Shay in 2007

Thomas Shay was one of two men convicted in a 1991 bomb explosion that killed one Boston police officer and maimed another. Prosecutors contended that the bomb was intended for Shay’s father. Shay was a troubled 20-year-old from an unstable background when he underwent a competency evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts. Although he found Shay immature and self-centered, psychologist Paul G. Nestor, Ph.D. did not see any signs or symptoms of a severe mental disorder or cognitive impairment that might render him incompetent. Shay pled guilty and served 10 years, after which he has continued to be in and out of trouble with the law. Co-defendant Alfred W. Trenkler,  the subject of a personal crusade by a former lawyer named Morrison Bonpasse who has written a book about the case, remains in prison.

THE COMPETENCY REPORT

Plus, Dr. Franklin reviews Jon Ronson’s new book on the search for the elusive psychopath — The Psychopath Test.

Psychiatric diagnoses are often reified in legal contexts in order to advance practical objectives, from longer (or shorter) prison sentences to monetary damages to civil detention. With stakes so high, it is no wonder that lynchpin diagnoses in the expanding niches of forensic and correctional psychology are sparking controversy. This workshop will begin with a brief overview of diagnostic systems and issues of diagnostic reliability and validity. The remainder of the workshop will focus on diagnoses of primary import in forensic contexts. These include (1) antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy, (2) the sexual paraphilias, and (3) novel psychiatric disorders. We will explore the implications of proposed modifications in the upcoming fifth edition of the DSM. The workshop will assist practitioners in understanding current controversies surrounding forensic use of DSM diagnoses. Participants will gain tools to help them use diagnoses in an ethical and professionally defensible manner.

More information and a downloadable registration form are available at the Oregon Psychological Association’s website.

A recent photo in the Los Angeles Times pictured a psychologist administering therapy to a group of men locked in cages the size of phone booths. An expert advised that the cages should be called “therapeutic modules,” lest the prisoners “feel like animals and respond accordingly” (Dolan, 2010). The arrangement is the prison’s response to a judicial mandate to provide treatment to mentally ill prisoners. But as the photo illustrates, much prison therapy is far removed from traditional treatments that psychologists are trained to provide.

. . . There will always be the next rare event to fuel a cycle of knee-jerk response, ostensibly aimed at protecting us from every remote contingency.

Hindsight bias is a powerful heuristic that obscures an unfortunate truth: It is very hard to accurately predict — much less prevent — individual-level violence. Many people — and especially many adolescent and young adult men — are troubled. Many are severely depressed. Many express disturbing, violent fantasies. Fortunately, only a tiny fraction commit lethal acts against others. And unfortunately, those who do often do not stand out ahead of time.

This is what forensic psychologist Robert Fein found when he conducted a Secret Service study of all political assassins and would-be assassins in the United States over the past 60 years. Contrary to popular mythology, the assassins fit no singular “profile.” They were neither monsters nor martyrs.

Psychology Today

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by D. Richard Laws and Tony Ward

Reviewed in the online journal Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology

If one set out to design an intervention program to encourage criminals to reoffend,what would it look like? It should include the converse of what helps offenders desist from crime. It should isolate offenders from prosocial influences and opportunities for good jobs or relationships. It should remind them that they are hopelessly flawed and will never succeed. In this way, it would encourage alienation and helplessness, the “condemnation script” that Shadd Maruna (2001) found among men who persist in crime.

Related classic:

Shadd Maruna’s 2001

Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives

Winner of a 2001 American Society of Criminology Award for Most Outstanding Contribution To Criminology, this meticulously researched book describes the process through which hard-core criminal recidivists desist from crime to lead productive lives.

Once upon a time, a strange thing happened at the Ionia State Hospital in Michigan: A diagnosis of schizophrenia exited the body of a white housewife, flew across the hospital, and landed on a young Black man from the housing projects of Detroit, burrowing into his body and stubbornly refusing to leave. As you probably know, Black men in the United States (as well as in the United Kingdom) are disproportionately diagnosed with schizophrenia. But what you may not know is when this pattern emerged, or why.

REVIEW CONTINUES HERE