Law and Crime | Psychotherapy Toronto

Prison Executioners Face Job-Related Trauma

October 12, 201800Decision-Making, Empathy, Featured news, Guilt, Law and Crime, Trauma October, 18

When an order of execution is issued by the courts in the United States, the prison warden or superintendent is responsible for the sentence being carried out—often by Corrections Officers (CO) who are unaware they will be tasked with killing a prisoner.

Complicating matters, human connections are frequently formed between guards and prisoners. According to Jerry Givens, who administered the death penalty in Virginia to 62 inmates over 25 years, COs may spend more time with death-row prisoners than with friends or family, and can develop empathy towards these inmates.

With potential bonds between death-row guards and prisoners in mind, a separate team of officers frequently conducts the actual execution. COs directly involved with the prisoners are often given smaller roles, such as walking the prisoners to the execution spot, or putting a hood over their head. This approach aims to reduce the emotionally damaging effects of executions on those in close contact with the inmates.

Authorities also try to disperse feelings of responsibility for the killing by having multiple guards involved in the execution process. With lethal injection, the method of execution used in most States, three COs are assigned to turn a key switch that releases the lethal drug into the prisoner. Only one “live” switch dispenses the fatal chemical. The CO initiating the procedure that ultimately kills the prisoner is not known.

Despite such measures, guards can feel mentally tortured by their participation in executions, both before and after.

As illustrated in Into the Abyss, a documentary detailing the death sentence of convicted killer Michael Perry, many execution guards experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One guard explained his acute symptoms at the outset of his descent into PTSD. He began crying and shaking uncontrollably when “the eyes of all the inmates he had executed began flashing before him.” Another developed nightmares, cold sweats, and sleeplessness.

Other guards, like Givens, have reported depression, inability to sustain relationships, and changes in personality. According to Rachel MacNair, author of Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress: The Psychological Consequences of Killing:

“The inner lives of guards who execute become like those of battlefield veterans who suppress memories from themselves and others.”

In 2007, two South Carolina COs who developed obsessive compulsive behaviour, nightmares, and other emotional disturbances filed civil lawsuits, claiming that their conditions resulted from performing executions. The COs alleged that they were coerced into carrying out executions and were not given any debriefing or counseling to help them deal with the emotional effects.

For some guards who need psychological treatment, it is simply not available. Other times, guards do not use available psychological help for fear of bei

Source: Feature: Fumigraphik at flickr, Creative Commons

ng labelled ‘weak’ by their colleagues. Additionally, guards may not have the opportunity to talk about their involvement in executions with members of their families. Givens explained:

“When I accepted the job, I never told my wife or kids or anybody. I didn’t want them to go through anything I had to go through. If I told someone, they would tell someone. It would have been like a snowball and gotten bigger and bigger and everyone would know exactly what I was doing.”

This secrecy protects guards from having to explain or defend their actions. But it also prevents them from obtaining help to lessen the ill-effects of the associated trauma. Lack of disclosure precludes obtaining support.

The unacknowledged stress experienced by guards on execution teams risks dangerous mental-health consequences. As Givens, who now campaigns to end the death penalty, put it:

“It’s not an easy task to do. If I had known what I had to go through as an executioner, I wouldn’t have done it. You can’t tell me I can take the life of people and go home and be normal.”

– Veerpal Bambrah, Contributing Writer. The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

-Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

The Making of a Murderer

July 6, 201800Child Development, Featured news, Genetics, Law and Crime, Parenting, Psychopathy July, 18

Source: sarahjgibson at DeviantArt, Creative Commons

In 1993, when Robert Thompson and Jon Venables from Liverpool, England were both 10 years of age, they killed a two-year-old boy. Thompson and Venables kidnapped the victim from a shopping centre, tortured him, and left him to die.

Stories like these raise many questions. Chief among them, how does something like this happen at all? Was it the result of bad parenting? The community certainly thought so, viewing the boys’ upbringing as the cause.

The trial had exposed evidence of domestic problems in both families. The judge stated that Thompson’s and Venable’s parents must take moral responsibility for their children’s actions. So members of the Thompson family had to assume new identities and go into hiding. They moved nine times to escape verbal and physical attacks. The Venables experienced similar threats.

In a recent interview with CNN, family therapist Tricia Ferrara put the onus on parents to understand when their child is in trouble. She said:

“All parents need a better understanding of child development so we can detect when the signals show a child may be moving in an anti-social direction.”

And a study conducted on the Columbine shootings, where two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Denver, suggested that the community saw parents as partly accountable for the murders.

There’s no doubt that parenting plays an enormous role in child development. Researchhas found that abuse, negative parenting, and prolonged malnutrition are linked to a proclivity toward physical violence.

But, there is also important research pointing to the role biology plays in predisposing some individuals to psychopathy, including violence. The BBC reported that neuroscientist Adrian Raine discovered a decrease in activity of the pre-frontal cortex in the brains of murderers, suggesting a genetic predisposition.

And, research by Elizabeth Cauffman and colleagues from the University of California found that good parenting doesn’t always lead to the outcomes we imagine. In fact, anti-social encouragement by a romantic partner was correlated with the highest level of offending in youth, even when warm relationships endured with parents.

In a TVO documentary Genetic Me, professor Daniel Nettle claimed that personality is stable throughout a person’s life. Individuals have tendencies for some things and not others. Nettle suggests that people are born with predispositions for certain personality traits. He adds, though, that the environment has some effect on bringing out theses inclinations, and that people can fight against them.

NPR reported that there are additional factors that play into a person’s development, perhaps explaining why not all children raised by the same parents are violent. Children in the same families have distinct personalities and varied interests that elicit different parenting. Plus, children experience independent social environments outside the home.

Perhaps the complexity of the matter is described best by neurobiologist James Fallon, who studies the brains of psychopathic killers. He explained in a TED Talk that an interaction occurs between environment and genetics. When presented with a particular brain image, he noted it was clearly a psychopath’s brain. What was most shocking—it was his own brain. Fallon, though, is not a killer, and had a happy upbringing. But, he has a family history of homicide. The first documented murder of a mother by a son was committed by a member of his family, several generations back.

Fallon said that, although some individuals, mostly male, have genes or brain damage that make them more susceptible to becoming murderers, their childhood experiences can make all the difference. For instance, the MAOA gene in particular can give rise to a violent individual if the gene is combined with experiences of brutality.

Where do murderers come from? Like all the big questions in mental health, an either-or perspective leaves little room for complexity. In the great genetics versus environment debate, the making of murderers—indeed, the making of us—requires that we look somewhere in-between.

–Anika Rak, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Fascination With Murder—Should You Be Concerned About It?

May 24, 201800Anxiety, Ethics and Morality, Featured news, Law and Crime, Psychoanalysis, Psychopathy May, 18

Source: calvinnivlac at flickr, Creative Commons

Fascinated with murder, friends and comedians Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff wanted the opportunity to openly talk about death. They started weekly podcast “My Favorite Murder” to discuss the grizzly details of crimes that interested them. Although these conversations might seem callous and unseemly to victims’ loved ones and some members of the public, the podcasts serve as a safe space for the women to confront the dark side of human nature.

In the first episode, Hardstark and Kilgariff confess their fear of being murdered, and how discussing that fear and the atrocities of true crimes eases any associated anxiety. They disclose that the process of “talking about the thing you’re afraid of” is immensely helpful. That process, they reveal, is one of the primary motivators behind the show.

Presented as a comedy, the podcast is broadcast from Feral Audio, and can also be found under the comedy category in the iTunes podcast charts. This combination of murder and humor has proven quite popular, as the podcast is regularly featured in the iTunes top comedy chart. And the show’s private Facebook group boasts over 130,000 members, or “murderinos,” as they call themselves.

So, what’s the appeal of a true crime comedy podcast? In an interview with the Huffington Post, one listener says:

“They’re honest about their fears surrounding rape, murder, kidnapping, etc. They’re terrified of those things just like the rest of us! Somehow diving into the subject helps diffuse the pain of it. It might be a weird way to desensitize ourselves from a nasty world, but, it helps!”

If that’s the case, do all consumers of true crime media have crippling fears of murder and kidnapping? Skeptics see this explanation of using the podcast as ‘exposure therapy’—wherein through systematic exposure to one’s fears, anxiety is reduced—as a justification to discuss a taboo subject matter.

Perhaps, this is not an issue of anxiety, but of the dark, unspoken desires people dare not speak.

Hardstark and Kilgariff argue that, though taboo, an interest in murder and true crime is widespread. In an interview with SBS Australia’s The Feed, the two report:

“It’s very common, but for some reason saying I have an interest in this is supposed to be a shameful thing, but it’s not. It’s very normal.”

Many listeners of the podcast report having found their “home” of sorts, a tribe where it’s okay to talk about the horrific murders that have always captivated them. Listeners appreciate Hardstark’s and Kilgariff’s candor. Another listener asserts:

“It’s a dark subject matter, but it’s treated very respectfully, and somehow Georgia and Karen manage to feed that morbid curiosity that we all share, but in a way that never forgets the consequences of violence.”

Forensic psychologist Paul G. Mattiuzzi contends that a fascination with murder is nothing out of the ordinary, and in fact, is practically built-in to people. Said plainly:

“The crime of murder is a most fundamental taboo and, also, perhaps, a most fundamental human impulse.”

Mattiuzzi maintains that the allure comes from the many questions we ask ourselves—Why did they do it? Could I do that? Was there nothing that could have stopped this?He says:

“When it’s art, all of those questions make it what we call a ‘thriller’ or a ‘mystery’. When the body is real, the ‘thrill’ may be gone, but the questions and the fascination remain.”

Psychology professor at Santa Clara and Stanford Universities, Thomas Plante, suggests:

“To deny our dark side might ultimately harm us more than accepting it and coping proactively with our inner most dark thoughts and impulses.”

Further still, the coupling of delicate subject matter with comedy or light-heartedness seems to have positive effects. Plante explains:

“Taking a light touch with dark thoughts may actually help us not act on them. Just because you have an itch doesn’t mean you need to scratch it!”

This is not to say that anyone with a passing interest in true crime secretly longs to kill, but exploring that curiosity with a “light touch” could help ease any discomfort that comes along with that interest.

Given the enduring popularity of true crime in entertainment—as seen from documentaries such as “Making a Murderer” and “The Jinx”—society’s collective fascination with murder is not going away any time soon. So, in the meantime, why not laugh about it?

—Fernanda de la Mora, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

—Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

For Mentally Ill, Jail Diversion Program Gives Second Chance

March 8, 201830Featured news, Health, Law and Crime, Loneliness, Politics, Psychiatry, Psychopathy March, 18

Source: octopusdevon at flickr, Creative Commons

On February 8, 2015, Natasha McKenna—a 37-year-old who suffered from mental illness—died following an incident in which she was tasered four times by law enforcement.

After a week-long delay in transporting her to a county jail in Virginia, where she would be provided with mental-health resources, she became agitated. In an effort to regain control, officers used a stun gun on her multiple times. Despite CPR to revive her, McKenna passed away shortly after.

McKenna had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, and depression when she was just fourteen. Her case highlights a growing issue in county jails and prisons across America: resources are scarce for offenders with mental illness.

In 1992, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and Public Citizen’s Health Research Group released a report revealing alarmingly high numbers of people with serious mental illness incarcerated in the United States. The subsequent 2002 report showed that little had changed in the preceding ten years.

But shortly after McKenna’s death in 2015, Fairfax County Jail—where she had been held—created a Jail Diversion Program (JDP). The objective of this program is to divert low-risk offenders in mental-health crises to treatment rather than send them to a prison setting that exacerbates their symptoms.

JDPs are designed so that authorities, alongside certified crisis clinicians, have the capacity to decide whether a non-violent offender who suffers from a mental disorder is directed to a JDP where they can receive treatment, or is arrested. JDPs give offenders the opportunity to work with a trained mental-health clinician, ultimately transforming how resources are provided.

Sarah Abbot, the program director of Advocates—a JDP in Massachusetts that works with the Framingham Police Department—believes that JDPs are crucial in early intervention for mentally ill offenders.

During an interview with the Trauma and Mental Health Report, Abbot explained:

“JDP’s effectively divert people with mental illness from the criminal justice system, and have been shown to be successful in the prevention of unnecessary arrests for those who suffer with a mental illness. Police choose to transfer offenders to JDPs 75% of the time.”

Abbot believes that early intervention via JDPs is key to preventing those with a mental illness from reoffending. In 12 years of operation, Advocates has successfully diverted 15,000 individuals from the criminal justice system into treatment.

During calls related to misdemeanors, police respond to the scene with a JDP clinician. After consulting the clinician, the officers use their discretion, along with information from victims and bystanders, to decide whether or not to press charges. Alternatively, the officer can choose to secure treatment for the offending individual at a JDP.

In the latter case, the clinician performs an assessment to determine if the offender meets the criteria for inpatient care. If so, they are diverted from arrest and placed in a local mental-health facility where they receive intensive treatment through the support of counsellors, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

The purpose of JDPs is to de-escalate encounters with mentally ill offenders and create a cooperative environment for assessing the situation. Abbot views their contribution as a form of compassionate justice:

“If we can keep mentally ill individuals out of the criminal justice system, their lives will ultimately be better by default. How much better depends on the quality of the treatment they receive and the individual’s commitment to success.”

The literature on JDPs suggests that placing these individuals in treatment programs within their community, where they have the support of family and friends, inevitably results in lower rates of relapse in comparison to incarceration.

Abbot believes that JDPs are vital in keeping individuals away from the isolation of a jail cell:

“My hope is that we divert people like Natasha McKenna into proper treatment, because once they are in a cell, things can escalate quite quickly.”

If somebody with a mental illness has an arrest on their record, JDPs keep doors open to them for education, employment, and housing. JDPs have the potential to protect individuals like McKenna, and provide offenders suffering from mental illness with a second chance at living stable lives post-arrest.

–Nonna Khakpour, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Workplace Alcohol Tests: Where Do We Draw the Line?

February 22, 201840Addiction, Alcoholism, Career, Featured news, Health, Law and Crime, Work February, 18

Source: Bousure at flickr, Creative Commons

Keeping our personal and professional lives separate is something many of us strive for. But, as Johnene Canfield recently discovered, we only have so much control over this process. In the spring of 2015, Canfield was fired from her six-figure position as a Minnesota Lottery official after a DUI conviction and a stint in rehab for alcohol abuse. The following October, she filed a lawsuit to reclaim her job.

Canfield’s former employers say the reason they dismissed her was to ensure the safety of other employees and clients, as well as to preserve employee productivity at the Minnesota Lottery. But these reasons reveal how problem drinkers are viewed as incapable of workplace competence.

According to Linda Horrocks, a former health care aide at Flin Flon’s Northern Lights Manor, a long-term care home for seniors, “Employers often act based on what they think they know about addiction and alcohol addicts”—but not necessarily on the reality of living with addiction. Horrocks, like Canfield, was fired for alcohol addiction.

She was eventually re-hired by the Northern Regional Health Authority, the health-governing body in northern Manitoba that oversees employment at Northern Lights Manor. But her employer required her to sign an agreement to abstain from drinking on and off the job, and to undergo random drug and alcohol testing.

In an interview with the Trauma and Mental Health Report, Horrocks said:

“I didn’t object to the testing, but I didn’t want to commit to never drink again on my own time. My union even advised me against signing this agreement, because I would just be setting myself up for failure—I hadn’t gone through treatment yet. And so, I was fired again.”

Horrocks maintains that the employers’ offer to help her abstain from alcohol completely was based on misconceptions about alcoholism and treatment.

“The managers knew a little bit about alcoholism, as family and acquaintances had gone through treatment. They just decided that the counselling that I was going through with Addictions Foundation of Manitoba was not enough because it is a harm-reduction program, not a direct path to complete abstinence.”

Horrocks understands why some may think that abstinence is the only way:

“After all, if you’re a recovering alcoholic, alcohol is deemed ‘your enemy.’”

Proponents for abstinence-based treatments argue that periods of abstinence can repair brain and central nervous system functions that were impaired. Having problem drinkers self-moderate alcohol intake has had variable success in the past. For some, the temptation of having “just one drink” can be a precursor to relapse. And for them, total abstinence may be a better approach.

But Horrocks explains, abstinence may not be the best approach for everyone. The harm reduction model accepts that some use of mind-altering substances is inevitable, and that a minimal level of drug use is normal. This approach also recognizes research showing experimental and controlled use to be the norm for most individuals who try any substance with abuse potential.

Harm reduction seeks to reduce the more immediate and tangible harms of substance use rather than embrace a vague, abstract goal, such as a substance-free society. During intervention talk sessions, therapists explore and attempt to modify drinking patterns or behaviours with the client. The clinicians support autonomous decision-making and independent goal setting related to drinking.

Evidence published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows that these programs aim to reduce the short- and long-term harm to substance users and improve the health and functioning of these individuals. There are also benefits to the entire community through reduced crime and public disorder, in addition to the benefits that accrue from the inclusion into mainstream life of those previously marginalized.

Benjamin Henwood and colleagues from the University of Southern California also show that those who work on the front-line of severe mental illness and addiction prefer the harm-reduction approach to complete abstinence. Yet few employers have taken this approach into account when deciding the fate of employees with proven substance abuse problems outside of the workplace.

Horrocks’s and Canfield’s experience begs the question, where do we draw the line? How much say do employers have over their employees’ personal lives? It may just be that employers need to better respect the privacy of workers, so long as workplace productivity is not affected. And if employers maintain substance abuse policies that bleed over into the personal lives of staff, consideration of a harm-reduction approach is key.

–Veerpal Bambrah, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Stigma Surrounds HIV-Positive Children in China

February 15, 201800Bias, Featured news, Health, Law and Crime, Trauma February, 18

Source: quaerion at DeviantArt, Creative Commons

In 2014, a young boy (pseudonym ‘Kunkun’ for anonymity) was banished from his village in Sichuan, China after being diagnosed with AIDS. The villagers did not understand the disease, so feared for their safety. In a CNN article, resident He Jialing expressed his concerns for his daughter who went to school with Kunkun at the time:

“My daughter is around his age, and goes to a boarding school now. What happens if she gets bitten while playing with him here at home? That boy is too dangerous.”

There are roughly 740,000 active cases of HIV in China. Misinformation and intense stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS often result in tragic consequences for HIV-positive children. For example, infected children are frequently banned from their schools and abandoned by their loved ones.

Xu Wenqing, an HIV/AIDS specialist with UNICEF China, revealed to The World Post that HIV-positive children are often segregated from their peers in school:

“If their HIV status has been disclosed, it’s very common that parents of other children complain to the school and force the school to separate their children from HIV positive children.”

But a boarding school in China called the Green Harbor Red-Ribbon School was created in 2006 to house roughly 30 HIV-positive children between the ages of 6 and 19. The school is a refuge for those who have been ostracized by their communities because of their illness. Other organizations are intervening as well.

At an orphanage run by the non-government Fuyang AIDS Orphan Salvation Association, children receive food, housing, education, and the necessary medications to control the virus. The director, Zhang Ying, explained to Reuters that psychological improvements are seen in the children under their care:

“Our children have a healthier state of mind now. When I first started to get to know these children, they had low self-esteem and were afraid of being discriminated against by others. After these few years, by staging different kinds of activities for them, the children no longer feel inferior and are more confident about themselves.”

Although a source of refuge for children, boarding schools and orphanages are not a long-term solution. They cannot cope with the sheer number of children who have HIV. In the case of Green Harbor, the haven can only protect children to age 19, at which point they are expected to leave. Unfortunately, the stigma faced by HIV-positive adults is also problematic.

In 2010, a court in China ruled against a man who said that he was wrongfully denied a job after his prospective employer discovered he was HIV-positive. The judge’s ruling contradicted an earlier law that was meant to protect infected individuals from being discriminated against by employers. The law stated:

“No institution or individual shall discriminate against people living with HIV, AIDS patients and their relatives.”

Even with legal protection, those with HIV are still regularly banned from schools and jobs, perpetuating the ignorance and fear surrounding a positive status. And, although medical treatment of AIDS is becoming increasingly accessible in China, a 2009 United Nations report stated many infected people do not seek treatment due to lack of knowledge or to concern that their status will be exposed.

Lack of consistent medical care, or lack of any treatment for that matter, presents huge risks to those with HIV. Without medication, HIV can develop into AIDS and cause death. Nonadherence to medication can lead to the development of drug-resistant strains of HIV that may lower quality of life, since patients may require stronger medications with more serious side effects. All the more reason to reduce the stigma associated with positive-HIV status, and to support treatment for those battling the virus.

In an effort to combat these problems, China’s first lady Peng Liyuan appeared in public advertisements holding hands and playing with HIV-positive children at the Red-Ribbon School. Plus, in 2010, a law limiting HIV-positive individuals’ entrance into and movement within China was lifted, but more needs to be done.

People with HIV in China are still ostracized, and laws meant to protect them from discrimination are circumvented. Until awareness and access to disease education improve, cases of people being denied schooling and jobs due to HIV status are likely to continue. Furthermore, children who do not live in a protected environment or who are too old for an orphanage will be left fending for themselves.

–Abbiramy Sharvendiran, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Rape Victims’ Reactions Misunderstood by Law Enforcement

January 11, 201840Depression, Featured news, Law and Crime, Neuroscience, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma January, 18

Source: Richard George Davis, used with permission

In 2008, 18-year-old Marie reported being raped at knifepoint in her apartment. Confronted by the police with allegations that she was lying, she conceded under pressure that the rape may have been a dream. Then, after being aggressively interrogated about her story, she finally admitted to making it up. She was subsequently charged with false reporting.

The report, however, was not false. In June 2012, Marc O’Leary pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape and was sentenced to 327½ years in prison, including 28½ years for the rape of Marie.

Rape is unlike most other criminal offences. The credibility of the victim is often on trial as much as the guilt of the assailant, despite the fact that false rape accusations are rare (only an estimated 2-8% of cases are fabricated).

Sergeant Gregg Rinta, a sex crimes supervisor at the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office in Washington, deemed that what happened to Marie was “nothing short of the victim being coerced into admitting that she had lied about the rape.” Rinta recounted in an external report of the department’s handling of the case how Marie was subjected to “bullying and hounding”, as well as threats of jail time and withdrawal of housing assistance.

Steve Rider, the commander of Marie’s criminal investigation, considers her case a failure. In an interview conducted by ProPublica and The Marshall Project, he explained:

“Knowing that she went through that brutal attack—and then we told her she lied? That’s awful. We all got into this job to help people, not to hurt them”

The seed of doubt was planted when the police received a phone call from Marie’s former foster mother Peggy and another foster mother, Shannon. One of their biggest issues was that Marie was calm while describing the attack, rather than upset. Shannon stated:

“She called and said, ‘I’ve been raped. there was just no emotion. It was like she was telling me that she’d made a sandwich.”

Peggy remembers:

“I felt like she was telling me the script of a Law & Order story. She seemed so detached and removed emotionally.”

Hearing these accounts from those closest to Marie led the police to distrust her story, and the situation unfolded from there. In rape cases, a judgment of legitimacy often focuses on the victim’s reaction during and following the event instead of on the assailant’s behaviour.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Rebecca Campbell spoke about the neurobiology of sexual assault in a talk to the National Institute of Justice. She explained that victims are flooded with high levels of opiates during a rape—chemicals in the body intended to block physical and emotional pain, but which can also dull the victims’ feelings:

“The affect that a victim might be communicating during the assault and afterward may be very flat, incredibly monotone—like seeing no emotional reaction, which can seem counterintuitive to both the victim and other people.”

This misperception contributes to sexual assault cases not going to trial. Of rape cases that are reported, 84% are never referred to prosecutors or charged; 7% are charged but later dropped; 7% get a plea bargain; 1% are acquitted; and only 1% are ever convicted.

Dr. Campbell identifies part of this problem as the police misunderstanding victims’ reactions as they recount their trauma. Based on this confusion, police officers make assumptions about the legitimacy of what they hear and often discourage victims from seeking justice. Officers may even secondarily victimize them.

Secondary victimization is defined by Dr. Campbell as “the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of social system personnel that victims experience as victim blaming and insensitive. It exacerbates their trauma, and it makes them feel like what they’re experiencing is a second rape.”

On average, 90% of victims are subject to at least one secondary victimization in their first encounter with the justice system. Victimization includes discouraging victims from pursuing the case, telling them it’s not serious enough, and asking about their appearance or any actions that may have provoked the assault.

These incidents have a profound effect on victims, as conveyed by Dr. Campbell, with many reporting feeling depressed, blamed, and violated. In fact, 80% feel unwilling to seek further help. As a result, many rape victims withdraw their complaint. To make matters worse, only 68% of rape cases are reported in the first place.

Sharing information on the neurobiology of trauma could be a powerful tool in educating police officers who don’t understand victims’ reactions. Evidence of the neurobiological changes that lead to flat affect or what appear to be huge emotional swings after an assault may help police better serve this population.

Furthermore, normalizing a range of reactions from rape victims, rather than accepting preconceived notions, may lead to a safer and more effective environment for reporting sexual assault. Knowledge about trauma can also serve to inform public discourse about sexual assault, as well as help victims to see their own reactions with compassion.

–Caitlin McNair, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Rape Victims' Reactions Misunderstood by Law Enforcement

January 11, 201800Depression, Featured news, Law and Crime, Neuroscience, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma January, 18

Source: Richard George Davis, used with permission

The report, however, was not false. In June 2012, Marc O’Leary pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape and was sentenced to 327½ years in prison, including 28½ years for the rape of Marie.

Rape is unlike most other criminal offenses. The credibility of the victim is often on trial as much as the guilt of the assailant, despite the fact that false rape accusations are rare (only an estimated 2 to 8 percent of cases are fabricated).

Sergeant Gregg Rinta, a sex crimes supervisor at the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office in Washington, deemed that what happened to Marie was “nothing short of the victim being coerced into admitting that she had lied about the rape.” Rinta recounted in an external report of the department’s handling of the case how Marie was subjected to “bullying and hounding,” as well as threats of jail time and withdrawal of housing assistance.

Steve Rider, the commander of Marie’s criminal investigation, considers her case a failure. In an interview conducted by ProPublica and The Marshall Project, he explained:

“Knowing that she went through that brutal attack—and then we told her she lied? That’s awful. We all got into this job to help people, not to hurt them.”

“She called and said, ‘I’ve been raped.’ there was just no emotion. It was like she was telling me that she’d made a sandwich.”

Peggy remembers:

“I felt like she was telling me the script of a Law & Order story. She seemed so detached and removed emotionally.”

This misperception contributes to sexual assault cases not going to trial. Of rape cases that are reported, 84 percent are never referred to prosecutors or charged; 7 percent are charged but later dropped; 7 percent get a plea bargain; 1 percent are acquitted; and only 1 percent are ever convicted.

Dr. Campbell identifies part of this problem is the police misunderstanding victims’ reactions as they recount their trauma. Based on this confusion, police officers make assumptions about the legitimacy of what they hear and often discourage victims from seeking justice. Officers may even secondarily victimize them.

Secondary victimization is defined by Dr. Campbell as “the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of social system personnel that victims experience as victim blaming and insensitive. It exacerbates their trauma, and it makes them feel like what they’re experiencing is a second rape.”

On average, 90 percent of victims are subject to at least one secondary victimization in their first encounter with the justice system. Victimization includes discouraging victims from pursuing the case, telling them it’s not serious enough, and asking about their appearance or any actions that may have provoked the assault.

These incidents have a profound effect on victims, as conveyed by Dr. Campbell, with many report feeling depressed, blamed, and violated. In fact, 80 percent feel unwilling to seek further help. As a result, many rape victims withdraw their complaint. To make matters worse, only 68 percent of rape cases are reported in the first place.

–Caitlin McNair, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Police Need Training to Deal With Mentally Ill Offenders

October 26, 201700Featured news, Health, Law and Crime, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Psychiatry, Psychopathy, Stress October, 17

Source: Free Images at Pixabay

On March 4, 2016, Devon LaFleur, a 30-year-old struggling with bipolar disorder, went missing. His father contacted law enforcement to notify police of his son’s mental illness and tendency towards violence. After learning that LaFleur had allegedly robbed a bank and was on the run, Toronto police tracked down and fatally shot the young man during a confrontation.

In many instances where mental illness is concerned, police officers respond too quickly with force. In an analysis conducted by The Washington Post, American officers shot 124 people who showed some sign of mental or emotional distress in 2015.

The Post explains that, for the majority of these crimes, the police were not called for reports of criminal activity. As in LaFleur’s case, police were contacted by “relatives, neighbors or other bystanders worried that a mentally fragile person was behaving erratically.”

An article by psychiatry professor Richard Lamb and colleagues at the University of Southern California reports that police officers are authorized to transport individuals with mental illness for psychiatric evaluation when there is reason to believe that they pose a danger or threat. But the researchers also state that this responsibility turns officers into ‘street-corner psychiatrists’ without giving them the training they need to make on-the-spot decisions about mentally ill offenders.

An article published in Criminal Justice Review by Teresa LaGrange shows that “higher educated police officers recognize a broader range of disorders” and they are more likely to “view the situation as requiring a professional intervention.”

However, LaGrange also recognizes that instead of teaching practical skills like learning how to identify individuals with mental-health conditions, many educational workshops only consist of general descriptions about psychological terms and concepts.

Police officers need to know how to handle individuals who display different types of mental illnesses. The Washington Post analysis states that the most extreme cases of mentally ill people causing a disturbance were schizophrenic individuals and those who displayed suicidal tendencies or had some form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In some states, crisis intervention team training (CIT) is being implemented to help officers identify mental illness and determine the best course of action.

CIT consists of a 40-hour training program for police forces that educates officers on mental-health issues and medications and teaches about mental-health services in the local community. CIT also teaches methods that help de-escalate heated situations by encouraging officers to allow vulnerable individuals to vent their frustrations—methods that could have been useful in LaFleur’s case to reduce the risk of violence from both the police and offender.

So far, this program has been considered effective by the police departments using it.

Major Sam Cochran of the Memphis police department, a retired officer and a coordinator of the CIT program, emphasizes that law enforcement should partner with local mental-health agencies: “If communities give attention only to law enforcement, you will fail as a training program. You cannot separate the two.”

Although the task of identifying mentally ill individuals can be daunting, these training programs are a step toward preventing injustices for individuals like LaFleur. Providing officers with appropriate training not only improves the ability to handle job stress but may also provide mentally ill offenders with a chance to receive treatment.

–Afifa Mahboob, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report.

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

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Lack of Regulation in Porn Industry Leaves Women Unprotected

January 25, 201700Career, Featured news, Health, Law and Crime, Pornography, Sex, Trauma January, 17

The documentary film ‘Hot Girls Wanted’, produced by Rashida Jones and released in the spring of 2015, follows several young women living in a North Miami Beach home as they attempt to enter the amateur pornography industry. Since its release, the film has sparked major discussion about the experiences of female performers and the porn industry itself.

There is very little research available on the impact on performers within this poorly regulated industry. In the U.S., the government turns a blind eye to many of the issues surrounding the production of pornography, unless it involves performers under the age of 18. And despite laws prohibiting the employment of performers under the legal age, there are still issues involving consent among newly legal women in the 18-21 age range.

During an AOL BUILD discussion led by Jones, Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston, emphasized the lack of understanding that some young women seem to have:

“I meet woman after woman who went into this industry, thinking they were going through consent. They’re young. They don’t know what they’re up against.”

Jones also interviews one of the film’s main performers Rachel Bernard, who has since left the industry, and who openly speaks about her experience working in amateur pornography. She addressed the concept of consent, and how it can become even more problematic on porn sets:

“When you walk in, your agent might’ve told you what you’ll be doing or they were general about it because they don’t want you to have an opinion whether you like it or not.”

In the AOL BUILD discussion, Bernard explained how it was common for her to enter onto a set without previously being told the details of her performance and, eventually, she would be pressured to perform acts she was not comfortable with. In one instance, she was told to say a highly demeaning line. When she refused, the director responded by saying, “Well, it’s part of the script, so you have to.”

A lack of agency in young people entering into any field of work is problematic. But working in pornography can open performers to elevated health risks and uncomfortable situations. During the AOL BUILD discussion, Bernard described how sex work was not comparable to most other lines of work because it required a higher degree of vulnerability:

“Every job does have points where it’s maybe uncomfortable but, when you go to a regular job, you’re not showing every single part of your body. The fact that I am out there and I am completely open. Every part of my body, soul, and mind is having to be in that position. It’s a little bit more than uncomfortable.”

Not only can pornography be uncomfortable, but due to the lack of regulation in the industry, the work can also have a negative impact on performers’ health. Condom use is reported to be very low in heterosexual adult films, with only 17% of performers using condoms. And performers in the study reported feeling pressured to work without condoms to remain employed.

The average age of performers entering the industry could explain a hesitance to speak up about rights on set.

For over 40 years, the average age of entry for female porn performers has been approximately 22. In an interview with VICE, Jones expressed the significance of the age of performers in influencing how they experience this line of work:

“When you’re 18 and you’re making choices for yourself, you’re not thinking about the eternal effects of footage online. You’re not thinking about the external and internal costs; the psychological, emotional, physiological, physical costs of having sex for a living. You’re thinking about the fame part. And so you may not be the best candidate to make a decision for yourself but you’re allowed to because you’re 18 and that’s all you need to be.”

So what do performers say about the development of regulations for this industry?

In February 2016, California officials in charge of workplace safety rejected a proposal requiring the use of condoms, dental dams, and goggles for porn actors on set. The decision was made after six hours of testimony from almost 100 performers and producers who strongly opposed the proposal.

Performers who spoke up in protest of the proposal worried that those particular regulations would either hurt the porn industry and their job security, or drive it underground, resulting in even more dangerous conditions.

In an interview with The Guardian, Ela Darling, a porn performer who spoke at the hearing, explained how those regulations would further limit performers’ rights:

“This law denies bodily autonomy to an already marginalized population, and it denies us our voice.”

In a statement made after the February decision, Erich Paul Leue, the executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult entertainment industry, discussed industry members’ interest in being involved in deciding industry regulations.

“We’re not opposed to regulation,” he said. “We’re opposed to this regulation.”

In terms of regulation, the aim should be to provide performers with the freedom to make their own decisions without fear of risking job security or safety. Individuals working in the industry should not be required to compromise health, safety, or wellbeing. And despite the current lack of understanding about the implications of working in porn, one thing is clear: Performers who wish to enter and remain in the industry should be able to do so without having to check their rights at the door.

–Abbi Sharvendiran, Contributing Writer, The Trauma and Mental Health Report

–Chief Editor: Robert T. Muller, The Trauma and Mental Health Report

This article was originally published on Psychology Today

Category: Law and Crime