Victim selection patterns of community-residing child molesters identified by a nationwide youth-serving organization.

The current study examines data extracted from revocation files of a national youth-serving organization (YSO) involving 7819 revoked individuals and 12,254 alleged child victims to better understand victim selection patterns of community-residing child molesters. These data demonstrate consistent patterns of victim selection based upon the age, gender, and YSO affiliation of each victim. We created two variables to explore whether the revoked individual was "likely pedophilic (LP)" or a "mixed offender (MO)" based upon their behaviors and patterns of victim selection.

The lethality of non-familial child abductions: Characteristics and outcomes of 565 incidents involving youth under the age of 18 years.

Offender motivation for child abduction determines both the nature and final outcome of the abduction. Research has identified victim characteristics, offender characteristics, and sexual motivations as factors influencing child abduction and child abduction homicide. We examine 565 child abductions identified through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to determine the characteristics of victim, perpetrator, and crime and their influence on whether the child is murdered.

Gender and violence risk assessment in prisons.

Our study examines the association between Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20: Version 2; Psychopathy Checklist-Revised; and Violence Risk Assessment Guide scores and violence perpetrated during incarceration by male and female inmates. Using a sample of 288 men and 183 women selected from prisons in 2 states, we used receiver operating characteristics analyses to assess the potential of these 3 measures to predict threatened, physical, or sexual prison violence measured in 2 ways: inmate self-report and formal institutional infractions. We found all 3 instruments to demonstrate moderate to good levels of predictive accuracy for both the male and female inmates, a finding that suggests that actuarial, structured professional judgment and personality measures perform in a broadly comparable manner in assessing institutional violence for both men and women.

Combined evaluations of competency to stand trial and mental state at the time of the offense: An overlooked methodological consideration?

Combined evaluations of competency to stand trial (CST; competency) and mental state at the time of the offense (MSO; sanity) frequently co-occur. However, most research examines the 2 as discrete constructs without considering 4 potential combined evaluation outcomes: competent-sane, incompetent-sane, competent-insane, and incompetent-insane. External validity can be improved if research more closely mirrored practice.

Symptom patterns related to traumatic exposure among female inmates with and without a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder.

Our study examines the trauma-related experiences of 203 female prison inmates, most of whom had experienced chronic trauma throughout their lives but among whom only 51 percent met diagnostic criteria for PTSD. We used the two groups to study differences in trauma exposure and pre-existent psychopathology as they related to the emergence of full diagnostic criteria for PTSD. We also used the entire sample to explore the factor structure and endorsement frequencies of each symptom category as it related to trauma exposure.

Patterns of prior offending by child abductors: a comparison of fatal and non-fatal outcomes.

Our study examines the prior offending of 750 individuals who are known to be responsible for the abduction of a child under the age of 18 years. The first group comprised of 311 offenders (42%) who had abducted a child that was later located alive (found alive, referred to as FA). The second group was comprised of 439 offenders (58%) who had abducted a child that was either found murdered or was still missing and presumed dead (found murdered, referred to as FM).

A symptom level examination of the relationship between Cluster B personality disorders and patterns of criminality and violence in women.

The psychometric properties and structure of the Cluster B Personality Disorder criteria (Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic) are examined in a sample of 261 female inmates using a self-report screen followed by a full diagnostic interview. The results of the structural analyses in this sample demonstrated good internal consistency and convergence, but poor discriminant validity between disorders. An exploratory factor analysis found that the structure of these disorders was best accounted for by a four-factor solution that paralleled the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV-TR; APA, 2000) classification scheme with some significant and notable exceptions.

Childhood maltreatment and cluster B personality pathology in female serious offenders.

The authors examined early maltreatment among serious female offenders at a maximum-security correctional facility, contrasting the maltreatment histories of inmates with and without Cluster B personality pathology. Women were interviewed regarding the frequency of 13 indicators of psychological or physical abuse perpetrated by maternal or paternal caregivers and the frequency of 10 types of sexual abuse perpetrated by persons at least 5 years older. Reports were based on inmates' recollected worst years of maltreatment before age 16.

Opinion formation in evaluating the adjudicative competence and restorability of criminal defendants: a review of 8,000 evaluations.

Evaluations of competence to stand trial (CST) are the most common type of criminal forensic evaluation conducted, and courts tend to defer to clinician opinions regarding a defendant's competence. Thus, it is important to study the ways in which clinicians arrive at opinions regarding adjudicative competence and the data they consider in forming their opinions. We reviewed 8,416 evaluations conducted by forensic evaluators in Virginia over a 12 year period, and examined (a) the clinical, demographic, and criminal characteristics of a defendant as related to opinions regarding competence, predicted restorability, and impairment on "prongs" of the Dusky standard, (b) process and outcome differences in evaluations conducted by psychiatrists versus psychologists and inpatient versus outpatient evaluators, and (c) the consistency of incompetence base rates over a 10 year period.

Comparing the constructs of antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy in a sample of incarcerated women.

Our study examines the relationship between Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) and psychopathy among a sample of 137 female offenders. Drawing from a historical review of the evolution of these two concepts, we explore their differential relationship to patterns of criminal behavior, psychological adjustment, co-morbidity with other personality disorders, victimization, and institutional adjustment. Findings suggest that the two disorders share a common foundation of social norm violations and deception; however, APD is associated with impulsive, aggressive, and irresponsible behavior, higher rates of childhood abuse, and greater co-morbidity with Cluster A PDs, while psychopathy is better characterized by higher rates of property crimes, previous incarceration, and the manifestation of remorselessness.

Understanding the risk factors for violence and criminality in women: the concurrent validity of the PCL-R and HCR-20.

This study explores the performance of 132 female maximum-security inmates on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) and the HCR-20 (Historical, Clinical, and Risk Management Scheme) to examine the concordance between these two risk assessment instruments, and to assess their potential usefulness in determining level of risk for violent behavior and other forms of criminality. The two instruments demonstrated consistent and highly significant correlations across total scores, factor scores, and subscale scores. When the two instruments were entered into a multiple regression analysis to predict violent and non-violent crime, the HCR-20 did not add to the variance explained by the PCL-R.

Opinion formation in evaluating sanity at the time of the offense: an examination of 5175 pre-trial evaluations.

Sanity evaluations are high-stake undertakings that explicitly examine the defendant's culpability for a crime and implicitly explore clinical information that might inform a plea agreement. Despite the gravity of such evaluations, relatively little research has investigated the process by which evaluators form their psycholegal opinions. In the current study, we explore this process by examining 5175 sanity evaluations conducted by a cohort of forensic evaluators in Virginia over a ten-year period.

Correlates of adjudicative competence among psychiatrically impaired juveniles.

This study examines the competence-related abilities of 120 psychiatrically hospitalized male juveniles age 10 to 17 years, using the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT-CA), the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale-Anchored (BPRS-A), the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument (MAYSI), the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT), and discharge diagnoses derived from file review. The findings indicate significant age-related differences across adolescence with a relatively strong performance for most of the youths on the competence measure. While intellectual and psychiatric factors were found to contribute substantially to deficits in legal decisional ability, they were modulated by age and the developmental factors associated with it.

Personality disorders and violence among female prison inmates.

The current study seeks to expand our understanding of the increasingly well-documented relationship between mental disorder and violence, specifically by examining the relationship between Axis II disorders and community and institutional violence among a cohort of 261 incarcerated women. Drawing from an initial screening of 802 female inmates in maximum security, we sampled to identify 200 nonpsychotic women who met criteria for one of the four Cluster B personality disorders, and 50 nonpsychotic women who did not meet criteria for these disorders. Each inmate was interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders (SCID-II).