Construct Measurement Quality Improves Predictive Accuracy in Violence Risk Assessment: an Illustration Using the Personality Assessment Inventory

Much of the risk assessment literature has focused on the predictive validity of risk assessment tools. However, these tools often comprise a list of risk factors that are themselves complex constructs, and focusing on the quality of measurement of individual risk factors may improve the predictive validity of the tools. The present study illustrates this concern using the Antisocial Features and Aggression scales of the Personality Assessment Inventory (Morey, 1991). In a sample of 1,545 prison inmates and offenders undergoing treatment for substance abuse (85% male), we evaluated (a) the factorial validity of the ANT and AGG scales, (b) the utility of original ANT and AGG scales and newly derived ANT and AGG scales for predicting antisocial outcomes (recidivism and institutional infractions), and (c) whether items with a stronger relationship to the underlying constructs (higher factor loadings) were in turn more strongly related to antisocial outcomes. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) indicated that ANT and AGG items were not structured optimally in these data in terms of correspondence to the subscale structure identified in the PAI manual. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted on a random split‐half of the sample to derive optimized alternative factor structures, and cross‐validated in the second split‐half using CFA. Four‐factor models emerged for both the ANT and AGG scales, and, as predicted, the size of item factor loadings was associated with the strength with which items were associated with institutional infractions and community recidivism. This suggests that the quality by which a construct is measured is associated with its predictive strength. Implications for risk assessment are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Punishing Repeat Offenders in the Netherlands: Balancing between Incapacitation and Treatment

In the Netherlands, punishing repeat offenders is not a foregone conclusion. After a decades-long search for an appropriate punishment, repeat offenders are currently punished by means of a custodial security measure. A custodial security measure is additional incarceration often beyond the original penalty. This new penal measure can be imposed for a maximum of 2 years, and is designed to ensure public safety and reduce recidivism by way of incapacitation. However, given the fact that nearly every repeat offender suffers from severe comorbid problems (e.g., a mental illness and substance abuse disorder), judges tend to consider these objectives from a long-term perspective by insisting on as much treatment during detention as possible. Consequently, the punishment for repeat offenders balances between incapacitation and treatment. While some have argued that the current Dutch sentencing scheme represents a new way of sentencing, this article demonstrates that the reliance on the sometimes dichotomous goals of punishment and rehabilitation is characteristic not only of the current type of repeat offender punishment, but of all previous types as well. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Arrangements and rules of distribution of burdens and duties: the case of household chores

Two studies explored the arrangements and rules which are used in the division of household tasks and their frequencies of use with different kinds of tasks. In addition, the studies analysed justice evaluations of the arrangements and rules and the covariation of justice ratings with different kinds of tasks, gender, and relative size of raters' own contributions to the household labour. Data were obtained from two different types of household systems: households of students sharing flats and family households with adolescent children. Eight different arrangements and rules were distinguished. The frequencies of use differed significantly and were influenced by considerations of practicability, usefulness and efficiency. The justice ratings were guided by the ideal of an equal allocation of labour and additionally shaped by functional considerations of applicability and usefulness, and self-serving tendencies. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Non-specific effect of fear conditioning and specific effect of social defeat on social recognition memory performance in female rats

The so called "emotion learning" literature describes the ability of distressing and aversive unconditioned stimuli to classically condition a learned avoidance response. In order to investigate the impact of experience with noxious stimuli in one conditioning context on learning and memory performance in a separate, non-aversively motivated task, juvenile recognition ability was examined in adult female rats exposed previously to one of two environmental stressors. In particular, experimental adult rats were either socially defeated by exposure to an aggressive conspecific rat or fear conditioned using single or multiple pairings with footshock prior to performance of the social recognition task. Experiment 1 established that repeated exposure to a single juvenile resulted in social memory formation reflected in decreased social investigation from the first to the second exposure. Experiment 2 documented that both single and multiple pairings of an environment with footshock produced robust freezing behavior (90-95% suppression of activity). In addition, fear conditioning produced a non-specific 5-60% increase in social investigation time in both single and multiple-pairing fear conditioned groups which confounded the ability of the social recognition measure to assess effects of fear conditioning on learning and memory performance per se. In contrast, Experiment 3 documented that when social recognition memory performance was impaired to 85% of control levels by imposition of a 2 h delay, exposure to a social defeat stressor reinstated optimal social recognition memory performance. These findings suggest that the after effects of fear conditioning include non-specific alteration of social investigation whereas exposure to conspecific aggression enhances subsequent social recognition memory.     

The competence of criminal defendants: A theoretical reformulation

“Competence” of criminal defendants is best viewed not as an open-textured single construct but rather as two related but separable constructs-a foundational concept of competence to assist counsel, and a contextualized concept of decisional competence. This approach has several advantages. First, it provides a useful explanatory framework for the settled features of existing law. Second, it helps to clarify the issues in areas where the law is unsettled or controversial, such as the circumstances under which incompetence bars adjudication and the abilities required for decisional competence. Third, it exposes the similarities between competencies in criminal defense and competencies in other legal contexts, and thereby helps to link what have been discrete literatures in both law and behavioral science. Fourth, because this approach is derived from a theoretical analysis of the purposes of the pertinent legal rules, it provides a framework for defining the “psycho-legal abilities” that are encompassed by each of the two competence constructs. In this respect, a relatively simple reconceptualization has surprisingly concrete implications for designing a program of empirical research and, eventually, for improving the scientific basis of competence assessments in criminal cases.