Risk communication in sexually violent predator hearings

Abstract

Sexually violent predator (SVP) laws use the civil commitment process to confine mentally disordered and dangerous offenders who are at high risk to reoffend. Few studies have examined how jurors decide SVP cases. As a result, a pilot study and three experimental studies were conducted, in which victim type, risk communication, and juror education were manipulated to assess juror response. Results continually illustrated that victim type was the most salient manipulation across studies and that the manner of risk communication and juror education had little impact on jurors.

Risk assessment communication difficulties: An empirical examination of the effects of categorical versus probabilistic risk communication in sexually violent predator decisions

“…Part of the explanation for the first finding is tied to our second hypothesis, which posited that categorical risk communication will lead mock jurors to overestimate risk of recidivism when compared with probabilistic estimates, particularly for higher risk levels because: (i) participants generally overestimate sex offender recidivism [i.e., they believe sex offenders reoffend at close to a 75–80% rate (Levenson et al, ; Scott et al, )]; (ii) categorical‐risk pronouncements do not contain any recidivism information to anchor participant judgements; and (iii) low‐risk expert testimony is generally discounted by jurors in SVP cases (Scurich & Krauss, ). Our findings generally support the first two propositions, but only in the higher risk levels.…”

“…To determine whether that might have been the case, we created a higher “high” rate by employing 10‐year recidivism rates based upon the high risk/needs normative sample and the median rates per categorical designation of the STATIC‐99R (Phenix, Helmus, & Hanson, , p. 9 – low, 13%; low‐moderate, 21%; moderate‐high, 30%; high, 43%), rather than the 5‐year rates used by Varela et al (). Categorical risk communication will lead to an overestimation of risk when compared with probabilistic estimates. Given that jurors are likely to hold pre‐existing beliefs about recidivism rates of sexual offenders that are substantially higher than actual rates (Levenson et al, ; Scott et al, ), they are likely to overestimate offenders' rate of recidivism when numerical probabilities are not available to inform or anchor their judgments. These differences will again be greatest for the “higher” risk offenders, because jurors and laypeople tend to discount low rates of recidivism for offenders, and overestimate the rates for high‐risk offenders. Jurors' viewpoints toward punishments will affect their verdicts and recidivism estimates more than various risk level manipulations by categories or probabilities.…”

“…Risk communication in SVP hearings may be particularly important in light of research suggesting that jurors and laypeople seriously overestimate the rate of recidivism among sex offenders (Varela, Boccaccini, Cuervo, Murrie, & Clark, 2014). Two surveys indicated that laypeople believe that sex offenders recidivate between 75% and 80% of the time (Levenson, Brannon, Fortney, & Baker, 2007;Scott, Gilcrist, Thurston, & Huss, 2010). Yet a meta-analysis of sexual recidivism indicated the sexual recidivism rate is closer to 11.5% (Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2009).…”

“…Categorical risk communication will lead to an overestimation of risk when compared with probabilistic estimates. Given that jurors are likely to hold pre-existing beliefs about recidivism rates of sexual offenders that are substantially higher than actual rates (Levenson et al, 2007;Scott et al, 2010), they are likely to overestimate offenders' rate of recidivism when numerical probabilities are not available to inform or anchor their judgments. These differences will again be greatest for the "higher" risk offenders, because jurors and laypeople tend to discount low rates of recidivism for offenders, and overestimate the rates for high-risk offenders.…”

Juristische Schwellenvorgaben, psychiatrische Diagnostik und psychopathologisches Erkennen

“…Die Aufgabe besteht auch darin, diese Erkenntnisse so zu formulieren, die psychiatrische Fachsprache so zu übersetzen, dass Richter sie verstehen und auf den Einzelfall anwenden können. Es ist somit die Aufgabe eines Dolmetschers, der als Kommunikator beide Denkweisen kennen und berücksichtigen muss.Forensische Psychiater müssen somit auch die Erkenntnisse der Kommunikationswissenschaften berücksichti-gen[10,19,21,47]. Vereinfacht ausgedrückt bestehen die Kommunikationsschritte in 1.…”