Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Diminished Criminal Responsibility as "New Evidence" in Criminal Revision Procedures.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may affect victims of crime, but may also be reported by offenders. In the postappeal phase, offenders may claim to suffer from chronic PTSD and argue that this indicates diminished criminal responsibility at the time the index crime was committed. As members of a Dutch criminal cases review commission, we recently encountered two cases in which PTSD was presented as new evidence that would justify a reopening of the case. In this article, we argue that such claims are problematic in that clinical decision making resulting in a PTSD diagnosis adheres to quite different standards than those dictating forensic fact-finding. The two cases illustrate the difference between criminal and clinical fact-finding.

Getting evidence into action to tackle institutional child abuse.

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is an example of a government response to survivors' demands to address the harm they suffered. It is also a major response by a national government to improve child safety in the future. Facing up to child abuse is difficult and in other countries similar inquiries have suffered delays and derailing. This commentary uses an evidence-to-action lens to explore why clear evidence of child sexual abuse may be ignored and side-lined. It argues that where evidence challenges the powerful, is surprising and shocking, or undercuts current institutional and policy arrangements, then that evidence is likely to be ignored, undermined or refuted - all factors which are present in the case of historical institutional child sexual abuse.

Recent victimization increases risk for violence in justice-involved persons with mental illness.

A large body of research has examined relationships between distal experiences of victimization and the likelihood of engaging in violence later in life. Less is known about the influence of recent violent victimization on risk for violence perpetration. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine prospectively whether recent victimization in adulthood increases the risk of future violence. Specifically, the present study assessed the incremental validity of recent violent victimization in the prediction of future violence in a sample of justice-involved adults with serious mental illness. The study examined (a) whether recent experiences of violent victimization (i.e., within 6 months of the baseline assessment) predicted a greater likelihood of perpetrating violence in the next year, and (b) whether inclusion of recent victimization enhanced the predictive validity of a model of violence risk in a sample of justice-involved adults with severe mental illness (N = 167). Hierarchical logistic regression analyses indicated that exposure to recent violent victimization at the baseline assessment predicted a greater likelihood of engaging in violent behavior during the year follow-up period. Additionally, recent exposure to violence at the baseline assessment continued to explain a significant amount of variance in a model of future violence perpetration above the variance accounted for by well-established violence risk factors. Taken together, the findings suggest that recent victimization is important to consider in understanding and evaluating risk of violence by persons with mental disorders who are involved in the criminal justice system.

[Revictimisation: a bio-psycho-social model of vulnerability]. / Reviktimisierung: Ein bio-psycho-soziales Vulnerabilitätsmodell.

Survivors of child interpersonal traumas are at increased risk of revictimisation in adulthood. Despite high prevalences of childhood victimization as well as adulthood revictimisation knowledge of psychological mechanisms underlying revictimisation is deficient. The present review describes and discusses different findings and theories on revictimisation. Derived from updated findings a bio-psycho-social model of vulnerability to revictimisation is developed.

Differences in legal outcomes for male and female children who have been sexually abused.

The goal of the present study was to determine whether or not there were sex differences in legal outcomes for children who were sexually abused. Using the methodology of Joa and Edelson (2004), the results indicated that males who were sexually abused had poorer legal outcomes than females. Specifically, it was found that cases involving male victims were less likely to be filed with the District Attorney (DA) than cases involving female victims and had fewer criminal counts charged. For those children seen at a Child Abuse Assessment Center, cases involving female victims were significantly more likely to be filed by the DA's office than were cases involving male victims. Finally, there were differences in whether guilty defendants pled guilty or were found guilty at trial depending on whether the defendant sexually abused a male or female. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Hostile attributional bias, early abuse, and social desirability in reporting hostile attributions among Chinese immigrant batterers and nonviolent men.

This study examined differences in reporting hostile attributional bias (HAB) between court-referred Chinese immigrant batterers and a nonviolent community sample. It measured social desirability (SD) in their reporting of HAB by including an SD measure and a covert indirect measure of HAB. Further, it explored the relationship between HAB and childhood exposure to violence. The batterers scored lower on the overt measure but higher on the covert measure of HAB. Their scores on the overt measure were negatively correlated with their SD scores. Childhood exposure to violence was positively correlated with HAB among the batterers but not among the nonviolent men. The role of HAB in intimate partner violence needs more research, and future studies and batterer interventions need to consider SD in assessing and addressing HAB.

Restorative mediation: the application of restorative justice practice and philosophy to clergy sexual abuse cases.

This article will present the restorative justice model and examine how the restorative justice philosophy and process can be applied to clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse and religious sexual misconduct to resolve legal claims and allow the process of healing to begin. Restorative justice is a holistic approach to criminal, civil, and church law violations, allowing all aspects of an offense to be addressed in one process. Unlike retributive justice prevalent in the traditional legal system, restorative justice seeks to make things right while focusing on healing for the victim-survivor and offender and accountability by the church representatives.