Reconstructing Sex Offenders as Mentally Ill: A Labeling Explanation

A growing number of states are being pressured to keep incarcerated sex offenders behind bars longer. The response to this pressure has been to look to the mental health system and retrieve civil commitment for sex offenders, a policy largely abandoned in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the courts ruled that civil commitment to a mental institution required that the individual be both mentally ill and dangerous. So legislators, with the support of a few mental health professionals, met this requirement by legislatively reconstructing sex offenders as mentally ill and permitting their indefinite commitment to mental institutions. The author discusses the process of reconstructing sex offenders as mentally ill from a labeling perspective

Mental Health Treatment Refusal in Correctional Institutions: A Sociological and Legal Analysis

Recently, the courts have recognized the right to a minimum level of mental health treatment for individuals confined in both mental and correctional institutions, utilizing a different rationale for each system. As mental health administrators in state mental hospitals accepted that they were responsible for providing an increased level of mental health services, they were disappointed that courts had subsequently ruled that individuals in state hospitals had a right to refuse treatment. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate, sociologically and legally, upon treatment refusal in the correctional system since most of the attention on treatment refusal has focused on individuals in state mental hospitals and since the legal status of inmates in correctional systems is different. An anlysis of the literature revealed that inmates in correctional institutions, similar to individuals in the state hospital system, have a limited constitutional right to refuse mental health treatment, and this right is unlimited when the treatment provided is considered by the courts to be in fact punishment

Specialized Police Units: NYPD Anti-Crime and the Effect of Body-Worn Cameras

The use of body-worn cameras (BWC) by law enforcement organizations has continued to expand across the United States. The ability for BWC to bring about transparency, trust, and accountability between police and citizens has been touted as one of the significant benefits of BWC deployment. The assignment of BWC to uniformed officers has been a topic of multiple empirical studies. However, there has been a paucity of research directly focused on officers assigned to specialized plain-clothes enforcement, also known as anti-crime teams. These officers carry out a unique mission and purpose compared to their uniformed colleagues. The author utilized a quantitative methodology approach to conduct a correlational study of archived arrest data for the sample group. Participants completed an online survey which was used to collect descriptive data and perceptions for each respondent regarding BWC. This study examined the perceptions of BWC by anti-crime officers and identified if the assignment of a BWC has any effect on their collective arrest activity. The results from this study identified that BWC do have an effect on arrest activity by specialized anti-crime officers. Annual arrest by the officers exhibted a significant decrease. However, perceptions of the BWC were positive overall by study participants. Results from this study will aid law enforcement executives as they consider the deployment of BWC to officers in specialized plain clothes units as well as policy considerations for this specific group

The Influence of Direct Versus Indirect Observation, Candidate Report Format, and Assessor Training on the Accuracy of Assessor Ratings

Within the assessment center method, assessors\u27 preliminary evaluations of candidates\u27 performance are typically based on information obtained through direct observation of the candidate\u27s performance in the situational exercise, or on another assessor\u27s report of that performance. This variation is somewhat disconcerting, however, in that its impact on assessor ratings remains largely unstudied. The primary focus of the present study was to assess the differential effects of observation type (i.e., direct observation, dimension-specific report, narrative report) on various measures of rating accuracy. In addition, the present study investigated cognitive modeling as an assessor training strategy, and its impact on rating accuracy. Seventy-three undergraduates majoring in business administration were either trained or not trained, and either observed and rated nine videotapes depicting individuals conducting performance review sessions, or reviewed and evaluated corresponding dimension-specific or narrative reports describing the same performance. A two (cognitive modeling training, no training) by three (direct observation, dimension-specific report, narrative report) analysis of variance design was used to assess the effects of training and observation type on rating accuracy. Moderate support was found for the hypotheses that direct observation would yield greater accuracy than report-based ratings. While ratings obtained in the direct observation condition were generally more accurate than narrative-report based ratings, dimension-specific report ratings produced superior accuracy. In addition, those participants receiving the cognitive modeling training, as predicted, were significantly more accurate in their ratings than the no-training participants. These results suggest that in assessment situations where assessors must rely on reports to evaluate candidate performance, those reports should be constructed in a dimension-specific format. Furthermore, cognitive modeling appears to be a viable strategy for assessor training. Future research should examine reports which more closely typify actual assessment center products and their effects on rating accuracy. The cognitive modeling approach to assessor training should also be given greater attention in further study