Lessons From Canadian Judgments: The Consideration of Culture in Intimate Partner Violence Legal Cases Involving Asian Canadians.

Despite the pervasiveness of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Canada, research examining IPV in the context of Asian Canadians is scarce. Our study examined whether and how Canadian judges consider culture when determining a sentence in IPV cases involving an Asian offender and/or an Asian victim. We systematically searched for publicly published cases through CanLII. A total of 50 cases met the inclusion criteria. Cultural themes were identified using a direct content analysis approach to capture a priori themes in the literature, as well as identify any other factors considered. Our findings indicated culture was most often considered in only a superficial way (n = 31, 62.0%), where judges only made statements that simply identified the ethnicity of the offender and not how culture may have impacted the case. When examining cases where culture was meaningfully considered there were no prominent culture themes identified (all themes present in <14% of cases). We suggest this may not only reflect the heterogeneity of Asian Canadians, but could also reflect the lack of cultural consideration by the judges. Cultural factors were also rarely considered explicitly as an aggravating or mitigating factor in a case (n = 2; 4.0% and n = 7; 14.0% of the total sample, respectively). The findings reveal the current lack of meaningful consideration of culture in IPV legal cases involving Asian Canadians. We outline how this contrasts the increased attention to the meaningful consideration of culture in the Canadian legal arena and prompt all professionals involved in assessing and managing IPV risk to consider racial, ethnic, and cultural factors in these cases.

An Emergency Preparedness Response to Opioid-Prescribing Enforcement Actions in Maryland, 2018-2019.

Federal and state enforcement authorities have increasingly intervened on the criminal overprescribing of opioids. However, little is known about the health effects these enforcement actions have on patients experiencing disrupted access to prescription opioids or medication-assisted treatment/medication for opioid use disorder. Simultaneously, opioid death rates have increased. In response, the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) has worked to coordinate mitigation strategies with enforcement partners (defined as any federal, state, or local enforcement authority or other governmental investigative authority). One strategy is a standardized protocol to implement emergency response functions, including rapidly identifying health hazards with real-time data access, deploying resources locally, and providing credible messages to partners and the public. From January 2018 through October 2019, MDH used the protocol in response to 12 enforcement actions targeting 34 medical professionals. A total of 9624 patients received Schedule II-V controlled substance prescriptions from affected prescribers under investigation in the 6 months before the respective enforcement action; 9270 (96%) patients were residents of Maryland. Preliminary data indicate fatal overdose events and potential loss of follow-up care among the patient population experiencing disrupted health care as a result of an enforcement action. The success of the strategy hinged on endorsement by leadership; the establishment of federal, state, and local roles and responsibilities; and data sharing. MDH's approach, data sources, and lessons learned may support health departments across the country that are interested in conducting similar activities on the front lines of the opioid crisis.

Employing standardized risk assessment in pretrial release decisions: Association with criminal justice outcomes and racial equity.

OBJECTIVE: We examined efforts by a Mississippi court to base pretrial release decisions on risk assessment rather than primarily on bond. HYPOTHESES: (a) Pretrial detention will be shorter than that associated with prevailing bond practices in the same counties. (b) Rearrest rates will be lower than a similar pretrial population in a nearby southern state. (c) False positive rates for predicting rearrests will be higher for African American than Caucasian participants. (d) Pretrial detention will be longer for African American participants because of higher risk scores or assessment overrides. METHOD: Pretrial defendants (N = 521) completed the Risk and Needs Triage (RANT) within 2 weeks of arrest, and outcomes examined included the length of pretrial detention, index case dispositions, and rearrest rates. RESULTS: (a) Pretrial detention averaged approximately 60 days compared with prevailing detentions averaging approximately 90 and 180 days in the same counties. (b) Pretrial rearrest rates were 17 percentage points higher than a similar pretrial population; however, representative comparison data are unavailable to confidently measure recidivism impacts. (c) Positive predictive power did not differ by race in predicting pretrial rearrests, SE = .04, 95% CI [.11, -.06], z = .61, p = .54, d = .08. (d) Despite comparable risk scores, African American participants were detained significantly longer than Caucasian participants (M = 60.92 vs. 45.58 days), p = .038, d = .18, 95% CI [.01, .36], and were less likely to receive a diversion opportunity (11% vs. 23%), p = .009, V = .17. CONCLUSION: The observational design precludes causal conclusions; however, risk assessment was associated with shorter pretrial detention than prevailing bond practices with no racial disparities in risk prediction. Greater attention to risk assessment may reduce racial inequities in pretrial conditions. Representative comparison data are needed to measure the recidivism impacts of pretrial reform initiatives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Lesson learned? Mothers' legal knowledge and juvenile rearrests.

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined how mothers' personal characteristics, experience with, and attitudes toward the juvenile justice system are associated with their knowledge of the juvenile justice system over time. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that additional exposure to the system (via sons' rearrests) would be associated with greater legal knowledge. We predicted that White women, women with higher educational attainment, and women who had been arrested would experience greater gains in legal knowledge over time, relative to non-White women, women with lower educational attainment, and women who had not been arrested. Finally, we predicted that mothers' attitudes toward the legitimacy of the justice system would not be associated with their change in legal knowledge. METHOD: Mothers (N = 234) of male youth (majority non-White) completed a questionnaire of their knowledge about the juvenile justice system after their sons' 1st arrest (T1) and again 2.5 years later (T2). RESULTS: Knowledge did not improve over time, regardless of whether the youth was rearrested. Black mothers displayed less knowledge of the juvenile justice system when their sons were rearrested multiple times. Attitudes toward the justice system were not associated with legal knowledge. CONCLUSIONS: These results illustrate the importance of a family educational component to juvenile probation, especially as a vehicle to reduce disproportionate minority contact with the juvenile justice system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Intellectual disabilities in Irish prisons: Could Article 13 of the UNCRPD hold the key?

The prevalence of intellectual disabilities amongst adult prisoners in Ireland is higher than international estimates. There is little evidence that the development of diversion services has impacted such prevalence. The authors argue that Ireland's ratification of the UNCRPD presents a timely opportunity to address this problem through an awareness programme aimed at frontline law enforcement officials.

Policy Determinants of Inequitable Exposure to the Criminal Legal System and Their Health Consequences Among Young People.

Criminalizing young people, particularly Black- and Brown-identified young people, has increasingly been a feature of US rhetoric, policies, and practices. Thus, the domains in which young people are exposed to the legal system have continued to expand, encompassing their communities, schools, and homes. Importantly, public health researchers have begun exploring links between legal system exposure and health, although this literature is primarily focused at the interpersonal level and assesses associations within a single domain or in adulthood.Using critical race theory and ecosocial theory of disease distribution, we identified potential policy-level determinants of criminalization and briefly summarized the literature on downstream health outcomes among young people. Our analysis suggests that policy decisions may facilitate the targeting of structurally marginalized young people across domains.Future research should (1) position these legislative decisions as primary exposures of interest to understand their association with health among young people and inform institutional-level intervention, (2) measure the totality of exposure to the criminal legal system across domains, and (3) use theory to examine the complex ways racism operates institutionally to shape inequitable distributions of associated health outcomes.

Contextual Influences on the Sentencing of Individuals Convicted of Sexual Crimes.

This study examines effects of court and community contextual factors on sentencing outcomes for individuals convicted of sexual crimes using indicators from two perspectives-focal concerns and populist punitiveness. Sourced from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, the sample includes 9,431 persons convicted of sexual crimes and a precision-matched sample of persons convicted of non-sexual violent crimes for comparison. Based on multilevel hurdle regression models for both incarceration and sentence length decisions, results indicate that individuals convicted of sexual crimes face enhanced sentence severity in judicial districts with smaller courts, increased jail capacity, stronger political competition, and higher religious homogeneity. The results also suggest statistically significant differences between effects for persons convicted of sexual crimes and a matched sample of persons convicted of violent crimes. Overall, results suggest that specific contextual factors have a distinguishable impact on sentencing of individuals convicted of sexual crimes.

Eliminating Abortion from Criminal Law in Colombia: A Just Cause.

The two main legal models governing abortion provision, indications for abortion and time limits on the number of weeks of pregnancy, both limit recognition of women's reproductive autonomy. Each model restricts the circumstances under which women can access abortion. Yet, in most of the world these have been the main political goals for the feminist movement in the fight to make abortion legal and safe. Other strategies have also been incorporated into these goals. But in each case, abortion remains a crime, causing pervasive and profound damage for the providers and for women, and maintaining abortion as a part of an exceptionality regime suspended in its own illegality. This article discusses such limitations. It then focuses on Colombia and the experiences of feminist collective La Mesa por la Vida y la Salud de las Mujeres, which is campaigning to have abortion removed from the criminal law. In particular, this article examines a double standard in Colombian law: while abortion has been declared a fundamental right, it remains a crime in the penal code.

A problematic Israeli High Court dismissal of a torture complaint. A commentary by Hans Draminsky Petersen, MD.

It is not for the documenting medical experts (Shir, 2019), but for the court to decide whether the level of pain and suffering inflicted reaches the threshold of torture [while disregarding ill-treatment], i.e., the court upholds the prerogative to apply its own interpretation of the definition of torture, no matter existing medical evidence and disregarding the Istanbul Protocol. The criteria used to determine the level of FT's pain and suffering does not appear in the ruling. The ruling states that the burden of proof that the "means" were not reasonable [constituting torture] falls upon the petitioner (para 36). In the light of the above (1, a-h) this is in practice impossible for the petitioner to establish. This aligns with Shir's statement that no ISA interrogator has been indicted in 1200 torture complaints.

Estimated costs to the Pennsylvania criminal justice system resulting from the opioid crisis.

The opioid crisis has made financial impacts across all levels of the public sector. This report focuses on costs related to the criminal justice system (CJS) in Pennsylvania. Costs impacting 3 principal areas of the CJS are examined: opioid-related arrests, court costs, and incarceration. Analysis of the state-level CJS is our main focus; no local-level costs are included. Through this examination, costs of the opioid crisis for the period of 2007 to 2016 were estimated using opioid costs for 2006 as a baseline. Total costs to the Pennsylvania CJS during this period were over $526 million, with most of that accounted for by state corrections. Opioid-related trends in arrests, court proceedings, and incarceration were not sufficiently well documented to allow for rigorous analysis in earlier periods, and this was the primary limitation to our analysis.

Historical and Current Trends in HIV Criminalization in South Carolina: Implications for the Southern HIV Epidemic.

In the 1980s, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) criminalization laws became widespread across the United States. Today, such laws continue to be used to prosecute people living with HIV for a variety of behaviors though there is limited evidence that doing so curbs HIV transmission. HIV criminalization remains understudied, especially in the Deep South. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to trace the emergence, maintenance, and enforcement of HIV criminalization laws in South Carolina-a Southern state disproportionately burdened by HIV. Specifically, Nexis Uni and other criminology databases were used to identify HIV-related laws and criminal cases in South Carolina. Results indicate that the state's criminalization laws have remained nearly unchanged for over 30 years and continue to be used to prosecute individuals, a majority of whom are African-American. Findings support the need to reconsider HIV-related laws and devote more efforts to studying the impact of HIV criminalization on the Southern epidemic.

Healthy Development as a Human Right: Lessons from Developmental Science.

Healthy psychological and brain development is not a privilege, but a fundamental right that requires special protections and opportunities for building cognitive, emotional, and social skills necessary for becoming a contributing member of our society.

Race and the Criminal Justice System Response to Sexual Assault: A Systematic Review.

Prior research has consistently documented that the vast majority of sexual assault cases do not progress through the criminal justice system. However, there is less agreement in prior work on how race influences case progression, resulting in a literature frequently described as "inconsistent." This systematic review examines all prior research that has included race as an independent variable in predicting the criminal justice system response to sexual assault (N = 34) in an effort to provide insight into seemingly disparate findings. We assess each study for the degree to which race was a focal point of interest, if and what theory was used to inform the investigation of race, how samples were drawn, and how and whose race was measured. Results illustrate that findings in prior research are not inconsistent, but rather unite to tell a nuanced story of the role of race in the criminal justice system response to sexual assault. The review demonstrates how decisions made by researchers throughout the research process can have significant impacts on reported findings, and how such findings may be used to influence policy and practice.

A Public Health Strategy for the Opioid Crisis.

Drug overdose is now the leading cause of injury death in the United States. Most overdose fatalities involve opioids, which include prescription medication, heroin, and illicit fentanyl. Current data reveal that the overdose crisis affects all demographic groups and that overdose rates are now rising most rapidly among African Americans. We provide a public health perspective that can be used to mobilize a comprehensive local, state, and national response to the opioid crisis. We argue that framing the crisis from a public health perspective requires considering the interaction of multiple determinants, including structural factors (eg, poverty and racism), the inadequate management of pain, and poor access to addiction treatment and harm-reduction services (eg, syringe services). We propose a novel ecological framework for harmful opioid use that provides multiple recommendations to improve public health and clinical practice, including improved data collection to guide resource allocation, steps to increase safer prescribing, stigma-reduction campaigns, increased spending on harm reduction and treatment, criminal justice policy reform, and regulatory changes related to controlled substances. Focusing on these opportunities provides the greatest chance of making a measured and sustained impact on overdose and related harms.

An update and expansion on the role of the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide and Historical Clinical Risk Management-20 in United States case law.

An individual's risk for future violent behavior may be considered in various legal contexts, including civil commitment, criminal sentencing, or suitability for parole. Among the assessment tools forensic evaluators use to assess violence risk are the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG; Quinsey, Harris, Rice, & Cormier, ) and the Historical Clinical Risk Managment-20 (HCR-20)/Historical Clinical Risk Management-20, Version 3 (HCR-20V3 ) (Webster, Douglas, Eaves, & Hart, and Douglas, Hart, Webster, & Belfrage, , respectively). Previous surveys and case law research suggest that these measures are widely used and perceived to be useful in aiding forensic clinicians. This study provides an update to Vitacco, Erickson, Kurus, and Apple () and examines the use of the HCR-20 and VRAG in United States case law. A LexisNexis review revealed 134 cases decided between 1 January 2010 and 21 December 2016 that included the HCR-20, VRAG, or both. Results revealed that these measures are typically introduced by the prosecution to inform opinions regarding general violence risk. In addition, consistent with previous research, these data suggest the introduction of the HCR-20 and VRAG is rarely challenged and, when challenged, these challenges are rarely successful. However, data suggest that courts and parole boards may focus on specific risk factors (e.g., lack of insight) at the expense of other, more objective factors. Finally, we offer suggestions for clinicians who have transitioned to the newest version of the HCR-20.