Should Death Be So Different?: Sentencing Purposes and Capital Jury Decisions in an Era of Smart on Crime Sentencing Reform

We are in an era of “Smart on Crime” sentencing reform. Several states and the federal government have made major changes to their sentencing policies—from reducing the incarceration of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders to the use of evidence-based sentencing to focus the most severe punishments on those who are at the greatest risk of recidivism. Often, today’s reform efforts are spoken about in terms of being fiscally responsible while still controlling crime. Though such reform efforts do not explicitly acknowledge purposes of punishment—such as retribution, incapacitation, rehabilitation, or deterrence—an undercurrent running through all of these reforms is an effort for sentencing to make sense in light of sentencing goals given the resources available. Therefore, thinking about ultimate purposes or goals in sentencing is necessarily a part of the sentencing reform discourse

Behavioral Inhibition and Anxiety

Behavioral inhibition is the relationship between the tendency to experience distress, and the level of withdrawal from unfamiliar situations, people, or environments (Fox et al., 2004). The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) measures one of the underlying systems of behavior. The goal is to gauge one’s reactions to aversive motive, or the movement away from something unpleasant. Previous studies have examined the relationship between inhibition levels and anxiety or nervousness. Results have shown that adults who suffer from higher levels of anxiety or nervousness as measured by self-reports of nervousness (Carver et al., 1994) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (Newman et al., 1997) also report higher scores on the BIS. In the current study, juvenile twins aged 9-13 were asked to complete a variety of self-report surveys about their personality, interests, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. At this time they completed the Screen for Childhood Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED), which assesses various anxiety-related cognitions, emotions, and behaviors. They also completed the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS) questionnaire, which measures behaviors/thoughts away from something unpleasant (inhibition) and behaviors/thoughts toward something desired (activation)(Carver et al., 1994). We will examine the relationship between scores on the SCARED and on the BIS portion of the BIS/BAS measure. We hypothesize that higher levels of anxiety or nervousness on the SCARED will positively correlate with higher scores on the BIS. This implies that children who have higher levels of inhibition are like to be more anxious overall. This has implications for further adjusting treatment and education when interacting with children who have higher levels of anxiety and inhibition, as opposed to those with lower levels of anxiety and inhibition.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1069/thumbnail.jp

Nearsighted and Colorblind: The Perspective Problems of Police Deadly Force Cases

In dealing with the recently publicized instances of police officers’ use of deadly force, some reform efforts have been focused on the entities that are central to the successful prosecutions of police—the prosecutor and the grand jury. Some have suggested special, independent prosecutors for these cases so that the process of deciding whether to seek charges against police officers remains untainted by the necessary cooperative relationship between the police department and the prosecutor’s office. Others have urged more transparency in the grand jury process so that the public can scrutinize a prosecutor’s efforts in presenting evidence for an indictment. Still others would like to change the grand jury process entirely—by allowing defense attorneys to participate or giving individual grand jurors more control over the proceedings. While there is merit to all of these approaches, this Article maintains that so long as the legal standard only allows for the prosecution of police when the officers are unreasonable in using force, which focuses on a moment of the suspect-victim’s dangerousness, there will not be much change in the success of prosecuting police for the use of deadly force. The persistent problem at the core of prosecuting police for the use of deadly force is that society has not developed norms of acceptable police conduct, and to the extent that any norms do exist in societal views of appropriate law enforcement, they are built upon a foundation of racial biases that all in society unfortunately share. The answer to this dilemma, then, cannot solely focus on removing the conflicted prosecutor or granting more autonomy to the grand jury. To truly curb police misconduct, at least part of the solution must require a shift in perspective. It requires correcting the nearsighted view of reasonable police behavior so that the focus includes norms of conduct taken before an officer gets to the point of making a decision to kill. Further, the solution also requires correcting the colorblind view of deadly force cases by confronting the existence and persistence of racial bias in views on dangerousness and criminality. Prosecutors and grand jurors have roles to play in properly bringing charges against officers that have acted outside of their appropriate roles. But, until those appropriate police roles are normalized and racial bias is confronted, even the most well meaning prosecutor and the most searching grand jury may have difficulty reaching a just result in police deadly force cases

An Exploration of Compassion Fatigue in Novice Counselors

Compassion fatigue is one of the various forms of suboptimal performance novice counselors may demonstrate. Like burnout, it is a type of impairment that disrupts the counselor’s ability to establish and maintain therapeutic relationships. One of the responsibilities of the clinical supervisor is to determine effective methods of early identification and prevention of this phenomenon. This article will discuss compassion fatigue, related concepts, and strategies clinical supervisors may use to address it

The Influence of Past Racism on Criminal Injustice: A Review of The New Jim Crow and The Condemnation of Blackness

This essay reviews The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander; and The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

The Effects of Family Functioning on Academic Achievement in Children with Sickle Cell Disease

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a complex group of genetic blood disorders that currently affects 90,000-100,000 Americans primarily of African descent. SCD leads to physiological and psychosocial distress. In relation to school, youth with SCD are at high risk of poor academic outcomes, including: low scores on tests of academic achievement, and increased risk of poor grades, special education, and grade retention. There is a paucity of literature on family functioning's effect on academic functioning in youth with SCD. Poor family functioning in youth with SCD has been related to many other psychosocial outcomes, such as behavior problems, poor mental health and quality of life. The current study examined whether family functioning is directly related to the academic outcomes of youth with SCD, and investigated whether family functioning moderates the relationships between disease severity, SES, age, and academic outcomes, using simultaneous multiple regression models. The current study utilized data collected at the beginning of phase three of the Cooperative Study of Sickle Cell Disease (CSSCD), consisting of 198 youth aged 6 to 16 years. Family functioning was evaluated using the Family Environment Scale, academic achievement by broad reading and math scores from the Woodcock-Johnson Revised Tests of Academic Achievement, and school competence by the School Competence Scale of the CBCL. Results indicate that family functioning variables were neither directly related to academic outcomes, nor did they moderate the relationship between academic outcomes and other factors. Results also indicated that IQ as measured by the FSIQ of the WISC-III was the most powerful predictor of academic functioning. Limitations and clinical implications are discussed.  M.A