In Colorado, evaluators conducting sex offender risk assessments are required to assess 17 risk factors specified by the state’s Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB), in addition to scoring actuarial risk assessment instruments. This study examined the association between instrument scores, the 17 SOMB risk factors, and evaluator opinions concerning risk and need for containment in 302 Colorado cases. Evaluators’ ratings of risk indicated by noninstrument factors were often higher than their ratings of risk indicated by instrument results, but only their ratings of noninstrument factors were independently predictive of containment recommendations. Several of the most influential noninstrument factors (e.g., denial, treatment motivation) have been described by researchers as potentially misleading because they are not predictive of future offending. Findings highlight the need for more studies examining the validity of what risk assessment evaluators actually do, as opposed to what researchers think they should do.

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The strategic mobilization of images, visual metaphors, and other forms of graphical rhetoric has always been central in place promotion. Images of place have assumed even greater importance, however, with the rise of locational tournaments of cities bidding for the "right" to host high-stakes transnational spectacles. In this paper, we adapt Harvey Molotch's pioneering theory of the urban growth machine to illuminate the contemporary enterprise of city bids for the Olympic Games. Taking Vancouver's successful bid for the 2010 Winter Games as a case study, we use a visual methodology framework to analyze the manifest (explicit, surface) and latent (implicit, subtle) visual narrative strategies used to craft a carefully considered representation of the city. Our analysis of the official Bid Questionnaire and the video presentation to the International Olympic Committee documents the sophisticated process by which a city is constructed to embody pristine urban nature, multicultural social harmony, and vibrant local cultures of sport in keeping with the spirit of Olympism. Whether imagined cities like this are effective is irrelevant: cities understand that half of their advertising budget is wasted (they just don't know which half). The expanding symbolic economies of tourism, conventions, and hallmark events require that urban growth machines develop and operate a full suite of image creation machines, each attuned to the real and perceived desires of an elusive transnational audience in a perpetual movable feast of locational consumption. [End Page 24]

How likely are multiple forensic evaluators to agree on defendants' diagnoses in routine forensic mental health evaluations? A total of 720 evaluation reports were examined from 240 cases in which 3 evaluators, working independently, provided diagnoses for the same defendant. Results revealed perfect agreement across 6 independent diagnostic categories in 18.3% of cases. Agreement for individual diagnostic categories was higher, with all 3 evaluators agreeing on the separate presence of psychotic, mood, or substance disorders in more than 64.7% of cases and agreeing on the presence of cognitive or developmental disorders in more than 89.7% of cases. However, evaluators agreed about the combination of psychotic and substance-related diagnoses in only 46.5% of cases. Agreement was enhanced by diagnoses with low base rates, and it was suppressed in evaluations conducted in jails. Psychiatrists and contracted evaluators were more likely to provide dissenting diagnostic categories than psychologists and state-employed evaluators. These results are among the first to document diagnostic agreement among nonpartisan practitioners in forensic evaluations conducted in the field, and they allow for practice and policy recommendations for evaluators in routine forensic practice to be made. (PsycINFO Database Record

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A growing body of research suggests there are identifiable psychopathy subtypes among offenders scored on Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 2003). We used latent profile analysis to examine the generalizability of these subtype findings to PCL-R scores ( N = 615) assigned in a sex offender risk assessment field setting and to examine how offender subtypes differ on measures of comorbid psychopathology, risk, and treatment amenability from the Personality Assessment Inventory. Consistent with prior research, we identified four subtypes when using PCL-R scores from all offenders: Prototypic psychopathy ( n = 239, 38.9%), callous-conning ( n = 154, 25.0%), sociopathic ( n = 96, 15.6%), and general offenders ( n = 126, 20.5%). Prototypic and sociopathic subtypes exhibited the highest levels of comorbid psychopathology and risk for potential violence. We identified classes consistent with primary ( n = 66, 36.7%) and secondary ( n = 114, 63.3%) psychopathy among offenders with PCL-R total scores ≥ 25, and found higher levels of comorbid psychopathology and potential for violence among those in the secondary psychopathy class. Findings provide support the generalizability of existing PCL-R subtype findings to field scores and show how those with similar PCL-R total scores may differ on scores from commonly used multiscale inventories.

An unprecedented number of individuals with mental illness are represented in the criminal justice system. The unending growth of mentally ill populations in the justice system has led to jails and court dockets being increasingly overwhelmed with cases involving mental illness, state hospitals devoting far more beds and resources to forensic cases, and people without a criminal commitment left waiting for mental health services as forensic cases are prioritized. Although a forensic mental health evaluation is only one component of this larger system, common problems with forensic mental health evaluations can exacerbate the criminalization of persons with mental illness in many ways. This article reviews the current literature regarding issues of quality, reliability, and validity of forensic mental health evaluations, discusses the broader impact of these issues, and offers potential solutions for the field.

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