Gender and violence risk assessment in prisons.

Our study examines the association between Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-20: Version 2; Psychopathy Checklist-Revised; and Violence Risk Assessment Guide scores and violence perpetrated during incarceration by male and female inmates. Using a sample of 288 men and 183 women selected from prisons in 2 states, we used receiver operating characteristics analyses to assess the potential of these 3 measures to predict threatened, physical, or sexual prison violence measured in 2 ways: inmate self-report and formal institutional infractions. We found all 3 instruments to demonstrate moderate to good levels of predictive accuracy for both the male and female inmates, a finding that suggests that actuarial, structured professional judgment and personality measures perform in a broadly comparable manner in assessing institutional violence for both men and women. Our findings did vary on the basis of the way violence was measured: Women self-reported significantly higher levels of prison violence than was suggested by their institutional infractions, and the associative power of the instruments diminished substantially, particularly among the men, when institutional infractions alone were used in the analyses. These findings suggest that the 3 risk measures are likely to be gender neutral in their association with prison violence, albeit with gender-related differences in the frequency of violent behavior and the relevance of particular subscales. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Combined evaluations of competency to stand trial and mental state at the time of the offense: An overlooked methodological consideration?

Combined evaluations of competency to stand trial (CST; competency) and mental state at the time of the offense (MSO; sanity) frequently co-occur. However, most research examines the 2 as discrete constructs without considering 4 potential combined evaluation outcomes: competent-sane, incompetent-sane, competent-insane, and incompetent-insane. External validity can be improved if research more closely mirrored practice. It may be incorrect to assume incompetent defendants are similar across CST-only and combined evaluations, and insane defendants are similar across MSO-only and combined evaluations. Using a sample of 2,751 combined evaluations, we examined demographic, clinical, offense, evaluation, and psycholegal characteristics associated with evaluators' combined evaluation opinions. Multinomial regression analyses revealed older defendants were more likely to be opined incompetent-insane. Defendants with psychotic disorders were more often opined insane, regardless of competency status. Affective diagnoses predicted competent-insane opinions. Developmental disorders were closely related to incompetence, regardless of sanity status. Defendants with organic disorders tended to have global psycholegal impairment, in that they were more often opined incompetent-insane, incompetent-sane, or competent-insane, relative to competent-sane. Prior hospitalization predicted competent-insane relative to competent-sane opinions. Defendants not under the influence of a substance during the offense or with no prior convictions were more likely to be opined insane, regardless of competency status. We interpret these findings in light of psycholegal theory and provide recommendations for research and practice. Collectively, results suggest incorporation of combined evaluations into CST and MSO research is an important methodological consideration not to be overlooked. (PsycINFO Database Record