Science reporter delves into shadowy realm of civil commitment

Wayne Hicks and Hersey Lelaind. Illustration by Jenny Chang. “Hersey Lelaind knew he was in trouble — just not how much trouble. He and a housemate had been on a drive, and Lelaind had been smoking pot. When they returned to their home in Vacaville, California, the sheriff’s department was waiting….  “That was in 2006, when Lelaind was 26 years old. He’s been kept under lock and key ever since. His problem wasn’t the drug bust itself. But the bust prompted the authorities to review Lelaind’s checkered past. As a teenager, he had been convicted for sexual abuse against a…

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Static-99: A bumpy developmental path

By Brian Abbott, PhD and Karen Franklin, PhD*  The Static-99 is the most widely used instrument for assessing sex offenders’ future risk to the public. Indeed, some state governments and other agencies even mandate its use. But bureaucratic faith may be misplaced. Conventional psychological tests go through a standard process of development, beginning with the generation and refinement of items and proceeding through set stages that include pilot testing and replication, leading finally to peer review and formal publication. The trajectory of the Static-99 has been more haphazard: Since its debut 15 years ago, the tool has been in a…

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Upcoming forensic psychology trainings in Australia

I will be traveling to Australia next month to give a series of trainings, seminars and keynote addresses at Bond University on the Gold Coast (where I am a visiting research scholar), in Brisbane, and at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Here are descriptions and dates, in case you are nearby and interested in attending. For further information, click on any of the links below. I look forward to seeing some of you there. * * * * * SOCIAL MEDIA FOR FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGISTS This half-day training workshop will be offered twice: College of Forensic Psychologists, Australian…

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Forensic psychology: Is it the career for me?

I get many emails and phone calls from students interested in pursuing forensic psychology as a career. There is surprisingly little information available online to answer these students’ questions. So, by popular demand, I have revised my 2007 overview in order to provide more current guidance, especially tailored toward frequently-asked student questions. You may also want to review the comments sections of my original essay, which is posted at each of my two professional blogs (HERE and HERE). First off, what is a forensic psychologist? Forensic psychologists are most commonly licensed psychologists who specialize in applying psychological knowledge to legal…

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More studies finding bias in PCL-R measurement of psychopathy

I’ve been reporting for quite some time about problems with the reliability and validity of the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R), a popular instrument for measuring psychopathy in forensic settings. It is a critical issue in forensic psychology, because of the massively prejudicial nature of the term “psychopath.” Once a judge or jury hears that term, pretty much everything else sounds like “blah blah blah.” Now, the journal Law and Human Behavior has published two new studies — one from the U.S. and the other from Sweden — adding to the ever-more-persuasive line of research on PCL-R rater bias. It’s high time…

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Patience is no virtue on MSOP injustice

A federal judge seems willing to give the state more time. There’s scant evidence it will be used well. Guest essay by D. J. Tice, Minnesota Star Tribune* For many years, critics of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program have worried that this state may be guilty of cruel injustices. They’ve worried that Minnesota’s sweeping, inconsistent system for dumping sex offenders who have completed prison sentences into so-called “treatment centers” may be imposing retroactive life sentences on some “clients” who pose no serious threat to the public, while giving them no effective treatment. As of this summer, this is no longer…

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Announcing blogger sabbatical

Dear Blog Subscribers and Readers, If you have detected a decline in blog frequency of late, it’s not your imagination. After more than seven years, I have made the difficult decision to take a sabbatical break from regular blogging in order to direct my energy toward some larger writing projects. As some of you know, in addition to juggling forensic case work, trainings and teaching with family life, I have also experienced a considerable increase in professional travel. This represents exciting professional growth for me, but I am finding that this schedule makes it hard to pursue more in-depth writing…

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Innovative international risk assessment service is expanding

Try your hand at answering these questions: When evaluating Aboriginal offenders, how valid are standard risk assessment protocols?  Among Canadian men, how well does the Danger Assessment (DA) predict domestic violence?  For sex offenders in Vermont, what instrument is more accurate than the widely used Static-99 for predicting recidivism?  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?  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…

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