Stern, 1904). In fact, thousands of studies have been conducted in the area, making the study of eyewitness memory one of the largest subfields in the area of forensic psychology. The impressive quantity of literature is, however, daunting in nature when one attempts to make sense of the discrepant empirical findings. Indeed, consistent with clinical-forensic experience, the results from eyewitness research indicate that different witnesses to the same criminal event can produce widely variable memory patterns. Without a unifying evidence-informed model to explain the different memory patterns observed, criminal justice professionals are faced with a difficult task when attempting to makes sense out of the variable nature of eyewitness memory.

We hypothesized that a prior history of a major depressive disorder would not compromise the efficacy of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), a coronary revascularization procedure, in improving quality of life and health status when comparing patients with no previous history. To determine the utility of screening for risk for depression in heart patients scheduled for PTCA, 190 patients were administered a two-item depressive disorders screener prior to PTCA and the SF-36 and Seattle Angina Questionnaire prior to and 6 months post procedure. Results reveal that while those with no prior history of depression had statistically better quality of life and health status outcomes than those with a probable past depression, (P

The Theory and Applications of Models of Computation (TAMC) conference series is both international and interdisciplinary in character, bringing together researchers working in computer science, mathematics (especially logic) and the physical sciences. It is this, together with its predominantly computational and computability theoretic focus, that gives the series its special character.