Biological Research On Behavior As Extra-Legal And Discretionary Factors In Sentencing And Punishment

In recent years, there has been an increase in empirical literature regarding how and why neuroscience and genetics research on behavior may influence criminal punishment. This dissertation aims to add to this growing body of literature specifically on types of evidence and aspects of sentencing and punishment that have not yet been studied. This dissertation consists of three papers that examine how the presentation of biological evidence in court or knowledge of the biological influences to behavior may act as extra-legal and discretionary factors in sentencing. The first paper, utilizing a multi-factorial experiment with the death-qualified jury-eligible public, examines how biological risk factors for criminality might affect views on capital sentencing. Results suggest that the general presentation of evidence on biological risk factors may not impact views on death penalty support or cruel and unusual punishment, but it may significantly impact perceptions of moral responsibility and future dangerousness. The second paper, utilizing a multi-factorial experiment with a lay public sample, examines how psychiatric labels, and having diagnoses biologically “labelled,” affect sentencing beliefs. Results show that psychiatric labels can lead to significant non-punitive effects on sentencing, as mediated by reduced stigmatization regarding lack of treatability, social acceptance, and personal responsibility. Biological “labelling” may not significantly affect sentencing, apart from Pedophilic Disorder. The third paper, utilizing qualitative interviews with Pennsylvania state judges and grounded theory analysis, develops a model that illuminates a process by which judicial stereotyping associated with genetic essentialist biases toward mental disorders may negatively affect judges’ views regarding the sentencing of offenders with psychiatric diagnoses. Data suggest that judges exhibit stereotyping behavior by linking the relationships between genetic essentialist biases (immutability, informativeness, uniformity) and types of stigmatization (pessimism, dangerousness, family stigma), leading to judges’ negative views on the punishment of such offenders particularly with regard to incapacitation and deterrence. Together, the findings in this dissertation advance our understanding on if and how different types of biological research on behavior may practically and philosophically influence discretion in sentencing. Such understanding can help to anticipate the effects of neuroscience and genetics research as discretionary and extra-legal factors in sentencing moving forward

Judicial Perceptions of Media Portrayals of Offenders with High Functioning Autistic Spectrum Disorders

In recent years, sensational media reporting focusing on crimes committed by those diagnosed with or thought to have High Functioning Autistic Spectrum Disorders (hfASDs) has caused societal speculation that there is a link between the disorder and violent criminality. No research exists on how and if the judiciary understands and is affected by this coverage. Therefore this study aims to examine how judges perceive and are influenced by media attention surrounding hfASDs and criminality. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 California Superior Court Judges, including questions on media portrayal. Judges perceived general media portrayals of hfASDs in both positive and negative ways. However, almost all judges who had experienced media coverage surrounding hfASDs and criminality identified it as misleading and harmful to public perceptions of the disorder. These findings suggest judges are not exempt from media attention surrounding violence and hfASDs, and they recognize the potential adverse effects of this negative coverage. Although judges' report their opinions are not affected, the results demonstrate that judges are worried that the public and potentially other criminal justice actors are adversely affected and will continue to be moving forward

Examining Remorse in Attributions of Focal Concerns During Sentencing: A Study of Probation Officers

This research, using interviews with probation officers in the United States (n = 151) and a constant comparative method for analysis, draws from the focal concerns framework to qualitatively model a process by which probation officers use a defendant’s remorse to attribute focal concerns in order to guide their sentencing recommendations in pre-sentencing reports. The model suggests that officers use expressions of remorse to make attributions about mitigated criminal intention (blameworthiness and notions of responsibility), reduced dangerousness and a high potential for reform (community protection), and organization-level effects for increasing caseload efficiency and using correctional resources (practical effects of sentencing). Then, officers appear to use attributions from two remorse-guided focal concerns (blameworthiness and community protection) to directly advise their recommendations for more lenient sentencing outcomes. Finally, as probation officers also described feeling sincerely responsible for providing critical information to the court about a defendant’s background and remorse, contributions and implications of this model for criminal sentencing are discussed

The Perceptions of Juvenile Judges Regarding Adolescent Development in Evaluating Juvenile Competency

This analysis provides the first known in-depth qualitative inquiry into if and how juvenile court judges take the psycho-social immaturity and development of adolescents into consideration when making attributions of adjudicative competency of offenders in juvenile court. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-seven U.S. juvenile court judges, followed by grounded theory analysis. Competency evaluations from psychologists and the juvenile’s age, history, awareness, and mental capacity influence judicial determinations of competency. Although data show that understandings of adolescent development do play a large role in shaping judges’ understandings of juvenile behavior—particularly related to emotional control, irrational behavior, lack of maturity, and social susceptibility—most judges only connected these characteristics to juvenile offending. Although cognizant that juveniles exhibit attributes that diminish competency-related abilities as part of their adolescent development, the majority of judges still stated that adolescent development is not important to them in assessing juvenile competency, potentially demonstrating a cognitive disconnect on these issues. These results indicate approaches to how judges might think about juvenile competency decisions (“building blocks” vs. “holistic” models) and the need for more direct education and training of judges on the role of adolescent development in competency

Brain Imaging Research on Psychopathy: Implications for Punishment, Prediction, and Treatment in Youth and Adults

While there has been an exponential increase in brain imaging research on psychopathy in the past two decades, knowledge on the brain basis to child and adolescent psychopathic-like behavior is relatively new. This adult and child research has potential future implications for the development of new interventions, prediction of future offending, and punishment. This review examines both adult and child literatures on the neural basis of psychopathy, together with implications for the criminal justice system. The adult imaging literature provides growing evidence for amygdala structural and functional impairments in psychopaths, and more variable evidence for prefrontal deficits. The emerging child and adolescent imaging literature with notable exceptions broadly parallels these adult findings and may help explain the development of fearlessness, disinhibition, and lack of empathy. This knowledge places policy makers at a crossroads. Should new biological interventions be developed to remediate these brain abnormalities? Would imaging be used in the future to predict offending? Could imaging findings help excuse psychopathic behavior or alternatively argue for longer sentences for public protection? This review attempts to address these issues at the child and adult levels and provides directions for future research that include the incorporation of biological measures into treatment programs

Novel epigenetic, quantitative and qualitative insights on the socialness of autism [commentary]

Three complementary points to Jaswal & Akhtar are raised: (1) As a person with autism, I desire sociality despite vulnerability to others’ antisocial behaviour; (2) Asperger’s conflation of autism with psychopathy (Czech 2018) likely caused clinicians to disregard social motivation among those with autism; and (3) adverse experiences cause social-engagement diversity to develop in all people, not just those on the spectrum

A Scoping Review of Ethical and Legal Issues in Behavioural Variant Frontotemporal Dementia

Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is a subtype of frontotemporal dementia characterized by changes in personality, social behaviour, and cognition. Although neural abnormalities cause bvFTD patients to struggle with inhibiting problematic behaviour, they are generally considered fully autonomous individuals. Subsequently, bvFTD patients demonstrate understanding of right and wrong but are unable to act in accordance with moral norms. To investigate the ethical, legal, and social issues associated with bvFTD, we conducted a scoping review of academic literature with inclusion & exclusion criteria and codes derived from our prior work. Among our final sample of fifty-six articles, four mentioned bvFTD patient-offenders as unfit to stand trial by insanity, and sixteen mentioned the use of dementia evidence in a court of law to better understand the autonomy of bvFTD patients. Additional emergent issues that were discovered include: training police officers to handle situations involving bvFTD patients and educating healthcare providers on how to help caregivers navigate bvFTD. The current literature highlights the inadequacy of traditional applications of medico-legal categories such as autonomy, capacity and competence, in informing cognitive capacity assessments in clinical and legal settings and deserves consideration by neuroethicists

Editorial: Radical housing (dis)encounters: Reframing housing research and praxis

We came to this issue before the outbreak of Covid-19, and we release it amidst what feels like an entirely new, and yet also entirely known world-order—a place of multiple and multiplying crises that existed before the pandemic and continue, relentlessly, to render certain people, bodies and homes disposable. It is against this cruelty, but also with a renewed sense of radical hope in justice everywhere, that RHJ first came to be. The majority of contributions to Issue 2.2 emerge from a long process of designing and selecting participants for the event Radical Housing Encounters: translocal conversations on knowledge and praxis. This event was meant to take place in person, in three separate locations simultaneously, at the end of May 2020. Through it, we sought to define and re-define radical housing knowledge and practice, paying particular attention to diverse methodological, theoretical and ethical approaches deployed in both research and militant practice around the globe. While disappointed that the event could not take place as originally planned, its rationale and ethics of care are central to the making of this issue and are reflected in the texts of its contributors as well as the process of organising the issue